Trick or Treat

Eight of my Grandchildren came Trick or Treating tonight. Hollis was here too, but she slept through it.  We don't get trick or treaters in our neighborhood unless its the grandkids.  Love seeing them!

Adeline

Lorelai

Tess - orange fox, Timothy - Waldo, Taralyn - black dog, Toby - magician, Tori - princess, Titus - brown dog

Hollis Joy

 My #12 grandchild was born October 18 and named Hollis Joy and she is beautiful, sweet bundle of Joy. I now have 6 grandsons and 6 granddaughters and am so blessed.  

 

This is the quilt I made for sweet Hollis. I  hope she enjoys it for many years to come.  (I probably should have ironed it or at least put it in the dryer to fluff out the fold before I took the picture.)

Making progress

 

I have been quilting on this top for a few months now and recently completed all the center Star blocks.  There are 12 Star of Bethlehem blocks and an hour glass blocks between each star block. Everything is set on point.

  The way I have quilted it, the hour glass block disappears and makes the Star block look bigger.

Although my hand quilting is rather dense, and taking a good bit of time to complete, I am enjoying the process.

This is a a close up of one of the 12 border blocks and how I am repeating the pattern in the border block.

I plan to use a Feathered Wreath in the outside border and duplicate the horizontal and vertical lines used in the center top. It actually takes me longer to quilt those lines than it does the feathered corners. 

People always ask me how long it takes to hand quilt.  Well I timed a Star block and it took me approx. 15 hours to do one star block.  The small border block takes approx. 4 hours.  Not sure what the outer border will take just yet...but just to complete the quilt center I am looking at approx. 228 hours.

Still working on my Happy Quilt.  I have all the rows completed except for the last one which is a row of house blocks.  I like the bright primary colors in this quilt.  Since I am quilting it as I go, once I complete this last block, it will be finished except for the binding.


Continued progress on my Guild's BOM:







September Leaves



October Pumpkins

Jack's Chain



I finished my Jack's Chain quilt in time  for my Guild's quilt show - it took a third place ribbon.  My brother, Jack, came to the show and I "presented" it to him as a birthday gift for his 70th birthday. It was a surprise, and he was really surprised.  Several of my fellow quilters and my family that were there, gathered around and sang Happy Birthday. 

Momma's Quilt

My blog is a type of quilt journal for me where I can look back and see quilts that I have made over the years.  I was never very good at documenting this before I started blogging and oh how I wish I had.  A lesson for those just getting started in quilting.  I print my blog every year and have gone back many times to check when I completed a quilt, or how long it took me to make a certain quilt.

  Momma was an excellent quilter and hand pieced many of her quilts and hand quilted nearly all of her quilts.  She kept very few of them, giving most to her children and grandchildren.  When she passed we shared among the family the quilts that she still had left at home.  They all held many special memories to me.

This is a quilt I made for my Momma in 2001.  I had not done much hand quilting, but knew if I was going to give Momma a quilt, it had better be hand quilted.    She was so surprised and touched when I gave it to her - said no one had ever made a quilt for her before.  I still get tears when I think of that time and how much that comment meant to me. 

When Momma passed years later, I reclaimed the quilt.
Now it resides on the back of "my chair" in the living room. I cuddle under it when I feel chilled or just need a little comfort.  The quilt reminds me so much of my Momma as most of her quilts were scrappy and she loved the traditional patterns.  Besides, I know it was something I made for my Momma that she truly cherished, and that makes me cherish it all the more.

Miss you Momma, every day.