This QAL is brought to you by Partners in Design: Where Friends and Fabric Meet.
A shark sighting! I appliqued a shark fin to add a bit of whimsey to this block.
This 12.5″ (unfinished) block pattern was created by Laura Piland of Slice of Pi Quilts. You can download it free
Before there were electric lights, piles of wax held candles on the branches of Christmas trees. Once they were all lit the tree was ablaze with light. Literally, many Christmas trees and homes burned to the ground because of this practice. You’ll be relieved to know that this block will light up your quilt the modern way.
The Art with Fabric Blog Hop is starting Monday. My day to post my project is Wednesday so please stop on back to see it then.
You might be wondering what this blog hop is all about. Participating bloggers were invited to produce a quilted/sewn project using a well-known or lesser known work of art as our inspiration piece. You can see the last several years entries here.
The theme this fall was Mother Earth. So what did Tu-Na decide to make for her quilted art piece. You’ll just have to return on Wednesday to see.
Here’s the schedule:
Monday, October 9th, 2017
Thanks for stopping by and do come again.
Karen, Tu-Na Quilts
Twenty-nine years ago it may have seemed like a good idea to plant a dozen apple trees.
Through the years, we lost a few trees to deer and the cold winter weather but we replaced most of those. We now have eleven trees remaining with nine of them having started producing in earnest in the last five years or so. However, last year due to a cold spell on Mother’s Day which froze most of the blossoms, we only had 6 surviving apples—actually only 5 since a wild turkey got one before we did.
This pic of one of our trees was taken by a friend of mine. You can see how loaded those trees are! Photo used with permission.
Imagine our surprise when every tree in our apple orchard produced abundantly this year.
The tree branches were bowing under the weight with some resting on the ground making for easy picking for me and others.
Mom and I are picking while our exchange daughter looks on. She is the one who received the plus quilt I made recently and which I’ll be posting about soon. Photo used with permission. Isn’t the sky in this pic interesting?
This past month, I have almost (but not quite) had my fill of fresh apple slices.
Here’s some Honeycrisp and Prairie Spies. We have two trees of each of these.
In addition, I’ve sauced them,
Naturally pink applesauce comes from some of the apples due to cooking them and running them thru the food strainer with their skins on.
turned them into delicious pies,
crisps, baked apples, and apple dumplings.
This is the first time I’ve ever made an apple dumpling. It was delicious!
I’ve even canned several jars of cinnamon apple rings.
I plan to make a few more jars of these.
My husband took 4 gallons of cider to a local vintner to be made into wine.
These are a couple of bottles left over from several years ago. We had two batches of different wine made: one with cinnamon and one without. Our latest batch won’t be done until sometime next year. Once it is finished, the vintner calls us to schedule an appointment to finish it up. At that time, we bottle it ourselves, cork it, and put on our own label. Notice our family crest which is on every bottle of wine that is made for us–even the rhubarb wine (but that’s another post).
My husband and I work together to dry many of them, some plain and some sprinkled with cinnamon.
Dried apples make a sweet snack. We’ve made about 24 gallon bags of plain and 6 quart bags of cinnamon apples that have mostly been given away to family and friends. We are still dehydrating as there are still plenty of apples to be done this way.
And we’ve given lots of apples away to friends and family. We’ve even sold 5 boxes to a local food co-op.
I just love this pic that my friend took of some of our Prairie Spies. I think they make excellent pies but are not good keepers due to easily being bruised. They’ve now had a good frost–down to 26 degrees F.–which helps make them sweeter and maybe will help them keep better. Photo used with permission.
But the majority of those luscious red or yellow apples gets pulverized into cider with our hand-crank cider press.
We work in our car garage to keep flies and wasps under control. First the apples are loaded into the hopper to be chopped into little pieces. My friend S. sure enjoys helping us out and has come several times. I think she’ll be back to help us again as she left behind not one but both of her great Norwex cleaning cloths that were used to wash the apples.
This friend of ours has cheerfully come every time we’ve cidered this year. Either D. really likes to help or he enjoys our company. I know that we couldn’t have done this much without his help and we are grateful to him. The motor runs the chopper but the press is hand-cranked.
