Part V-Not really UFO's, but I've gathered the fabric already

I've gotten ahead of myself, even with my unfinished projects that I never started! The fabric is auditioned, the pattern is selected the cue needs to be chosen for the completion of these projects.

This one is probably the oldest, it's a kit. My mom already made it for my daughter, Chelsea-it's on the right of the blog. Moda material and the pattern is Sonata. I'll make this one for Jennifer.

The Australians have got it going on and their ethnic inspired fabric is awesome! I like playing with juxtapositions-contrasting things that don't necessarily go together. This is a pattern of American folk art applique and I'm going to someday, make this quilt with Australian ethnic fabric.

Our group chooses a pattern every year around July for the Christmas in July party. Here we all give our take on the theme. This time it's using the Ohio Star in a pattern-your choice. So, I've always liked this book and I was browsing at my LQS, Forget Me Knot Quilt Shoppe and found this funky modern fall looking material.

My favorite thread? Aurifil, it's got lubricity and my machine likes it. It's more expensive than most threads, but, you get about 1500 yards on a spool, which is a lot more than most spools of thread, so it's more value per yard.

You can't beat a good grey thread, if you see a sale, stock up on it, because it's a great blender in the seams. Unless you like changing the thread with the color of the fabric.

Again, I don't sell anything, I like to give you places to look things up. Although, I must say, that Marsha Mclosky, who wrote the book above, Best of Blended Quilts, has been in the business a very long time. I've taken a feathered star class from her and she's a great teacher. I'll let you know about this book, when I finally start on this quilt.

Part IV-Baby Quilts

Baby quilts are a really good place to start to develop your skill. If you are new quilter, I'd highly recommend doing a sampler quilt, taught at a quilt shop. This will give you some ground on which to begin playing with design. I'm not selling anything, if you click on the sample quilt above, you'll see just a sample of a simple quilt you might choose to do.

This box contains panels for baby quilts. The creativity, as far as a quilter goes, is in the border. After your sampler quilt, you make a baby quilt and play with the borders. I bought this for my niece. When I finish it, I'll show you the panel, it's flannel.

Part III-Life in Kentucky an unfinished horse quilt

I guess no respectable Kentuckian that is a quilter, should live in Kentucky unless they've made a horse quilt. Especially here in/near Louisville, it's certainly a must. Here is my Kentucky Spirit quilt kit, from one of my favorite quilt shops in town, Forget Me Knot Quilt Shoppe. It was a block of the month and I still had too much going on to finish a BLOCK A MONTH! Ah well, life gets in the way of our quilting sometimes. Sorry for the blur on the pattern picture, I'm afraid I'm a little lazy today to get the camera out and take another shot. Maybe I'll edit this WHEN I FINISH THE QUILT...smile.

Part II-Life in Kentucky, Round Robins- UFO list at long last my longest post, over time...smile

BEGINNING 2 QUILT GROUPS WHEN I MOVED HERE:

So we moved to Crestwood, Kentucky in 1996. After floundering around looking for a new quilt group, the time looked ready to start another one. So, meeting at the County Home Extension office in Oldham County, myself and a handful of other ladies began a new quilt group, Log Cabin Quilters. This is now a very large quilt group, but, at the time, I felt like I needed to start another one at our church, Northeast Christian Church. So, in June of 2000, I went to our, then Women's Ministry Leader, Laura and said Laura, we need a quilt group and she said okay Julie you're it! This was the beginning of Northeast Quilting Friends quilt group. So, long story short, we now have 20 members on our roster, but, weekly anywhere from 10 to 15 come regularly. If all 20 came every week, it would be impossible to meet where we do.

Anyway, in the beginning we did some round robins and these are the results of those round robins. The first one dates back to 2004. The members that wanted to participate, started out with a block for the beginning of the passed around inspiration. I've always liked to embroider and this was my homage to Aunt Martha, you know the inexpensive iron on transfers that have been around for 70 years or more.

