Thanks to the Missouri Valley guild!

I want to send out a great big thank you to the Missouri Valley quilt guild for having me come speak last night and for all their encouragement and help! I thought I was all ready and took my camera along to get pictures and discovered that I didn't have my card in it! Grrr! Hopefully some of the gals will send me some pictures and I will post them later.

As I was driving up there, I was thinking I should have posted about going there, just in case anyone new might want to come and see my presentation. I will try to be better about that! Next week, September 28th thru October 1, I will have a booth at the AQS show in Des Moines. On October 10th the Beta Sigma Phi ladies from Clarinda will be here for a luncheon, trunk show and home tour. October 11th I will do a trunk show at the Topeka guild and October 13th I will do a trunk show at the Garrison house in Clarinda for the After 5 club. They are a religious group, so I will be putting a new twist to my trunk show with a few of my stories and experiences.

Thanks again to the Missouri Valley ladies. I made it home safe and sound at 11:20. It only took me 2 hours and 5 minutes going east on the interstate and then south on highway 71. I had several ladies ask how long it took me to get up there, and I thought it was about 2 and a half hours, so I was pleasantly surprised to make it home in a little over 2 hours...that was even with 1 potty stop!This is a sneak peek at some of my display for the AQS show. Thought I'd show it, since I didn't have pictures of the trunk show.

Frost!

Just had to go out and get a picture of the frost we had the other morning...I think Thursday, September 15. Seems kind of early....had to get out some of my cold weather clothes! Good time to snuggle in and quilt!

Dotty Tuesday!

I'm not the best at computer things! I'm trying to link to//http://holly-girlsatheart.blogspot.com/ She's having a Dotty Tuesday, so I decided to try and link up....hope it works! This picture is one of my many dotty blocks...will have some of these for sale at the AQS show in Des Moines the end of this month....Sept. 28 thru Oct. 1st. Hope to meet lots of you fellow bloggers there!

2 more samples of Dotter's Puzzle

2 more finishes! Woohoo! These are 2 more of the Dotter's Puzzle samples that I just finished yesterday. Binding is one of my least favorite jobs...the blue one is twin sized, but seemed more like queen moving it around on the machine! I bound the edges of it by machine to save time and hopefully, it will wear better. I will use it on one of the retreat beds upstairs. It is made out of newer fabrics. The pink one is made out of mostly vintage fabrics and is hand-quilted, thanks to my good friend, Diane Ware.
It has been such a beautiful day today to hang the quilts outside. I like to wash my quilts as soon as I get them done to give them that wrinkled look. I try to design my quilts to look like the old-fashioned quilts. Gotta love those antique quilts and hopefully after a few washings, mine will look that way too!

3 finishes in 1 Day!

I'm so excited! I finished the binding on three quilts yesterday! This pink quilt below is one of them. It is made out of feed sack prints and I'll have kits for these at the AQS. The kits will be just the feed sack squares, you can set them together with whatever fabric you choose, or use them in a totally different project if ya want to! I machine quilted this with the pumpkin seed pattern. I'll have to get a closer picture to show you how it looks. Will post other finishes later!

More Iowa State Fair Photos

I thought this was a cool way to display old license plates. I have several old ones that were Dad's that I may have to make into this.

This was another sweet display at the state fair....so many fun things to see and do!

2 Friends Kaleidoscope

This is another new/old pattern that will soon be for sale. I had a picture of it a while back on my blog. My good friend, Gwen is doing all the hard work for me, that's why it's called 2 Friends Kaleidoscope. Thanks Miss Gwen. I have a link to the Sew Darn Crafty blog with a picture of it there. Check it out here! https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTB17iOh8A8TsZgq7QqIEZpBP5T18Gte1ycvTs38q_mIhZXe9ex5P7N5YAaJAMdwPVq_H6440HOtSNiM03IGg_i4-IC0Wlb23XupTqI1yZpLqhqHHJnzYnMmZC4Wdcxq7rzB5MZ0LWLj68/s1600/polka+dot+sew+darn+crafty.jpg

Iowa State Fair!

