Cracker Jacks

I am pleased to present another long time coming finish!  These little miniature quilts are called "cracker jacks" and were designed by Kaye Evans of Utah.  They are just so cute!  The sunglasses and spoon were placed in the photo to give you some perspective on how small they are.  The largest one is 12 1/2".

Here is the back.

Brown Bag

The Brown Bag Flickr Group is here.  You can see all the other brown bag quilts -- fun fun fun!

I finished my brown bag quilt just in time for the deadline.  I may go back and fill in some quilting in the navy border at a later date, and then again I may not.

This has been a fun project and best of all, I finished a UFO while I was at it.

 Below is the back side. I used up the leftover blocks and some leftover green fabric from the top.

Jessi's bed quilt

It feels so good to have a finish!  Jessi put it on her bed immediately after the last stitch and some photos.  The colors are not as rich as the true colors, but here it is.

Here is one close up of the back.  The back is really very pretty.

Mom's Sewing Notions

I made this wallhanging for my mom for Christmas.  It is almost like Lorna's without the stars on the top row and a change of color (Mom doesn't like red.  She likes pastels).

It is wonderful to have this project done as I've had the blocks all made for over a year now.

The photo makes it look so crooked.  Let me asure you it is not.  I just didn't have anyone home to hold it up for me to photograph, so it's leaning in on an uneven surface.

P.S. I also finished a third one this month that will be given to someone special...Marie.

Lorna's Sewing Notions

I made this sewing quilt for my mother-in-law.

Halloween Round Robin

Many years ago I was involved with a friends and family round robin.  Each of us chose a theme or quilt pattern we wanted which were passed around each month for a person to make a block.  I chose a Halloween theme.  I never assembled them because I just didn't have enough blocks to do anything. 

A year ago I located a Halloween "Spooktacular" round robin online at Jane's fabrics.  I was too late to join, but some of the ladies agreed to swap a block with me on the side.  I guess you could say that this lovely quilt is a culmination of friends old and new.  THANK YOU ALL!

It sort of all began with a little mystery class at Utah's Annual Quilt Meeting in Provo.  Our good friend, Charlene Richens, prepared a mystery for us in our hotel room.  This darling witch was the result of that mystery.  I have fond memories of much laughter and fun.

-"Pumpkin Patch" words: Mary Israel (friend)

-dracula: Linda Johnson (friend)

-pumpkins from left to right:  Mariella Potter, me, Karen Truman, 

     and Theresa Terry (friends)

-ghost block: mailed to me from Summer Sadie in Cordova, TN

-candy corns: Felicity (sister-in-law)

-wild hair witch: my mom

-witch on a broom: mailed to me from Kris in Rochester, NY

-haunted house: hand appliqued by Marie Pugsley (family)

-Trick or Treaters:  Felicity (sister-in-law)

-Boo block:  mailed to me from Belinda in Petersburg, TX

-cats: Deb and I made at the mystery class

-spiders: Deb Butler (friend)

-skull:  in the mail from Jennifer in Arlington, TX

-Buggy Barn witch: me

-Little witch:  Faye Torgerson (friend)

-bats: mailed to me by Cathy in Lakebay, WA

-witch legs: mailed to me by Nedra in St. G., Utah

Buggy Barn Hearts

I got the binding finished on this quilt last Saturday at state wrestling.  I LOVE it!

HERE IS A COPY OF THE POST I MADE SEPT 28TH REGARDING THIS TOP:
I don't have a photo of the quilt at this time, but here is the fabric I made it out of. This was a fast, easy, and fun little project. I bought it with my birthday money. I went shopping with brown and pink in mind and came home with brown, pink, yellow, and green. My girls even loved this one and wanted to make one identical to it.

Buggy Barn Cats

Jessi shows us her cat quilt. It was made in Feb of 2006 at our retreat in Altamont. I quilted it a few months later and will post a photo later.

The quilted virsion...

...and the back.

Sewing Notions - RR

This project was a round robin that began at Ruby's Inn. Kaye Evans put a group together and I signed on. We were to each make a certain number of the same block, swap them, and bring our completed quilts to Ruby's Inn to show the next year.

Apple Tree

Ok, this was made probably when Jolynn was 4ish -- probably in 1997-ish. Lorna had taught us to applique the apples with invisible thread at quilt guild. I went home determined to make a full project out of everything we "started" in quilt guild. This was the one and only quilt that ever evolved from that idea. It is a wallhanging. The apple tree pattern came out of a quilt book of which I can no longer recall the name.

Trapunto - Sharon Schamber

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More memories still... This little project was my first trapunto piece made in Sharan Schamber's trapunto class several years back. It is her pattern. I do not recall the year I completed it.

Finishes of late

I finally have some finishes to show. This quilt top was one of the first I ever made. In fact, it was done so many years ago that I even sashed it in really cheap fabric.

When I got it out this summer to quilt, the fabric bothered me so bad that I picked the whole thing out and ...


