Round Robin Blocks

These are blocks I did for a Round Robin in a Yahoo group I belong to. I thought I would share with you. The block designs are by Deb Karasik and Janet Mednick of Quilt Mavens fame. I love their spikey blocks.

Yard Sale Finds

My son, Mick, and I stopped at a few yard sales on Wednesday. This is a machine I found at our first stop.

It is a Kenmore Model 117-552. From what little research I have had time to do, these were made in the 1930's. I haven't plugged it in yet to see if it works or not. I thought I would clean it up first and have DH oil and lube it well. I had never seen one like it before.

The cabinet is in really rough shape but maybe I can get my woodworker DB to take a look at it.


I think it was an interesting find. Maybe not even worth the $10 I paid. But I really like the look of this machine. It is so different than any antique machine I have seen.



Mick thought we needed to go back to town yesterday so he could purchase a Zenith radio he had seen at one of the yard sales. So off we went again. lol


After we had gotten to town he decided against the purchase of the radio.

I guess I should tell you that on Labor Day weekend there is a huge Antique Flea Market in Vernon. Vernon is about 18 miles from us. There are also yard sales at almost every house on the stretch of highway between North Vernon and Vernon. Some of these yard sales were already open on Wednesday.

We were at the last yard sale that we were going to yesterday. I had decided to wait in the truck. Mick looks around quite a while. The owners had stuff completely around their house. I wait and I wait and I was beginning to think he was buying everything they had. Then I hear him, "Mom! Mom!". And he is waving to me to come up there where he is at. I get up there and he said, " I bought you that for $5!" This is what he bought me---







I looked at it and thought what do I need with a sewing machine cabinet with no drawers and in awful shape.











Then I took the lid off of it! There was a New Home Treadle sewing machine under that lid. I knew I had raised him right! lol

I can't wait to get this one cleaned up! All the parts still move and the shuttle and bobbin are still in the machine. It is missing a belt but I have already checked out some websites where you can purchase those.
I will have to check with my woodworking DB and see what he can do with the cabinet.

I won't be able to go with Mick to the huge Vernon Antique Flea Market on Monday, but I think I have him trained to look for those old sewing machines now. Maybe he will find me that Singer Featherweight I desperately want.

Now, for my last find! No, not another machine but fabric this time. There is a Quilt Shop in Madison called L & L Yard Goods. I go there every so often. I usually go to Sharynn's in North Vernon since that is where I go to get groceries and do the banking. But my Mom had asked me to pick up a certain fabric at L&L for her so I had to go. L&L has some awesome Stash Builder bags.



These are gallon size bags loaded with fabric for $6 each. I had to buy two. lol I opened one bag up and pulled out a 1 1/2 yard cut of fabric. That alone was worth the $6. I might share with my Mom since she is the reason I went to begin with.




Now you must understand why I didn't have time to post yesterday. All of this plus cutting and hanging tobacco. I am hoping I can get some sewing done today but I don't know how much. I have to go to North Vernon to do the banking and get groceries. I am sure there will be even more yard sales today. I better leave Mick at home so I don't spend all day in town. lol

Don't forget to leave a comment so you can have your name in the drawing for the Fat Quarter (see a previous post about that)!

Have a great Labor Day Weekend!

Scrappy Quilt

I haven't had time to work on my scrappy quilt the past few days. I have been working on some swaps that I wanted to get done.

I took a picture of one of the scrappy blocks. They aren't totally scrappy but I really like the pattern.

The block is an 8" block. I have 21 of the 72 needed done and ready for sashing. The sashing is a pieced sashing. I am thinking this quilt is going to take a while yet. I do have all the sections of the blocks completed, I just need to sew them together. 288 of the nine patches and 288 of the paper pieced section.

Don't forget to leave a comment to be in the drawing for the FQ (see previous post)!

