Hancock’s of Paducah – Chopin – A Passionate Quilter From Texas

November 7, 2019

More Eye Candy and I am Back!

Evening! We in South Texas are now getting a cold front that will bring cooler temperatures and the ‘promise’ of some rain (will believe it when I see it here). Tomorrow it will be in the 40’s. My kind of weather! The colder the better!

The depression from the lovely steroid eye drops is G-O-N-E! I am back 100% and today was the 2nd day of happy! I am behind 2 months in my UFOs and new projects, but I now have high hopes that I will be caught up in the next week or something and back on schedule!

I have clocked 18 days straight walking my 1.5 miles each morning. Boy those first 3 days were hard after the Cataract vacation, but I just kept pushing. Before the “C” mess, I had just achieved my 20 minute mile goal, and finally I am getting there again! As you can tell, I am back to normal!

I have achieved over 13,000 steps the last 2 days – ironing really adds to those steps along with going back and forth from the House to the Studio and washing all the fabrics that I purchased for my Reproduction stash!

The fabrics below are from the Temecula fabric line. They are absolutely what I needed for Mary Brown and other quilts in the que!

This is a beautiful yellow that I found and will be using in Mary Brown. I did not have a lot of yellows.

I purchased fat quarters of Abigail Blues that are absolute beautiful. I ordered 3 sets of the fat quarters and then ordered some more of the light fabric (2nd one from the left). I will wait and hand wash these because even though all the other fat quarters were washed in a laundry bag in the machine, I have never seen so many threads!

Today I finished the majority of the ironing after a marathon day of 6 hours of pressing fat quarters and yardage! I will finish it all tomorrow after going to the “get together group” at the Mesquite Bean Quilt Shop in San Antonio.

Sharon asked me to provide her the links to the shops where I purchase my fabrics on-line and then thought that maybe others would be interested. I did a search for fabrics on Etsy and found great fabrics from the following 3 shops:

Bellatique Fabrics

This Old Fabric Store

Boston Fabric Stash .

Web Fabrics. I have been dealing with Carly since 2003 when she started her business or at least it was when I found her. Sign up for her newsletter as she has a weekly special each week. I have almost every color of Moda Marbles and all were purchased from Carly. If you purchase a certain amount of fabrics you will always get a discount

Hancock’s of Paducah – Sign up for their newsletter for daily specials and good sales.

I will admit that I do comparison shopping. If I find a fabric line I like, I will check all of my sources or google the fabric line. Amazon is beginning to sell fabrics but sometimes the price is too high and I can find it cheaper on other on-line quilt sites.

Hopefully by Sunday I will have some progress on Mary Brown and Sweet Stitches to show for our HQAL!

Have a great week-end and holiday on Monday if you still are in the working world.

Nanette

September 9, 2016

Rowdy Flats Library Quilt and Betsy’s Basket Fabric

Happy Friday! We are still enjoying the lovely hot and humid weather. But no complaints because we have received 30″ of rain on our hill this summer and the majority of it was in August. Our planned trip to Choctaw Casino has now been delayed until October! Life’s unforeseen requirements have gotten in the way – darn it! But there is always a reason for everything good or bad, so we just go on. At least it will be cooler in October (fingers crossed).

Last week I was searching for toille fabric for the Rowdy Flat Library Quilt. I had found a very nice piece on Etsy, but waited too long to make the purchase. One of the Blogs I follow was talking about some fabric from Robert Kaufman called Betsy’s Basket by Darlene Zimmerman.

This fabric has a very nice toille in red, navy, and blue denim. I found a fat quarter bundle on Etsy, some of the darker blues at the Fat Quarter Shop, and the shirting and red toille at Hancocks of Paducah. Thought you might like to see the nice colorways. I think that with this stash and what I already have on hand it will make a nice Rowdy Flats Quilt. This will be a 2017 project.

It has been a “no quilting/sewing” week for me. It is going to be a “slow quilting/sewing” week-end. Have a great week-end and happy stitching and quilting!

November 22, 2015

Farmer’s Wife 1930 Sampler and Me

In October I posted the story about me doing a “dum-dum” by not realizing that there was a new Farmer’s Wife Book! I joined a Quilt a Long with Marti Michell, Fat Quarter Shop and Gnomeangel Blogger for the Farmers Wife 1930’s Sampler (not the 1920). Marti provides conversion charts for the blocks that will be rotary cut and Fat Quarter shop provides a kit (fabrics). Since then, I have changed to Very Kerry Berry Farmers Wife Quilt Along. Kerry is starting from Block One in the Book rather than skipping around. I am providing both sites in case someone would like to start this project. Both provide 2 blocks each week. Of course by now I am behind 20 blocks, and by tomorrow 22! (LOL). The blocks provide challenges to all quilters. I am going to do a mix – rotary cutting and paper-piecing (see how long this lasts).

Today I am determined to start this project. Any bets? I wanted to show my fabric selection for this project. I purchased some fat eighths from Westwood Acres Fabric and all the fat quarters from Calico Annies. The background fabrics are Bella Solids from Hancocks of Paducah . I am not going to spend the time in trying to wash them so keep your fingers crossed – it is the first time I will make a quilt without washing the fabric.

