Month: December 2018

UPDATE UPDATE!    I have been wanting to show what I received from Gretchen around Christmas time!  A Boston Commons quilt will be on my 2019 list and Gretchen sent me the pattern from the Amish, along with a great stencil for hand quilting, and a homemade Needle Book!  How special am I.  Thank you Gretchen I have been forgetting to post this.  

I remember when Gretchen was working on them.  Takes a lot of time to make these hand-made gifts and any that I receive are so appreciated!  I am looking forward to making a Boston Commons with this pattern.  Gretchen’s turn out so pretty I hope I can pick the colors that will really pop!

For my HQAL post click here HQAL 30 Dec 2018

Happy Last 2018 Sunday!  I am further along with Brinton Hall, it is winter time here in South Texas (at least for a few days after reaching 77 degrees last week), closer to my weight goal, and A1C is getting mucho lower!  YEA.  What else could I ask for to end 2018!  I am so looking forward to 2019!  I have 3 days to complete Brinton Hall and am afraid that I may need another day or so to reach that goal, we shall see.   I have finished the first border (Floating Stars – 6″ blocks) and working on the 2nd border (Square in as Square 3″ blocks).  I am not counting the black borders, I call them the ‘framing’ of a quilt – a way to progress to different borders.  There will be one more black border on the other side of the SnS block border.  I am pleasantly surprised as to how this puppy is turning out.  I am rather happy that I did not finish this quilt in 2015 when I started it.  The creativity just was not there!

Check out my July 2015 Posts to see the beginnings of my Brinton Hall journey and how I am changing the look entirely – purely by accident of course!  LOL

In 2015, I started Enduring Love by Carol Hopkins using a Judy Rothermel Sturbridge fabric and it was a disaster, I gave all the fabric away to a local Church.  While looking through the July 2015 posts for Brinton Hall, I ran across this Post where I was having issues with the project.  I believe that I am going to redo the border and figure out why the stars did not work now that I am out of the stress box and getting back to normal.  I would love to have this project look better.  I have plenty of Reproduction fabrics that will blend with the Sturbridge fabric line.  This will be a called – Revisiting Enduring Love!

I love New Year’s.  It is a time to be able to start over and attempt to make it a life changing year!  I remember New Year’s Day of 1993!  That year was the beginning of a year that changed the course and direction of my life.  It was the beginning that led me to where I am now, happily married to a great guy who puts up with my Type A personality and stupid health issues!  But I feel that 2019 will be a wonderful year for us!  I do hope each the same for all!

I will try to post the progress of Brinton Hall in her final stages as I work towards completion of my 2018 UFO projects (well OK – let’s not count the hand work projects, i.e., Bountiful Life (2015) Dresden Plates (2018) and Stonefields (2015).  But they will be on the top of the list for 2019!

Have a wonderful week-end and a save New Years’ Eve!  Check out the HQAL Quilters to see progress on their projects.

Kathy, Lori, Kerry, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Connie, Deborah,  Susan, Jessisca, Sherry, Nanette, Sassy, Edith, Sharon Grethen and Karrin

Nanette

Linking To:  My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Sew Can She; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away; Fiber Tuesday;    Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHOW; Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts;  Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Show and Tell Monday with Bambi; Quilt Fabrication

Merry Christmas to all!  Can you believe in 7 days it will be 1 January 2019????  Time to select those projects for 2019, but first I have 7 days to finish Brinton Hall.  Tomorrow I will decide on whether or not to add 2 more borders or just one.  Thinking it will be 2 and hopefully I can complete it by the 1st of January!  This one is definitely be entered into a couple of Quilt Shows!

Here is Brinton Hall with Border Number 1 (am not counting the 1” black border).  I am so pleased with the outcome.  I am changing the borders from the original quilt and letting the colors in the Medallion speak to me as to what will come next!

Have a wonderful day and if you are on an extended vacation – Enjoy and I do hope Santa was good to all!

