Winter memories in wool

When our grandsons moved to Michigan, I traced each ones foot-print and hand-prints on to a wool tweed fabric planning to make their mom a cozy "moose" quilt for winter. Finally, after 3 years the quilt is almost finished. The hand and feet turned into cute moose heads with black buttons sewed on for eyes and nose,

I cut out wool felt snowflakes to scatter around on the quilt. Three of the snowflakes my friend Mary machine embroidered on the boys names.

Before they moved here they would come to visit wearing these hats and mittens. They had to be on the quilt!

In between all the applique I hand-embroidered in wool snowflakes, couching them down with shimmery thread as I machine quilted the top.
A few more hand stitches on the binding and it's ready for mom.

Valentines

My good friend had a hip replacement last week (she's much older than me! just kidding Laura), and with Valentines day on the mind I made her a quilted mat for her table. This is a very simple pattern, I've made quite a few over the years.

A quick run down on how it's made, I made a plastic hexagon template to cut out the fabric.
This is so easy I made two mats at once.

Cut out the strips that surround the hexagon,

sew the first three on,

cut off the excess fabric and sew on the next strips. Keep doing this until your happy with the size.

I then layered it with batting and a back and machine quilted it in the ditch.
A fun cheery little piece.

This would be great with any fabric.

If your interested in the dimensions e-mail me and I'll send them to you.

The grandsons have been busy making their school Valentines boxes. They had so much fun.
A card and candy eating monster box.

A Valentine robot.

And of course who wouldn't think a football field Valentine box!

The boys also made all their Great-Grandparents cards.

My own personal quilted Valentines from years ago. I made this wall hanging with marbleized fabric hearts and three dimensional  rose buds in the middle 90's.

This little wall hanging with lace doily hearts I made in the late 1990's.

(Is yours up Donna?)

In the early 90's while on a quilt retreat at my friends cottage we visited an huge old house turned into a (spooky) antique shop. I bought this skeleton key and lock and made this heart for it.

Shifting gears to Natural dyeing next summer.
One of my favorite natural dyes to grow is Cosmos flowers the orange ones. They give the most beautiful color and Eco prints and are not light sensitive. I heard there were Chocolate cosmos flowers and for the past three years I've been trying to find some. Last year I could find the plants at $5.00 a piece! They are a very small flowering plant and a annual! That was a little much. This year though I found the seeds on Amazon. I'm ready to begin planting and dyeing but that will be awhile, with about 12 inches of snow on the ground and more on the way it's just a dream. I'll let you know how they do in July!

This is the shipping label where the seeds came from if your interested.

Family Tree Quilt

I haven't really much new to blog about, I've been hand quilting my natural dyed flower quilt and at work (during slow moments)  I work on embroidering in more family stories on my Family Tree quilt.  

This is one of my favorite blocks, I'll tell you the story.
When my grandmother was widowed in 1947 she lived in an old house on the back of their property. This property was in the middle of nowhere although it had a main road going by, one end of the road was a farm town the other end was a larger town.  She had a little grocery store built near the front of the property with her living space in the back. By 1949 her store was open and ready for business. As a kid growing up we loved the store that meant candy, soda and goodies. Every Christmas my father would go into the woods and chop down a tree to put on the roof of the store. My cousin who was an art teacher would paint the front windows and bring the most wonderful, fancy cookies I ever saw. We spent many Christmas Eves (and holiday's) there. Now that I'm older I realize how heroic my grandmother was, a women in the 1940's, never learning to drive and having  a store built out in the country which she ran and lived in until she died in her 80's.

Another addition to the quilt I embroidered on the tree trunk my husband and my initials like teenagers would carve when they were dating, as we started dating when we were teenagers!