This is a Sunday design. I enlarged it and made it an applique pattern. I've included the original iron on to embroider when I put it together. I'm so glad to have this blog. I'm famous for hiding things from myself, and I haven't been able to locate this box that contains these blocks for quite some time and now I have pictures and proof of where it is!! Yes, it's in this closet, on this shelf...somewhere...smile.

After that UFO, on my shelf, we have the Lemons to Lemonade Round Robin, in which, you guessed it, ugly fabric exchange for RR inspiration. I had some hideous bird feed material and the ladies came up with these lovely blocks.

My last RR UFO is an embroidered heart block exchange. I can't wait to finish this one as it has some very uplifing messages from my quilt group.

UFO list at long last my longest post, over time...smile

So we start with the before and after of my lovely long time collecting mess of material...yeah!

After cleaning, what I am now calling "Julie's Little Quilt Shop", Aka. my stash closet, here is the result of finding the many UFO's-unfinished objects. These are well intended and beautifully designed projects that get left in the dust of newer and brighter material and patterns that come along...sniff sniff..smile.

While watching touchy-feely, no man with any scent of testosterone would be interested in, BBC British period shows-this one is called Mother's and Daughters, I shuffled through my pile of misfit projects. And like the land of Misfit Toys these quilts will someday find a home, with the help of Santa Julie and her elves.

Well, I guess I should start with what is probably the oldest quilt in the misfit collection. It is over 30 years old. I was meant to be a quilter. I must have gotten hooked with the rage of the 70's when I made this quilt. I was working as a key punch operator at the William's Companies in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. I've signed this block with my maiden name, Blanchard. How corny was I? Oh well, youthful goofiness, I suppose. I remember I asked some of my favorite people what they would like to write for my quilt. My Grandmother, being from the stoic greatest generation and believed you just suck it up, used to say "Big Salty Drops!"-I think, in other words, it's not worth crying about. Boy have things changed, it's a good thing you can be in touch with your feelings today.

This quilt was started while I was a member of the Quilt Guild of Greater Houston, of which there were over 400 members in the 80's and 90's while I attended. I was the "Bee Keeper" and "Librarian", two different years. That is a wonderful guild and we lived there for 11 years and I was exposed to some of the most important quilt artists in the country. When you have that many members you have the chance to collect a lot of dues and this is what you need to fly people in from all over the world to come and speak at your guild. I was also fortunate enough to be able to attend the Houston Quilt Festival, which is probably the largest show in the world, or certainly one of them.

This is also a technique trip down memory lane. In order to make the "Herald Angles", I used freezer paper, which is a product I had not used in a while, until the Quiet Village I am currently working on. WOW, everything old is new again in the quilt world a

While living in Houston, I started the Killer Bee, which is still part of the QGGH. We would have members make blocks, and depending on how many blocks you made, that was the chances for blocks to exchange. This is a basket quilt block exchange.

Also, while living in Houston, I worked and taught quilting classes at Creatively Sew, and wonderful LQS, that is no longer with us. These are quilts that my girls made and this is the sample for the class. This is Jennifer's quilt and Chelsea's quilt.

Here is another really old project from my days in Houston. It's a Bargello quilt to be made, here I have mapped out, on paper, swatches of the design. I'll have to dig out my book to finish this one. I hope I haven't scavenged fabric for other projects. I suppose, even if I did, Julie's Little Quilt Shop, aka. my stash closet, will have just what I need. Then again, you know a little fabric shopping does a body good!

Actually, this is one of my oldest things in my closet. It was given to me by my father and he thought his mother made it and she died when he was 14 so it's at least 61 years old, my dad is 75. It has torn seems and some stains on it. So I think I'll sew the seems and wash it first. I washed it and got most of the stains out, but, there are a few stubborn stains. I think I'll leave them, because I don't want to replace any of the fabric. Whoever made this quilt, actually used some very good quality cotton material and it must have been stored somewhere out of the sunlight as the colors and fabric are in very good shape, other than a few small stains.

