Quilting – Thimbleanna

The Cat in the Hat

5 Comments / December 30, 2022 December 30, 2022 / Quilting

Happy In-Between Week! Hope you’re having a good week with lots of down time. We’re having a relaxing week with MeMum and TheSecondChild – we haven’t accomplished much of anything other than a tough jigsaw puzzle and a walk to get outdoors every day. It’s such a nice time to re-group and think about nothing much LOL.

Since there’s been no sewing this week, I thought I’d post the Cat in the Hat quilt that I made for HurrayAThirdGirl last month for her birthday. It was a fun, fairly quick project.

This is the third Cat in the Hat quilt that I’ve made — one for each of the Finally Girls. I don’t think I ever posted FinallyAnotherGirl’s quilt which I made for her third birthday over a year ago, so here it is:

And, just to post them all together, here is the first quilt which was posted a few years ago:

The second and third quilts have a similar feel, as I didn’t have a big cat panel like I used in the first quilt. The quilts are all roughly 58” x 72”. They make great tv throws and they’re also good for building forts!

So … that’s it for this year — 2023 is almost upon us. Happy New Year’s celebrations to all — stay safe out there!

XOXO,
Anna

Little Pinky the Third

7 Comments / November 28, 2022 December 1, 2022 / Quilting, Sewing

Well, hey — I made it back before spring LOL. All the usual excuses and a busy fall. And, boy, was it a beautiful fall here. It’s just barely getting cold now, and on a sunny day, it’s still pretty nice outside. I’ve been busy sewing and playing with the grandbabies — lots of fall school activities which have been really fun. Plus, I stayed with the girls while their parents had a week’s getaway in October. It almost killed me but it sure was fun and I loved every minute of it. And then I slept for two days when it was over LOL. Oh, and TheManoftheHouse had his right shoulder replaced in early October — that was NOT fun, poor guy. It’s a pretty painful recovery, but he’s doing well now. It creeps me out to even think about it.

Since I posted about FinallyAGirl’s birthday dress last time, I thought I should post the birthday dresses for the littlest two cherubs. (Excuse the poor cell-phone photos!)

FinallyAnotherGirl (on the left) turned 4 in September, so I made her a little fall dress. The pattern is the Back-to-School free dress pattern from Classic Sewing Magazine and the fabric is Belle and Boo’s Autumn Ditsy. I worried about making a seasonal dress that wouldn’t get much wear, but she wore it a lot (Grandparents Day and Thanksgiving among them), so it was well worth it. HurrayAThirdGirl turned 3 this past weekend, so I made her the Wiksten Baby + Child Smock Dress out of a cute little floral print by My Mind’s Eye. The girls all love pockets and the smock pockets are big enough for her beloved little babies. ;-D

But enough of the fall chit-chat, because …….. TA-DA:

I’ve finished HurrayAThirdGirl’s baby quilt! Better late than never!

I LOVED every minute of making this quilt. This is the first lone star quilt I’ve ever made and I was a little worried that it would be really time consuming, but the star went together more quickly than I expected. I used the method outlined in The Lone Star Quilt Handbook by Blanche and Helen Young. It’s an old book that I’ve had in my stash for years, but surprisingly you can still get a copy on Amazon. I got the Star pieced along with the background fabric behind the star, but I didn’t have enough of the little Le Creme Swiss Dot background for the borders, so I had to order some more and wait awhile until it got here.

When it arrived, I finished the borders and then, I took it outside to baste it on the driveway (because it was during the time when I forgot we have a basting frame {doh!}) and LOOK what the sunlight showed! Can you see it?

