November diamonds

I made 2 diamonds in November. I now have 11 "whole diamonds" (a few missing the centers until later) plus about that many more of the light sections.Two of the tan pieces look discolored, but that is because they have different backing papers than the others. I will try for 2 more diamonds in December, but won't be disappointed if Ionly get one finished, because I have other things I need to get finished for Christmas.

My first quilting disaster...

...well, OK...a "disaster" would be if I already had this pre-sold and received money for it, and had to make another one. This is more like "I'm not at all happy with the outcome".

I sat down today to stitch binding on this wallhanging I was making to sell, but decided some of the pieces were just TOO crooked for me to let it go out the door. I didn't really want to waste the binding strip on it, but decided the quilt was useless for anything, without it, so I quickly stitched it on by machine (wow, the back looks bad ;-) ) and didn't even finish the ends off very nicely. I was going to use it for the dog on the floor, but it's a little too small (16 inches). It would be a good size to put on my lap for the dog to lay there, which is where he spends most of his time when I'm at the computer. It would also look good on a table, under a bunch of dishes, or condiments or whatever...especially on a picnic table. Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but it's done. Not especially satisfying, since anything less than "well done" eats at me.

If these few crooked pieces were in a larger quilt, they would get lost in the rest of it and be fine. But on a wall, they are staring right at you, waving a neon flag that says "Look at ME! I'm CROOKED!".

So...a reminder of why I prefer making my quilts by hand.

Another wallhanging finished

Just finished another wallhanging...29" x 33", machine-pieced and hand-quilted.

Tumbling blocks

I've been making good progress on my hand-pieced (Queensize) Tumbling Blocks top and wanted to spread it out to see how complete it is. This is as far as I got before the "helper" took over...

A new wallhanging...

I've finished a wallhanging, 24" x 24", 19th Century reproduction prints. Hand-pieced and hand-quilted. I'll be sending it to a woman who had to re-home her two African Grey parrots in December and chose me to be their new "mom".


Love the way this turned out! Now I need to find time to make one for myself ;-)


The two new Birdy Girlz, Twiggy and Glory, supervising dinner preparations.

Hexagons

I'm back to being somewhat productive and alive, after quite a long "slump".

I've pulled out my hexagons and have been working on them again. Between my hexagon blocks and my Tumbling Blocks, I've been doing some marathon hand-piecing. My right hand is complaining, and my back and shoulders are also unhappy. But once I get started, it's hard to put these things down!

I have five completed diamonds.

I made this one today (to the exclusion of everything else I had intended to get done today. Oh well, housework is better put off until tomorrow) :

What I had done a few days ago.

Finished a Christmas top

I finished a Christmas quilt top. Yay! This is the first top (or ANYTHING) I've finished in over a year! So this is a big step in the right direction. Now to just keep the momentum going.

Oh my stars!

Here's a picture of my 1930's stars, (started about 6 years ago) where I am at the moment. I'm handpiecing, and have finished 7 blocks since I pulled these back out of the UFO box. I love these! I'll be making this quilt 7 blocks by 6 blocks, with 2" sashings in unbleached muslin and then figure out the border size when it's at that stage. 10 more blocks to go....

Thrift Shopping

On Friday I went out Thrift Shop Hopping with a friend. The weather was rainy and cold and awful, so we were done after the second one, but I am thrilled with what I found! I got about $400 worth of clothes, for SEVEN BUCKS! Some nice long-sleeved knit tops, beautiful black lace blouse, french terry lounging pants, some really nice summer shirts, a warm fleecy pullover top (my new favorite shirt!) a couple very nice all-linen dresses, and a wonderful, roomy leather tote/shoulder bag.

I also bought a porcelain cup painted with pansies, and a frilly-girly pillow with a hand-crocheted cover--pure white. I think I'm going to tea-dye it so it will match my quilts better.

Still have a lot more thrift shops to go to on the peninsula so we'll just pick up where we left off.

Crystal's Garden

Nothing going on in my life right now that I care to spill to the world, so I'll share one of my finished quilts. (Huge number of quilts in progress, but finishes are few and far between).

This is a wallhanging I made for a friend after she moved from Oregon to Las Vegas, where she has a stone yard. I made a flower garden for her.

I love the way this turned out, and I had a hard time letting it go! I think I'll have to make one for myself...someday.