November has been a very busy month!  Quilting wise I got a few things done.  I helped my friend Teresa finish up quilting a beautiful blue batik bedspread size quilt that she made.  She did a wonderful job quilting flowers in the center.  I did meandering on the borders.

I finished up a wedding signature quilt that I made for one of Emma's college friends.  The next picture shows the center paper pieced block.  The church block pattern is on Marcia Hon's site: http://quilterscache.com/.

Today I made scarves for my preschool class for Christmas.  I cut them from fleece and appliqued their initials on them.  The pink are for the girls and the red for the boys.  I have one more to make for one of the boys.  I got the fabric upside down and didn't have anymore wonder under to do another.  They made up really quickly.  Emma laid them out to spell a couple of hidden words with the letters.  She's a teacher for sure!

Not sure why these are sideways!

I also got the borders on a Christmas gift quilt and the backing cut and pieced.  Will work on quilting it later this week.  I have worked on the November row for my calendar quilt but it's not quite finished.  I also designed a new row for the December row.  It was a row of Santas that I didn't like too much.  So I used my TriRecs rulers and made Christmas tree patterns for that row.  They are cut and one of each type is sewn.

This is a paper prototype.

I have to stop procrastinating and get some work done for my prek class for tomorrow. No more sewing tonight!

Busy Weeks

It's been a couple of very busy weeks. I helped a friend finish quilting part of a very large quilt that she is making.  A church friend and I hung quilts from our congregation on an upstairs railing in our activity center to decorate for our Thanksgiving banquet.  We also cut up some very old quilts for the centerpieces on the 40 tables. Then I made cookies and attended a Veteran's Day celebration with the local D.A.R. group at my former elementary school.  I did finish the wedding quilt mentioned in my last post except for the binding.  I also started and made good progress on a Christmas gift quilt.  No pictures with this post but will try to load some up soon.  Bill left the camera at school that has some of my friend's quilt on it.  He took it to school in case the raccoon trap had caught the little friend that got into their building this week! 

Pumpkin Time

I have been working on a wedding quilt for a good friend of Emma's.  The top is all done and I hope to quilt it later this week.  I will post a picture when I get it done.

I decided to work on a little project last night until I can get enough time to do the quilting.  I recently bought a calendar row quilt pattern.  My thought is to get a row done each month along with my bigger projects.  That way in a year it is all done and I didn't have to work too hard on it.  Last night I cut out the pumpkin row pieces for October and started sewing on it.  Finished it up this morning and I love how it came out.  November's row is turkeys and corn...think it will be a little harder.  These rows will be my "treats" to keep me motivated and satisfy my Quilter's ADHD.

This picture is the whole row while the one above is just a close up of part of it.

Texas Country Christmas Quilt

I entered this quilt in our county fair.  It won a blue ribbon. Bill was at the fair this morning with his class.  He sent me a text saying it won and I asked him if it was the only quilt entered in its category.  LOL  While there were only a few quilts entered, the blue ribbon was exciting.  Mark one more thing off my bucket list!  Now I'm motivated to get some more projects done and I'll have a fun quilt for my bed at Christmas. It is a king size quilt and I'll post a picture of the whole quilt when I get it back home. The pattern was adapted from Carolina Christmas by Bonnie Hunter, http://www.quiltville.com/ . I finished it back in late winter except for the binding which I finished a few hours before checking it in at the fair.  Nothing like a deadline to get me to finish something.
A funny sideline was that Emma and I were looking at it tonight and lifting up the corner for the picture. A volunteer came to ask me not to touch it when she realized it was my quilt.  I've always wanted to touch a quilt at a show (the rebel in me).  Another thing checked off the list!

Time at Telephone

My 2 sisters, my brother, our spouses, my daughter, neices and nephew met at Telephone to bury our brother's ashes on Sunday.  We all had a hard time time beliving it will be 4 years in December since Joe died.  It was sad but good to be together. Wish all of the neices and nephews could have been with us but we have them spread out from NYC to Seattle and places in between. We spent last night and together today at our other brother, John's ranch.  It was so good to be out in the peace and quiet and enjoy the cool weather.  Still needing rain but the lower temperatures were wonderful.  Some of the wildlife we saw were the cows in the pasture of course, the resident donkey couple, and a cyote that seemed annoyed that we drove by.  He just stopped and stared at us as we drove by while he was making a side trip through the pasture. He was probably thirsty and following the cows to the pool.   Of course an armadillo went foraging for his dinner while we were sitting on the porch after finishing up our supper so that was fun to watch. 

I just walked through the kitchen at home and could still smell the wood smoke on my sweatshirt hanging on a chair.  My brother was awake drinking coffe in the dark of the great room when I got up this morning about 6:30.  He and I sat out on the porch and watched the sun come up - well as much as we could see through the trees.  It was cold so he started a fire in the chimenea ....as his good friend taught him how to do in the "old Indian way"...with lighter fluid.  Seems as he has always had fun with fire.  But it eventually burned down to a nice wood fire and the porch roof survived. 

I took a quilt with me to finish sewing down the binding.  I took it to our county fair this afternoon. I've never entered one so it was hard to leave it behind.  It's my adaptation of Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Christmas.  I called it Texas Country Christmas.  My sister took a picture but I forgot to have her get one with my camera so I'll have to put it here on next week.

Time to get ready for bedtime as the munchkins will be happy to be at preschool tomorrow. 

Cody and Carly's Quilt

Finished up Cody and Carly's quilt made with squares signed at their wedding reception.  Hope they like it!

First Quilt

Trying to figure out the picture part of blogging.  I hope this works. This is a picture of the first quilt I ever made.  I made it in 1974 for Bill for Christmas.  I used some factory scraps that someone had given my mother.  Those are the multicolor parts of the turtles.  I think I had something made from the copper color face and tails.  The white was an old sheet.  We used it for years and years and eventually the old sheet fell apart so I took the turtles off and appliqued them onto some white flannel, changed the setting, added the blue/gold sashing and requilted it in 2004. Bill still likes it but it is really heavy now because of the layers and the flannel.

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RAH

First Post

Well, I've finally done it!  I have made a blog with the help of Google.  I'm not really sure what I am doing yet but hopefully I will get better.  It is hard for old dogs to learn new tricks but I will keep trying! 
Today is a day off from preschool and I am working on laundry and the usual things around here.  I almost have a wedding quilt finished.  A good friend from McKinney and I went quilt shop hopping 3 days this month.  We found some really great stores and of course bought fabric and patterns. Most importantly I think we had a wonderful time visiting and got motivation to finish up some quilting projects and try some new techniques.
Hopefully I can figure out how to add pictures and things here so wish me luck!