Ohmygosh! LOOK at the difference in the dye lots of the background fabrics. The older Le Creme dot fabric was more yellow. The astounding thing was that when the quilt was in the house, you couldn’t see the difference at all — the first picture was taken inside and the second picture was taken outside. What a difference sunlight makes. Or maybe it just doesn’t say much for the quality of the lighting in our house! Anyway, I was having a cow and briefly thought I’d just go ahead and quilt it like that, but I just couldn’t do it. I knew I’d never be happy with the quilt like that. I suppose I could have told SweetiePie that the quilt could never see the light of day haha. Anyway, I spent a few days, carefully unpicking each of those eight background sections by the star points and then replacing them with the new fabric, one section at a time so the whole thing didn’t fall apart. Then, in the summer, I put the quilt on the quilt frame and spent most nights for the next 2-3 months quilting. And just like the piecing, I loved every minute of quilting this quilt. Here’s a picture of the ceremonial last stitch.

The fabrics in the quilt were all from the stash (well, except for the new dots LOL) and I used a little pink and white baby print from the stash for the backing.

I debated how to quilt the star points — most of the quilts I looked at online quilted through the middle of the points. I briefly considered that, but then opted for quarter inch quilting around each diamond, which took a lot longer. I’m so glad I did though, ’cause I love the result.

This is the third of my little pink baby quilts and I loved making each one of them. I didn’t mean for the last quilt to be so much bigger than the other two — it just happened. I guess, if you have to wait so long for your baby quilt, you get a little extra prize. ;-D SweetiePie noticed that the star quilt is bigger, with more quilting, and she thought maybe it was the difference between working and being retired. But, I was retired when I finished the smallest quilt too. I just picked what I wanted to make in each case, and this is how they turned out! The family reunion shots:

And here’s our little sweetheart in the bright sun, noticing the flowers on her new quilt.

It’s such a nice feeling to have their baby quilts all finished! Whatever will I do with all my time now haha? I guess I should start thinking about their wedding quilts.

XOXO,
Anna

A Storm and A Wedding

10 Comments / June 25, 2022 June 25, 2022 / Around the House, Quilting, Wedding

Ahhh June. You’re almost gone {sigh}. But surprise, this will be my second post this month! I was thinking about why posting has taken such a back seat lately. I thought maybe I could pin it down to retirement — now that I’m retired, I feel like I have so much time but it makes it hard to actually do stuff (I work much better under pressure). Like, why is it so hard to write a blog post? While it’s true that posting has slowed down since I retired, it was already slowing a little before then. For some reason it’s just harder to take the time to write a post these days. Maybe because in the back of my mind I’m thinking … I have plenty of time, I’ll just do it tomorrow??? Oh well, chalk it up to just another mystery. I thought once I retired I’d get SO much more done. Haha.

We had a whopper of a storm last week. They called it a Derecho. Which, they say, if it had been over water, it would have been a hurricane. Our part of town was particularly hard hit and we had really REALLY high winds. They clocked them at 100 mph at the airport. We had trees and power poles down everywhere. We were without power for 2 days. Luckily, TheFirstChild and SweetiePie, who live 2 miles away, only lost power for about 5 hours so we were able to stay with them for a few days. We would have just camped out at home but the daytime temp the day after the storm reached 99F so, it was a little steamy. ;-D

Anyway, we were lucky and only lost one tree (which I attribute to the fact that we’ve lost so many other trees from storms and disease over the last 20 years that there aren’t that many left). The wind uprooted a pine tree that was dying — we were going to have to have it removed anyway, so the storm actually saved us a little money.

We were really lucky — the tree was exactly the height of the space that it fell into, so there was no damage to the house. Many others were not so lucky. Here’s a picture of a house a few streets over — the tree stump just to the left of the trailer used to be a huge tree that fell onto the middle of the house:

They had another big tree fall on the back corner of the house, so there’s a lot more damage that you can’t see. I’m so sad for these people — what a job to repair the mess. MyDadLovesMeBestSister also had a huge tree fall on her back deck — it destroyed the deck and caused some roof damage. Thankfully, everyone is ok though!

Speaking of MyDadLovesMeBestSister, she just hosted her second wedding in a year a few weeks ago. CuteNiece2 married her high school sweetheart in a beautiful beach ceremony on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.

