TBT ~ A Year of Quilts

Carol here ~

On this last day of 2020, I thought I would show you all the quilts we (mostly) completed in 2020.  Some of them were already pieced and just needed quilting and some of them (all of Dan's 'Rona Collection) were pieced and quilted this year.  

Here they all are piled on the bench seat in our bedroom

2020 Quilts

I think the first one to be finished was RETREAT

I Love My Hat

Dan here ~

Today I am thinking about a song from the 60’s from Donavan, an English folk singer. He sang a song about how much he loved various articles of his wardrobe, his shirt, shoes etc.

You can listen to the song here ~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miAVhZ6rKFo

Well 35 plus years or so ago I received a hat at Christmas from my brother and sister-in-law that came from LL Bean. I have worn it every year since then, and it looks it. 

Winter?

Carol here ~

Okay, what's with the weather?  We have absolutely no snow.  Very strange for the end of December.

We gifted four of our family members with snowshoes for Christmas thinking it would be a fun thing to do together, yet apart.  Doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon.

Here's our grands at our Garage Christmas ~

Parker, Evan, Kailey, Jakob

Certainly not our usual day together but at least we got to see each other for a little while.

Shoot, I ran out of fabric!

Dan here~

Oops, I did not manage to get the quilt top Rona 7 completed. I did manage to get 3 sides of the border on and many of the sections of the final pieced border ready. 

BUT….I RAN OUT OF THE BACKGROUND FABRIC.  Don’t you hate it when that happens? 

Most of you follow patterns, that gives you an advantage over the way I make most of my quilt tops. When you follow patterns made by others, they not only give you the piecing and assembling instructions, they give you yardage requirements. My method does not do this, unless I take the time and do all the calculations before I start. I have no real idea of how much I need of each fabric.

You’d never know it but I’m lazy. Most of the quilt top was to be scrap. The background fabric had a “good” amount left on the bolt, I thought I’d be fine.

Well, after I designed the border, I began to worry. Was I going to have enough? I had already worried that I would not have enough of the red that I used in the Lemoyne Star blocks in the body of the quilt. I made it by the skin of my teeth ~ this is all I had left.

I had already substituted a different red of the same pattern into the 4-patch blocks and used it in the Lemoyne Star border corner blocks. That was not going to work on the background fabric that came up short. Having no idea how short I would be, I went online and found some in a shop in Kentucky. I ordered 2 yards. With the shipping delays people have been posting on social media I am keeping my fingers crossed. Tracking says I should get it tomorrow. I decided to continue until I completely ran out.

The Christmas cactus beside Carol’s iron and cutting station is in bloom. They were not real happy this fall as they usually spend their summers outside, but this year that did not happen. I have 3 of them, this is the only one currently in bloom. This one is happier now that it has a new pot and some new soil.

Cross your fingers my fabric arrives so I can finish 'Rona 7 and show you how the top came out, hopefully on Friday.

Our Christmas

Carol here ~

We celebrate Christmas with the family on Christmas Eve Day.  We started doing this when our daughters acquired spouses ~ Christmas Eve Day with us, Christmas Day with the other side of the family.

Today our Christmas is going to be a whole lot different than previous years as I am sure your Holiday Celebrations will be as well.  

We are headed to our daughter Vanessa's in Readfield, ME.  (about an hour from here) Daughter Erin and fam will be coming down from Rangeley.  We are having a brief get together in the garage ~ just long enough to exchange gifts and maybe eat a cookie or two.  

The kids have cookie eating all figured out ~ pull mask down, pop a cookie, pull mask up!

We are keeping it brief, hopefully keeping everyone safe also.  

Please do whatever you can to keep yourself and your family safe and healthy.  We need this pandemic to end!

Wishing you all a wonderful Holiday Weekend!  See you back here on Monday.....

This and That

Carol here ~

Yesterday was one of those days....busy, busy, busy.  First off I got a big pot of apples on the stove to simmer for applesauce.  Our grands love Mamie's applesauce so want to bring them some when we get together for our abbreviated Christmas.

Also started the ice maker.  We have a countertop ice maker as we don't have one attached to the fridge.  It's pretty much an all day chore to fill the ice container in the freezer.

Once I got those going I headed up to the Quilting Loft.  I finished up the quilt I talked about in Monday's post and got it off the machine.  Then I continued stitching on a topper for granddaughter Kailey's dresser in her room.  

Meanwhile, the apples were simmering and the ice cubes were a-making which meant many trips up and down the stairs to stir the apples and empty the basket in the ice maker.  I had over 3000 steps before we went for our walk!

Here is the quilt from Monday's post after I got it quilted.  It turned out pretty good.

Rona 7 In The Works

Dan here ~

‘Rona 7 required the thinking cap. In my head I needed something with a different layer of complexity. At first I thought I would use a V-block star like I did in ‘Rona 6 only this time using some of the box full of 4-patch units in the corners. Started to assemble a block… did not like it. 

Box of 4-patches

Lena Longarm

Carol here ~

I have been a longarm quilter since 1996.  I have quilted charity quilts, customer quilts, show quilts, shop samples and quilts for family. 

Prior to February of 2018 all my quilting was free motion.  Free motion quilting means I am able to move the machine freely in all directions along the surface of the quilt.  I like to describe it as "using the needle as you would a pencil."  

Here is an example of free motion all over quilting.

Free motion Feathers

Snow Day!

 Carol here ~

We finally got our first substantial snow of the season, somewhere around 10" or so.  The snow amounts varied so much depending on if you were in the band of heavy snowfall.

Here we are on our morning walk..

It was coming down pretty heavy at that point.  I had about 1/2" of snow piled on top of the visor of my hat when we got back to the house.