Fat Quarter Giveaway

I have been having so much fun with my blog, so I decided to do a little giveaway! Here are the rules:

Post a comment to my blog between now and September 5th letting me know you are out there and reading. It is nice to know someone is reading. lol
On September 6th, I will draw a name from the list of comments for the winner of a Fat Quarter.
Limit one comment per day.

Good Luck! I am looking forward to seeing a lot of comments! Be sure and tell all your quilty friends!

Have a great day!

What a weekend!

Good Morning! It is a beautiful Monday morning here in Indiana. After spending the weekend in the field cutting tobacco, in the barn hanging it and mowing the yard, I am ready for a day of sewing.

I have put the scrappy quilt aside for a little while. I need to get my coneflower wall quilt finished. So I have started quilting it. I will probably be putting it aside in the next day or so also though.

I am participating in a Round Robin in one of the Yahoo groups I belong to. I have a package of blocks coming to me to add to this week. I like to get swaps done as soon as they get here. So I always stop what I am working on for myself and get those done asap.

If you aren't familiar with a Round Robin, I will fill you in on the details.

Everyone that is participating makes starter blocks. Everyone sends their blocks on to another participant and they add more blocks. Once they add their blocks they send on to the next person. And so on. Here is a photo of my starter blocks.

I choose black, white and red for the colors in my quilt. Each person adds 2-6" blocks and 1-12"block. We don't sew them to the starter blocks. I will get to arrange all the blocks I receive into a design I like then sew them together. The block designs are courtesy of Janet Mednick and Deb Karasik. Janet and Deb are the Quilt Mavens and have a great book.

Check it out if you get the chance.

Well, I am off to the sewing machine! Have a great day!

Have you ever.......

cut tobacco in 100 degree heat? If you ever get offered the chance, turn them down and run, run, run. I have spent the last two afternoons doing that so I speak from experience. I have the blisters on my hands, bruises on my body and sore muscles to prove it. lol
I think this is going to be the last year we raise tobacco. It has been a rough one considering the extreme heat and dry conditions. Just a few miles away, farmers have lost their entire crops to hail damage. That was just last week. We were lucky and didn't get the size of hail they did but it was the first rain we received in 2 weeks.
My son is helping cut for his first time. Not that he wanted to but actually to pay off his riding lawn mower that he purchased used from us. I think he wishes now that he had just paid for it instead. I guess he thought he was taking the easy way out.

I did get some more of my scrappy quilt done yesterday. There are going to be 72-8" blocks. Each block contains 4-3" nine patches in the corners, 4 paper pieced sections and a square for the middle. After the 72 blocks are done then there is a sashing strip that includes paper piecing. I may put this project aside to work on something else for a little while. Since I tried out the fusible applique I have gotten hooked on that. I found some free patterns on the internet that I would like to try. The great thing about this fusible web applique is how fast it is. So if I put my current project aside to do one it won't be for long.
I don't like having unfinished projects laying around. Once I start piecing a top I like to finish before I go on to something else. Notice I said piecing. I have lots of tops that need to be quilted but to me that isn't the fun part. So soon I will have to stop piecing and just sit down and quilt everything I have ready.
I actually loaded a quilt into my machine quilting frame a few weeks ago. I never started quilting it, just loaded it. I made a start! lol I have 3 bed quilts and 2 wall quilts that I need to get quilted. Maybe I will do that after I finish my current piecing project.
That is it for today. See you tomorrow!

My Sewing Room

When I got home from my sewing day on Saturday, I decided not to put things back until I cleaned up my sewing room. That is always a big job.
Since it was cleaner than usual I thought I would take some pictures to share.







I have another room with my quilting machine and frame in it. I will have to take pictures of it at another time. It isn't a pretty site right now.







Well, back to that scrappy quilt. I don't know if I will ever get that done.

Have a great day!

