Hello again from South Texas and this time a more positive post!  YEA!

I have been working on Alexander Bean Pot quilt by Carol Hopkins in her book Civil War Legacies.  I have done an additional 4 blocks, with 20 more remaining.  They are 5” unfinished and when I finish the 20 I will have 4 blocks of each color with a total of 64 blocks.   I finished 2 of the red and beige and 2 of the black and white.

In getting back to my applique work, I finished one block for Jacobean Holiday.  I have 2 other small blocks to finish and then 3 large blocks and then it will be time to put the blocks together!  This one has been in the making probably 9 years due to the lack of interest.  I found the other finished blocks in my UFO bin.

I have started on Mary Brown after purchasing tons of new reproduction fabrics.  They will all be used in this quilt.  I have the 16 corner blocks prepared and will be working toward getting 8 blocks completed by the end of the month!  It is really feeling good to be back on schedule for November.

Here is Mary Brown – Block 1 of the top left quadrant section!

This was my original bird but I just was not happy after seeing purple instead of black in the fabric (new eyes help)!  LOL

Goal for this week is to finish up with Alexander blocks and work on Sweet Stitches, Mary Brown, and Jacobean Holiday.  There are so many other quilts that I would love to start working on, but I really want to finish up my UFO’s and catch up on Mary Brown!

Have a great week!

Nanette

Linking To:  My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away;  Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts;  Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Slow Sunday Stitching  Quilt Fabrication Mid Week Makers; Peacock Party

Greetings from great weather in South Texas! Looks like we just might have a very nice winter and it is welcomed after 4 months of 100 degrees plus!

This has been a great week for me – totally over all ill effects, and energy level back to 100%! What a blessing.

I have finished Block 6 of Sweet Stitches! Yea I finished something.

This is the first time that I worked with the chain stitch and it really made the “Liberty” stand out!

Status on Celebrating Mary Brown: I spent a couple of days washing and ironing fabrics and yesterday I spent the day working on Mary Brown. I have a great Reproduction stash now to pull from for this quilt. Corliss Searcy used so many greens in this quilt and I am trying to spread the colors out and incorporate some light and darks in the same family colors, but just not as dark! It will be fun to work with the fabrics and see if I can do scrappy. I tend to look at the color and design and most scrappy quilters look only at the color! Maybe this will help me look at both but color first!

Today will be to finish “re-preparing” the pieces for all 16 blocks that I will be doing first. Each of the 4 corners of this quilt are connected with the vines and I want to be able to tie other blocks with the colors in each corner. Now this may not work out that way, but at least I will not be having to wrestle with matching things when sewing on the vines!

After I finish the 4 corners, I will probably go back to Block 3 and do a couple of blocks a month! Will also be working on Block 7 with Sweet Stitches. I would like to have this quilt finished by the end of the year.

Status on Alexander Bean Pot Quilt: Poor Alexander – he is currently being ignored! Those 24 blocks that are waiting to be sewn together are still sitting there. I will start working on them as soon as Mary Brown preparation is completed.

Enduring Legacy – Revisited: OK – Remember this Fiasco with Enduring Legacy? Interesting it was the day before we found out that we needed Cataract Surgery! Well, I plan on incorporating quilting this puppy this month. Any bets???

A quick note on my visit to the monthly Friday UFO sew day at a quilt store in San Antonio. All I have to say is that I prefer being with Clay and being in my Studio and will give up on the idea that there are sister quilters for me in San Antonio! Enough said.

Please take time to visit the HQAL quilters’ links below. We have 3 new additions – Bella, Daisey, and Connie is back again! Yea!

Happy Veterans Day week-end and please thank a Veteran for their service to our Country! I am looking forward to a highly productive week catching up from the last 90 days!

NANETTE

Linking To:  My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away;  Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts;  Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Slow Sunday Stitching  Quilt Fabrication Mid Week Makers; Peacock Party 

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Susan,  Nanette,  Edith, Sharon, Karrin, Connie, Bella, Gretchen, Daisey , Kathie.

Greetings from now Spring South Texas (at least for 2 days). We have 2 cold fronts heading our way on Thursday and then a big one on Monday! My kind of weather!

There is a quilt store in San Antonio that has a UFO sit and sew on Tuesdays and then on Fridays once a month in which you pay $5.00 to sew with a group of quilters. I am going to attend the Friday group as it will provide me an opportunity to be around others with the same interest. I love blogging, but I miss the interaction with other humans. I love living in the country where it is so peaceful, but will enjoy being around quilters for a change.

In the meantime, I am trying to get back in the groove with my projects and having a difficult time thanks to the Steroid eye drops.

I am also waiting for additional fabrics to arrive for Celebrating Mary Brown so I can continue on with fabric selection. In the meantime for my evening project I picked up Block 7 of Sweet Stitches by Kathy Schmitz to work on.

I started this project in the 2015 timeframe but have only completed 6 blocks – there are 12 total in the BOM. The blocks are embroidered in black thread and with each month block fabric was provided to frame it with. This will make a neat quilt when I get with the program and work harder to pick up where I was in September on my UFO’s. Additionally I am hoping that being around other quilters with the same interest in quilting that my desire to quilt again will come back!

The Etc.! After 2 months, all is finished with the Cataract game of life! The drops gave me a lot of issues the last month – especially the Steroids. Now I am just dealing with the withdrawals of the Steroid eye drops. Hopefully I will begin to feel better by Friday. But I am off of them (threw the bottle away yesterday – 2 days early). My vision is fine, just need reading glasses but the dry eye will need more time to get better! I was having issues with the right eye — burning when I used the Systane for dry eye. I had my last check up from surgeries yesterday and told Dr Young about the issue with the right eye – would you believe that 3 eye lashes (bottom) were turning in and rubbing my eye!!! She took care of that and things are really getting better now – just dealing with the aftermath of getting off the steroid drops.