About 16 pounds of apples goes into a gallon of cider.
It’s quite a process and we rely on family and friends to help us.
We wash, rinse, quarter, and cut out the stem and blossom ends (just because I think that is where the dirt hides even with good washing). The core is left in the apple to be crushed. We have lots of fun that just doesn’t seem to end this year.
Even the little ones bring apples from the trees or put them in the water. They taste test some of them too.
Everyone’s efforts are rewarded with a meal or two at our table (including at least one but usually several apple items) and lots of cider and apples to take home.
The gallons are not completely full allowing for expansion during the freezing process. We’ve learned from experience that there needs to be lots of head room now to avoid cleaning out a very sticky freezer later.
So far we’ve made 213 gallons of cider this year. That’s a lot of washing, cutting, and pressing of apples happening at our house over the last four weekends.
So where do we store all this cider? We keep a few gallons in the refrigerator to drink for 7-10 days. The rest gets put in the freezer. No, we don’t have enough freezer room for it all ourselves nor could we drink all of it even if we did. So we call our friends and family for help. Unfortunately for us, they are no longer answering our calls and we still have 3 trees left to pick.
What I Learned Today:
Questions: Are you an “eat them fresh” or “bake with them” kind of apple person? What do you make with apples?
Linking with
Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts for Let’s Bee Social (button on the sidebar)
Beth at Cooking Up Quilts for Main Crush Monday (button on the sidebar)
Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? (button on the sidebar)
Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making
You’ve heard from me about how fantastic our 2016 Quilt Minnesota Shop Hop trip was and I know at least a few of you have asked what my husband had to say about it. To satisfy your curiosity, I asked my husband if he’d share his thoughts about the trip. He was my helper: paid for everything, chauffeured me around, found things for me in shops that I had missed, and was in charge of taking interior and exterior shop photos while I interviewed and shopped. Without further ado, here’s Tu-Na Helper….
Hi everyone! Who’d have thought that I would be the talk of the internet (or at least this blog) and I am not even running for President! Yes. I accompanied my wife Karen on the MN Shop Hop not only this year, but for a total of three years now. I’m sure some of you think I may not have a life of my own. Not true! I have my own interests and hobbies that keep me more than occupied at times.
Here we are taking a selfie at the giant mosquito poster just outside of the Sweetwater Cotton Shoppe in Paynesville, MN. Had I known that this would be my internet debut, I would have combed my hair!
But first, where did my nickname come from? Well, we offered to bring my sister-in-law along for a day on the hop. Karen explained to her that she was going to blog about our journey and that I was taking photos for her blog. Karen told her that the name of the blog was “Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats”. My sister-in-law immediately piped up and said ” Oh, so that would make you Tu-Na Helper”. We had a good laugh about that. But unfortunately for me, the nickname seems to have stuck. What makes it even more unfortunate is that I do not even like tuna (fish)! Oh well, I’m a tough guy. I can take it.
So why would a husband agree to spend all this time shopping for fabric with his wife? I guess I do not think of it as lost time. I get to spend quality time with my wife doing something she enjoys (which also means she is in a pretty good mood). I enjoy looking for unique quilts and decorations that can be found on display in the shops. We also get to see areas in Minnesota that we otherwise would not get to see. Even after three times around the state, we manage to find something new and interesting. We are usually pretty focused on getting to our next destination, but we do look for some unique eateries for our evening meals. A couple of my favorites were Sherwood Forest near Nisswa, MN, and The Sawmill Saloon in Virginia, MN.
I found this quilt design particularly intriguing. It is called Gentlemen’s Agreement and was displayed at the Calico Hutch Quilt Shop in Hayward, MN.
On this trip we also took time off one afternoon to take a sailboat ride on Lake Peppin. It was both exhilarating and relaxing. On our way back to the dock we saw this hearty group of sailors out for a spin. I could not resist taking a photo or two. One never knows what wonderful sights you will come across when you take in the world around you.