This is my good friend, Gwen Cox, from Birmingham, Alabama, at the poultry building at the Iowa State Fair. She came for her yearly trip to our state fair. We saw lots of things at the fair, but we both enjoy the quilts about the best of all! She is a fellow quilter also and has taught me lots about quilting. She worked on a new pattern for me while she was here. I'll show you pictures of it later. This quilt below is the 1st place winner in the found and finished category. I enjoy that category the most of all, since that's what I do a lot of the time. It was one of the few that was hand quilted and also won an award for that.
Check out this link for lots of other fun sewing and crafting ideas...http://http//sewmanyways.blogspot.com/search/label/sew%20darn%20crafty

Freezing corn in Iowa

It's been kind of a busy summer. Here we are a couple of weekends ago helping freeze corn at Farmer Jack's. That's Farmer Jack and his dotter, Faith on the right, and grandson Kooper and hubby Lonnie, in the skidloader. We all had lots of fun putting up over 200 packages of corn. I like to serve the homegrown corn at retreats along with homegrown beef and pork and other veggies from the garden.

These 1st two pictures are close-ups of my mostly vintage..baby girl..Dotter's Puzzle. The color isn't the best, the backround fabric is off white.

I went to a Quilts of the Bluffs meeting in Council Bluffs, Ia and one of the young gals there taught me a trick when you're sandwiching/pinning quilts. I used to think I needed to close every pin before I went on to the next one, but the way she did it, she left them all open and closed the pins after it's all sandwiched. It doesn't matter at that point if you move the quilt around and it's a lot easier to close the pins if you can get them closer to you and move them around a little. Is that clear as mud?! Hope it helps somebody! Anything to speed things up a little and make life a little easier!

I have a good friend who is hand quilting this quilt for me now and it should be ready for display at the AQS show in Des Moines.

Doll quilt from vintage fabrics

I worked on this little doll quilt yesterday. It's such a fun little size. I'm making up kits for these and decided to test a kit, to make sure I had enough material in the kit, and I did. Why do I doubt myself?

I machine quilted it in about 15 minutes. Fast and fun!

This is one of my quilts upstairs on the retreat beds. I picked it up at an auction for a song because it had a tear at the top. I married it with this slobber guard and it's almost as good as new! I was trying to get a picture of the cute little children's print, you'll have to click on the picture to see it closer. It is machine quilted. This next quilt is also one that I picked up at an auction. It is machine quilted with about a 1 and 3/4" grid. Does anyone know the name of it? I may make a pattern for this some day.

Bed and Breakfast guests

This weekend I have bed and breakfast guests who are family of the late Helen Timberlake, who used to live about 3 miles from here. It's been fun to have some kids come and stay. As they came in the front door, there was a tree frog on the window that they got to see and then a little later, here came this big yellow moth with brown polka dots! Gotta love those dots....they're even in nature...leave it to me to notice that! This is a little closer picture of the moth. Does anyone know anything about these? This morning it was down on the sewing room window. A couple weeks ago I saw one that was pink with some dots, but I didn't get a picture of it. It's so fun to enjoy the outdoors... we got a little relief from our heat yesterday. We got about 1" and 60 hundredths. Very, very welcome. Should be a good crop this year, if things continue as they are. This is a little bit of my bluebird collection.. Seems like there's lots of people who like bluebirds in the blogging world! I have a special story about bluebirds that I may share with you someday!

Simple summer lunch and a tip for putting on borders.

This is one of my simple summer lunches, amongst the sewing mess! I have been retreating myself and sometimes take my lunch down to the sewing room. I know I shouldn't be eating around the fabrics, but it so nice and cool down there this time of year! Do any of you eat off these little snack trays? I just think they are fun and a great size for a lighter meal. I usually use these trays at my retreats for breakfast and lunch. I also enjoy drinking out of the swanky swigs, which I have an abundance of and love to serve the guests cool drinks in the summertime.


I have just started getting fresh tomatoes and will soon have sweet corn, if the coons don't get it 1st! The guys have put a 3 wire electric fence around it, so hopefully they won't get thru that!