1930 Fabric Background Fabrics — Background Fabric

I would like to end this short Blog wishing each and all a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. Please keep the families of the victims of France and Russia Terrorist attacks in your prayers. We all have many things to be thankful for but the main one is our Freedom. My prayer is that our great Nation CAN and WILL somehow remain safe from further attacks until 20 January 2017!!! HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY TO ALL.

July 4, 2014July 4, 2014

Happy 4th of July!!!!!

I hope that all are enjoying your family and/or friends for a great celebration of the United States of America. Our wonderful Country is having some hard times now, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel!!!!

Darryl is doing well with the Chemo and we are enjoying spending time with him here, at his home, and a lot of phone conversations. We have decided that Darryl and I are two peas in a pod – we laughed about that last night on one of our 2 hour phone calls. He is an absolute Hoot! So funny and both of us are the Perfectionists and Big Worry Warts and absolutely hate taking medicine! We cherish all the minutes that we have with him!

Now back to my quilting progress. This last Monday I had the feeling that this was going to be a great week and it has been. I have kept my promise of doing my 1.5 miles each morning – yes here in South Texas we get to walk even in the 90+ degree weather with about the same for humidity. Hoping that this summer brings us tons of rain. I believe that this just may be the year that we get a Hurricane in the Gulf and that it will be South of us and we will get out of this horrible drought. Terrible to have to want that….

I have now caught up with Barbara Brackman’s Threads of Memory, Pat Sloan’s Globetrotting, and so excited about Rosemary Youngs Happy Scrappy BOM! Austen Family and I are still debating what to do. That debate and struggle will start in the morning, or may be Sunday as we have company coming tomorrow.

Of course all my favorite shops are having 4th of July sales – Sylvia Pippin, Hancock’s of Paducah, and Paper Pieces. They now have my money. (LOL).

My creative streak has finally returned. AND, I have finally figured how to make sure a block comes out to the EXACT unfinished size! Below is a picture of the center star of Block 6 of Threads of Memory. When I cut out the star points I added 1/16″ to the cutting measurements and GUESS WHAT —— A PERFECT 6 1/2″ SQUARE STAR………….. Now it is not easy to get that measurement if you do not like math, but being the one who loves math, I finally figured out how to make a 12 1/2″ block come out square also!

Block 6 Threads of Memory — Final Block 6 – This is one of my favorites – Heck – the are all my favorites!

Here is a “group picture” of my finished Blocks for Threads of Memory:

B 1-6 Threads of Memory — Threads of Memory – Blocks 1 through 6

Now on to Pat Sloan’s Globetrotting BOM. I am probably repeating myself, but Pat is one after my own quilting heart because she allows for that extra fabric when making Half Square Triangles ( HSTs!) By doing this in her directions, making her blocks are a sure thing when having the block come out to the 10 1/2″ x 10 1/2″ No time wasted here! Thx Pat!

Block 7 - Globetrotting BOM — Block 7 – Pat Sloan’s Globetrotting BOM for 2014

How about let’s go to Rosemary Young’s Happy Scrappy BOM. I am learning so much from Rosemary. She has really challenged me by taking on all of my projects and through working on her Happy Scrappy. My design and creativity potential is coming out with this project. I selected some fabrics that I had in my stash from 2009. It was a Moda fabric line called Ruby’s Flower Garden and Summer Flower Garden. Of course, as always, I had another project in mind when I purchased it. I was going to do an applique project with the fabric, so I only purchased 1/3 of a yard of the fabric line. I did purchase 2 yards of the focus fabric and that was a good thing. Here is how I started with my Center Medallion:

Happy Scrappy Fabric Selection – 26 June 2014

Next, I made the Medallion Center Block. When I started with the cutting, I decided I would do the 1/16″ extra bit….. but I think on Thursday the 26th it was not my best math day – I cut it 1/8″ bigger……Slight mistake and correctable, but not the perfection I wanted. But I knew that I was short on fabric and could not waste any. So I dealt with it! This is how I figured out that adding 1/8″ to cutting instructions would not work. Because the first border was plain, I got away with it. I could trim the extra 1/8″ and come out at 18 1/2″ x 18 1/2″… See, I am learning all the “secrets” that all the other quilters know about – THE HARD WAY! Now on to the Center Block:

Here is the First Border:

Now to Border 2. I changed my border – I turned the HSTs, in a different way that Rosemary had done hers. I am hoping this works. I have a great idea for Border 3, BUT I am waiting for my favorite shop – Martha’s Quilting Corner – to send me 3 scraps so I can compare (they are Crackle’s by Moda) with the fabric I am using. Keeping my fingers crossed!

I am now caught up on 3 projects (at least until fabric arrives next week for Happy Scrappy). Poor Di Ford is just “hanging around” and my center medallion is still begging to be appliqued. I need to finish up on my Baltimore Applique project and get it turned in for their Auction in October. I will post more about that soon. Then there is a Pam Buda project, but am thinking I might use those blocks in my Happy Scrappy quilt and kill “two birds with one stone” as they say. I am also doing some knitting and now I feel like I can start on playing with my Sashiko in the evenings. Ahhhhhhhh life is good…… Quilting is so relaxing and fulfilling. I hope that all are finding the time to enjoy your hobby. It feels good to be back in my Studio everyday – just playing. Remember – Life is Short! So much to do and so little time.

Until next posting. Have a Blessed Life.

Nanette