National Quilting Day 2017

Since today has been designated as National Quilting Day by the National Quilt Association, I thought you’d like to read the 10 Historical Facts About Quilting at the AGF (Art Gallery Fabrics) blog:

  http://www.agfblog.com/2016/06/10-historical-facts-about-quilting.html

Fascinating facts – especially #5 about the earliest known surviving American quilt from 1704.  Imagine something you made lasting 300 years and still admired!  Awesome …

There are also some wonderful free patterns on their site – check out their gallery at:

http://liveartgalleryfabrics.com/free-quilting-patterns/

And, since it’s Sewing Day, I’m working on a Disappearing 9-Patch.  Here’s what I’ve done so far:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hope you find your pot of gold!

The Old Weir Bridge

Killarney, Ireland

Image courtesy VintageHolidayCrafts.com

Happy Pi Day

Once again, it is Pi Day.

Yep, 3.14 almost rolled right past without me acknowledging it properly.

You, too, can get your T-Shirt at the ilovescience store.

No quilty news today, just dreaming of pie (oops, I mean Pi).

Check out the Nine Kinds of Pie at Philip Nels Blog.

http://www.philnel.com/2014/03/14/9kindsofpie/

Sneak Peek Sunday

It’s that time of year again – when I rant about Daylight Savings Time.  The original purpose of DST was to add an hour to standard time to make better use of daylight and conserve energy.

Germany was the first country of the modern era to use DST in 1916 (during WWI) to minimize artificial lighting to save fuel for the war effort.  In the US, President Wilson continued the worldwide trend by signing DST into the law; again, to support the war effort.

The Water Clock inside The Children's Museum of Indianapolis

But the history and usage of the idea goes back centuries.  Ancient civilizations adjusted their daily schedules to the movements of the Sun.  The Romans used water clocks with different scales for different months of the year.  Now that’s an idea I can get behind – gradual changes per month would be easier for me to adjust to rather than this twice a year disruption!

So now that I have the rant behind me, here’s a sneak peak of the two quilts that I have finished quilting recently:

I have four new pantos from Urban Elementz that I have been auditioning.  The two for today are both designed by Sarah Ann Myers and digitized by Patricia Ritter.  The one on the brown quilt is called Alfalfa.  I like that one a lot.  And the one on the red/green quilt is called Retrographics 2.  I like the design, but I will adjust that one to make it more compact the next time I use it.  I wanted a more open design so my children’s quilts wouldn’t be so stiff, but I think the way I did this one is too open.  It does look good, but there will be another time!  More photos when these get bound …

Tuesday Ramblings

Started out this morning doing a load of laundry then dusted furniture all over the house.  Thought about vacuuming but went to sit down until that silly thought passed!  Decided to go upstairs and finish binding this little cutie for Quilts Beyond Borders:

I wanted to try some custom quilting, but have been holding on to this for far too long and decided to go with the meandering just to get it finished and into the hands of a child that needs some comfort.  Done!

Then opened the box of tops from Tammy in TX and paired them up with some potential backings:

These are now wrapped up together and in a stack to be quilted and the brown/gold one on the left is on the frame.  Progress!

Rainbow Scrappy Day!

And now that we've moved into March, it's time for another color challenge over at SOSCRAPPY and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  The color for March is RED!  Here are my red elephants:

Left side of the line

Right side of the line

And here are the Jan and Feb elephants with their new friends:

Did that elephant on the right look a little suspicious to you?  Do you think that maybe the sea green/teal/aqua elephant was messing around with the red elephant?  Or is that too personal to ask?!!

And did those purple dogs from the bottom elephant jump up and walk all over the red elephant in the middle and leave paw prints?  Maybe a surveillance camera in the sewing room is required - LOL ...

Another Box to Wrap-a-Smile

Finally!  The box is leaving the building.  Finished the bindings on all of the quilts that are going to Wrap-a-Smile.

Moved on to making more colorful Elephants, but photos of that will wait until tomorrow.  Here are the quilts in the box:

Feathers ...

Square Dancing in Space?

Fish, fish and more fish

Musical notes and treble clefs

Got this one at a quilt show for a really low price - sadly, quilters don't often get a return on the value of their labor.  But it makes a welcome addition to the donation box ...