Twelve Days of Christmas Block of the Month

As promised here is a picture of the Twelve Days of Christmas quilt that I've been working on.  It's a red work and crazy patch quilt (35" x 35").  It will be a block of the month for my Palo Verde Patchers quilt group.  The blocks were inspired by blocks I found on the internet and I then re-designed many of them to fit this quilt.  I also designed the layout.  In the 4 inner and the 4 outer corners are crazy patches made using wool felt.  Each month the handwork group will receive one red work pattern and the directions for 2 hand embroidery stitches to be used on the crazy patches.  I'll be doing the hand embroidery right along with the group.  It should be a fun quilt to make.  I think it will take us longer than a year to make though.  There is quite a lot of red work in the various borders.  That final top border took an age to make even though I was very motivated.  I wanted to get the top finished by today so it could be shown as a sample for sign-ups.  Thankfully I met my goal. 

Twelve Days of Christmas (click to make larger)

Here's a picture of the completed blocks before they were made into a quilt:

 

This is the Block of the Month quilt that I'm leading for this year.  It's called, "Calendar Block of the Month".  It combines redwork and applique.  

This year I also taught the ladies the spray-starch method of applique to use on this quilt.  We discussed quilt labels and what can or should be included on a label.  As a side project, I showed the ladies how to make a felted-wool pin cushion.  They all turned out so cute!

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving.  I know we all have a lot to be thankful for.  Here's one of the things I'm thankful for:

Our sweet little baby grandson, Zahn!

Nesting Robin 2014/15 Center Block

Here is the block I plan to use as the center for the upcoming Nesting Robin Challenge on the About.com Quilting Forum.  It's an orphan block that I had planned to use on my previous Nesting Robin but it didn't work out.  I found the pattern for it in one of my quilting magazines but can't recall who the designer is (may be Blackbird Designs).  When I figure it out I'll give whomever the credit they deserve for designing such a lovely block.  I made a miniature version (8 1/2" x 8 1/2") of the pattern and did needle-turn applique on it. 

I'm thinking a few plain borders, some more applique, and maybe even some pieced blocks could make this into a nice medallion type quilt.  Or I could go a little bit out of my comfort zone, and try something entirely different than I've done before, by placing it and other various sized blocks in a random setting - with a layout kind of like this sampler that I found on pinterest (a Sue Spargo pattern):

Baby Zahn

We had baby Zahn here visiting us yesterday (Lindzey's baby).  He's 10 months old already.  He's crawling, pulling himself up, curious about everything he sees, and squeals with laughter almost constantly.  He's such a happy baby and is so much fun to be around.  Getting him to smile for pictures is kind of hard though.  He's too fascinated with the camera and the flash.  Here are a few pictures (the last one is of Zahn with my husband Rick - Zahn's Pappo).

 

 

 

Zahn in his Superman Halloween costume

 

 Zahn watching the Broncos

Such a happy boy!

 

Zahn reading his book from Aunt Judy

 

 Zahn reading his cloth book

 

 

I'm finally back on my Blog and pictures of Nesting Robin

It's been almost a year since I last posted to my blog.  No real excuse, just living life, and spending less time on the computer.

Over the next several weeks, I'll try to catch my blog up with the things I've been working on over the last year.
 
This week I decided to join a Nesting Robin Group on the About dot com Quilting Forum.  I did a Nesting Robin a few years ago and had such fun, plus all of the quilts turned out to be soooo nice, that I decided to do it again.  Plus in this one we need to post pictures of our progress on our blogs (or similar), so thought it would be an incentive to get back to blogging.  In this Nesting Robin we're also being challenged to use our stash.  I love that!  Mine needs a good thinning.

In the previous Nesting Robin we put theme's in a hat, and pulled one each month, and made a row or round of our choice using that theme.  I think there were about 8 themes in the hat to pull from and we pulled about 5.  I remember we pulled:  classic block, stars, buildings, flora or fauna, & things.

I guess I should explain what a Nesting Robin is for those who haven't heard of it before.  A Nesting Robin is like a Round Robin with the exception that it never leaves the nest (your sewing space). You work on a piece and continue to add rounds on it each month yourself. 

Here are the pictures of the nice quilts that the ladies made during my previous Nesting Robin:

This is the one I made