Happy St. Patrick's Day to you!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of you Irish and not-so-Irish! We celebrated by going to a "Women of Ireland" concert with some friends last night. The music was wonderful, the voices were perfectly blended and the dancing was incredible! If this group comes to your area, I recommend that you go. It is a very fun way to spend an evening. We ended the program by singing "God Bless America" and I must tell you, that anthem always brings a tear to my eyes.

Our Thimbleberries group is having fun with their projects so far, working out of the book "Pint-Size Traditions". I thought I'd post a few of our quilts. I am still not in the habit of bringing the camera to every meeting (Note to self: leave a camera in the car!) so I don't have pix of everyone's quilts. But here is a sampling.

January's assignment was to make the little Bear Paw quilt. I actually do have 4 blocks done at this point. My quilt is going to be blue, yellow and green.

Our February project is this Flowers in Bloom. I think it looks like a Sunflower:

And our March project is called Pine Berries, sorry no photo yet.

May I close by giving you an Old Irish Blessing:

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind always be at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

and rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Have a wonderful day, and keep stitchin'!

Mary

The Civil War Sewing Circle

Our Jo Morton group is changing it up this year and working through Kathleen Tracy's book "The Civil War Sewing Circle." Our January project was the "Scrap Squares Doll Quilt" on page 24, it measures 17 x 22 inches.

Our February project was the "Shoo Fly Doll Quilt" on page 18. It measures 22 x 27 inches. My camera batteries died and so I only have these 2 photos. Boy I hate when that happens!

Our March project is the "T is for Temperence Quilt" on page 70. It measures 19 x 19 inches. I was out of town that day and only have these 2 samples to show you. Carol made the pink and blue one and I made the red one. The red fabrics are from Jo Morton...that border fabric is one of my favorites.

This morning I finished sewing the top together for our April project "Civil War Scrap Dolls Quilt" on page 36. It measures 17 x 22 inches. I had a packet of Judie Rothermel Cocheco Mills fabrics that I used for this one. Love the blues and browns together. If you have never set a diagonal quilt together, this is a great one to begin with because it's so small.

Also in April is our signature block challenge. We decided to make our own blocks and bring them in for our friends to sign them. Then we'll put them in a quilt top and bring it back in December for part 2 of the challenge. The signature block is part of the "Friendship Album Quilt" on page 43. These blocks measure 6.5 inches unfinished. Aren't they wonderful?

I'm going to ask the members to bring their February and March quilts to the April meeting, so hopefully I will have more photos to show you in a bit.

Hmmm...tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day...I should be making a green and white quilt! How about you...what have you been sewing?

Till next time, keep stitchin!

Mary

Happy Quilters

We just returned from a vacation in Clearwater, Florida, celebrating Mom's 93rd birthday! It's great to go...and great to be back home. Mom doesn't have WIFI and I think we all had withdrawal! I did want to share some of the photos from the previous Happy Quilters group weekend retreat with you. We had lots of fun and there was quite a variety of projects.

This darling quilt is a project for a grandson that loves turtles. I wish I had gotten the name of the machine embroidery design. Isn't it the cutest thing!

I'm not sure of the name of the design on top..Indian Hatchet maybe? The photo below it is a good old bow tie.  Love the colors on both of these projects.

This redwork quilt will be wonderful, don't you agree!

I do love a good scrappy quilt, and sometimes the simple designs--like  a pinwheel--are just fabulous when sewn up and quilted. This design would make a good dent in our scrap bins, wouldn't it?

This is one of the few times I've gone on vacation and didn't bring a sewing machine with me. 10 whole days and no machine stitching! I did bring some handwork and hand quilted 2 small quilts. But that post is for another day. Now we're off to pick up my Bernina from her spa break. She really needed a tuneup and check, because I use it so heavily. It's gray and rainy here today, and I hope to stop at the garden store and buy something fresh and wonderful...I need some cheerful flowers to perk things up today. It's so wonderful being back home!

Till next time, keep stitchin!

Mary