Here is another Dotter's puzzle made with mostly vintage fabrics. I say mostly vintage, because I just don't have enough cutsie fabrics in my stash to do all the kits, so a couple of the prints are reproductions. I'll have to show some up close pictures in another post. My tip for putting borders on is to put your quilt on a design wall and instead of measuring the middle, I just put the 2 side borders pinned at the top and cut the 2 strips off at the bottom. I usually allow about 1/8 inch extra. Sometimes I do measure also.

Thank you to the Osceola ladies!

I just love to get mail AND to have it addressed to the Farmer's Dotter is even better! I got this wonderful package from the Osceola ladies, who were here in June. Thank you, thank you! You didn't need to send me anything, your visit is a gift in itself!

Here is a picture of the contents: 4 polka dotted pot holders ( what a clever idea...made the ragtime way), a yellow dotted journal, a package of dotty bowl covers AND a bluebird picture with a nice note from all the ladies on the back. I'll have to get that framed before you come see me again! Thanks again, and I look forward to serving you again!










P.S. The double wedding ring that the presents are laying on is one I made for our 25th wedding anniversary, 7 years ago. Most of the prints are vintage. I think it is one of the hardest quilts that I've ever done!

Recycled ironing station

This is a picture of my big ironing station. I just love it and my retreat ladies do too! The bottom part is an old baby bed that my folks had in their closet forever and then in my closet forever until I came up with this idea. I just covered a 2' x 8' piece of plywood with a piece of blanket (stapled on) and then added this piece of Mary Englebreit fabric that I had in my stash. The middle part of the fabric started to wear, so I added a piece of heavy cloth from my stash to the middle of the board. It works great for pressing quilt tops and a great way to recycle the old bed! I may have to make another one of these!

Dotter's Puzzle in baby size

Here's a couple pictures of Dotter's Puzzle in baby size. if you read my post a few days ago, I said I'd show you them. The last post about my trunk show also has another pink one without the border. Hope to get that border done today. Yesterday I finished piecing a different baby blue one that will be for the new grandson due November 1st. I hope to get started hand quilting on it soon. I haven't taken any pictures of it yet. Maybe my goal will be to take one when it's finished!

Chariton show

These are a couple pictures of the trunk show that I did at Chariton, IA. It was a hot-hot evening, but they still had a nice group. Thanks ladies for having me speak. It is always good to venture out into new areas. If you know anyone that wants a quilt speaker, I am available and for the next year I'm just charging mileage, just to get the word out about my retreats. Please contact me if you're interested in having me speak and/or doing a workshop.

Part of the fun of going to other parts of the state is going to quilt shops! I got to go to a couple shops that I'd not been to before. Both were just off Highway 34, at Lucas and Chariton. They were cute shops with LOTS of fabric to offer! I hit the jackpot at Chariton with a 50% off sale on 30's reproductions! Gotta love those sales!

Trunk show in Chariton, Ia.

Going to Chariton, Iowa this evening and giving a trunk show at their guild meeting this evening at 7 bells at the Lutheran Church. Come join me if you can!

New pattern called Dotter's Puzzle

I've been working on a new pattern that I'm calling Dotter's Puzzle. It has been so much fun! I just love it when a plan comes together! After deciding to name it this, I realized that making a quilt IS like putting a puzzle together, huh! The picture below is the twin/full sized quilt top that I just finished, on one of the retreat beds with red polka dot sheets. I just love the dots and try to put a few in every quilt now! A lot of old quilts had polka dots, you know. I'll show more of those in a later post. Anyway, I found this pink antique quilt (below) at an antique store out in Colorado last winter and bought it with the intentions of reproducing it and, wallah, here it is! I love to redesign old quilt patterns, using new methods. So I guess you could call me a re-designer, not a designer! I have also reduced it in size and made it into baby quilts. Will show those in a later post. I have been busy getting kits made up for both the larger and baby sized quilts. Can't wait to show you the baby ones, they are SO sweet!