I just wish the lakes and pond had frozen over before the snow.  We still had open water yesterday morning.

We're going to need to get a whole lot of cold weather before I will venture out on the pond with my snowshoes!

Dan got a lot of the hand shoveling done before our plow guy came

and filled the bird feeders.

Keeping the feeders full is a full time job.  Even the bluejays have figured out how to use the column feeders. The suet feeders usually have a nuthatch or woodpecker on them and sometimes only last 4-5 days.  Several different kinds of woodpeckers though, I like the woodpeckers. No squirrels lately, I don't like them.

Do any of you get cardinals at your feeders?  If so, what are you using for food?  I know we have some around because I have heard them and occasionally see one or two, usually in the summer.  

Plow guy showed up in the late evening.

It's a pretty morning here ~ 12 degrees, but no wind!  Bundle up if you're headed out for some fresh air!

See you back here on Monday....

TBT ~ Baby to King

Dan here ~

I walk a lot. I used to to say I needed to get a dog so I didn’t look so weird always out walking, regardless the weather. Good thing I did not get one then, one of us would have to go now. Ain’t room for us both.

Anyway, when we lived in Rangeley I walked around the downtown streets and would repeatedly go by the Episcopal church on Main Street. This time of year I would look at the nativity scene as I walked by and would kinda chuckle almost guiltily on some zero degree days ~ ”damn, that little dude looks cold” and got to thinking, (cause face it walking alone there is a lot of head time), I think I’ll make him a quilt.

So I started in. Of course in my head little dude equals little quilt which translates into small pieces. After about 14 hours I had produced this. 

What I'm Working On

Carol here ~

This is what the pond looked like yesterday morning. BRRRRR! 

The wind howled all day. I whined about getting my walk in but I got-r-done! Couldn’t wait to get back home for a cup of tea and stitching in the Quilting Loft.

Daily Walks

Dan here ~

While on one of my many walks, I was walking as I often do with my eyes open to what I see around me. I noticed something on part of a maple tree that had blown down during one of our recent wind storms. 

See all the holes?

It almost looks like the woodpecker was trying to make a cribbage board. 

Company and Cookies

Carol here ~

We had company on Saturday! Our daughter Erin and grands Evan and Parker came to visit. I hadn’t seen Parker since summer and had only seen Erin and Evan briefly a couple times when they stopped in to drop something off or pick something up.

They had all been COVID tested earlier in the week and knew they were negative, plus school had been remote all week so they figured it would be pretty safe for them to visit at this time.

The boys were having Spritz cookie cravings ~ Bumpa Dan’s Spritz cookies, that is. 

2-1/2" Saga - 'Rona 6

Dan here ~

We made it to the last finished quilt in the series ~ 'Rona 6.  (working on 7)  The post on 'Rona 1 is here, 'Rona 2 is here, 'Rona 3 is here and 'Rona's 4 & 5 are here.

In ‘Rona 6 I turned to a traditional 2 block quilt design with no sashing. Thankfully, I did not have enough nine-patch blocks left to make a very large quilt (and I don’t usually make small ones), so I turned to an old favorite of mine, the V-Block star. 

TBT ~ A Quilt and a Recipe

Carol here ~

My Throw Back Thursday quilt for today is “Quadruple Bypass.”

This quilt was designed by me at my mother’s bedside during her cardiac quadruple bypass surgery in 2007. 

The four feathers represent the four repaired arteries

2-1/2" Saga - Rona's 4 & 5

Dan here ~

The continuing saga of the 2-1/2" squares/the 'Rona Series ~ if you missed any previous posts....Part one is here, Part two is here, Part three, the 'Rona Series is here.

With Rona 4 I’m afraid I did not get too resourceful. I had been avoiding the really light 2-1/2” squares because they seemed to jump out of the quilt and that was troubling to my eyes.

Well, on Rona 4, I decided that I would use up some of them as I followed the pattern I had used in Rona 3.  

The Quilting Loft

Carol here ~

We had lousy weather over the weekend so did some cleaning in our quilting loft and thought I would give you a more thorough tour of it while it was fairly clean! You got a sneak peak in our first blog post when I showed the remodel here at the pond. Click here if you missed it.

My parents used the loft as a den. The back half of the house was floored over with the front half open to the living area downstairs. It looked like this.

2-1/2" Saga ~ The 'Rona Series

Dan here ~ 

This is the third part of the Saga of the 2-1/2" squares and the 'Rona series.  Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here.

The design process for 'Rona 2 or the fourth quilt in the 2-1/2” Saga began with still lots of nine-patch units in the pile. You guessed it, 'Rona 2 naturally centered around the nine-patch. 

The Saga of the 2-1/2" Squares ~ Part 2

Dan here ~

After ORDER IN CHAOS was created life became a barrier in my constant quilting. The packing and moving of two houses in Rangeley and the construction process that was described here kept me out of the sewing room. Why you ask? There was no sewing room as it was a construction mess.

TBT ~ A Walk On The Ridge

Carol here ~

I thought I would do a few Throw Back Thursdays and showcase some of our favorite quilts throughout the years. (and tell the stories behind them) The first one is titled A WALK ON THE RIDGE. 

Dan and I walk every day. One of our routes is “around the pond”. We start out on our road, Memory Lane, and head up the hill to Old County Road which runs parallel on the west side of Mud (Mirror) and Green Ponds. 

The Saga of the 2-1/2" Squares ~ Part 1

Dan here ~

I think that to begin talking about what I am working on of late, I need to back up to provide a bit of history to get behind the story. 

Too Many Quilts

Carol here ~

We have too many quilts! Since our move we really don’t have a place to store them all so we are going to offer some of them to you.  

You will see in the tabs above that I have added ~