Kansas Troubles

Block #5 of Civil War 150. I have never been to Kansas. Love the look of this block although putting it together can be a bit troublesome!

Midnight Stars Top is Finished

I spent several delightful hours yesterday and today putting together my Midnight Stars top. It all came together beautifully and I am pleased with the result. A couple tips: I squared up and trimmed the 5 1/2" pieced blocks before sewing them to the setting squares and triangles. I also pinned A LOT when assembling the blocks. I like Lori's idea of the hanging diamonds quilt design and will probably use it myself.

Basting My Quilt on a Snowy Day

I finally got around to basting my Rainbow Surprise quilt. I've decided to hand quilt it the old-fashioned way, with straight lines. No marking necessary and masking tape is my friend!

P.S. Happy Birthday, Rebecca!

Texas Tears

Block #4 of Civil War 150. I had forgotten how much I love making sampler quilts. Each block is a new challenge!

Midnight Stars, Corrected

Oops! Thank you so much to Lori, who very kindly corrected my arrangement of Midnight Stars. The cheddar squares go with the red triangles and vice versa. Fortunately, I had only sewn the inner star blocks which meant I only had to rip out one of those and replace cheddar with red. Whew! Of course, as Lori pointed out, I could have kept it the other way...but I think this way looks better, don't you?

Midnight Stars, In Progress

I worked on Lori's Midnight Stars over the weekend. It's coming together nicely, as you can see. I agree with Lori - snipped off points don't bother me too much!

Temperatures have been in the 20s here in the nation's capital. That's cold for us! I try to take a (short) walk outside every day but mostly I've been home sewing. My plan for today is to baste my Rainbow Surprise 4-block quilt (see post on January 1st) and get it ready for hand-quilting.

7 Sisters

Here is the third block in Barbara Brackman's Civil War 150 quilt. I machine-appliqued it. I thought about hand-appliqueing it, but not for very long.

Midnight Stars

I've been working on a few other projects and was anxious to start on Lori's quilt-a-long, Midnight Stars. I finally got it in gear and here it is so far, on my wall. The pieces are not sewn together, just arranged where they are meant to go. We had ice last night and this morning so no school today.

Cardinal in Snowy Tree & North Star Block

What was happening outside today...

And what was happening inside.

January is great for sewing!

Kathleen's Nickel Quilt

A group of us got together last Wednesday to put together and tie this quilt for our friend, Kathleen, who is very ill. The pattern is Baby Nickels from a book called Loose Change. It is made from 5" squares of 1930's reproduction fabrics.

Civil War Quilt - 1st Installment

Barbara Brackman has started a Civil War Quilts blog and will be posting a new block pattern each Saturday. This is the first installment, entitled "Catch Me If You Can." I was pondering how to commemorate the Civil War Sesquicentennial quilt-wise and this is perfect! Thank you to Barbara who has done so much to keep our quilting history and tradition alive.

1-1-11

A project for the new year. This is my four-block quilt top, made for my Tuesday group's Rainbow Surprise challenge. We each picked two paint chips at random and had to make something (anything) using those two colors. My colors were "American Beauty" and "Daisy" - a rosy red and a bright yellow. I had always liked four-block quilts and this is the result. I'm planning to hand-quilt it sometime during 2011. Happy New Year!