First Day of School

Today is Jill's first day back in school. It is hard to believe that she is a junior in High School this year. She doesn't cry anymore on the first day of school like she did in elementary school. The first day of school then were really hard on us both. She loves school and looks forward to it every year.
We went to register last week and get her schedule for this year. They had mistakenly put her in a class called Home/Interior Design. I knew as soon as I seen that we would be in the counselors office changing that. That is definitely not a class she would sign up for. We found out they had put her in that class because none of her choices were available. They could have at least looked at her previous classes and realized that they would have to change that. You don't go from Pre-Calculus, Physics, etc. to Home/Interior Design. She ended up taking German I &2 instead. I hope she can handle that as she is already taking French 3 & 4 this year. She had really wanted to take Entymology. She is definitely heading toward College. Enough of that subject though.

I did get a little sewing done yesterday. I worked some more on the paper pieced sections of the scrappy quilt I am doing. Jill started 3 more paper pieced blocks to go with the one she did Saturday. I have the whole day to myself so I am sure I can get some sewing done. Maybe I can get the yard mowed also.

Have a wonderful day!!!

Farmer's Market Block

I finished it!! I didn't think I was ever going to get done blanket stitching the letters though. I think it will go nicely with the Jammy (spice) jar block I did.
These are great blocks for beginners. No need to worry about that 1/4" seam on these. The hardest part was doing the blanket stitch by machine. I might have to try doing one by hand.
These are a Block of the Month, so I am curious as to what next month will bring.
I will have to go back to my scrappy quilt I had started. It is definitely going to take me a while to get it done.

New Sewing Partner?

My Mom had a sewing day at her home on Saturday. We had a few of our quilty friends together for a great day. It's always a great day when you spend the day with good friends.
My daughter, Jill, decided to join us also, which was a big surprise to me. Jill is going to be 17 years old in a few weeks and going with Mom is just not one of her things. Plus she has never made a quilt block in all her life. Yes, now you really understand my surprise. lol
We borrowed Jessica's sewing machine for the day and off we went. Jill choose a paper piecing pattern to learn. She did a great job for about 2 hours. That was more than I figured she would last. Then she was off to visit a friend for the rest of the afternoon. She did get 2 of the 4 sections done. What more could I ask for.
Yesterday was the big surprise though. She joined me in my sewing room to finish her other 2 sections. No, I didn't faint! She now just has to sew her 4 sections together.
Here is the really big surprise though. I decided I wanted to do a couple of blocks from Pat Sloan's website. Pat has some very cute fusible web applique patterns on her site. My friend Sandy C. passed this information on to me. www.QuiltersHome.com
The big shocker was that Jill wanted to do one of Pat's blocks also! No, I still didn't faint.
We both did the Jammy Jars block together. I hope you like them as much as I did. Jill did a fantastic job on her 2nd quilt block ever. Do you think I might have a new sewing partner?


Jill's Jammy Jars






I choose to do spices instead of Jam. I didn't really need the sweets.





I am hoping I get my tomato block done later today. Until next time!

New Adventure in Quilting

Saturday, my mom had a small sewing day at her house about 40 minutes from me. I invited a few of my friends also. My daughter, Jill (3 weeks from being 17 years old), decided she would go also. Jill has never pieced a quilt block in all her life so I figured her day of sewing wouldn't last long. I took the time to teach her how to paper piece. She started with a simple block that I printed from one of my Carol Doak CD's. I was very surprised at how great she did but it didn't last long. About 2 hours after we started, she decided to call a friend and go to their house for the rest of the day. I figured that was the last of her piecing. I was wrong!
Sunday afternoon Jill joined me in my sewing room to finish her block. How kewl is that? She finished the four sections of her paper pieced block but has to sew them together yet.
I was getting ready to do a fusible web applique block from Pat Sloan's website. Two actually, July and August blocks for the Farmer's Market quilt. Jill decided she wanted to do one also. So we both did the Jammy Jars block together. I really like the way they came out. Jill's turned out great and I am so proud of her. I don't know if she will do another one or not. lol

Welcome to Patches and Pieces!

I have finally broke down and went with the blogger craze! I hope it doesn't drive me crazy! (oops! I am already there) I hope I can come up with plenty to say and share. Please stop back often!

Rhonda