Nanette

Merry Christmas and blessings to all for a wonderful New Year that is around the corner!  So far we are doing fine and staying from the Flu this year!  Curbside service from HEB is wonderful!  I have lost another 2 pounds and my A1C has dropped to a ‘pre-diabetic’ level!  Now to lose another 12 pounds and I should be doing even better.  It is amazing, more energy and all of those illusive ‘symptoms’ are gone since I have eliminated Potato Chips, Cough Drops and Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses and keeping Carb count to under 30g or 40g a day.  Along with my daily walk it has paid off!  American Diabetics Association (ADA) has helped me the most in understanding how to manage Diabetes, and a great source for guidance and information!

Yesterday was a full day of cleaning the house!  I really need to find another House Cleaner who will stick with it and come once a month.  I bought a brand new Oreck vacuum cleaner (my 3rd one) which was over 8 years old.    Oreck makes a great machine and this one is much easier to push!  So Clay and I have made our ‘domestic’ chores a little easier for us.  Next week we have hired someone to clean the carpeting, so the house will be totally clean for 2019!

Now on to Brinton Hall!  I have finished sewing the Medallion to the background piece.  I chose to cut out muslin and then use the remainder of the light cream for the border.  I (either accidentally or stupidly) sewed the last row to the Medallion rather than separating it from the Center.  Either way, I like my boo boo!  The entire Medallion is basted to the background to prevent any of the large centers from stretching.

Today will start the work on adding the next border which is to be a plain black border which will frame the Medallion.  The next border will be Floating Stars that I worked on last week.  They are all ready to be added to the Medallion.

My color selections for the remaining borders were selected from the fabric colors in the Medallion.  This is how they will look as a border.

This is the fabric that I will use in the first block border,

I feel that this quilt will be completed shortly and in the timeframe I wanted it completed into a flimsy!

Now to my Santa gifts!  Pam Buda has designed Fussy Cut Rulers that caught my eye.  They are pricy, but great!         I happened upon Quilt In A Day sale for fat quarters, jelly rolls, and 10” layer cakes.  They were priced very low so I splurged!  This line is from Kaufman and has a panel with 6 blocks included.  I have only done one quilt using panels, but it turned out surprisingly nice.  This fabric line is probably old, but who cares, it was priced right!

Then I found the pattern that Kaufman for Terracina fabric line.  I will probably not use it, but it the line is so pretty.  

As soon as I complete Brinton Hall I will be working on my 2019 Projects List.  There are so many I want to make but I must TRY to be realistic (LOL).

Nanette

Linking To:  My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Sew Can She; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away; Fiber Tuesday;    Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHOW; Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts;  Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Show and Tell Monday with Bambi; Quilt Fabrication

Good morning to all and only 2 days until Santa Arrives!  Santa arrived early here in South Texas for us.  Upon return from Arizona, it seemed that every tree had shed its’ leaves.  The extreme freeze that hit our area while in Sierra Vista evidently helped them to fall all at once rather than different times of the winter.  So Santa sent Clay this toy to help him with this monumental job that he has every year – A Leaf and Lawn Vacuum.  You can see the leaves in this picture.

Now for the benefits of having a vacuum cleaner for leaves!

We have 95 Pine Trees on our property along with many many other trees.  We have 5 acres and live on about an acre of that.  Taking care of that acre is a lot of work for Clay, so he deserved this machine.

Have a great Sunday – now on to doing a ‘real’ quilting post!

Nanette

Happy Sunday! The weather here in South Texas is my favorite. 40 to 50 degrees and 60’s for a few days and then cold again! A real Texas winter.

I have FINALLY finished the Medallion for Brinton Hall. There are a few more hexagons that will need to be added at the top to even it out. Compared to the others 5 more is nothing. My hands just are not made for EPP!

Tomorrow I will decide how I will do the next border and the blocks. I will not follow the original pattern. Only pieced blocks. I am so ready to do that and let my hands rest. Applique and piecing blocks (no paper piecing) is much easier than EPP.

Another finish is Mountmellick. I decided to make mine a Mini-Mellick. I am so happy to have completed this quilt as far as I want to go with it!

I feel that I can complete Brinton Hall by the end of this month. I would love to have it finished by Christmas. I will have met my goals for finishing all UFO’s from prior years. Only 3 Applique projects will be carried over to 2019. YEA!

Have a wonderful Sunday.