I do enjoy helping Karen find some of the fabrics she needs. I have a fairly good eye for color matches if she has an idea of what she needs or a piece of fabric she is trying to match or contrast. I also monitor her spending to some extent. I know that it may not seem that way now that you have seen her loot, but believe me, it could be worse.
One of the sayings she frequently hears me remind her of is to “Spread the love”. What I mean by that is that she should not buy all the fabric she wants in one shop. Since we plan to visit all the shops on the hop we try to spread our purchases to as many shops as possible. We did not find items to purchase in every shop, but there was only a handful that we missed. The shops all go through a lot of expense and effort to hold the shop hop. Their reward is some additional business, sales, and recognition. While I understand that it is unrealistic to make a purchase in every shop, I feel that is also rude for a hopper to run in, get their passport stamped, and run back out without even looking around the shop a bit. Half the fun of the hop is talking to the shop’s owners and staff and seeing some of the fantastic quilts they have in their shops. Sorry about that, I will get off of my soapbox now…
A little more about my role as “Tu-Na Helper”. Using the Quilt Minnesota website to get the list of participating shops, I plan our route using an online site to find the most efficient route. While this is very helpful, it usually changes more than once along the way. Load the car, fuel the car, and we are on our way. My new role as photographer for the shop hop posts kept me busy while Karen would talk to the staff and do her shopping. I always ask someone on staff if they have any issues with me taking pictures in their store. Most shops have no problem but there are a few who prefer that no photos be taken. I honor those requests. I take my photographer role ‘very’ seriously. So seriously, in fact, that I took over a thousand photos! See what I mean!
This cute little saying met us at the door of Sadie Rae’s Quilt Shop in Wilton, MN. It applied pretty well to Karen. The amount of creativity that is shown in all the quilt shops is simply amazing. And yes, I said “cute” and I am man enough to admit it.
We usually do not know where we will end up at the end of the day. By mid afternoon we have a better idea and I can check ahead to see where we can get a room. It’s more exciting that way don’t ya know! The only time we had much of an issue was last year in the southern part of Minnesota along Interstate 90. The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally overlaps the Quilt Hop and every room within 30 miles of I90 was booked. In calling around I tried the Old Railroad Inn Bed & Breakfast in Jackson, MN. Luckily, they had just had a cancellation from a biker who had engine trouble earlier in the day and was not able to get to Jackson that day. We had a great night there!
Earlier I stated that I had my own interests too. I am an avid gardener and tend to supply my family with all the summer vegetables they can handle. We have a small fruit tree orchard as well. We have nine apple trees that are providing a record harvest this year. We have been cidering apples these past two weekends and have already pressed 134 gallons of apple cider with our cider press along with the help of family and friends. So what do you do with that much apple cider you may ask. Well, you ask everyone you know if they have any freezer room to store it. So far so good! Actually, fresh apple cider is a great tasting healthy drink. If that doesn’t suit you, we also take several gallons of cider to our local vintner to turn into apple wine. Doesn’t that sound better!
This is the reward for a day’s work at the cider press.
I also enjoy photography and reading ( I prefer science fiction stories). Having retired from an information technology job I still try to keep up with what’s new in that field as well as any new personal technology developments. I have started entering my photos in some local contests with limited success.
This photo, “Apache Lake Vista”, earned an honorable mention in a people’s choice photo show.
This past week our local library had their annual used book sale. Books are sold by the pound at the sale, at one dollar a pound. Now that’s a deal! I got a little carried away, but in my defense I was shopping for four people. I even picked up one book for Karen. However, the vast majority were books for me. My purchase totaled sixty dollars! When I told Karen how much I spent she didn’t make a fuss. After all, what could she say after all the loot she picked up on the hop? Hmmm… I wonder if the library book sale is still open tomorrow…
Well, I think I have used up enough space here. I hope you enjoyed it. I know Karen is excited about her blog and hopes that you will continue to follow her posts. Her blog is currently being read in 42 countries. I certainly never expected her to have so much success in such a short time. Enjoy life and stay safe!
What I, “Tu-Na Helper,” Learned Today:
Question: What is your favorite apple desert?
