Harpers Ferry Houses

Got this quilt top together of Houses using some of the Windham Harper's Ferry fabrics. It looks rather blendy in a photo, doesn't it...the pink gingham chimneys especially disappear...although it's cute as can be in person.

Coverlet Corner Pattern

I've added the pattern for Coverlet Corner to my website if you are interested:

A Finish: Coverlet Wall Quilt

With safety pin basting help from others...

I finished my Coverlet Wall Quilt. A finish, Peg!

Stars Around the Garden and Kute Kitty

Time to make two more Stars Around the Garden blocks, one for each set. This set is so well-behaved, block completed without crisis:

Here is the group so far. Really am not sure how to set them or what to do for the central medallion. I guess I could actually follow the pattern and make the central floral applique for it, but let me know if you have any attractive notions. I have a lot of the background fabric and the one with the pears on it:

EQ can be a little trickster. You have to remember to check the size block it is going to print out templates for. I have this notion that it should remember what size I'm doing in which project file, but it remembers whatever you printed out last time, no matter which project. I did not look and did not realize until it was almost assembled that I was creating a 6" finished block, not the 9" finished block that I needed. Oh well, maybe I'll put the miniaturized one on the back next to the label.

My little pal Rembrandt:



Oh pleeese, pleeeeeeeese play with me:

Rembrandt discovered the fireplace screen today. She pulls it towards her with her teeth:

and watches it swing back and forth until it comes to a full stop:

Uh oh wouldn't want to come across this on a dark rainy night:

Spider Web Top Complete

a morning scene...

Gaston, rescuer of homeless kittens:

The homeless kitten's favorite possession is my mouse cushion. Here she is making a sneak approach via the keyboard tray, intent on getting the cushion:

If I can just get my paw on it...

Is that big one watching me? She doesn't like me to get this wonderful cushion...

And she pulls the cushion back into her "lair":

Got the spider web top completely put together. I really enjoy the vintage homemade look of it and am intent on getting it done to use on my bed in the autumn.

Newly-Hatched and Ancient

Named the kitten Rembrandt Palette:

As I stumbled out of the hallway at 5am a few days ago, Rembrandt swooped at me waist-high out of nowhere like a rabid flying squirrel. DS Timothy says that too many things make me scream.

Much straightening up and thinning of the fabric and project areas these past several days. Pulled out these old/rejected/ugly fabrics, determined to dispose of them:

I'm glad they're out of the reproduction cupboard and the fabric closet, but this stack started to look pretty good:

so I tried making a big Spider Web with seven of them. What fun to experiment with a new block and to suddenly use up a bunch of old stash:

Also thinned, adjusted, or relocated pending projects and groups of fabric that I want to keep together that are housed in these plastic containers:

Hooray, there are now seven empty large containers (the top guys).

Of course all of this straightening led to some perusal of old projects. This set of nine antique feedsack blocks have been lying on a shelf for years, puzzled as to why they had been sashed with a reproduction blue feedsack print busy enough to completely obscure the blocks themselves. I took all apart and re-sashed them with ugly/old/reject fabrics. Machine-quilted it and bound it with a Kaffe Fassett Lichen print:

Oh, and here's the back of it, also from old stash:

A finish, Peg! Ended up putting the Uglies and Oldies in their own area since it appears they may still be useful.

Ongoing and a Finish

The Pennsylvania Stars Around the Garden quilt so far. Had to piece the remaining strips of the Michael Miller red-and-chartreuse fabric like mad to do the center section. Hence doesn't look as good as it could. Maybe somebody will respond to the missingfabrics.com ad for it and I can re-do it. Amazingly, I looked through my stash stack of solid fabrics and found another full yard of the brown mottled fabric; so I was able to finish the sashing...talk about luck. Did one block over to fix the colors. Did one block early in the top row so that I could see how they would look all sewn together. Anyway, I'm back to liking this set of blocks. They were in peril for a while there.

Peg, a finish! Two done for the July Challenge. This is my Christmas quilt. Did the binding on both sides by machine and it looks just fine. Never had the nerve to do that before.



The next three Dear Janes. It's nice to have one of the ones done that have so many pieces.

If I don't get a chance to post tomorrow, Happy Fourth of July to all of you American bloggers and blogger-readers!

Thinking and Doing

Kept walking past this little log cabin block that got orphaned through an unfortunate quilt design accident and suddenly decided to put it within a small wall quilt. I was even determined to finish it completely, so did hand quilting and a label:


So does this count as a Finished Flimsy for the Challenge (logo at right) even though it's only 11" square? Oh OK, I guess not.

Did a Dear Jane block:

You know how zandsfabrics wraps your purchase in a thick fabric bow? That's what the red and cream stripe is from.

These Stars Around the Garden blocks are going OK. I'm not worried about them:


It's the other set. What a mess. I really spent some time agonizing over these blocks. I looked at them. I hated them. I studied Pennsylvania German quilts in my books. I considered not making any more of these and doing only the group above.

I decided that it might help if I imitated the Nearly Insane setting. It looks like that quilt has tan sashing and red cornerstones.

Devised a tan-and-red plan on EQ:


From stash:

A Whimsical Hand-Dye by Whimsicals for Four Corner Designs from A.E. Nathan. I need more of this. Does anybody have some of this that they would like to sell?

Also from stash:

Isn't this an incredible print? I had just enough of this to fussy-cut the cornerstones. Does anybody know what this fabric is?

Decided not to use any more red or pink in future blocks. Made the next block in the series and tossed it all up on the design wall:

The setting color scheme is fantastic. Maybe I'll keep the setting and dump the blocks :-) .


The kitten is so adorable, full of energy now that her leg/hips feel better. She still doesn't have a name, unless you consider "you big imp-head get out of that" a name.

Brown-Eyed Susans

I started brown-eyed susans several years ago to remind me of the fields full of daisies that used to be in Brown County, Indiana:

Don't know if those fields are still there, but I put the daisies on this wall quilt along with a Brown County pitcher:

I suppose design-wise I should add a third daisy at the bottom right corner.

More Dear Janes...

..the poor chillens had no toys..

"Yessir when we were young kits, we were so poor we had no toys. Had to play with bugs."

Just kidding, the baby has a toy or two.

Look who is being such a nice Ginger to the newcomer. Two on one lap and no bloodshed. Thank you all for your kind comments on the kitty (and quilt :-) ). As far as a name, I just can't make up my mind so far.

More Dear Jane blocks...