Civil War Bride Quilt

Now that the Baltimore Album class I took at the Quilted Apple is finished we've started on a new series of classes to begin making the "Civil War Bride Quilt" (also sometimes called the "Bird of Paradise Quilt").  It looks like we'll be aiming to get two blocks finished per month. It's a 20 block quilt so at that pace plus one class for the border it will take us nearly a year.  When the instructor, ArleneS, told us about the next project, I didn't realize it was the same quilt that the ladies on the Baltimore site I follow (BaltimoreQuilts@YahooGroups.com) have been so excited about.  I was doing an internet search for some pictures and history when it dawned on me that it was one and the same quilt.  I already thought it was a beautiful quilt but this made me even more excited.

Since there were so many of the ladies in the Yahoo Baltimore group that were planning to make this quilt, one of them decided to start a separate blog (thecivilwarbridequilt.blogspot.com) so that those interested in making the quilt using the pattern from Threadbear out of Australia (Threadbear.com) can all encourage each other.  Can you feel my excitement ramp up another notch..........I think it would be so much fun to do a quilt along with both a blog group, and a class, and be able to share ideas.

To make a long story short, I received my pattern from Threadbear last month and finally pulled fabric this week.  Yesterday I made some design changes (I want a groom for my bride plus a house and.............) and also prepped the blocks.  In class Arlene decided we'd try block #9 (Bird of Paradise block) and block #3 (Bride block) first.  I'll likely be making them in the order the class is making them.  Today I started on block #9 and also sent an email to the blog coordinator to see about joining in the discussion on the blog. 

Here's a picture of the Civil War Bride Quilt that was developed by Corliss of Threadbear that I'll be working on:

Floral Belle's Quilt

This week I finally got busy on my Floral Belle's Quilt.  I've been taking a class at the Quilted Apple from ArleneS.  Her patterns are all so wonderful it makes me wish I could make them all.  I pulled fabric and started on the first block.  There are only 4 blocks in this quilt but they're huge - 19 x 22".   It's going to be an adorable quilt but, like I said, I want to do them all and end up having so many projects going at once, that it takes half of forever to finish one.  Here is my progress so far on block one - she'll be holding a cute little teddy bear when she's finished.

Simple Sticheries from the Heart Quilt

I've started working on the blocks for a darling embroidery quilt called "Simple Sticheries from the Heart".  This is turning out to be a great handwork project to take when I go to my sewing groups.  There's not much to carry, and it doesn't take too much concentration, so I can talk while I work on it - yeah!  I finished block number two last week for the quilt.  Then I decided I wanted to try hoopless handquilting and thought I'd make another of these cute blocks for a wallhanging as a practice piece for my handquilting lark.  I was totally surprised to find out I'm now "in  love" with handquilting.  I guess I won't know for sure though until I try it on a larger quilt.  It does take a huge chunk of time to do it and my underneath finger is still pretty chewed up.  Sure would love a handquilted Baltimore quilt though.

Here are pictures of the handquilted wallhanging and also the first two blocks I finished.

Baked Egg Cups

I decided to make my husband a special breakfast this morning so I made him Baked Egg Cups.  He's been moving his commercial insurance business office to our home.  What a time of it he's had.  Both his computer and his business email wouldn't work.  It's taken him days and days and several hundred dollars to the geeks to finally get everything up and running.  So, needless to say, he's been stressed,  I thought he ought to have a special breakfast as a celebration, now that everything's finally working.  Here's a picture and the recipe I used for the Baked Egg Cups.

Baked Egg Cups
6 slices bread (any type-I used whole wheat)
Butter (I used Smart Balance)
6 TB ham, diced
6 eggs
6 TB cheese (I used grated mild cheddar)
Butter both sides of bread.  Remove crusts.  Cut a small slit in each corner.  Spray muffin tins with Pam and arrange bread in 6 of the cups.  Bake in a 375 degree oven for 10 minutes to crisp the bread.  Remove. Place 1Tb of diced ham on the bread in the bottom of each cup, top with an egg, sprinkle 1 TB of cheese on top of each filled cup.  Bake for an additional 15 minutes. 

Rick said the special breakfast made his day. 

Since my muffin tin is a 12 cupper - I mixed up a box of Jiffy cornbread mix and filled the other 6 cups for tonight's dinner.  Wouldn't want those extra 6 muffin cups to just sit there unfilled, would I?

Am I Really a Baltimore?

Here it is.................my completed Baltimore Album Quilt.  I call it "Am I Really A Baltimore?"  I'm so happy to have it all quilted, bound, and ready to hang.  I was intimidated to begin a project of this magnitude but am so pleased that I stuck with it and got it finished.  I didn't keep track of how long it took me to make all of the blocks, the border, and to assemble the top, but I did keep track of how long it took to quilt it - 92 hours.  Whew!  Truly though, I really did enjoy making this quilt.  I spent many contented hours doing the needle-turn applique and the dimensional flowers on the blocks.  The inkwork was scary but once I got started on it, it was kind of fun too.  It was so rewarding to see the personality developing in each block.  There is so much special meaning in this quilt for me and for my family.

Here's a close-up of the center block:

And here are pictures of the individual blocks:

Here's a close-up of the border:

My Baltimore Album Quilt Top is Finished

After hours and hours and hours of appliqueing, my Baltimore Album top is finally finished.  It was a very windy day last week when I tried to snap pictures, so I wasn't able to get a very good shot, but.................here it is.

I've started quilting it and it's much more labor-intensive to do custom quilting on a quilt this size than I had imagined.  I'll post more pictures later - need to get back to quilting.