Happy Birthday!!!

Today is my sweet Mother's 80th birthday. She is a sassy Southern gal who is still going strong despite bouts with 3 separate cancers... arthritis in her hips and knees from chemotherapy.... damage to her heart and eyes due to an undiagnosed Thyroid disease... the woman will not slow down!  Active in her church.. busy with her friends... checking on others .... taking meals to them... does her crossword puzzle, cryptogram and jumble each day... reads... rarely watches TV... talks on the phone as much or more than any 13 year old girl... she is a hoot and I adore her and am thankful to still have her in my life!

A few years ago a group of quilty friends made a 1930s repro churn dash as a love quilt for a dear friend going through a tough time.  I had the privilege of putting all the blocks into a top and finishing up the quilt.  Mother saw it and thought it was for her!  She was very disappointed to learn I was mailing it off to someone else.  Well she has her own now and I think it looks great on her bed!

I whipped up the blocks... the mad quilter did the rest... quilting and binding (gotta love a man who will bind a quilt for you!)... we also made 2 throw pillows from some left over blocks (I got carried away and made a few more than I needed!)

We snuck over to Mom's recently and laid the top (without borders) on her bed to see how much drop we needed.  I think we did a great job with the size! I just love it.

Tonight we slipped over to Mom's while she was at church and got everything set up... we went back to drop off a mum for her (hubs heard her say she wanted one).  She was just getting home, so we stayed a bit. She never left the kitchen! LOL!  Couldn't think of a reason to send her to the bedroom. So we came on home. About an hour later the phone rang... she loves it!  I have no doubt she has been on the phone telling her friends about her birthday present.  LOL!

This is probably one of my favorite quilts ever... partially because it looks great... partially because it was made for my sweet Mother... and mostly because it made her heart sing!  I don't think I have done that too often in the past 49 years... more heart ache and stress and frustration etc. The joys of parenthood. So if I can make hers sing... WOW!  I have accomplished a great thing!

"Belle"

Churning Away.....

My quilting has been in small spurts lately.. a block or two here.. a block or two there. I am almost done with a stack of Churn Dash blocks for a bed quilt.  My mother will be 80 next month and this will be a quilt for her bed.  It will be full size with a good bit of drop on the sides (she has an old high bed).  I used 1930s repros as she loves them!  A group of quilty friends and I made a love quilt last year (or was it the year before?) using repros and the Churn Dash pattern. Mother loved it and was disappointed that it wasn't for her.  This one will be a tad bit different. There will be white sashing and at this point the border and binding will be white (Kona Snow to be exact).  Basically her bed will be covered in a field of repro Churn Dashes!  I also want to make a couple of pillow shams with extra blocks for her bed.  And some window valances with Kona Snow and maybe some small repro squares.  I think it will all look great!

Here is a taste of what is to come....

I think the bottom one (purple gingham, peach dot print) is my favorite block so far. I just love that peach fabric!!!

Stay tuned for the finished product... (and yes, the Mad Quilter will be quilting this... he loves his mom-in-law and he is much faster than I am at quilting!)

"Belle"

Love Quilt for a friend

I am part of a wonderful fairly small online quilt group. We are sooo close... it is so difficult to explain how real our relationships are. These ladies are truly my sisters... we all love and support each other... and even offer hard to hear, but needed, advice at times! One of our sweet sisters has been going through a rough time... her husband had a chronic illness, she cares for her parents, cared for her mother-in-law who recently died, and more including all the normal life stuff we all experience. So we decided she needed a Love Quilt to reminder her that God loves her and so do we!

I chose the pattern and fabrics... she loves 1930s repros, so that part was easy. I decided to go with a traditional Churn Dash made with 2 different repros per block and white for the background. I made a couple of blocks and others in the group made blocks and sent

them to me. Once they were all here white sashing was added, a pieced flange and then a cheery yellow border. And then.. it sat.. and it sat.. and it sat.. until finally my sweet husband, who can quilt a quilt on the sewing machine in no time flat said "Want me to quilt that for you?" So I got the label made and on the back... we got it sandwiched and off he went! Basic in the ditch straight line quilting.. which would be true to a quilt made in the 1930s. Added a great purple repro for the binding and it was done! I love how it turned out. My dd wants one like it... my mother wanted this one (so I will be making her one soon)... and to be honest, I really wanted to keep it for myself! But I didn't! I was a good Belle and sent it on to my precious friend who loves it too!

I strongly urge you to use whatever gift God gave you to bless someone else. It is the best feeling! One I get to share with my sweet QWHT sisters who have the biggest hearts I know!

I LOVE REPROS!

I really do love 1930s repro fabrics. Maybe it is because the quilts I grew up with were made with feedsacks and such. NO I am not that old... but most of the quilts I grew up with were older ones made by my grandmothers and one great-grandmother in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. My mother remember a large chifforobe (Southern for armoire) full of feed sacks that her mother saved over the years. Whatever happened to them no one knows.

So when my quilting groups spring block lottery was announce and I saw that it was a cute block using repros, I knew I had to play! Here are the 6 I have made... aren't they cute!?

(This is the mini-bow tie block from Quilter's Cache... http://www.quilterscache.com/M/MiniBowTieBlock.html )

I also decided to play with one of my favorite blocks.. the Churn Dash.. I have always made it with 2 fabrics... one for the background, one for the dash... this time I used 3 fabrics... solid white for the background, one repro for the HSTs and one for the rectangles. I love the look! I am certain I will be whipping up more of these blocks soon!