Happy Halloween???? And Ben

A P.S. added to the front of the post - as sometimes when I add to the bottom my readers skip it - thinking there is nothing new.

Here is Ben in his Zoboomafoo (you may Google now - I'll wait) costume - made by his mommy - isn't she clever?

Smiling happy boy - all ready for trick or treat!

Just look at those big eyes!

And with the hood down - because sometimes a boy gets hot. . .

And a frowning, growling lemur - because he doesn't have any treats,
and everyone knows a lemur needs a treat.

And now back to our regularly scheduled Halloween???

Just had to share this photo with you. We were taking a drive the other day and came upon this. My guess is that the grandkids helped to decorate.


Ben is out trick or treating tonight - downtown, at the fire hall and at his preschool.

Jahn is sick so we took a bag of treats and toys out to him, since he couldn't go out in his Indiana Jones costume. So sad to miss trick or treat and all the fun carnivals.

We are still waiting for our first trick-or-treater - or any trick-or-treaters - we don't get many here - maybe 3 last year. Wish we would get hundreds - I love to see all the kiddies dressed up in their cute costumes.

Happy Halloween!!!!

Old Stuff - and a drawing

I decided to have a quilt party - after seeing what Crispy is doing on her blog. She has been listing old quilts and telling the stories about them. It is so interesting and gives us a chance to see quilts that we might not have seen before. I'm putting Mr. Linky at the bottom of this post and if you have some old quilts (don't have to be all that old, can just be quilts that we've not seen before) please put your link in Mr. Linky and we'll all hop over there and see what wonderous quilts you've made. A story about the quilt would be fun too. Even if you have blogged about a quilt in the past, feel free to blog again, as some of us may not have gotten to all of your past blog posts. And most importantly - have a good time. Thanks Crispy for inspiring me to do this.

Here is my first "old" quilt . . .

I never finished this quilt top - I sold it on craigslist after it was finished. It is surprising how many people are looking for quilt tops - at least in our area - on craigslist. I had several wanting to bid up the price on this top - but I had set a price and I sold it for that - only seems fair.

An internet friend in Kentucky wanted to do a mystery quilt - I'd never done one and didn't really want to do one - but to be a good sport - I agreed. First of all, machine piecing isn't my favorite part of quilting, and secondly, I like to have control of my quilting and with a mystery you really don't know what is going on for some time. We picked our colors and I felt that the contrast of the two lighter greens wasn't contrasting enough and I never liked the quilt.

My friend did her quilt in blues - and it turned out much better. After leaving it sit around in a box for several years, and two houses later, I finally listed it on craigslist and it was gone in less than three hours - hurray!!!

Directions for joining the Old Stuff Quilt Party are below - come join the fun!! Post on your blog about your old quilt and list it on McLinky below and get entered twice in the drawing. Grab the "Old Stuff Quilt Party" from my sidebar and put it on your sidebar - get entered 4 more times. Send friends over and if they mention your name - get another 5 entries. Come on - this will be fun.

1. Publish your Old Stuff Quilt Party post.
2. Once it is published, click on the title of the post. This will lead you to the direct link for your post. The direct link is the page with only that post on it. Copy the url from your browser at the top of the page.
3. Paste the url into the appropriate Mr. Linky box in this post.
4. Type your name in the appropriate Mr. Linky box in this post.
5. Click on "Enter."
6. Please link back to this Old Stuff Quilt Party post so that your readers can find other wonderful quilts.

That's all there is to it! It's always a good idea to then check and see if your link is working. If you have any questions, feel free to email me: joann.bayne@gmail.com Looking forward to seeing all of your quilts! Be sure to link back to this post so the others can see all the quilts we've made in the past.

Mr. Linky is working - so let's see your old quilts - well, they don't have to be real old - let's just see your quilts. And thanks for putting up with so many updates today.

Here are my talented friends once again

We had our monthly sew-in at Anacortes, WA, about an hour south and west of here. We get together once a month to sew and we have a blast.

Everyone is doing their own projects and many brought other things for show and tell.

Tina made this bright quilt for her teenage son . . .

Close up of Tina's quilt . . .

Sue Bee's blue and yellow quilt . . .

Susannah is designing a Halloween quilt - I love the bat bowl . . .

Susannah's mummy block . . .

And keeping in the spirit of Halloween - Daisy's punkin wall hanging. This is her
first applique project - good work Daisy!

Daisy's daughter-in-law, Michelle, was expecting at the time of the last sew-in - and was presented with a baby quilt.

All the ladies that come to the sew-in are members of Loose Threads - an on-line quilting group - and we make surprise comfort quilts for members of Loose Threads. With the delivery date for Michelle's third daughter very close, it was a good time to present her with the baby quilt we had all joined in to make.

Here is JoAnn U. presenting the quilt to Michelle . . .

This is the back - don't you love the pink leopard print?

Close up of the blocks - the "flowers" are made from individual heart blocks.

Mary was given several quilt tops by a co-worker and she brought them to show us. Her co-worker said she had lots of finished quilts from her mother and didn't see herself finishing any more, so she thought Mary should have them to finish.


Close up of the hexagon quilt. Notice the design in the center of the quilt . . .

Another top given to Mary by her co-worker. Very appropriate for this area - there
is a huge tulip festival here every April.

Close up of the tulip quilt . . .

Another close-up . . .

And another . . .
In addition to the finished tops - there were many fan blocks too . . .

Put together they make a nice Dresden Plate pattern . . .

