Two more days. . .

This is the week that we travel to Sofia, Bulgaria for our oldest son, Mike's wedding. We fly out on Friday and will be gone for about 10 days. We are very excited about the trip and the wedding. I will post about the trip after our return.

It has been some time since we have flown and many things have changed with the airlines. We hope that we have packed properly for the new rules and regulations. Our future daughter-in-law Lili, our "logistics manager" has been a great help with this since she travels much more than we do.

We are also very grateful that our daughter and family have been gracious enough to volunteer to take care of our fuzzy babies while we are gone. We know they can be a pain sometimes but we love them and have spoiled them. They have never stayed in a kennel and for two of them, at this stage in their lives, would not do well there.

Grandkids and Greats!

Actually they are all Greats! These are pictures of our grandson, Russ and his children (our great grandchildren), Amorina and her little brother, Ryan. Check out his cute dimples!!

Todd's Library Quilt

I first saw this pattern in the Quick Quilts 1996 magazine and thought someday I will make one of those.

As it worked out, I think it is a perfect quilt for my “Harry Potter” grandson. He loves to read so I incorporated some of the book titles into it that I thought he would be interested in.


He dressed as Harry Potter for Halloween and looked so great! Have to share a picture of him.

I gave him his quilt this afternoon and he immediately covered up with it.

State Flower and Lone Star Quilts

State Flowers Quilt was completed in 1993. This was my very first quilt. The state flower quilt was made from an Aunt Martha embroidery pattern. I ironed the state flower designs onto a white sheet and at my daughter's suggestion, used solid red and blue blocks between them. I worked on it off and on (while working) for many years before I actually finished it. It is hand quilted and full size.

Lone Star Quilt was completed in 1995. This quilt was made from an Aunt Martha pattern kit that I bought at a garage sale. I had a lot of trouble with this one since it was one of my very first quilts. I had problems getting the very center to lay flat. I had my Mom and sister Faith (who is a very good quilter) look at it. We finally got it down some and it quilted out flat.

Our Babies

Here are pictures of our babies. The “old guys”, Phydeaux Phlopet, is generally known as “Dach” and sometimes “the monster”. Phylicity Phlopet, also known as “Dora” and “Baby” sometimes. Dach was a new years baby and turned 15 this year. Dora will be 15 the end of this month. Coco, frequently called “the rat” is about 6 now and tries to keep the others on their toes.(Coco is our son's dog but has stayed with us some.) THEY ARE NOT SPOILED, JUST WELL LOVED!

 

Sunbonnet Sue and Samplers

Most blocks for the following two quilts were made in 1996-1998 time frame. They were done in a block of the month class at Betty’s Bobbin Box in Odessa Texas with Ida Tyson teaching. We made different blocks each month for a sampler quilt. The colors I chose were purple and black but I also made a Christmas block of each for the Christmas sampler quilt.

Purple and Black Sampler Quilt completed 1997

 This one was machine pieced and quilted block by block. In the center of the sashing is a machine embroidered flower. The block I had the most trouble with was the cow in both samplers but finally got it right.





Christmas Sampler Quilt completed in 2008
I didn’t have quite enough blocks from the block of the month class to make the size I wanted so I had to make a few more in 2008 to complete it. It was machine pieced and bound by me and machine quilted by a friend, Cherry Shults. She called me to see if I wanted to change something before she quilted it. I accidentally put a bow upside down in the bottom row. I mentioned that only God can make a perfect quilt so leave it in there.





 This is the cow block I had so much trouble with.











Sunbonnet Sue Christmas made in 2008
 This was my design using ”Sue” from Fancy Sue pattern from Quilts and Other Comforts in 1998. Machine pieced and appliquéd Dress made from Christmas fabrics with skirt trimmed at the bottom with lace. Flower is embroidered.

Fancy Sunbonnet Sue Quilt completed in 2006
This quilt was made for my granddaughter Emma. This design was a kit called Fancy Sue from Quilts and Other Comforts in 1998. The fabrics for the skirt were from 1950’s designs.

Dresden Quilts

Star Spangled Texas

I pieced this quilt top one cold snowy day here in 2008 when we closed off tht front of the house to save on the propane heating. I moved my favorite sewing machine, Janome 9000 to the back and put this together very quickly. I like the dresden plate design and used a wooden wall plaque made by some friends for the Texas pattern. 

 

Each piece of the dresden plate was cut singly to give it a unique overall pattern. It was machine pieced and hand quilted. As I was quilting it, I noticed when I went to remove my markings, the maroon from the Texas was fading onto the white, despite having washed the fabric beforehand. After I finished the quilt completely, I washed it in some Synthrapol quilt wash and it took all the red staining out, thank goodness.

This was the third dresden plate quilt top I used this technique on. Below are pictures of the other two, They are still works in progress.

Fussy Cuts Someday was the first one of the dresden quilts and was named because it is the one I want to finish for my room, someday, being the key word.. I tend to put this one on the back burner to work on others.

My favorite color is teal and I used yellow and maroon to blend in. 

I machine emboidered flowers for the middle circles in the dresden plate. Since I am not really good at manuevering large quilts on the machine, I stitched in the ditch on the straight lines and will hand stitch around the dresden plates.

 I ran short on fabric but had enough to make a couple of smaller plates, from leftovers, for two of the corner blocks and and custom color blocks for the other two corners.

Fussy Cuts Forward and Backward is what I called the second one. I cut each wedge for the dresden plate from a floral fabric and that left a wasted wedge going the opposite way. So I cut the next row from those which made the flowers backward or upside down. Using the same idea for the dresden center I embroidered flowers for the centers. The colors in this one are blue, maroon and gold. This one was backed with muslin and will be all hand quilted completed this year.

 I did finish hand quilting this just in time to take with us to Sofia, Bulgaria for our oldest son's wedding gift. This is the label I put on it. They love monkeys and our son drew the monkeys design.

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