Shirley Anne’s Heart

Posted By drsao on December 17, 2009

Happy Birthday Sara!

Happy Birthday December 18th to my dear friend, fellow Country Piecemaker Quilt Guild Member, and expert long arm quilter.  I hope your day is SUPER SPECIAL!

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Posted By drsao on December 16, 2009

 I fell in LOVE with the Carolina Christmas Star block from Bonnie Hunter’s Carolina Christmas Mystery Quilt  and I felt that I just HAD TO SHOWCASE IT……..so I decided to make TWO QUILTS – one from each block.  The first quilt top is together and I have named it Carolina Christmas Star.  It has one 2 1/2″  green scrappy inner border and one 4 1/2″ dark red border.

 Here it is…..

Carolina Christmas Star Quilt

The back will be Bonnie Hunter Style Scrappy – all 10 1/2″ squares (63 of them!!!!!)  I haven’t sewn them together yet – that is my next project – but here is the layout.  Scrappy backs are my favorite – even though they do take more time and effort to complete!

Back of Carolina Christmas Star Quilt

AND BONUS TIME – since all of us QUILTVILLE MYSTERY QUILTERS  made 13 of these Christmas Star blocks for Carolina Christmas – and I only used 12 – I used the extra block to make a 16 x 20 pillow (I just added two 2  1/2″ side strips!)  I am very happy with my PILLOW –  especially since I quilted it myself!  This is a big deal because I usually do not do my own quilting!  It isn’t fancy – just some straight lines and a few stitches in the ditches – but it made me very happy to accomplish this!

HERE IS MY BONUS PILLOW!

Christmas Star Pillow

and…..the back of my pillow!

Back of my Christmas Star Pillow

 I used a new kind of batting that was left over from Carolina Christmas – that Sara used.  It is SOOOOOOOOO soft and wonderful.  It is QUILTER’ DREAM ORIENT- a blend of silk, bamboo, tencel and cotton.  It is antibacterial and environmentally friendly.  The ONLY reservation I had about this batting was that the directions said to GENTLY MACHINE WASH and DRY WITH A COOL DRYER.  Well, I did a test.  I made a LITTLE quilted block using the batting – and I washed it in VERY HOT WATER and dried it on the HOTTEST SETTING in the dryer for 20 minutes.  It did GREAT – almost zero shrinkage!  So I am very happy with it.  (By the way, TENCEL is made from eucalyptus wood pulp and is often referred to as imitation silk.)

I have been under the weather the last two days (what a funny expression) but sitting in my sewing room doing  creative things keeps me from  focusing on my yuckies!    

Category: Carolina Christmas Star, Quilts in Progress | 2 Comments »
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Posted By drsao on December 14, 2009

I just had to sit down and put TWO of the last two blocks from the Carolina Christmas Mystery Quilt from quiltville.com together to see how it was all going to look……TA DA

This is going to be a beautiful quilt.  I am so thrilled – but I shouldn’t be surprised because I am consistently thrilled with Bonnie Hunter’s quilts – that is why I LOVE doing her mysteries.  Putting all the LITTLE pieces together and having them come out like this – well, it is my idea of fun!

The first TWO BLOCKS of Carolina Christmas

Category: Quilts in Progress | 3 Comments »
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Posted By drsao on December 13, 2009

After the Country Piecemaker’s Quilt Guild Meeting yesterday,  I went right to work putting the pieces of our BOM Mystery Quilt together.  Sandie and Catherine did a great job of hosting and DESIGNING the mystery.  It is scrappy – very BONNIE HUNTER STYLE.   Some of you may notice the 3 baskets with appliqued critters – that is my “Abandoned” Bunny Hill – A Tisket a Tasket project.  I only did the first 3  blocks and they FIT PERFECTLY into the needed block for applique….so voila….it was meant to be!

 I am thinking now about what to do for borders.  Right now I am thinking about a narrow black inner border and some scrappy border.  I just discovered that I made a GAZILLION too many Broken Dishes blocks for Bonnie Hunter’s Carolina Christmas Mystery Step 3 – so those may appear in a border – who knows!  🙂  I have NO IDEA how I made SO MANY EXTRA!!!  But I think I am noticing a pattern – I also have a GAZILLION EXTRA flying geese blocks left over from Bonnie Hunter’s  OLD TOBACCO ROAD MYSTERY – I made two of those!  I guess I am either over-zealous – or I  just plain and simple cannot count!  LOL!

sao's CP BOM MYSTERY 2009

And while I was sewing blocks together I decided to complete my Ann Smith 2009 Summer Mystery – so here are both the top and the pieced back – ready for Sara, my longarm expert……but in case she is reading this and fainting away – I will wait until the end of the year quilting rush is over.  :):)  I usually gravitate toward dark subdued colors – but this Summer Mystery is bright and light!  🙂

Ann Smith 2009 Summer Mystery top

Ann Smith 2009 Summer Mystery back

Category: Country Piece BOM 09, Quilts in Progress, Summer Mystery 09 | 3 Comments »
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Posted By drsao on December 12, 2009

Today was JAM PACKED full of fun – in fact the Country Piecemakers of Powhatan, VA had SOOOO much fun that I am going to have to make SEVERAL POSTS.  We had an ornament exchange, a 50/50 raffle, the drawing for our raffle quilt, Show and Tell baby quilts, Show and Tell Madeline House orphan block quilts, Show and Tell regular, our own National Geographic travel report by Merci,  the finale of our BOM Mystery, and a wonderful trunk show by Karen DuMont.   Everyone was in a festive frame of mind – I love Christmas time!!!!

Here are a few of our meeting pictures!

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