And then Susannah presented a new project for us - we are doing a challenge Round Robin - except there will be no travelling quilts, we will each make our entire Round Robin quilt. We are to choose a christmas carol and make a center block of 22 1/2" square, depicting the christmas carol we have chosen. We have no restrictions on what song we pick, so long as it is christmas. We will bring our Round Robin project each month for show and tell, and Susannah will give us the directions for the next round.

We plan to finish this up next December. Our center block is due December 5, so that gives us two months to get that center block done. My choice is "Over The River and Through The Woods, To Grandmother's House We Go". I've got ideas running around in my head, but nothing is definite just yet, but this is really going to be fun, both making it and seeing what the others are doing with their song.

This is a round robin quilt that Susannah and another group did a few years ago.
Susannah's theme is Cinderella. It is so impressive in person. She brought it to give us inspiration for what we might do with our challenge.

Close up of the center block . . .

More close ups . . .

The quilt is very inspiring and we are all making plans for our christmas challenge quilt - more about that later.

Autumn Table Runner

This is what I am working on today - and yesterday - and probably tomorrow. A table runner for autumn. The background is pieced of 3 1/2 inch squares of beige prints.

Now I need to add the veins to the leaves and outline the acorns so they stand out more - then layer and quilt, and bind. I think the binding will set it off beautifully. I will be doing a scappy binding of all the leaf fabrics.

Shouldn't be long until it is finished and ready to use. Then on to a christmas table runner.

Fall Quilt Festival

Oh the fun - another quilt festival. I loved the spring one and now Park City Girl is hosting another quilt show. You must go over and look at all the listings, and all the fabulous quilts.

My quilt is actually two quilts - as I can't show one without the other. A few years back my cousin Linda, in Oregon, bought a new house and had a nice guest room, and wanted a quilt. She didn't have many guidelines - it must be blue, and it must have "ocean" things on it. The rest was up to me. I decided to make the quilt with things that my cousin and her husband loved, the bridge going into Newport, the lighthouse, their fishing boat from years gone by, shore birds, seagulls, puffins, whales - all those sea themed things. So I started making blocks - first I made a porthole with the lighthouse at Newport in it - it took me months to find the right fabric for the porthole. I wanted it to look like you were on the boat, looking out the porthole at the lighthouse.

Then I made more blocks . . .

Their fishing boat. . .

I had never seen their boat, so Linda's sister, Cat, sketched it for me,
and I made the block from the sketch.

The bridge going in to Newport . . .


Hand embroidered seagull in a Storm at Sea block . . .

Hand embroidered Puffins, nesting in the rain . . . the rain is quilted in . . .


Mariner's Compases for finding your way in the ocean . . .

Crabs - and Free Willie - who lived in the Newport Aquarium for a time . . .

And shorebirds scittering along the beach . . .

Everyone looking at Linda's quilt - Linda, Ray, Aunt Maxene (their mom) and Cat.

I was such fun designing the quilt, and making the blocks. Once I got the blocks made I started putting them together with sashings and borders, and everything fit perfectly.

When we got to their house to deliver the quilt I discovered a photo of their boat, and mine came out almost exactly the same.

Linda's completed quilt - hand pieced and hand quilted . . .

I used blue borders in the quilt on some of the blocks, and when we put the quilt on the bed we saw that Linda had two framed prints at the head of the bed - matching so well the colors and theme of the quilt, and with narrow blue borders in the matting - and neither of us knew what the other was doing.

While making Linda's quilt I decided that Cat must have one too - so I started planning another quilt. Cat and Dave live in the woods, near Newport, and almost at the beach, so those ideas went into the quilt. They have a funky house and it was hard for me to remember the details so I called Linda and asked her to go take a photo of Cat's house - but I told Linda I was going to make a wall hanging for Cat - didn't tell her it was going to be a whole quilt.

So Cat and Dave's funky house is in the center block - with a circle of flying geese surrounding it.

I added blocks and borders . . .

A Moose munching in a river . . .


The same shore birds as in Linda's quilt, as they both love the little shore birds . . .


The Three Sisters mountains, near where their families camp every summer . . .

A few years before, Cat and Linda had been at our house in March, celebrating all of our birthdays together - Cat's is in Feb. and Linda's and mine are in March - she is 360 day OLDER than me. It was during the time of Hale-Bopp comet and one starry night we all stood on the deck of our house and watched the comet in the sky - a terrifically wonderful experience, so I had to stitch the comet over the mountains . . .

A Blue Jay . deer . loon . . .


A bear . . .


Canada Geese . . .

I started putting the quilt together with fill in blocks and sashings and when I got to the outside border of pine trees, each border fit perfectily, within 1/4", and I had not measured the strips for the borders, I had just sewn them until I thought they were long enough.

Cat's finished quilt - hand pieced and hand quilted . . .
I put a Mariner's Compass in Cat's quilt, because you still need to know where you are going in the woods. The four brown blocks in the corner are Bear Paw.

It was fun to surprise Linda with her quilt - as she had no idea what it would look like. After she had examined it and seen all that there was to see, we went to the living room to have some iced tea, and Don snuck back into the guest room and put Cat's quilt on the bed - and then we called her to come to the guest room. Everyone was so surprised -

This is Cat's first reaction. . .

Everyone is looking at Cat's quilt . . .you see that Linda brought her quilt with her . . .

Enjoying their new quilts in the living room. . .

I have to say - I'm not sure who enjoyed this day more, them in receiving the quilts, or me in giving them their surprises. It was a grand day.

Cat is an artist and this is the thank you note she sent, of her and Dave sleeping beneath the new quilt.