Author: Mary

Quilted

~ Mary ~ 3 Comments

I love it when I get more accomplished than planned in a day. I intended to load this one today and quilt it tomorrow but I got it loaded and quilted this evening. I’m pretty sure this 16 patch was pieced by Jackie – it’s #3 of 6 I brought home from the Maine sew-in to quilt and finish. The goal is to get all 6 quilted this month.

Pantograph is call Mermaid Fingers by Apricot Moon designs. It’s the first time I’ve used this one and it’s kind of an elongated, teardrop shaped meandering.

I also managed to make a lot of progress on the Map quilt last night and I did another row of blocks today. Just two more rows to go.

A new blanket

~ Mary ~ 2 Comments

I’m working on a hat but set it aside to start a new blanket today. This one is really easy using the self striping yarn and it’s really pretty in different colors too if you don’t mind weaving all the ends in … I love the free patterns on the Attic24 website but I’m lazy so I prefer the self striping yarn to weaving those all ends!

  • Pattern – Trellis Stripe, free on Lucy’s Attic 24 website
  • Yarn – Caron Big Cakes in the Grape Jelly colorway
  • Hook size is (I)
  • Starting chain – 132

The plan is to load a top on the longarm this evening (Keith is out of town again so I’ll work a bit tonight), maybe make a few blocks for the map quilt after loading the top and I’ll finish off my evening with more crochet!

Time with Rae

~ Mary ~ 6 Comments

I’m so grateful that Chris makes so much effort to spend time with us and brings the girls. It’s not easy either, it’s a 7-8 hour drive each way. At Christmas, Becky and both girls came with him, in November it was Chris and Mo, and this weekend it was Chris and Rae. She’s growing up so fast!

I decided she was old enough to try some sewing (She’s 7) and I thought we’d start with something fairly easy by hand.

I asked her yesterday if she want to try it and she was very enthusiastic and did a great job. We didn’t finish but we got about halfway done and will work on it on her next visit.

Since I couldn’t sleep, I spent a couple hours in the sewing room (between 1:30 and 3:30 am) working on the map quilt. Chris has”claimed” it and I’m happy to make yet another quilt for him but I’ve warned him, it will be at least a year before it’s finished and given to him.

Gasparilla

~ Mary ~ 7 Comments

It’s Gasparilla season in Tampa and we had lots of fun today at the Children’s Parade. It’s along Bayshore Blvd, just a block from the house so we go back and forth all day, enjoying the festivities and taking breaks to sit on the porch. Chris, Rae and Keith’s nephews joined us today for the parade and fireworks.

Becky and Mo stayed home this trip but Becky sent me a photo of Mo wearing one of the hats I knit for her just before they headed out for the day! She’s so cute!

A couple finishes

~ Mary ~ 4 Comments
  • Pattern – Easy Ripple Afghan – found free on Ravelry
  • Yarn – Caron Cotton Cakes – 2 balls
  • Hook size – G
  • Chained 130
  • Pattern – Blanket Stitch Afghan, found free on Ravelry
  • Yarn – Caron Simply Soft Brites – colorway Berry Blue – 4 skeins
  • Hook size – I
  • Chained 120

I like the texture this stitch creates and it was certainly easy to make but it’s a little bulky for me in a baby blanket. Next time I’ll try a sport weight (vs worsted) yarn and see if I like that better.

Chris and Rae are coming this weekend for the Gasparilla children’s parade so I pulled out all the baby and small child size afghans for him to take back and donate for me. I had planned to send him back with some quilts too but I didn’t get them washed so those will have to wait for the next visit.

The best medicine!

~ Mary ~ 9 Comments

I hadn’t planned to sew at all today, I just felt too bad but I was sitting in the library after feeding Finn and looking at options for my next quilt and decided to go up and pull some fabric. 3 hours later I was ready for a break.

A while back, a year or more ago I found a line of map fabric from Connecting Threads that I fell in love with and I bought a LOT of it, yards and yards and yards of it. I pieced this Ohio Star quilt last year (it’s still waiting for quilting)…

And I knew when I made the dinosaur quilt for Caleb, that I wanted to use that pattern again with the map fabric.

So tonight, I pulled 5 fabrics and got started. This pattern came free with a bundle I bought from a quilt show but I found it online at Pinterest when you all had questions about it when I was piecing the dinosaur quilt. Click here to see it. Obviously the second page of the instructions showing the borders isn’t there but it’s the only place I could find it online to share with you … and neither of mine are going to have borders anyway.

Assembled

~ Mary ~ 11 Comments

The Tumblers are assembled and count as my precut project for January. I cut the tumblers with my 6 inch finished GO die and there are 13 tumblers across and 14 rows down making it about 58 x 84, a little larger than my usual donation quilts but I had extra tumblers so I used them.

I’ve been thinking about what my quilting goals are for this year … nothing too lofty.

  • Piece a top each month for our Precut Party
  • Keep my UFO number to 22 or below so I’ll need to quilt one top for each quilt I start with 12 of them being UFO’s.
  • quilt and bind the 6 tops from Maine
  • quilt whatever Mom throws at me!