The photographer did a great job — you can’t tell it, but it was actually raining. In spite of the imperfectly timed rain, the wedding and everything about it was perfect — everything was SO beautiful and it was fun to gather as a family again. And, where there’s a wedding, there’s a wedding quilt:

CuteNiece2 sent me a picture of a quilt that she liked and I tried my best to reproduce it. It’s a scrappy quilt, made from lots of neutral fabrics from my stash — many of which were used in SweetiePie and TheFirstChild’s Wedding Quilt.

The background fabric is a sweet little neutral designed by Brenda Riddle.

And the backing is a Riley Blake wide back from a few years ago that I had in my stash. I sent this quilt out locally (thanks for the quilter recommendation Ginny!) to have it machine-quilted — I don’t do it often, but I sort-of ran out of time. It seems like such a luxury to have the quilts machine-quilted by someone else — I’m thinking I’m going to have to do it more often.

I’m itching to start a new quilt (or 2 … or 3!) but I’m trying to resist the urge, as I have a lot of UFOs. Lots of Christmas fabrics have been arriving in the shop though, so I might lose the battle!

XOXO,
Anna

Snoopy and the Yellow Quilt

9 Comments / January 16, 2022 January 16, 2022 / Quilting

Boy, January is in full swing already and I feel like I’ve missed it! We went to Utah for two weeks for a little ski break — not me, of course, skiing and I are not friends. But the kids love to ski, so it’s always fun to go with them and enjoy the snow. FinallyAGirl and FinallyAnotherGirl had their first ski lessons — FinallyAGirl loved it and declared that she wanted to stay there and ski forever. FinallyAnotherGirl was less thrilled, but I’m betting she’ll have a lot more fun next year. Anyway, this post has nothing to do with skiing — I just thought a little explanation was in order as to why this post is so late. I wanted to post closer to Christmas when Snoopy and the Yellow Quilt actually happened, but I ran out of time. Also, when I was a girl I had a little Snoopy pin that said “Don’t Eat Yellow Snow”. Just so you know, the Snoopy and the Yellow Quilt here have no relation to yellow snow!

A few weeks before Christmas, I called up my good Quilty Peep JunieJune and told her we’d like to make a Snoopy for the girls’ playhouse. She and her hubby made a super cute Snoopy for their granddaughter’s playhouse last year and I filed the idea away for this year. TheManoftheHouse’s favorite Christmas movie is the Peanuts Christmas show and he watches it with the girls, so I knew he’d love for them to have a Snoopy in their backyard. JunieJune gave me her pattern and she and her awesome husband helped us cut the runners that Snoopy needed for the top of the house. They went above and beyond by bringing their saw to us, rather than us taking the wood to them. You can’t find friends like that just anywhere!!! Anyway, here’s a peek at our Snoopy:

Next year’s version will have a new spotlight. I want the spotlight to be only on Snoopy, so that the Christmas lights show up better. Plus, the existing spot, throws a shadow on the house. But, super fun for a first attempt and improving it will give us a good project for next Christmas.

On to the Yellow Snow Quilt. MyDadLovesMeBestSister has two little leather yellow couches in her family room and I thought it might be fun to make her a throw quilt to keep her warm in the winter. I didn’t really know what to do for a pattern, so I looked through some pinterest pages and found a quilt with 25-patch blocks that I thought would work with my yellow stash prints.

These pictures are terrible, but they were taken in a hurry right before the quilt was wrapped up for gift-giving. There are 20 25-patch blocks and they’re set with white sashing and yellow posts. MyDadLovesMeBestSister has two goldendoodles (you may remember Teddy) so I added a puppy paw to the bottom right-hand corner. Hopefully, she’ll share the quilt with the dogs LOL.

I backed the quilt with the Soft Spot Plush for maximum cuddle factor. The quilt was washed and it’s nice and crinkly cosy. Perfect for a cold winter’s day nap on the sofa in front of the fire!

So, not much else to say — simple words for a simple quilt.

On to the next quilt! I’m thinking about starting two new quilts — in spite of a pile of UFO’s. The promise of a fresh New Year always does that to me!

