Blooming Quilter's Blog Hop Week 4

Good Morning and welcome to the last week of the 2017 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop!  We've been spending time the last 2 months learning the ins and outs of designing, writing, arranging, and presenting our blogs to an audience.  The questions have abounded, from "how do I create my own look?" to "how do I get photos ready for the web?" right through to "what are the technical steps for using this blogger platform?"  It has been a very enlightening process and I am so grateful to the hosts of this process:

  

Yvonne from Quilting Jetgirl (My group leader!), 

Leanne from She Can Quilt, and 

Beth from Cooking Up Quilts

These great mentors have been immeasurably helpful and reassuring as we discussed the do's and (maybe) don'ts of sharing our quilting and sewing experience with others in the quilting community.  Also, they have used their various ties to the industry that supports us to round up some wonderful prizes for our readers.  So, hop on over to their sites (links above) to read all about it and register to win this week's great giveaways.

About Me

Some of my earliest memories are about piecing on my grandmother's front porch with my cousins. I was about 8 or 9.  We made quilts for our dolls and though my grandmother had an early Singer machine, we were learning how to hand sew neatly in a straight line so the pieces would hold together.  I remember using odds and ends of her quilting stash and even piecing together batting scraps to use in the middle.

My Mom began to teach me to sew on her machine as I got older and we made doll clothes and eventually school clothes together.  When I graduated college and got married we gave away all the dolls and their accessories, hoping it would go on to be some other little girl's favorite things. We didn't think to take pictures and the internet was still nowhere in sight.  (Sigh.)

As the year's flew by I did all sorts of crafty things: knitting, crocheting, lots of DIY, beading, embroidery, cross stitch and dabbling all around working.  The last 26 years of my professional life were spent as the human resource person for an urban community services center which provided child care, youth after school programs, adult education, and various other services to an under-served community.  My last CEO was a crafty person herself and we were able to provide materials and classes for the community ladies in quilting and sewing.  Yay!  It was a great way to get to know community members and share the joy of using our creativity.  And still...no pictures.

It wasn't until retirement that I realized blogging could be fun.  I was reading a steady diet of quilting blogs and wanted to share what I was doing, too.  Since retirement in 2015, I've pieced several quilt tops (see Works in Progress) and now the challenge is to actually quilt them on my machine.  That will be my "Adventure" going forward.  Here are a few of my older pieces which were quilted by hand when my fingers would still do that!

This is the first quilt top I completed after retirement.  I did it for a co-worker who had been waiting for it for almost 2 years.  I did quilt it on the machine but only stitching in the ditch.  I love how the light shines through the batik pieces so it looks like stained glass.

Then there was a long line of "cheater" quilts which could be hand quilted at night in front of TV.

Dear Jane

Laurel Birch

                              

The Roosters

12 Days of Christmas

For this one I fussy cut the pictures and pieced them together again and added my first Seminole border.

 The Christmas Goose is pieced and quilted.

If I have a masterpiece this is it.  My sunshine and shadow is about 20 years old and was hand pieced and quilted again in front of television.

My Best Tip

Measure, consult the directions, measure 2 more times - then cut. 

I'm a little math challenged!

I am so happy to be able to craft with fabric all the time now and hope you've enjoyed your time here. Cruise through the rest of my posts to see the little odds and ends I also enjoy sewing together and remember to check out the other members of this weeks Blooming Quilter's Blog Hop:

Raylee from Sunflower Stitcheries and Quilting 

Danette from Lucky Quilts 

Olivia from Pumpkin Hollow Quilting 

And don't forget to register for prizes at our host's sites.