Thanks to my husband for being a good sport and writing this guest post. I’ll be back soon with a story about that plus quilt and some apple eats.
Linking to
Can I Get a Whoop Whoop (button on the sidebar)
Finished or Not Friday (button on the sidebar)
Em’s Scrapbag Moving It Forward
Cooking Up Quilts for Main Crush Monday (button on sidebar)
Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making
There are many beautiful and some really unique quilts over at Amy’s Creative Side for the Blogger’s Quilt Festival.
You can even vote for your favorites. Voting closes September 30th. Grab a cup of coffee or tea, put your feet up, and be prepared to be dazzled.
I’ve provided direct links to each of the categories below. Be patient as it may take a bit for the inLinkz to load each category. Once the inLinkz is loaded, you should see a picture of each quilt displayed under the blue box that says “Baby Lock Sewing Machine Giveaway.” You can enter that giveaway by clicking on that box. For other chances to win fabric and other prizes, leave a comment on the main festival page. Be sure to leave your email address.
You’ll be looking at a lot of quilts at the festival so I thought I’d give you something else to see. This is Chihuly in the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, AZ in January 2014.
Now vote for three of your favorite quilts in each category by clicking on the heart in the upper right hand corner of each quilt. To read more about a quilt or see more pictures of it, click on the picture of the quilt and you will go directly to the quilt blog post. The green check mark displayed on the top left of that quilt picture on the festival page means you’ve visited that blog post.
Here’s the links for each category. Enjoy!
2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival Mini Quilts
2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival Small Quilts
2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival Large Quilts I’ve entered my Little House Story Quilt in this category; to see it and read more about it, click here.
2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival Applique Quilts
2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival Art Quilts
2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival Hand Quilted Quilts
2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival Machine Quilted Quilts
2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival Modern Quilts I’ve entered my Plus Quilt in this category; to see it and read more about it, click here.
2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival Original Design
2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival ROYGBIV Quilts (rainbow)
2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival Scrappy Quilts
2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival Viewer’s Choice Viewer’s Choice Quilts are being displayed under the Baby Lock Giveaway Bar and list of prizes. But if you don’t see your favorite, use the form below to nominate up to three favorites.
2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival Viewer’s Choice Nomination Form You can nominate up to three quilts by pasting the direct link to that quilt on this form.
What I Learned Today:
Question: Have you entered a quilt into a competition. How did you do?
This is the last of the loot from my 2016 Quilt MN Shop Hop trip. Although these were things that weren’t on my list, they still followed my plan to like all that I buy. I couldn’t leave them behind so I splurged.
I’m sure it will be of no surprise to anyone that I found and bought cloud fabric. I was captivated by the Minnesota skies and took lots of sky pictures. You can see some pictures here on Day Two, Day Five, Day Six, and Day Eight.
I’m thinking one of these would make a cute background for some hot air balloon blocks. What do you think?
I can’t have sky without including some water.
One can’t have sky and water without having some little rocks. I really needed this before and didn’t have it so I decided to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
I grew up on a wheat farm and had been eyeing this one since the collection was released. I almost bought it at one shop on the hop but decided to let it stay on the shelf. The next day, I heard it calling my name from the clearance section of a different shop. How could I ignore that?
Along the way I found some prints to add to my orange, brown, and green stash. How could I resist those coffee beans?
When I saw the fabric with dots, I saw sprinkles and I thought it would make cute ice cream cone or cupcake quilt blocks or a pincushion or two.
I already have slices of watermelon fabric in my stash and found these two pieces that would make a fun picnic quilt with it.
Here’s more great fabrics I found.
These were just too cute to pass up! I’m open to suggestions.
Just before I left home on the shop hop, I started a project using a green leaf fabric from my older stash. After cutting all the pieces, I decided it was just too thin to use so I found these two leaf prints on the hop. Since I couldn’t decide between them, I bought both.
Here’s the remnant I found on Day Six. I’m sure I’ll be needing a good quality gingham for a future project.