Nanette

I thought that I would take some time to show my UFO quilt projects (they are all in flimsy stage along with the 2 quilts this year I quilted) that I have completed this year.  If I can finish Brinton Hall by the end of the month I will have finished 10 quilts.  The only UFOs that remain or completions of Stonefields (5 more chapters to complete), A Bountiful Life (about 13 more blocks), and applique my Dresden Plates to back ground fabric and sew together!  So based on this, I will TRY to not start anymore applique projects until I have completed the 3 hold overs from 2016-2018!

I am so happy that I have accomplished all of my UFO’s.  Now to just finish Brinton Hall!

To close, God Bless President George H. W. Bush and may he Rest In Peace!  What a testament to this President as a Man!  A wonderful person who had so many friends who loved him and he loved them back!  God be with the family and especially GW and Laura Bush as they have suffered the loss of both loving parents and in-laws within 8 months.

Nanette

Good afternoon from South Texas where it is cloudy and humid and 60 degrees.  In a couple of days (after the rain) we will then receive a cold front.  This is definitely quilting weather!  This morning after our walk, we decided to try out a new restaurant in La Vernia area (about 5 miles from us).  They have great Mexican food and were able to fix my eggs and for a treat I had a serving of their retried beans.  For me this was so wonderful to be close to a Restaurant without having to drive 35 miles to an IHOP!  Clay had Soft Taco’s and they looked so good and not greasy like the other Mexican Restaurant that we normally go to.  Their food has gone down in quality the last year or so.  Rumor has it that it will be taken over by another owner – hope they bring the food quality up.

So far I have shed 15 pounds.  Our scales went belly up early this week, although I really liked what they were doing!  It would give you the weight that was accurate, the jump to 6 pounds lower!  Clay thought he was 6 pounds lighter until the scales did it to me.  I had to break the news to Clay – darn!  We will find out tomorrow when the new scales arrive!  Maybe I have lost a few more.  My goal is to lose at least 10 more pounds and would like to lose at least 3 more before the 17th when I go back for repeated blood work!  Now back to quilting!

I have been determined to finish the last 2 UFOs by the end of December and yesterday I finished my version of Mountmellick.  I will call it “Mini-Mellick”.   It will not qualify for a Show quilt because I decided to put my remaining time on Brinton Hall as that project will qualify to show in the San Antonio Show in September 2019.  I have decided to add 4 more 1/2” hexagon flowers for the corner blocks but if I do they will be made from the black fabric I used on the black border.   I should be able to fussy cut them and they will fill in the “blank” area.  (The quilt is square, but the picture did not come out that way!)

The other day I was looking at the sale at The Stencil Company for quilting stencils.  After ordering a few, I looked through my “stencil stash” and low and behold – I found this group of blocks that were made in 2002 when I first started appliqueing.  This is a Sue Garman pattern called Yuletide that was designed in 1998 and distributed by Quakertown Quilts in Friendswood, Texas.  I believe that this was before Sue started her own business!  The shop is permanently closed now so I have a wonderful piece of history along with many other patterns purchased from Quackertown Quilts designed by Sue Garman.  I am ‘thinking’ that Mama Said is going to be on my 2019 list!   This was before I started investing in “real” quilt fabrics.  I would like to make another quilt, but will put this one together because it is one of my first applique projects.

Here is the pattern:

Next on the list is to finish my Brinton Hall.  I am hoping to finish it into a flimsy by         31 December 2018!   This would bring my UFO finishes to 10!  I will do another post on my progress!

I did forget to add 2 pictures from the Van Horn Cattle Company Restaurant in Van Horn, Texas where we had supper on the way home from Arizona.  Van Horn is a very small town and to find such a wonderful place to have a quiet supper (except for the screaming 2-year-old).  After listening to the child scream as her younger sister kept egging her on I took myself over to the table and politely asked the Grandmother to please quiet the child as her screams went right through me!  Clay slid under the table, but it stopped the screeching!  LOL

The employees had just finished decorating for Christmas and I meant to share the pictures with you on my previous post.  Such a beautiful Christmas Tree!   This should get you in the spirit of the Season!

Have a wonderful week-end and enjoy working on your projects!

Nanette