U.S. Postal Service Fan of the Month

October 25, 20189 Comments

Sandy and I do a lot of mailing back and forth through the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Since she lives in Upstate New York and I live in Central Ohio, it’s really the best (and least expensive!!!) way for us to pass projects back and forth.

Look what she just sent me! It was a big box of fabric for a project we started in August. I am a huge fan of all these beautiful grays, yellows, golds and creams. This box not only made my day, it made me the USPS October Fan of the Month!

Truth be told, Sandy hit a creative wall while trying to work out a new pattern design. I jumped at the chance to give it a try because the combination of these colors and fabrics will provide me with a great cold weather project.

Then, as luck would have it, I was at the Red Rooster Quilt Shop with my dear friend, MJ, when I stumbled across a scrap pack that had the same large floral fabric along with some other gray, black, yellow and cream fabrics. What a find!

Sandy, I’m working on it, I promise!

Well, I mean at least the fabric is out of the box and Norma has given it her sniff of approval!

Modern Piecing for a Cause

October 15, 20187 Comments

Good morning! It’s Cindy reporting in from Ohio.

I recently joined the Central Ohio Modern Quilt Guild and have met some incredibly talented quilters. This is a very active guild and the monthly meetings are full of inspiration.

Each year the guild chooses a community charity project, and for 2018, the Meals on Wheels program was adopted. Guild members make quilted placemats that are distributed to Meals on Wheels clients. These placemats are are great way to use miscellaneous scraps and left over quilt blocks to create small, modern quilt designs.

Below is the label each quilter/creator sews on the back of each placemat:

I was looking through a large bag of colorful scraps from my dear friend, MJ, AND wondered how I could put them to work. Then I started thinking about some of the leftover blocks I have from previous quilts. Hmmmm…the lightbulb in my head turned on.

Left over pieced blocks + lovely scraps = bright, bold placemats!

I need to practice my machine quilting skills and these placemats are the perfect size to machine quilt. I’ll add them to my “must finish” list for October.

I have plenty of leftover blocks to incorporate into some type of placemat design. Below are just a few random blocks…wouldn’t that cute fox face brighten someone’s day?

I hope you are still enjoying the sights and sounds of fall! Here’s another photo I snapped while walking in the park with Norma and Sadie.

Gasp…my thread broke!

October 1, 20186 Comments

Cindy here, reporting in from New York. The big GRAY BARN is in view through a misty rain. Mom, dad and I are just relaxing and hoping the sun will shine sometime today. Good thing I brought a few quilting projects with me!

A few months ago, Sandy scored big at an antique store…10 antique red and white Ohio Star blocks. These unfinished blocks measure 11 x 11 inches square.

I like how the blocks were pieced by hand, very special!

Sandy and I have created three different projects from these 10 blocks. You’ll see our feature project and pattern soon…Sandy is putting the finishing touches on it as we speak!

Meanwhile, since the blocks were pieced by hand, I thought I would hand quilt one block. I found a spool of red quilting cotton and a spool of cream quilting cotton in my vast thread stash and started quilting.

GASP…my thread broke over and over again!

Okay, so it took me awhile to admit my thread was the problem. Once I realized this…quilting thread stash went into the trash!

Question for our readers:

What is your favorite brand of hand quilting thread?

There are so many different threads to choose from, I definitely need some advice!

County Fair Extraordinaire

September 24, 2018Leave a comment

Hello! It’s Cindy hosting the blog today.

Last week, the Delaware County Fair was in progress here in Central Ohio and even with temperatures in the 90’s (not to mention the humidity level), it was a lot of fun!

Of course I have a quilt report for you! Here are some highlights:

The fabrics in this quilt spoke to me! The hand quilting made it even more special and as you can see, the judges thought so too!

These poinsettias were lovely and the applique was something I can only aspire to! Check out the cute little french knots in the center.

This quilt with batik fabric stems and leaves was just incredible! I could have studied it for hours, admiring the fabrics, the colors and the quilting.

I’m working on my own “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” quilt and so I spent time studying this. I always appreciate the antique quilt entries because we have so much to learn from the quilters of days gone by.

These embroidered blocks were beautiful on their own, but adding them to a quilt made them even more special. The outline quilting was precise and must have taken a lot of time.