The Splendid Sampler - Circle of Friendship

Block 59 - Circle of Friendship by Michele Muska

Super cute tiny dresdan plates!  Got to love them.  :)  he scraps I used for this block are extra special.  A dear friend of mine's mother pasted away and she wanted me to have her mother's sewing supplies.  She had these darling fabrics with flowers and I thought I was meant to use them in a block named "Circle of Friendship".

I created a plastic template to use for the dresdan plates.

Looks like it is going to be WAY to large before you start sewing them together. :)

Found out everything you need to know about The Splendid Sampler and this block at: http://www.thesplendidsampler.com/2016/09/04/block-59-circle-of-friendship/

**Love you Deanna! {Hugs}

1930's Farmer's Wife #3 Alice

Oh wow!  This block almost did me in. :) I started over 3 times.  Even packed everything up, because I was done!  Took a trip to the store and came back and told myself I couldn't let it defeat me.  

Initially I started out tracing all of the pieces on freezer paper and was going to machine piece together.  After cutting out one of the letters I realized it was going to take forever! lol

Decided to start over and paper piece the block.  I don't know why some of this confused me a little; I was seam ripping out and starting over several times. 

I stuck with it though!  Now it is coming together. :)

Learn more about the  FARMER’S WIFE 1930’S SAMPLER QUILT SEW-ALONG, click here.

Mindy Smith September's Guest Speaker

We had a wonderfult treat last night at the Nitetime Needlers Quilt Guild Monthly Meeting, Mindy Smith, textile/mixed media artist in Columbia, Missouri.  She did a wonderful lexture on the importance of telling your quilts story and how it is not only what inspired the quilt, but what is going on in your life when you create it.  Now I have to go back through my quilts and add my story!  It is not enough to have just a label. :)  

Enjoy some pictures for our meeting last night...

#FW89Ruby 1930's Farmer's Wife QAL

Had a great productive day yesterday. :)  Spent some of the afternoon with my daughter shopping.

After a funfilled afternoon of shopping (ok, it was really only a few hours) I headed back home in time to get dinner started turn on the last couple of episodes of the Downton Abbey marathon on PBS and to work on last week's 1930's Farmer's Wife QAL block, #89 Ruby. 

I have been selecting fabric close to the colors that are in the book.  I do love seeing all of the different color ways everyone is using.  There are so many taleted and creative people participating in the QAL. I am a HUGE fan of 1930 reproductions.  The fabric just makes me so happy looking at it. :)

I chose to do this one using the paper piecing template.  I don't have Marti Michell’s templates for these.  I would love to have them! I had a friend at a quilt retreat I attended bring hers and I got to use them.  They are so helpful. :)

COMPLETED BLOCK! 

What to join the QAL?  Checkout Gnome Angel's website here, http://www.gnomeangel.com/farmers-wife-1930s-sampler-quilt-sew-along/.  Plus there is a Facebook page that we all post in here,

Hugs and Kisses Quilt

Another quilt finished!  I'm on a roll this year. :)  This one was started in May of 2015.  I had this jelly roll for some time before finally figuring out what to do with it.  To be honest, I had several jelly rolls in my fabric stash, as I am sure we all do, and have never known the best way to incorporate them into a quilt.  I was looking for a pattern to use with this precut and I found the Missouri Star Quilt Company's tutorial for the Jelly Roll Race II and knew I had found the perfect quilt.  I loved the idea of this pattern adding the squares to breakup this strips.  I decided to add two borders to finish the quilt.  

This one I knew I was going to give to my mother from the very begining. While machine quilting in the ditch I came up with the idea of adding an X or an O in the square blocks to represent hugs and kisses.  My mom always signed everything to us kids with XOXO and I wanted to put that in the quilt being made especially for her. I wanted to wrap her with hugs and kisses!  

Finished Quilt

Close up look of the hand quilted X and O in the square blocks.  Hope you can see.

Don't forget, always add a label!

Name that Tune Quilt Challenge

I was so excited when my quilt guild, Nitetime Needlers, announced we were doing a "Name that Tune" quilt challenge.  Instantly I was coming up with ideas and all of them seemed to be songs from my favorite movies.  What was I going to choose, Grease, Dirty Dancing, Wizard of Oz... so many choices!  I didn't go with any of those.  I went with another child hood favorite of mine.  See if you can guess. :)

All the yo-yos were sewed down onto the quilt top by hand. 

 Hanging up! 

Last chance to guess before you see the answer...

Heartlight by Neil Diamond

Circle of Friends Quilt Finished

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At my very first quilt retreat in Spring of 2015 all the attendees participated in a mystery project that turned out to be a bowtie quilt pattern.  I didn't get signed up for the retreat early enough to have the instructions on what to bring for the mystery project.  You had to bring an assortment of blocks pre-cut, darks and lights.

However, luck was on my side, they had some left over squares and I had two wonderful members give me their blocks so I could work on the project while I was at the retreat.  As this was my first time attending anything like this I didn't bring enough to work on! :)

By having all of these squares donated to me, this allowed me to finish a larger quilt top than the mystery project would normally have been for everyone else.  I did only finish one group of blocks while I was there and then started working on the others in late August with me finally quilting, binding and hanging the quilt in January 2016.

Blocks in progress.

Blocks laid out on the floor while I decided on the design I would go with. You have lots of options with this quilt block.

 Sandwiched and pinned all ready for quilting!

Quilt hanging above stairs that take you to our downstairs family room.

Closer look. Really love how it turned out!

Found a great tutorial and free pattern for the bowtie quilt.  This is not the one I used but very close.  Enjoy! http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2014/05/bow-tie-quilt-patterns/

The Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along

I joined The Farmer's Wife 1930s Sew Along with a few other Thimblebee members.  I started my blocks at the Fall Quilt Retreat. Below are the blocks I completed there.

This is definitely a challenge for me and I can already see my improvement.  It is great fun to see everyone else's blocks that they post in the Facebook group.  If you have ever considered doing this I encourage you to jump aboard and join us now!