Civil War Diary and Love Letter Quilt

Finally finished scanning all the Civil War Diary and Love Letter Blocks! If you want to see closeup of the blocks you can check them all out here.

Why is Chloe hyper?

Why is Chloe hyper? Because this is post 499!...... You know what that means for the next post!

And I caught up with the civil war blocks! Just in time for next weeks new ones! Oh these are so much fun to make!

Busy, busy, busy

Its been busy, busy, busy at work this week, so just a few Civil War blocks I got done this week. The one above, was suppose to be all black and red on the outside corners. I got the first black strip on and then was doing this so late at night I forgot and put white instead of black! Oh well, I kind of like it so it is staying this way!

Williamsburg Medallion Top finished - and a few more CW blocks!

I finally finished Marcie's Williamsburg Medallion top! Now to figure out how to quilt it! I flipped the way the HST border went to give it more light space and then a more definate darker outline. Doesn't it look fun! I had told Marcie the other day that this pattern would make an awesome baby quilt if you had the right baby fabrics, don't you think!

And here is a Civil War block I made last night called Panic. Ummmmm do you see anything wrong with it! A lack of sleep, too much work and stress and this block said "PANIC"! I thought about leaving it, but ummm, I couldn't do it! So I did fix it! Below are a few more blocks I got done!

Where to Start

I have so much to show you! So I guess I"ll just share some today and the rest later. Yesterday was my class with Kathleen Tracy and the Broken Dishes quilt from her Prairie Children and their Quilts book. It was so much fun! Kathy is so down to earth and not a perfectionist - I liked that. You can tell she really loves those old diaries of women back on the prairie and making these quilts for fun and enjoyment, not prize winning. That made it so much fun. While we sewed she read to us some passages of a series of books "Covered Wagon Women" that the author Kenneth Holmes had collected and published old diaries of women from the wagon trail. It was so interesting.

She also mentioned she is thinking of starting an online group and and an online doll quilt club type thing. She was wondering if there was interest in such a thing and I said I know several people who would probably love it! So keep an open for it on her web site if you think you would like to do it.

So here is my finished top! It had a different border fabric, but Kathy had brought this homespun with and I really liked the way that looked instead of the print from the kit - so I used this! And I threw in the tan/brown checked fabric to give it a bit more brownish tint. I"m really happy with it!

And here is what I made from all the little scraps of fabric from the kit! Adorable isn't it!

And here is a new batch of Civil War Blocks! I still have many more to go to catch up with this week! But at least I"ve made progress!

Most Used Pincushion

Above is my most used pincushion. Not the fanciest, but certainly most used! It stays by my machine and goes with me on retreat! I know I've shared some of my others in the past so I won't bore you with more pics of those. Blueberry Lane is having a giveaway of an old pincushion book out of print for sharing your most used pincushion. Go visit!

And here are some Civil War blocks I got done this week! The top 2 are my favorites! And I even bought a cheap tablecloth to tape up on Adam's closet for a design wall finally! It is so fun to see the blocks all together! I have a lot of red and blue ones I decided. I'll have to fix that!

Last 3 blocks for this week - and 2 mistakes!

Here are the last 3 blocks for this week! And my mind must have been somewhere else! The flag/star block is actually easy to piece, but for some reason my flying geese were all screwy and the whole thing is just "wonky"! I'll probably do this one over sometime.

The real mistake is the gold and blue one. The square in the middle is suppose to be bigger and the gold part thinner. Well I have no idea what I did, but somehow I cut a smaller center square, but had triangles sewn on large enough to still give me the correct size inside square. I love the way it looks with the mistake so this one is staying this way! And I love the crazy reproduction fabric I had for the third block!

Tomorrow I"m off to go visit my oldest daughter at college with Emily and we have tickets to see "Annie"! Should be a lot of fun, although a LOT of driving in one day. I won't be back until the wee hours of Monday morning, so won't be back for a few days. But don't forget - post #500 is soon to happen - and the big 500 giveaway!

More blocks

Here are 3 more blocks for this weeks Civil War quilt. They are all turning out so fun!

And here is one of my night TV viewing projects! I just started it, so I have a long way to go yet. But I"m using Tracey's back-basting method - I really like it!

And here is one other very long term project. I started quilting this last year, but it has been put away for about a year now, so it is time to get it back out and worked on. I only have about 1/3 of it done, but I"m quilting it fairly heavy and love it so far. I don't get hand work done too fast, but someday it will be finished!

2 more Civil War Blocks

Oh it was such a good weekend. I did so much sewing! But for today I"m sharing 2 more Civil War blocks I got done! Only one more to go to catch up from last week, and then it is on to this week! Oh and if your interested in what these blocks are, I"ve created a link to a pdf file of the list of blocks we are doing. This is just a suggested list, you can make whatever blocks you want. You'll find the link under the Sew Many Blocks blog ring box on my sidebar.

I didn't get a chance to take pics of all the fun I had this weekend, so you'll just have to wait - and now that it is the work week again of course I get so busy! BUT - look at what I did get done yesterday! I LOVE spiral binding my books that I use open for long periods of time! I can easily lay them open, or fold them back to make it take up smaller space. And these 2 books were the perfect books for binding this way! I'm so happy I had time to get it done!

If your interested in getting any books done like this, I have them done at Office Max. I take it to their copy center and they cut off the binding and then punch the holes and spiral bind them. I have a lot of books I use done like this. To get both books done the bill came to just under $7. So it isn't a big expense either, and so worth it!

First Civil War Diaries Blocks

I"ve been wanting to make the blocks from the Civil War Diaries and Civil War Love Letter books for a long time. So when Kathie asked me if I wanted to do it of course I said yes! I"m about a week behind, but I got the first 4 done! (Thank you Kathie for picking easy ones for the first week so I could catch up!). So just a short post today - I'm busy sewing!