I’ve now decided that these two fabrics will become a pillow.
Here’s the Amazing Grace fabric that I’d given up hope of ever finding again. I previously bought 4 yards for a quilt back but you and I know that 4 yards isn’t nearly enough for a larger quilt. I was ecstatic to find 4 more yards of it on Day Six. Now I know I’ll have enough.
The following pic shows my all-time favorite fabric splurge on the hop. At the time of purchase, I had no idea what it might become.
I plan to use these one-yard cuts with some of the black and white for my challenge project for my AZ quilting group. They were on sale for 50% off. I should have bought more.
Now for some non-fabric splurge.
These were the only two patterns I bought. At one of the shops, we saw a finished labyrinth quilt and talked to the quilter that made it. She was picking it up from the longarm person after just having had it quilted. It looked fantastic. This Labyrinth quilt has been circulating around Facebook and I just couldn’t resist buying it for a future quilting project with my sisters.
I found a magnetic lighted pin picker upper
which opens to this length to help reach pins in far away places. It’s already come in handy!
I bought two spools of Superior thread and two spools of 100% Egyptian Cotton to try.
I splurged on the Mini Dresden Plate Template. I purchased this larger template at the same time as the Tiny one that I wrote about on So Where’s the Loot.
That’s all folks! I have no more loot to show you; it’s all been revealed. It was a fun trip and I’ve enjoyed telling you about it. But wait, I’ve planned a bit more fun.
Up Next: A guest post by Tu-Na Helper (my husband) regarding his thoughts and impressions of the shop hop trip.
What I Learned Today:
Question: Do you plan first and then buy or buy now and plan later?
Linking to Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt
and Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts
I left home for the Quilt MN Shop Hop this summer with a list in my purse and a song in my step. Granted, I added onto that list while I was on the hop but I just couldn’t figure out why my favorite pair of Birkenstock’s squeaked when I walked.
You’ve all been patiently waiting for my next loot post so I hope I don’t disappoint you. If you need to catch up with that fun quilting shop hop trip, catch the links on this post and then here, here and here.
First, lets take a look at the list of things my mom wanted me to find for her: Airplane fabric, two spools of Aurifil thread, and a Sewline Fabric Pencil. Mission accomplished.
The airplane fabric on the right was the first score on the trip at the very first shop. One thing crossed off the list. “But I need more than one yard,” mom said when I excitedly told her later that day that I’d found some airplane fabric on clearance. So I spent the next 6 days looking for more. We found almost identical fabric but with smaller planes. I took all that was on the bolt–almost two yards.
The big item on my list was fabric for a Minecraft quilt for my oldest grandson who is seven and enjoys playing that computer game. He’s already picked out the blocks he wants from the pattern on the Seriously, I Think It Needs Stitches blog. On the shop hop, we found lots of solids and other interesting fabric for me to use for that quilt. I will have a nice selection to choose from when I begin that project.
One yard cuts of every color of the rainbow in these two pictures. Yes, I know there’s probably enough for three quilts here.
But I still need to buy some black–a lot of black for the sashing and borders and back. When we got to the quilt shop in Mankato, I found red, blue, and yellow Color Union by Robert Kaufman. They were out of that perfect black and so I searched and asked at each of the remaining 47 shops if they had any but sadly it was not to be found. I guess I’ll be doing some online searching now.
One of my readers asked me if there was anything that I’d bought on the hop that I now scratch my head and wonder “why on earth” or “what was I thinking?” I originally purchased these three 1-yard cuts for use in the minecraft quilt, but now I am scratching my head and wondering why on earth, what was I thinking?
I also listed more black and white fabrics to add to my black and white quilt. I have enough for a king-sized quilt (which I was planning to make anyway) and probably a couple more smaller size ones too. My Arizona quilting group has a black and white and one other color challenge this year. I think I’m all set in the black and white department.
More one yard cuts to add to my collection. Do you see a theme here? I really do like daisies. Can you tell?
A couple more interesting ones.
And my favorite! Why did I buy only 1 yard?
