Happy Quilters

So the happy quilters went on a local 3-day retreat and we certainly had a lot of fun stitching. I thought I would post a few pictures so you could see what some of us were up to.

Barbara put her beautiful blue and yellow log cabin quilt together. Her blocks were made using 2.5 inch strips. Blue and yellow are my two favorite colors, so I especially liked this quilt!

I had all of my log cabin blocks sewn and was determined to get the top put together over the weekend. The pattern is from a Jennifer Chiaverini book. This is the Underground Railroad quilt--I believe the book is called "The Runaway Quilt." Notice the black centers--they indicated the house was a stop on the Underground Railroad. I'm not sure about the history of that, but it makes for a beautiful quilt, doesn't it?! I started with 1.5 inch strips. There are 144 blocks, set 12 x 12. I can't wait to get this one quilted!

And the quilt above is Ann's version of the new Bonnie Hunter quilt "Easy Street." She toned down the colorway a bit by using all the same black-dotted fabric for the background, and she limited her greens to a few fabrics.

Here's a closeup of the block. I like it, Ann, good job!

I started two other projects...sometimes I just get into the mood to cut and sew! I found a cute baby quilt called "Baby Blues" and I'm working on setting those blocks together. And I'm working on another scrap quilt with 5 inch squares--cut from 1.5 inch squares. It's good and scrappy. So maybe I've made you curious?! Come back tomorrow and I'll snap a photo from my design wall.

till next time, keep stitchin!

Mary

Digital Scrapbooking

 

I have been playing around with Photoshop Elements and some new digital scrapbooking papers. My mom will be celebrating her 93rd birthday this March, and I want to make her a "It's a Wonderful Life!" photo album. The last time she visited, she brought several of her photo albums with her and hubby and I have been scanning some of the photos.  The picture above is from 1920, mom is just a few months old. That's my Uncle Jack as a little boy, and my grandmother in the photo.

 

 

One of my favorite websites is heritagescrap.com, which is where the 1920 page came from. I added the center poster of Woodrow Wilson...it's wonderful what you can find out there in Google Image land! The amethyst flowers and bow are from the Heritage Amethyst digital collection. 1920 was the year women were given the right to vote! I can't imagine fighting for that right, how could anyone think it would be wrong for women to vote?!! It's amazing all the change my mom was witnessed in her life.

 

Above--my mom at 3 years old with her new doll. When I called her to talk about the photo, she even remembered the doll's name was Susie!

 

Above and below, 2 more favorite photos of mom. That's 1934 with the bobbed hairdo, and 1937 in the prom dress. And when I described this photo with her in "a long aqua dress" she remembered her date's name was Ritchie Tilton! And no, Ritchie Tilton is not my dad. My mom remembered the name of the boy who took her to her junior prom 75 years ago! That just amazes me ;-)

 

Mom and Dad's wedding photo, August 25, 1945. Don't you love the train on her dress?! Do brides even wear those anymore?

 

 

I'm about 1/3 of the way through this project. It's really fun once you get the knack of cropping your photos and manipulating Photoshop Elements. I also plan to put a 4 generation family tree in the front of the book. The scrapbook will be 8 x 8 inches; the book is lavender--her favorite color. I'm really enjoying making this gift for her special birthday.

 

By the way, I think my pop up blocker was turned on, which is why I couldn't upload photos. In the meantime, I've discovered Picassa, a great place to store photos. Hopefully, all is well in blogland once again.

 

Till next time, keep stitchin' and scrappin'

Mary

Little Women

I've had soooo much trouble posting pictures to my blog! My resident computer expert--my hubby--finally updated me to google chrome and turned off the pop-ups. I think this will work this time!

So here are the results of our first 2013 Little Women meeting. This time we are working through Kathleen Tracy's book "The Civil War Sewing Circle." Several of the members came to the first meeting with the first quilt already done. We are making the Scrappy Doll Quilt this month. The album blocks (photo above) are a project that is due in April. In December we will have our 2nd challenge to put the blocks together into a quilt.

 These two quilts were made by Vickie. She needs some more of that background fabric (above). Hopefully one of our members will be able to share some with her. Her second quilt (below) is already quilted and bound. 

The quilt above is mine....all quilted and bound. Pam made the one below in navy, red and off white.

Carol made the quilt above with Jo Morton fabrics. Charlotte made special fabric with the Michigan State logo on it. It will be a gift for her brother. She wins the creativity prize this month!

We also will be making a sampler quilt with a block of the month challenge. I'm going to set my 12 sampler blocks with 13 chain link blocks. The blocks will finish at 12 inches, which are pretty big to this group who mostly make miniatures. We're also hoping to use some of our scraps up with this project!

I plan to get the remainder of the photos from our meeting posted soon. I've just really been so frustrated with blogger. This is I believe, the 3rd time I've written this post. Hopefully when I come back to it, it will be saved and posted!
Till next time, keep stitchin!
Mary