Alice's Country Diary Quilt

This quilt is so exciting to me - but I keep setting it aside until I finish Oh Susanna.   I did complete one of the 25 blocks just to see how my fabrics will look - and so tempting to go ahead and do another with the cone shape epp pieces rather than the kite shape in this picture.  My friend, Martee, is going to head-up a 2027 Sew-Along for our guild and I will "serve" as her assistant.  We already have 10 people who are ordering the book and planning on participating in the Sew-Along, but will not have the kickoff until January 2027.  Right now, we are finishing up our 2026 BOM, which has58 participants (a few counted twice as they signed up for both BOM's).

Here is the book we will be using.  Of course we are requiring all participant to purchase the book.  It combines the art of EPP and Embroidery, both of which are favorites of mine.  

This is the block I recently finished:  The blocks are set on the diagonal which is why there is a little of my design board showing. The designer recommends a rainbow color setting with the EPP pieces arranged as Red-Pink-Orange-Yellow-Green-Teal-Blue-Purple.  When you applique the wreath to the background fabric, you just rotate it a little to balance the colors in the quilt.  Such fun!

I would love to show you some of the pages in the book, which are just beautiful, but concerned about copyright issues.  It also has heat transfers for the embroidery, which I prefer to use Sulky Stick & Stitch. Some ladies are choosing to do some type of machine embroidery in the center of their wreaths, while other are choosing to do a smaller EPP block to go in the center.  Some may just leave the center blank and do some custom quilting there.  So many choices, and hopefully many will enjoy this Sew-Along.

 

Sunbonnet Sue - Oh Susanna

 I have been working on my Sunbonnet Sue quilt this past month and decided to call it "Oh Susanna!".  My grand daughter asked me who I was making this quilt for, and I told her the first grandchild that gives he a great-grand-daughter named Susanna gets this quilt.

I now have 17 blocks made - and 7 to go.  I am having so much fun "dressing" all my little Susannas and have decided on the layout shown below using a Sweet Daisy english paper pieced block.

I am including some more pictures a little closer up - 4 blocks at a time.  The sashing is actually a blue/green patchwork with little postage stamps used in the corner stones.  Right now I am thinking of adding three rows of the blue/green patches (without cornerstones) around all four sides to make a border which I might cut into scallops.  Still thinking about that.

I do not have all the embellishments (like buttons, cording, lace, etc) yet as I want to get it basted by a long-armer for hand quilting.  I am keeping little jewelry size zip bags with the embellishments for each block to add after the quilting is finished.

Gather Round Seasons - June

Completed my June block this morning and got it in the frame.....maybe a little bit cockeyed, but it will stay that way until it starts driving me crazy.

 

Insanity Quilt Progress

 Last night I completed the left flower border on the insanity quilt.  This actually did not take as long as I thought it would - started on May 3 and worked on several other projects in the mean time.  I usually work a little in the early morning before hubs gets up and then at night while we watch tv.

I am considering adding the right and bottom borders the same and then re-design the top border to include some applique birds based on a paper garland my daughter Jennie made for me to hang on my mantel.  I decorate my mantel for the spring and summer with bird houses and birds, and this little garland is the perfect touch.

She used scrapbook paper for the bird, but I am hoping she has the pattern and I can make them with fabric to applique across the top of my insanity quilt.  I sit and look at these birds across the room from where I quilt, and I guess that is my inspiration.

My insanity quilt center measures 43" x 50 1/2" and the flower border is 8 1/2" wide.  So once the borders are added to all sides the quilt will measure 60" x 67 1/2" which I think is big enough,  Rhonda Pearce's design for the Insanity quilt has one more border but I am thinking of leaving that border off. This is a picture I pulled off the internet.  If I leave that border off, I can hang the quilt up in my living room in the Spring with my other bird decor, lol.  Not to mention, this will save me from having to add another 3,815 hexies to compete that outer border.  I do love her design, but I love even more the idea of adding some applique birds and using it as a wall hanging.

Gather Round Seasons

I have started a BOM by Kathy Schmidt - embroidering on a preprinted pattern.  I completed my first block for May:

The frame recommended by the designer is shown below.  Using a square frame appealed to me more that the round one, seemed to have a more traditional look.  The round frame is cute though,

 

Starry Sampler - all handquilted

 I have mentioned before that my Guild is making the Starry Sampler for our 2026 Block of the Month.  There are 16 beautiful EPP blocks in this pattern, but we are only doing the first 9.  I am hand quilting mine as I finish them, and today I finished quilting #9.  Whew, now to get them attached into a quilt with a Quilt-As-You-Go technique.   Here's the first 9 blocks:

I have also made progress on the Sunbonnet Sue - Completing Block 2 (Falling Leaves) and 3 (Ice skating)

I will add buttons to the dress after it is quilted.

This dress gets buttons, too.  The Gingerbread man is a button as well. I will attach it to the quilt with a thread that allows it to be removed from the pocket but not removed from the quilt.  I also have some snowflake buttons that I plan to add in the background.  All buttons will be added after the quilt is quilted.

And not to be neglected - I covered 320 white hexies and 140 green hexies and selected 17 flower hexies for the left flower border of the Insanity quilt.  Now that I have the 9 EPP blocks quilted, I can start working on the flower borders :)

SunBonnet Sue - Block 1

 I finished the first block and really had fun doing this.  So here she is.......