1930 Repro fabrics were also on my list. I looked for them last year and they were hard to find and when I did find them most of them were on clearance. Which was very good for last year. This year more stores had them but I didn’t find many in the clearance section. Which was not very good for this year.
Thirteen cuts of one yard each. Yes, I know I picked up a duplicate. See the ones on each of the ends. Now, how did that happen?
Twelve more yards of fun prints.
I also had this iron cleaner on the list. I bought some of these sheets last year as a notion promotion and was hoping I’d find more this year. I should have taken two.
Have you used this yet? It works great!
Aurifil thread was on my list so I bought two spools.
Cream and gray are the only colors I seem to use lately. I probably should have bought more of these, too.
Oh, I was so excited to find these wonderful perfect little scissors by Karen Kay Buckley. Yes, they were on my list! They are very pointed and very sharp and have a tendency to become lost. I bought two last year on the hop and one the year before. I gave mom a pair last year. I have already lost both of mine. So this year I bought two more and they were even on sale. With my history of losing things, I should have bought a few more.
Have you tried these? I really like them. Mom informed me today that she can’t find hers either.
I looked and asked at each shop for fabric that portrayed prairie with rocks so that I can make another covered wagon block like this one. Having previously bought only a fat quarter of that perfect prairie with rocks, there isn’t enough to make another block. I began the search and found the piece below on day 7.
While it’s close to what I used before, this one has more rocks and more green grass than I’d like. However, I took one yard anyway, just in case I didn’t find anything better.
That was the extent of the list but not the extent of this big pile. I still have more to reveal.
Up next: The Big Splurge (The things that weren’t on my list but still followed my plan to like all that I buy so I couldn’t leave them behind)
Coming Soon: Guest post by Tu-Na Helper (my husband) regarding his thoughts and impressions of the shop hop trip.
What I Learned Today:
Question: What have you lost lately?
Here’s my second entry for the 2016 Blogger’s Quilt Festival in the Modern Quilt category over at Amy’s Creative Side.
It’s a modern plus quilt I made this summer and gifted to a very special young woman. I’ll be posting more about it and the story behind it soon. In the meantime, here’s a couple of pics so I can participate in the festival.
You can see my first entry, the Little House Quilt, here.
I encourage you to stop over at Amy’s blog next week to vote for your favorites. You can get there by clicking here and scrolling down past the list of prizes to see the boxes with the entry categories to click on. This quilt can be directly seen here on the modern category page.
There are 924 three-inch (completed) squares in this quilt.
Most of the fabric for the top comes from one designer’s collection. The greens and purples were added to give it that pop of color that was needed.
I rented time on a computerized longarm machine and quilted it with various sizes of circles. I sewed the blue ruler fabric (Measure Up in Splash) to the front and hand stitched it to the back.
Although I had enough fabric for the back, I used leftover squares from the front to add more interest. The back is a text fabric from Odds and Ends by Julie Comstock for Moda.
Quilt Stats:
Made by me (Karen) and quilted on a computerized longarm with some help from the shop’s staff.
Date finished: August 2016
Size : 84″ x 99″
Top Fabric: 100% cotton from Elementary by Sweetwater for Moda, “Bazaar Style Collection” from Art Gallery, Burlap by Dover Hill for Benartex, Prints Charming by for Moda
Backing: 100% cotton Odds and Ends by Julie Comstock for Moda and leftover blocks from the front
Batting: Quilter’s Dream
Thread: Pieced with Aurifil 50wt. Quilted with Superior
Pattern: Modern Plus Quilt
If you are new here, welcome. I’m glad you stopped by. Are you wondering why I’m called Tu-Na? To find out, click here to read my first post. To find out more about me click here. If you enjoyed what you’ve read and want to follow me, you’ll find several ways to do so on the side bar as you won’t want to miss all the fun and frivolity coming soon.
Are you ready?
I’ve barely uncovered this pile of loot for you to see. More revealing coming soon.
I’ll be posting the rest of the loot from my MN Shop Hop later this week so be prepared; it is not for the faint of wallet. You’ll all be in for a treat too when Tu-Na Helper (my husband) guest writes a post on Sunday about his impressions regarding the MN Quilt Shop Hop trip. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you have some catching up to do. Catch the links on this post and then here, here and here and you’ll be all set for later this week.