When I left Houston, my quilting buddies and I did one last Round Robin. This is my resulting quilt top. At the time I started the center square, I was really into making quilts that looked like oriental rugs. While taking classes at the Houston Quilt Festival, I was fortunate to take a class from Judy Cloninger, she made this quilt Shiraz. She also sold patterns that looked like Moroccan tiles. So that is the beginning of this quilt top. I've always wanted to make it larger into a bed quilt. Right now I seem to be in finishing mode and so maybe I'll make a wall hanging and leave it at this size.

My original intent was to make one really long post that included all my UFO's. Well, maybe that would have worked, if I hadn't felt the need to discuss the history of each piece! You in the blog spot world, might know how much of a pain it is to drag the photos down the post. So, I think I'll try to organize my UFO's and end this one with my Houston, years 1984 to 1995 and before, the fan quilt circa 1940's, UFO's.

It's fall here in the valleys of Kentucky...smile

Nope, not really any valleys here in Kentucky, maybe a few little ones or one great big one, as the area we live in is known as the Ohio Valley. The grey days of the Ohio Valley are upon us. Here is a little fellow that seems to be tired or maybe a little down. The view from our backyard really is quite lovely, but, it's a real pain to mow. I think it's worth it.

I'm working on the Quiet Village quilt today. I've got to get the border done, as we are going to be shown how to make the last border for the quilt. Betty and Mary ROCK! In our little quilt group that meets at the church, we have some very gifted quilters that generously share their knowledge.

Grandmother taught me to sew

My Grandmother Margie has lived an exciting albeit difficult life. She married my grandfather Ted 3 times. I guess divorce was not the accepted way to live in those days and my Grandmother had 2 children and had to make things work.

Sewing was not so much a way of life, maybe as it was in earlier years, but, it was more worth it to sew back then. When I was very young, my earliest memories were of pushing the sewing machine pedal as my mother sewed clothes for us. But, it was my Grandmother that really helped fine tune my sewing skills later in life. She taught me tips and tricks that only an experienced seamstress would know. Like how to make an elastic waistline look better and how to clean finish seams correctly.

Of course there were not the reams of books and digital information that abounds on the internet today that I could have turned to back in the '70's and 80's when I first started started sewing clothing. I actually made a Nehru styled shirt in the 3rd grade, with the help of my mother. Yep, the Beatles were popular then and I suppose that was the beginning of my eclectic taste in music.

Anyway, my Grandmother, Margie, is 92 and in the hospital with pancreatitis. They removed her gallbladder and is going to a nursing home and rehab for a while. Then she will move in with my mom and dad. That ole circle of life thing happens to the toughest of us and Margie certainly tough.

Jennifer and I made the 12 hour drive to Oologah visit her for a fast 2 day trip, arriving at 2:00 am Saturday and leaving at 5:00am on Monday. She and I fought all the way there-"you are driving too fast", "watch it!!". But, once we arrived in Oklahoma, we settled into our visit and had a very nice time. My mom seemed to really enjoy herself and us and I got to spend time with my Grandmother and sister, Lisa. This was all we had time for as we were running ourselves back and forth to Tulsa, about an 80 mile round trip, the 2 days we were there. For such a long drive, I would have liked to have stayed longer, but, Jennifer had 2 big tests this week and we had to get back. I wish I had time to visit my friend, Anita, but, it just didn't work out.

Jennifer's hair has grown out about 3 inches now, but, she still likes to wear her long hair wig. Margie's favorite color is yellow and one of her favorite blocks is the dresden plate. I made her this quilt in 2 days and drove it to Oklahoma so she could have it on her bed in the hospital. Jennifer always had a different quilt on her bed when she was in the hospital. If you know someone that is in for an extended stay, make them a quilt for the hospital. It's a great conversation starter and sometimes thats a lot easier topic to talk about than real life.