meet Jo Morton.............

meeting Jo Morton

Last summer I was lucky enough to take a hand piecing class with Jo Morton in Columbus. Some quilting friends and I sat together in her LeMoyne Star class and had a fun day. I began my quilting life hand piecing and it was nice to revisit
the technique. The sweet little quilt with the 5 stars is the one we were to work on in class. I managed to finish my stars after the class but have yet to make the
top. I must get back to that one sometime soon. Too many projects and too little time. If I could only work on some finishes and quit starting new projects.
A national quilter's lament, I'm sure.

A bonnie blue cheddar quilt

Last summer I was able to go to the AQS show in Columbus, Ohio and take a quilt class with Jo Morton that I will post pictures of later. When we took a lunch break
we were able to view the show and vendors. I am not one to look at quilts much at a show as I would rather see the variety of vendors and see what different quilty things they offer. Since this was a large show, I scoped quickly for the booths that
I wanted to see and took off working my way thru the crowds. Sometimes I wished for a long hat pin to stick in a few slow moving fannies, but I controlled myself and went with the crowd flow.

Bonnie Blue Quilts had the most stuning booth and went 3 or 4 times just to gaze and be mesmerized by their beautiful work. I feel for their navy blue and cheddar quilt and purchased the pattern and later the next week drove to Good Wives in Marion to buy the chedda! I have tons of navy blues to use and they worked so well in this. I love this quilt. I had it machine quilted and Good Wives even had it for viewing a while. My mom remarked when she saw all this cheddar that she wanted to lick her fingers off as she felt like she just ate a bag of cheese corn! How fun!

Pictures of Jo Morton late! Thunder storm outside and I want off the 'puter.

Happy April!

I decided to make the quilt from the book GONE TO TEXAS....................I love that book and quilt. Do you know with all those little pieces that quilt went together perfectly? How unusual is that?
Also started a quilt top that was my version of a quilt in the book CLASSIC QUILTS FROM THE AMERICAN MUSEUM IN BRITIAN.
On page 30 there is a great 9 patch strip quilt from the early 1800's that I loved.
I wish there was a reproduction fabric of the border print. Decided to make up my own pattern and used civil war prints in the one I made. I'm happy with the end results. This is a jumbled quilt in the book and the one I made but being goofy from surgery, it was a good project to work on. Both were machine quilted by a friend and I am enjoying them.

Quilt top finishes

Posting a few completed quilt top pictures. Actually my Bunny Hill BOM is even quilted and bound. All finished! And the tiny basket blocks from the book, When the Cold Wind Blows is all put together and has been for awhile. I don't know when I will get to the hand quilting............I do dread basting this one together and may have to question some machine quilters I know if it is possible to have this one basted on a long arm to ease my aching body. I like every part of making a quilt, except basting the large tops. Not a fan!

I see I did not follow thru on my plan of being a better blogger. Need to remedy that. I have found that some of the blogs I do follow also have not been steady bloggers. Have also found that pictures of projects make a blog better, too. I need the visuals.

How sad............

that it is now Easter and it has taken me this long to blog about my quilting. And I promised to be better. Let's promise again....

Family has left for their homes so I settled in to read quilt blogs a few minutes ago and read about one of my favorite subjects on Barbara Brackman's blog: centennial fabrics. I don't know how to do the link thing on here, but you can google her name and hopefully find her link. Today she blogged about centennial fabrics, the originals and the reproductions. I was drooling. Decided I would post a picture of my top that I am hand quilting at the moment as she mentioned a link to a centennial quilt that I am making a copy of. I have collected different pieces for a few years and have added to that collection lately with new repros that have come out this year.............a lot from this same antique quilt. It is a great fabric study of antique patriotic fabrics. I have loved working on mine. My blocks are 9" and on some I followed the layout of the original quilt where I had the look alike repro's. On blocks I didn't, I used something else patriotic and on some blocks I made up my own stripes to look similar to the original. Also added an extra row at the bottom.

I had a great time making this top. It is simple and a good break from applique work. The hand quilting is also simply done on this and I am maybe half way thru.

A fun project with all the look alike fabrics that are out. I will still be looking for old looking patriotic fabrics to use in more quilts.

Now if I can just be a better blogger...............

Primitive Turkey quilt top

This quilt top was finished by me a few weeks ago. With the calendar showing August is half over, I figured it's time to get this basted and begin the hand quilting if I want to enjoy it this Thanksgiving. This is a Country Threads pattern. I love it. Finding primitive Thanksgiving decorating ideas can be problematic and when I saw this pattern.....well, it was one that had to be made. It will also help me in my guild challenge. In February, we had to list all unfinished projects and try to finish as many as possible by next February. I listed 7 UFO's and this is my final one. This is a great guild challenge idea. Hope we do it again next year. My little baskets quilt would qualify then but who knows if I could get that finished even next year. It's a huge project!