XOXO,
Anna

May You Be Blessed With Love and Happiness

20 Comments / August 27, 2021 August 27, 2021 / Family, Quilting, Wedding

Yipee! The summer is almost over and we’ve had our long-anticipated little family wedding. MyDadLovesMeBestSister’s oldest daughter was married in a gorgeous wedding ceremony in Maine. The groom’s family owns a little cabin in the woods and they were married next to the cabin, overlooking a beautiful lake. Everything was was absolutely perfect (well, not everything — something always goes wrong — but if you weren’t in the family you wouldn’t have know about the little glitches.) We were asked not to take pictures during the ceremony (so that the pro photos wouldn’t show everyone with their phones in the air LOL) so there’s not much to show now, but I can’t wait to see the official photos. Our three little granddaughters were the flower girls and they were cute as can be. SweetiePie did a fantastic job of finding the most gorgeous dresses with some amazing beadwork on them. We need to have another occasion so they can be worn again! I LOVE this cute photo that SweetiePie shot of the girls as they were getting their pep talk from Daddy before the ceremony. Everyone is paying attention! ;-D

We’re back home now after our 16-hour each way drive (MeMum was a champ!) and I can finally share the wedding quilt that I gave the bride and groom. Unfortunately, the only place I could find to take a picture where the quilt wouldn’t drag on the ground, was in mottled sunlight. So, use your imagination and pretend those bright light spots aren’t there LOL.

CuteNiece1 is a flower farmer, so this quilt was mostly about flowers. I appliqued a vase of flowers with a man and wife, initials and year of marriage for the center panel. Then, I surrounded the center panel with a Rifle Paper Co. print that turned out to be the perfect size.

My favorite thing about the quilt is the Always and Always print by Bonnie Christine that I used for the background of the center panel and the sashing around the star blocks. The quote says “I must have flowers … always & always — Claude Monet”. When that print first came out, I knew I would have to use it for the quilt — because I imagine CuteNiece1 says that daily. The 2021 in the center block used to say 2020 — the wedding was originally scheduled for last year, but Covid delayed it a year. Fortunately, I wasn’t to the quilting stage yet when plans changed, so it was an easy fix.

I really struggled with what to put around the center panel, but finally decided to just use traditional star blocks after I saw a picture of a quilt with a big applique center, surrounded by similar stars. I machine quilted the quilt on my domestic machine and I think it took about 6 weeks working in the afternoons to finish it. This quilt is queen sized and finished about 90″ x 99″ which was a lot of wrangling under a domestic machine. The center applique is outline stitched and stippled, the Rifle Paper Co. border has a cable, and the outside border just has straight lines spaced about 2″ apart. The stars and sashing are all stitched in the ditch and I did a little free form flower in the center of each star — those were really fun to do after the tedium of all that stitching in the ditch.

I had to take a picture of my favorite star block below. For some reason I LOVE that fun fabric — I’ve used bits and pieces of it on several recent quilts and I’ll be so sad when it’s gone someday. This might be why I hoard fabric — I love so many of them and I’m afraid I’ll run out! ;-8

For the back I used a Cathe Holden Flea Market Mix floral and CuteNiece1 loved it. It was the first thing she saw when she opened the quilt and she said “Dahlias!”. She had the most beautiful dahlias in her wedding — when a flower farmer gets married, you know she’s going to have beautiful flowers! The binding is an American Jane polka dot — it doesn’t really “go” with the quilt, but I ended up loving it — it just adds to the quirkiness of a traditional star quilt with a funky flea market-ish back. I also added a little tag to the back of the quilt. I don’t usually name quilts, but if I were to name this one, I think it would be the sentiment I put on the tag – “May you be blessed with Love and Happiness”.

So, all done with this one! The newlyweds are honeymooning in Canada and will return to Ashville, North Carolina to start their new life. (If you need fresh flower bouquets, CuteNiece1 can hook you up!) Rumor has it CuteNiece2 will soon be heading down the aisle, so I need to start planning a quilt for her. It’s going to be tougher to nail down a “theme” for her — wedding quilt suggestions gladly welcomed!

Have a great weekend!

XOXO,
Anna