Friend Stitching Mountain Time!

It’s been a busy couple of days up on Buck Mountain!

I have mentioned before that Mona and I haven’t been able to get together and sew for months and months as her schedule of going back and forth to Ohio and my crazy schedule of flying off to everywhere had us very hit and miss since before the holidays.

I would say this craziness has been going on since last November!

We stay in touch via phone and text message, but it’s just not the same and I was ever so glad to have her walk in the kitchen door of the cabin on Friday evening and yell “HELLO!!!” down the stairs to where I was in the basement family room.  Of course all of this glorious reunion was accompanied by Beanie excitedly yapping that she also gets to come see her friend Sadie who was also whimpering and shaking her tail in utmost happiness!

We quickly set about making plans for the weekend and what we wanted to do for her NEXT project because she brought two more completed tops to show me and is eager for more.

I have a HUGE laundry basket full of smaller shirt scraps here at the cabin to work from so we decided on a Log Cabin variation for her, to get her started in the land of Half Square triangles.  Each block has only ONE half square triangle, and they are rather large, so very forgiving.

These centers are surrounded by two rows of log cabin rectangles with one half being light, the other half being dark.

Mona, digging in and making one light pile, one dark pile!

This was also the first time she got to use the Accuquilt Studio.  All of the logs are cut from 2’’ strip widths, so it is putting the small random shirt pieces to good use, and she is learning a new toy as well.  I think there may be an Accuquilt GO in her future!

While she got busy with that, I put a binding on!

I got borders on the QOV auction quilt!

And doggies napped!

It's a tough job supervising the Quilters! Love it when Beanie comes over and she and Sadie curl up for a snooze!  I think it is so sweet how Sadie doesn’t mind sharing her bed.  There is room for two!

I worked my way into some purple string piecing.

The black long bed 301 is in the table that I bought for my birthday.  It said it was a table for a longbed 301, but actually, this table is for a 400 or 500 series..it’s a bit too big for the 301, and I have to seat it just right with the end of the fold down tray catching the end of the table or it is too tippy.  There is a gap at the back edge of the machine as the table hole is a bit too big, but it WORKS fine….

I set Mona up at the short bed in the table so we were face to face!

Swimming in a sea of purple!

I have secret plans for these!

Funny:  The Hubster went out to paint one of the sheds yesterday.  He came in to say that he had used some of my phone book paper to cover up the windows and mask them.  I feigned a “OH NO!!! YOU DIDN’T!! Not my foundation paper!!”  and we had a good laugh.  Truth be told, this is the ONLY phone book up here and I’ll have to bring more next time as it is almost gone.  It was just enough to get me this far.

Don’t mess with a quilter’s phone book!

Mona’s Show & Share ---

Scrappy Mountain Majesties from the free patterns tab!

All recycled shirts!

We were tag-teaming this project – hers is done, mine is still in large half square triangles ready to be sliced, diced and sewn back together.

Close up!

Hers is ready for quilting, and I’ll be taking my blocks with me when I go to the Grand Hotel Needle Arts Seminar on Mackinac Island in a couple of weeks.  I have a friend bringing me a machine, and I can stitch in the evenings with everyone else, retreat style.  Should be fun!

Mona’s Disappearing Nine Patch!

I love this!!  We have been picking patterns that would be easy to assemble and give Mona a feeling of great accomplishment and this  Split 9 patch was a great way to go!  She started with some charm packs gifted to her by her step-son for Christmas, including a lot of blue and green.  We then went to my stash and pulled MORE blue, green and neutral to go with them. Mona learned to treadle with this quilt!  Didn’t she do a great job on it?

The thing I love the most about a new quilter who hasn’t been “poisoned” or “influenced” by other quilters is they have no fear over what to put with what.  She just went with it and the fabric choices and placement are eclectically Mona.  No matchy-matchy going on in here other than keeping within certain color families.

Check it out:

So much fun!

This quilt is likely to be gifted back to her step-son who gifted her with the charm squares that started this whole project. Isn’t that how quilting goes?  Fabric is the gift that keeps on giving!

I plan on heading down the mountain as soon as I do a bit of light house keeping around here – Everything is really dry on the mountain and the dust has settled on every horizontal surface in the cabin.  Yes.  There will be dusting, and a bit of vacuuming and some straightening of the sewing nook before I head out.

My plan is to load the QOV auction quilt in the machine this afternoon, get that going, and start packing for my Iowa trip that starts Wednesday.  I also have some kitting up to do for students who are taking my A Little Bit Hexie workshop at The Grand.  That will be fun…and I’d like that off of my to-do list as quickly as possible so I can enjoy the time between Iowa and Michigan.

Quiltville Quote of the Day!

While the rest of the world seems to begrudge Monday, I have always loved Monday for representing a brand new week and a completely clean slate stretched out before me. Don't pull the battles of last week into this one! Have an awesome Monday, everyone!

Happily Scrappily Irish quilt from my book Adventures with Leaders & Enders  shared by a student during my March workshops in Michigan.

Have a great Monday, everyone!

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