...resashed it with an excellent quality batik blue. The binding is attached by machine but still needs to be hand-done on the other side.



Jessi's has been done for several years and is hand quilted. I made both the girls quilts out of scraps that were given to me and some leftovers from a couple of quilts I had made.

This is my last orphan quilt. I won it my first year at Annual Meeting and finally added a border and quilted it. It is kind of cute for a poor little orphan, don't you think? I bought the border fabric and backing at a yard sale. It was fabric that was meant to be used for little girl's dresses.

Here is the first of FOUR Halloween quilts I'd like to get done this month. This one is Jolynn's. I even made a little pillowcase for her to store it in while she goes on bus trips. It is a buggy barn pattern. I mixed the witches and cats because I liked them both. I borrowed the broom border pattern from a pattern Becky bought at our Fall Retreat.



Here are some close-ups of the quilting.




Justin's is ready to quilt and mine and Jessi's still need to be assembled but the blocks are pretty much done.

Sliced Quilt Challenge Group

This was my section of Bev's underwater sliced quilt. You can read more about it by following this
sliced quilt link.

Italy Through Window Blinds

I made this one for an art quilt swap -- my first. You can read more about it on my Dorinda Blog at: this Dorinda page, and this Dorinda page.
This page tells about how I designed it.




This is the original photo I used as a guide for my project. I love Italy, and this photo was taken there. I am always careful to only use free photo images on-line and to document its source. If you zoom in you will see the source.

Here are some close-ups.




My plan was to try a "convergence" quilt. This is a style of art created by Ricky Tims, and I wanted to take a swing at my virsion of it. The idea is to sew a project and then slice it up horizontally or vertically (or both)and place plain strips between the original project. Ricky actually prefers to use wild hand-dyes fabrics that have various colors in them for his "between" strips. It really adds variation to his quilts.

I traced and sliced the pattern first vertically thinking I would prefer it this way.



I felt like the tall buiding really shrunk with this effect, and so I tried horizontal strips. Wala! It was just what I was looking for. I liked how it really exaggerated the tall building.

My next step was to create a paper pieced pattern. Here is my base pattern with a numbering and code system that I'm certain only I could ever interpret. I'm not even certain I could follow my code to make another one in the future.

Next I copied the sections onto transparency sheets. All you have to do is flip the transparency over and you have a perfectly reversed image for paper piecing.

Attic Window Snowflakes

I also finished the binding on my snowflake quilt. I really like it done in attic windows. The one that is not centered was made by my mother-in-law. She donated hers to me because she wanted a different background. I love this one but wouldn't do it again.

The Butler's Jelly Roll

The Butler's Jelly Roll is what I named this quilt. Deb Butler shows up at my house to sew one night with a surprise. She bought each of us a jelly roll for only $15.00 each. That is really a steal. Anyway, she had a jelly roll pattern book, we selected one we liked, and sewed the entire quilt with borders all that night. It was so much fun!! I quilted it up within a couple of weeks, but didn't get the binding done until tonight. It is larger than a crib size but now big enough for a throw. I really don't know what I'll end up using it for.

This one was completely painless!

Feathered Star

I love this feathered star pattern, but my colors are really crazy. I had been making and selling patterns for my row quilts back then and Sharon suggested I make a tropical one. This star is as far as I got on that tropical idea. The star is MUCH prettier done in more striking colors.

When I pulled it out of the box that stored it, all it needed was the center block pieced so I could assemble the block. I had to call my friend, Deb, to get a copy of the pattern for the center as I have no idea where mine went. After that I added a simple border, quilted it last week, and finally got the binding done yesterday morning.


I finished another "old" project. This is a feathered star that I made from a class taught by Sharon Schamber 6-7 years ago. Mom took the same class and completed her quilt. Pictures of that quilt are posted on this blog on April 9th.

Bali Passion Mystery

I just completed this quilt. I pieced it 5-ish years ago and finally got back to it this month. I had to put borders on it and then quilt it. Let me just say that I am fascinated with the design!

I purchased this quilt as a kit (two kits actually that I put into one project) on a Park City retreat with a couple of friends -- Deb and Thereasa. I had brought a quilt that I was hand quilting for Thereasa while they were making jack-o-lantern quilts. We took a little jaunt into Heber to the quilt store where I found this kit. It was all precut and everything. I sewed it up within a few hours and then it sat until now.

Orphan Tumbling Blocks

This little orphan just got quilted last week and bound today. It isn't anything fancy but it's DONE! I won this little top at Annual Meeting a few years back. Chalk another off the list woohoo!

This is another orphan quilt I won at annual meeting a few years ago and finally quilted it this past weekend. I completed the binding tonight while waiting for Jolynn to get out of basketball practice.

The interesting thing about this quilt is that I donated most of the blocks. All of the quarter square triangles are mine. They make up the top, middle, and bottom rows. They were an experiment for my Autumn Row quilt that I didn't like.

I have two others I've won over the years that need quilted. I also won one that I'll never use because it is too ugly!