More Than Two Decades Later!

I pieced this years ago--1992, I think.

 I pieced another the same weekend, and it was hand quilted by the end of 1992.
I was in the process of buying a house, so this one was packed away.  I pulled it out several times during the intervening years, but it ended up back in a box.

By the time it came out of a box again last fall, I'd pretty much forgotten it.  It's a small treasure intended to be a wall hanging.  It measured only 31 by 40 inches.

It's now quilted.  These colors do not play well when photographed.  The violet is the color of the violets that grew wild in the midwest.  The turquoise is bluer.  And what looks like teal is very close to a kelly green. Maybe their inability to play well with cameras and in print is why I never see these colors in quilt magazines.

 It's comprised of six whirlygig blocks, which are comprised of eight flying geese segments.

 I quilted with violet on the violet, an ashy medium green on the green, and a light turquoise on the rest of the quilt.  I used Fil-Tec  Glide.

 My favorite parts are the two-inch turquoise border,...

and the five inch outer border. I would have guessed that the five inch border would be too narrow for my curvy beribboned borders, but they worked out just fine.

I can't think of any spot in my current house where this quilt would work. So I'm thinking it will become a Victory Prayer Quilt for someone in a wheel chair because it's small enough not to get caught in the wheels.

I had also forgotten how fast it can be to quilt something of this small size.  Wonder how long it will take me to get binding cut and sewn.  (First I have to find a suitable solid.)

I'm linking to Connie's Weekly Link-Up at Free-Motion by the River,
Freshly Pieced WIP on Wednesday,
and Esther's Wips on Wednesdays.

Happy quiltmaking and knitting.

Reorganization, Explanation, New Quilt

I'm back, more or less, and wondering how long it will take me to catch up on blogs.

First came the reorganization of my quilting studio--which I've worked on for weeks and still has a ways to go but is a vast improvement.
I have a lot of shelves of organized fabric including many of the hand dyes I've done for the last couple of decades and have been somewhat reluctant to use:

                                                                   Yes, still a ways to go!

Reorganizations of lots and lots of prints:

Little curtains over the shelves to protect them from light:

 I still have boxes of fabric, etc., about which I need to make decisions.

I do feel like I'm still healing from the "mystery virus," and I'm still not accomplishing as much as I'd like.  The good thing is that throughout this time my brain has continued to heal so that I now hear things, especially in music, that my brain is processing for the first time since its injury over 2.5 years ago.  Given how much I love music, that's a huge blessing.

I am back to quiltmaking at last, and tonight I get to layer this for quilting:

It's a prayer quilt for the husband of my grade school/high school friend Pat Orr.  Dave has finally been matched with a donor for a liver transplant, so I need to get this quilted, blessed, and on the way to Illinois.  I'm thinking his donor may need a prayer quilt too. However, the latter quilt can be selected from the  quilts waiting for distribution.

The panels in the above quilt were purchased several years ago, and I've been collecting additional fabrics to go with them, but up to this point the only thing I had used them for was for a door hanging.  They remind me of autumn during my childhood and youth on our farm near El Paso, Illinois.

School moves forward, and sometimes I do too! The polar vortex is headed in our direction (despite the fact that one of the writers on Accuweather said the Southwest would be spared).  I'm grateful our introduction to this one will probably not include the snow it's brought to much of the country.  (It's obvious I'm getting old because I talk about the weather!)

Happy quiltmaking...

Little Update....

Have spent some time quilting a prayer quilt that I started over a year ago...

Treadling my vintage Necchi BU....

Progress came to a standstill about a year ago because I didn't have suitable border, binding, and backing fabrics....and, let's face it, because I just have a hard time working with these kinds of colors.  I would love to have a better understanding of why different brains react to different colors in different ways.  Despite the wild popularity of Civil War color themes, I just don't respond to those, although I did love making the Mark Twain Quilt for my brother-in-law ( part 1 here, part 2 here,  part 3 here). I think the pleasure in making that quilt had a lot to do with whom it was for, that  I made it at an idyllic place to which I'll likely never return (because my wonderful friend feels that at her age she can no longer maintain two homes), and because I used so many blues and greens in it.

I keep thinking that if I'm going to continue making prayer quilts for men, I need to come up with some new strategies. Now that Clothworks has started American Made Brand (AMB) totally American grown and milled cottons, I could make some quilts with solids that I like, so they wouldn't be so "girly." By the way, this blog will be a stop on the AMB Blog Tour, June 19 on Day 24 of the 25 day tour.  (That's because New Mexico was one of the last four states to be granted statehood.)

Quilting progress was also slowed by the fact that I had to get a new water heater this week.  They are warranted for only six years, so I'm glad mine lasted almost nine years.  However, the price has doubled, and I wonder how elderly people with limited incomes manage to deal with such sudden expenditures.

The other thing that died was my Kindle Fire HD.  No, I did not drop it, spill liquid on it (apparently I just spill liquid on my clothes!), nor crack the screen.  My phone calls to Kindle support kept getting dropped, but eventually we managed to sort things out, so a new one is on its way.  (However, I'm left wondering why Amazon 2-day shipping ends up taking five to seven days!) I do like the Kindle Fire because I can take it with me when we make our long trek to CNM's Westside campus and read blogs and knit while my daughter is in class.

More busy stuff this weekend--including a Duke City Sound concert this afternoon.  Then tomorrow our church Jugband will take part in church services in Estancia and Mountainair.  By the way, the J.U.G. stands for "Joy Under God."  There are only two jugs, one of which is antique but silent so far, and plenty of singers, guitars, usually an amazing pianist who plays by ear, a couple mandolins, one or two real washtub basses, and sometimes a fiddle or harmonica, and a lovely 93 year old who plays the washboard.  We do make a joyful noise!

Happy quiltmaking..and knitting,