Quilt Hunt

So here is one of the results of my quilt hunt. I found two quilts made by my great grandma Lydia Finlinson.

This first quilt is a double wedding ring that my great grandma Lydia made for my Grandma Isobel Finlinson Williams' wedding. The second quilt is also made by Lydia but I don't know anything else about it. I have found more quilts I will be posting later.

The experiment...

So Carolyn, Sherida and I took the Crazy Quilt class at Snow Goose. It was really fun, and we learned this cool quilt as you go thing where you use decorative stitches on your machine to quilt each block separately and then sash them together. I immediately wanted to try a baby quilt. So I bought a new sewing machine with lots of cute stitches (nothing fancy, mind you- I just needed the stitches!) and set to work on a baby quilt for my friend. Along the way, I learned that I don't like quilting as I go. You can't pull the blocks around and make them line up like you can with just one layer of fabric, so all my sashings don't line up at all. It's okay for this, since the project was all kinds of crazy patterns anyway (and my friend who is receiving it is the nicest person I know and will love it no matter what.) But if I was doing something fussy that I wanted to look really perfect, I would definitely not try this.

I debated including this picture, since it really shows off how crooked by sashings are, but I think it is still kind of cute, and you can see how it would work if someone smarter than me was doing it.

Oh, well. At least it is a project checked off my to-do list. And it gave me a good excuse to buy a new sewing machine. Now all I have left to do today is finish my snowball exchange blocks (don't worry- they'll be straighter that the baby quilt!), make my block of the month block, work on a UFO, tend a sick baby, and maybe have surgery or break my leg so Shanda will make me a quilt.

Thanks for the Invite!

Hi all,
No, I don't know where all my kids are, but then they range in age from 24 to 38, so I guess they don't have to answer to me anymore.

Yes, my children have clothes. My second daughter has WAYYYY more than she needs, but she has great taste! She also rivals Imelda Marcos for her shoe collection and has just as many purses.

If they haven't been fed, it's their own fault.

Quilting news:
I am so excited because I just purchased new sewing room furniture that will be arriving in 4-6 weeks; hopefully sooner. I've been having back problems from my less than desirable setup, so I'm hopeful this will be a great solution. (Sounds like enough justification for buying it to me!)

I also finished my first Guild UFO and it is off for quilting.

I am leaving for California on Friday with my daughter (the one with all the clothes, shoes, and purses). Don't know when I'll be back --- sometime next week, but I definitely plan on hitting some quilt stores. We're flying though, so I don't know how much I will be able to bring back.

When I get my new setup, I will post pictures.
Sherida

A great thought to remember...

Gigi's girl for Chelsea!

Does this look familiar? I don't know why I am so incapable of an original idea. I guess that Lisa's designs are so cute that I just have to copy them. This is actually one of two that I am making in this pattern. This is the baby of the original. I made it for my niece who had surgery. The day that I sewed the border on this, my other niece, Mckenzie, broke her leg, so now I am going to have to make another!

New Classes at Mom's

March 23 Pillow Case Class

March 24 Purse Class

April 23 Quick and Easy Receiving Blanket

May 6 Binding Class

May 7 Apron Class

May 13 Turning Twenty Quilt Class

May 29/30 Retreat

June 4 Bargello Flag Class

June 10 Christmas Stockings Class

I think we all carve out a special spot to sew.

This is my spot! It's in our basement.

I can leave what ever I'm working on and

no one has to see the mess!!

I just need to get down there more often!!

Pam Jensen

Quilt Hunt

So I have realized that I come by my love of fabric and quilting honestly. I was reading about my grandma Isobel Finlinson Williams. She grew up in Oak City and her family owned the Oak City Cash Store. She told about how much she loved the fabric in the store. Her mother Lydia Finlinson was known for having everyone over to quilt. So I guess I can blame my quilting addiction on my Grand Sew Mama and my Great Grand Sew Mama! I know that there are some quilts out there that were made by my grandma Isobel and my great grandma Lydia, in fact I think I might have one or two myself. So I am going on a quilt hunt to find some of their quilts and the stories behind them.
This quilt was my bedspread when I was a little girl. I loved this quilt as a little girl, and was excited to find that my mom still had it. It was given to my mom by my Grandma Isobel, but my mom didn't know who made it. I will have to see if I can find out the story behind my first quilt! Wish me luck!

First Attempt

Thanks for the invite, Carolyn. I am not much of a sew mama, but here is a picture of my first attempt at a turning twenty! I LOVE this fabric!

Sew Mama Test

I guess I need to add "Make sure two year old does not have a bottle of nail Polish" to the sew mama test. I was sewing away this morning when my little girl came in to show me that she had painted her own finger nails, fingers, and the carpet in the playroom. I then lost a good hour of my sewing time scrubbing my carpet! Well, the good news is I got all of the polish out, the bad news is my UFO is still not finished.

I am a sew mama!

Funniest thing just happened. I was sitting at my table sewing and having a great time. Cole came in and climbed up on my chair, behind me, gives me a huge hug and says, "You my sew mama!" I guess I really am a sew mama!

Snow Goose Festival quilts by Shanda

These are two of the five quilts I put in the quilt show. The pink one is a random pattern I created. I quilted it myself and now it's my daughters. The blue/green/pink one is a tossed nine patch. I enjoyed this pattern. It was a lot of fun to use the bright colors. I made it for my mother. She wants to make a quilt for her granddaughters. I told her this one should be Bailey's. I am going to be helping her quilt quite a few of them because she has thirty something granddaughters. I am still learning on my quilting machine. I want to practice on all my old quilts before I attempt it on one that actually cost a lot of money to make!

Snowball Nine Patch

Melissa, Shanda and I spent the day sewing last Thursday. We were working on our Snowball nine patches to swap at quilt guild. We thought this project wouldn't take very long so we all brought about 4 other projects to work on too. Boy were we wrong! It took us forever to get the first set finished! After the first set we were a little faster, but none of us got to work on any other projects that day. We were all a little scared of the "scrappy" look and were pretty sure that our blocks were the ugliest things we had ever made. In the end they turned out pretty cute (we hope!).