What I Learned Today:
Do you keep track of your quilt information in a notebook or on the computer?
Linking to:
Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts for Let’s Bee Social (Button on the side bar)
Finished or Not Friday (Button on the side bar)
Can I Get A Whoop Whoop (Button on the side bar)
Quilter’s like to show-off their hard work and I am no exception. I am entering this Little House quilt in the Large category over at Amy’s Creative Side. This week quilters are gathering their quilts, writing a new post about them, and posting their entries into one of 11 categories: mini, small, large, art, home machine quilted, hand quilted, original design, modern, scrappy, ROYGBIV (rainbow), and applique.
You can see my second entry, the Plus Quilt, here.
I encourage you to stop over there next week to vote for your favorites. You can get there by clicking here and scrolling down past the list of prizes to see the boxes with the entry categories. This quilt can be seen here on the large category page.
Each block in this quilt tells the story of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life. It is a popular story around these parts since she didn’t live far from here.
I made this quilt for my 5-year-old grandson and gifted it to him this summer. You can read more about it and see close-up pics of it here on this post. This is the second little house quilt I’ve made. You can see the first one, which looks very different, by clicking here.
I got the idea for the quilt and most of the block patterns from the blog called During Quiet Time. I modified Amy’s quilt to include blocks that would depict my grandson’s favorite stories from the books. Therefore, several block patterns come from other places. I designed the covered wagon block myself.
You can see the wavy quilting lines I made using my home sewing machine. This background fabric was perfect for this block. Half the fun of making this quilt was finding just the right fabric for each block.
After, I had finished the quilting, I added buttons for eyes and some embroidery features to some of the blocks. My mom embroidered the chalkboard before I quilted it.
I matched the circles down the center of the back so well that you can’t see the seam–even up close.
I machine stitched the binding to the front and hand-stitched it to the back.
Quilt Stats:
Sewn and home-machine quilted by me (Karen)
Date finished: July 2016
Given to: My second oldest grandson
Size : 66″ x 82″ (296″ around qualifying it for the large category)
Top fabric 100% cotton from a variety of manufacturers and designers
Backing: 100% cotton flannel
Batting: Quilter’s Dream
Patterns from:
Leaf, pumpkin, barn, sheep, house, wheat, star, feather, window, blackbird, shirt, chalkboard, and music note: Amy Friend designed the Little House Quilt. Her patterns can be found here on her blog During Quiet Time.
Log Cabin: Adapted this pattern from The Quilter’s Cache
Jack (their dog): Pattern found on Lorna’s Sew Fresh Quilts blog and can be found here (dog #5)
Red Mittens: from Lori Holt’s book Quilty Fun.
Covered Wagon: Designed by me (Karen)
Train Locomotive: Adapted from the Quick & Easy Quilting Magazine, Vol 19
Kitten and Mouse: Maartje Quilts in Amsterdam’s free pattern for the mouse (mouse #3) and the free pattern for the kitten (kitten #4)
Books on Shelf: Adapted from Melissa Corry’s free pattern found here on Moda’s Bake Shop
If you are new here, welcome. I’m glad you stopped by. Are you wondering why I’m called Tu-Na? To find out click here to read my first post. To find out more about me click here. If you enjoyed what you’ve read and want to follow me, you’ll find several ways to do so on the side bar as you won’t want to miss all the fun and frivolity coming soon.
Are you ready?
I’ve barely uncovered this pile of loot for you to see. More revealing coming soon.
I’ll be posting the rest of the loot from my MN Shop Hop later this week so be prepared; it is not for the faint of wallet. You’ll all be in for a treat too when Tu-Na Helper (my husband) guest writes a post on Sunday about his impressions regarding the MN Quilt Shop Hop trip. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you have some catching up to do. Catch the links on this post and then here, here and here and you’ll be all set for later this week.
What I Learned Today:
What have you entered in a competition?
Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats 