Showing posts with label Orphan blocks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orphan blocks. Show all posts

Monday, August 20, 2007

TIME TO UNWIND



Thanks everybody for your nice comments on my applique design. It is always good to know that there are a few people out there who like what I am doing. Usually I spend so much time admiring what everyone else is doing that I have "failure to launch." (Did you see that movie? It was cute!) In other words, I don't get my own projects off the ground. Today I actually got the instructions written! Woohoo! I still need to perfect the illustrations, but it is coming along.

The photo here on the left is of my son and a quilt I made him a couple years ago. It is from Open A Can of Worms, by Debbie Caffrey. That might be my all time favorite book. I have made more quilts out of that book than any other. They are good basic scrap quilts. Great directions, etc.

The reason it came to mind is all the talk about orphan blocks made me think of the back of the quilt. I got a number of uglier than sin blocks in an exchange, and rather than make them into a quilt I used them on the back of the quilt. After I sewed them together with alternating plain squares I started to like them. Fabric is funny that way. You can't look at it too closely, you just have to look at what it does. Well, it was too late for those blocks to become anything but a quilt back. I was anxious to get the quilt done so I did not alter my plan. However, since that time I have had the urge to make those blocks again into a real quilt of its own. Some day maybe I will even do it!

I also got several comments on the books I recommended in my last entry. Wow, I never knew there were so many sicko grandmothers out there in the quilt world! Somehow I feel so much more at home amongst you. I was thinking it was only Kim. (Watch the comment box to see me get slapped upside the head!) Kim cracks me up, but she isn't a grandmother so she is still wound a little tight. Do I think grandmothers are wound less tight? Yes, I do. I think when your kids are gone you can take a deep breath, relax, and unwind. This is really not a reflection on Kim's son, or anyone else's. More a reflection on my own! Look at the young man in that picture. He looks so sweet and innocent, doesn't he? He almost single handedly took the whole family down. I am happy to report that he came to his senses just in time. Happily, that is all in the past, and I never want to wind up like that again. Matter of fact, maybe that is why my life proceeds at such a leisurely pace. Remember that song "Up a Lazy River"? Just the pace of that song says it all!

I started to recommend another book and got a bit side tracked. I just finished Jeffery Deaver's The Sleeping Doll. Another thriller with some great twists in the story. Sickos rejoice-there are always more crime novels than we could ever read!

Sunday, July 08, 2007

AN ORPHAN FOR CHRISTMAS


Sounds like Little Orphan Annie, doesn't it? Actually, as you can see, I put a little pieced border around my Christmas orphans that I showed in an earlier post. (Enough with the Christmas orphans already).
These little blocks all paired up so cute together. Isn't it amazing what you can do with stuff that has just been kicking around for ages. Finn mentioned a couple of quilts that the ladies at Country Threads did several years ago. They were fabulous. They had lots of orphan blocks and created full size beauties. I have been looking for my book, but it is buried somewhere.
If you haven't been to Finn's Orphan Train Blog, you must check it out. She was kind enough to feature a couple of my quilts in her recent post. Go see what other bloggers, including Finn, have come up with. As for me, I gonna keep digging---I know I have more orphan blocks that need a home.