Back, with a "finish"...

I'm back from a much-too-long break...and I have a "finish". My first since August, 2010.
It's this Irish Chain, which was machine-pieced and hand-quilted. It's been my primary project for the last year.

I really love the way it's turned out. The color has even grown on me. So it's with slightly mixed-emotions that I'll be packaging it up and mailing to someone else tomorrow, but I know she is going to love it even more than I do.



Now...I wonder where I've stashed the next project on my list :-O

The Onion

I was making chicken cacciatore and sliced open this HUGE onion. It was still attached just a little at one side and spread open in a picture-worthy way, I thought.

The jars are some that my mom had for many years. I've done some research on ages and the smaller ones are from around 1930-35 and the two biggest are from 1890-1910. I have another one, also from 1890-1910 which is shorter. I should find a lid for it and use in the kitchen, instead of using it to hold my crochet hooks.

The cutting board was a wedding gift from one of my (ex) husband's friends. He was a cabinet and furniture maker. When he gave us the cutting board, my husband was kind of disgruntled about getting something so simple, that the friend could just "whip out" in a few minutes. That was 30 years ago and this cutting board has, without a doubt, been the most useful and used item we received. I use it nearly every day.

The knife? Hmmm....no colorful story. Just a knife I use for almost all my chopping. I almost switched to a different one for the picture, and I still have another large onion so maybe I'll take a picture with the other knife when I slice it. The other knife I thought about using in the photograph is very long, very old. It was my great grandfather's knife and when the blade has just been sharpened it is wonderful for freshly baked bread and it'll slice a tomato nearly paper thin. I once had a friend send someone to my house, trying to sell me a set a knives. She went on and on about how well they sliced tomatoes. Then I got out my old knife and sliced a few tomatoes myself. Sent her on her way. ;-)

Slowpoke at work

Yes, there is a reason I have that "I'm a slowpoke quilter" button on my page. It's TRUE!

Here is a project I started about seven years ago. I've worked on it on and (mostly) off throughout that time. At the end of last summer I decided I was ready to push ahead and finish, but ran into a little bump and lost momentum. Since then, I've been out of commission with one illness or injury after another, so it was just finally last week when I felt like doing battle with it again, sewed the last seams, and added the borders. I finished it up at 80" square. Big enough to cover the bed with some color, but small enough that it also works nicely for sofa snuggling.

It's folded up and put away again because I have no idea how it will be quilted, but at least it's one set of blocks off the (huge) pile.

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...