I will snap back soon. Have a wonderful day and enjoy stitching!

Nanette

Happy Sunday from South Texas where the weather has been absolutely perfect AND I got my hour back! Double Yea! This week we will warm up to the high 70’s but then later in the week it will cool off! Yea! I am back in the groove of walking and trying to lose the stupid 4 pounds that the steroids gave me!

My goal for November is to work on 2 projects this month and hopefully finish Alexander Bean Pot (ABP) and catch up with the other ladies on Celebrating Mary Brown. Here is where I am on ABP – 40 blocks completed!

Here is what I need to finish – making 2 more of the top 12 blocks. (Excuse the leaning tower of pizza on the right – I could not get them straight!) LOL

When I began this project (cannot remember when) I made 4 each of the same fabrics, a total of 16 blocks. But, alas, when I started to make more of the blocks I only made 2 of each fabric before I realized that I should have cut out 4 of each fabric color way. SO, I have now cut out 24 more blocks to have 4 of each color! They are ready to be sewn, but first I have to draw that diagonal line on 384 each on the 1 1/4″ squares for the square in a square 2″ corner blocks!

That will be done today. Hopefully the day will go quietly and I will have a few of the blocks completed. This is not a difficult block – 5″ unfinished, 4 1/2″ unfinished! It is a Carol Hopkins pattern.

Now to move to my evening project Celebrating Mary Brown. I am 2 months behind the group, but am sure by the end of November that I will be back on track! Check out the links below for our SAL.

Before the C surgery I had selected fabrics, traced all blocks (16 for the corner blocks of the quilt) and thought I was ready to appliqué. I appliquéd the red bird and flower for the first block, BUT with the new eyes I realized that there was some purple in the red bird and had a difficult time really matching the colors for my flowers. Plus this was not a reproduction fabric.

Moving along, I tried another fabric.

When I started working with this choice I ran into the same issue – it I not a reproduction fabric and I started having fabric selection issues.

So what does a quilter do when the reproduction stash does not have enough reds, greens, and yellows? YES! Go shopping on line or at a shop! I chose on-line. Jan and I got together on the phone and did some virtual shopping for those colors. Here are the results of this shopping spree (justification in doing this was “it is my 75th birthday present”).

This is a fat quarter bundle that I had on hand called Hope’s Journey.

Here are the fabrics that I found on-line.

I also purchased a French General fat quarter bundle called Chafarcani. I do not have any of the French General line in my stash, so this will be a held for a special project – UNLESS…

For my “pre-birthday gift” I purchased a couple of fat quarter bundles of Thankful. I did not realize that there was a Turkey panel included, I just love the Autumn colors and Quilt in a Day had a great sale on them – how could I resist?

My buddy Jaydee gave me a great gift certificate for my birthday and of course I found a sale on Hancocks of Paducah and am now waiting on that delivery – yup – more reproduction fabrics AND some beautiful blue and white fat quarter bundles! I am thinking I will use the blues for a star pattern that I want to make…. When you ask? Maybe 2020!

Hoping all have a wonderful day and great week. I know I will as I am back to my favorite things in life – enjoying time with Clay and making quilts and doing my daily routine of walking 1.5 miles each morning – Life is good – peaceful and quiet!

Nanette

Linking To:  My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away;  Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts;  Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Slow Sunday Stitching  Quilt Fabrication Mid Week Makers; Peacock Party Kevin

This September Karen and Cathy selected Celebrating Mary Brown as their next project and invited anyone to join in the fun!  The following quilters are participating.  We will be showing completed blocks on the 30th of each month!  Take the time to visit them to see their completed monthly blocks!  If interested let Karen know you are interested in joining the group.

South Texas is finally experiencing some lovely wintertime – EARLY! There is nothing like having a cold front come in for your birthday! YUP I am a Scorpio and a Witch (born 2 minutes to Midnight on Halloween)! Proud of it – LOL – just think everyone celebrates my birthday!

I am now back to life in the real retirement world! All through with the Cataract Surgeries (both Clay and I) and glad it was done, with the exception of the horrible drops that one has to use for 30 days. Of course I had problems with 2 and had to quit them and only have 5 more days to put one drop in the left eye! Then I will get some new reading glasses which will take care of the Astigmatism problem.

IN THE MEANTIME, I did finish one goal for the month of October – I now have 40 blocks completed for Alexander Bean Pot quilt.

You will notice that the lower 16 blocks I made 4 of each block colorway. Then I decided to pick up where I had left off and only made 2 each of the remaining 24. I JUST finished them this month (real whiz kid here). So I have decided to continue on and make an additional 24 blocks to fill in the blanks. Sorry for the leaning tower of blocks – cannot seem to get it straight.

I had planned on getting the 24 cut out today, but instead I escorted the Exterminator around, and then decided to do the 1st of the month check balancing. So I may only get a few done.

Now on Mary Brown update! I have 16 blocks ALMOST ready to work on, BUT then I decided I needed to find some more greens, blues, reds, and yellows to use. (Plus it was difficult to make good decisions on colors with the surgeries). It will be November before I can catch up with the other ladies.

Jan finished her second corner (4 blocks less the pineapple block due to issues that too precedent over Mary). She does such beautiful work!

Have a great day and enjoy the Halloween Candy!

Nanette

This September Karen and Cathy selected Celebrating Mary Brown as their next project and invited anyone to join in the fun!  The following quilters are participating.  We will be showing completed blocks on the 30th of each month!  Take the time to visit them to see their completed monthly blocks!  If interested let Karen know you are interested in joining the group.