2 charity quilts finished Yay!

A mom and her little girl, about a year and a half old, were in need of everything to set up house. They had escaped from an abusive situation, so my contribution was a couple of quilts. I used a few charity blocks, a lot of my blocks and fabric from my stash to make these 2 quilts. Both of them are green and pink and they both have 20 blocks with sashing in between. I thought the mom might think it was nice to have similar quilts. The little girl isn't going to be toddler size for long...you know how fast kids grow, so I made it a bit bigger and then each block is a bit different, kinda' like a super-easy "I Spy" quilt.
Look at the blocks in the mom's quilt. You just might recognize something you have sewn. If you see your block, let me know. I love to find my block in someone else's quilt, too. :o)
The embroidered blocks were drawn up by my very first Quilting Sister. I took one close-up, so that you can see what I'm talking about. They kept my hands occupied for many an hour and now they have the perfect home in this quilt. I hope the words are inspirational to a new single mom.

Wren and Ben both are old enough this Halloween to choose their costumes, so Wren was a princess
















and Ben was a pirate. What other costume can you get a cool sword with?

Jack 'o Lantern

When your kids get older, pumpkin carving takes on a whole new look. lol

Life has been too busy for blogging

It's been about a month since I posted. Since that time, school has been going on, both of my kids have started another year of college, my mom passed on and I've inherited the Elvis quilt that I made for her.
I've been slowly working on some quilty stuff, but not much. I have a top and backing of a Bob the Builder quilt done, for Ben. Now I just need to actually put it on the machine and quilt it.
Want to see it, so far?





My strip blocks are all sewn, but it's taking forever to get all the paper backing torn off. I think if I ever do this again, I'll sew onto a fabric foundation, so there's no ripping involved.

Patriot Day

We remember.

Wanna' see some of my string blocks?

Courtney, from an online group, asked to see the string blocks I mentioned, so I took a couple of photos. First, are some blocks in progress--


I sorted through my scraps and couldn't believe how many strings I had, so after having them boxed up only for about 2-3 months, it was time to make a string quilt. I had seen many of them on line and I think they are cool. Very scrappy and I know that I'm using up what others might consider "trash". I love making quilts out of "trash". LOL
I decided to use old phone book pages for the foundation and started sewing strips onto them. Then, I know when I have roughly the right size. After I get the whole page covered, I turn it over and trim the edges down, so that all the pages are the same size. For my phone book, I can cut an 8"x10" block.
Now, here are a few finished and trimmed blocks. When I get further along, I hope that I'll remember to post a quilt top photo.

Not getting much quilting done

Here is the view from my patio door now. Lovely, isn't it? We are ripping out the old rotting deck and it's a lot of work.



Rick and Jack working on ripping the foundation of the deck off of the house.



Here is a big pile of boards that have all the nails removed from them. My brother Jack and I were on nail detail. Most of these boards will be reused in another project. Making porch steps for the shed, as a floor in the wood shed and maybe even making some temporary steps to get out of the patio door.



Here is my brother that came over to help and reminded me how to get those stubborn nails out of rotting boards. Easier said than done, believe me!



Here is just another view, looking into the house.
We're making progress. :o)











And this is the 'Possum Patio. If you look close, you can see the the 2 cement blocks in front of the entry way. If I can get this fixed, maybe I won't have to use my possum trap anymore. Now, back to clean-up and with luck I'll get to work on my string blocks later tonight.