Thank you to everyone who left a comment on my last post. I was feeling the blogger love and maybe a little overwhelmed. Below are a few pics of my Churn Dash SAL blocks so far.

This one was taken standing on my head, not really but I did have to stand on a stool and lean precariously over my sewing machine to get the best light from the window.

This is looking towards the window, light not as good but gives a better idea of what I have. They're stacked by color to help me not repeat a fabric. I'm aiming for a queen size quilt, so I need 72 blocks, eeek. I'm just under half of what I need.

Here's a finish!!!! Yippee. The applique blocks are from a book called "Grandma's Last Quilt" by the editors of Traditional Quiltworks Magazine. The copyright is 2000 by Chitra Publications who went out of business many years ago. There are 25 patterns in the book, I made four and ran out of steam. I got the main body of the quilt put together and then it languished for many years waiting for a border fabric to come along. I finally settled for the striped fabric, I guess it works. Then it sat pin basted for two years until I decided to have someone else do the quilting. 

And just like that, I had a finish. Things do get done eventually.

 These are the backing fabrics. I had thought the yellow toile might work as the border but the women in my quilt group thumbs downed it, so it ended up on the back.

Here's a quilt I made many years ago, sometime around the turn of the century, (I love using this phrase as it pertains to myself ) 😁. It looks like a strippy but instead I made alternating HST's with the two beiges and then pieced the rows on the diagonal, thus avoiding the lumps at the intersections that would have resulted from making vertical rows. 

Here's a close up of an intersection, You can see how nice and flat and unlumpy it is. Also much easier to quilt through.

If you're still here, thanks for hanging in. I hope all of you are well and happy and finding time to sew.

Joan

I'm starting this blog so I can participate in Chookyblue's Churn Dash Sew-a-long. I love reading Quitter's blogs and now I'm part of the community!

 Before we get to a few pics of quilts, I would like to share a few things I've learned since the stem cell transplant:

Use your new fabric. Use it while you still love it. I used to buy fabric and then save it for that great project that never happened. New fabrics now go into current projects and I love using them. I loved them enough to buy them and it makes me happy to see them being used.

Life is too short for dull rotary cutter blades. Ten packs of blades are relatively inexpensive on Amazon, far cheaper than buying them individually at your LQS.

Ok, so here a few quilts that happen to be on my phone, the rest I don't have pictures of at the moment but I will. I promise to share. For future reference, I will put picture descriptions under the pic.

This was made just because. I saw it online somewhere and loved it. I cut the strips wider (2 1/2") and made more blocks for a bigger quilt than the one I saw. Made with fabric from stash and some new fabrics purchased just for this project😀. Probably started in the dead of winter when I wanted to make something with my brightest and most cheerful fabrics. Cotton batting. Finished in 2021.

This 36 patch was made as a graduation present for my cousin. Made with mostly stash fabric and a few new purchases just for this. The 36 patch block is relatively simple and quick to make. For those of you who like technical details, the blocks were made with 2 1/2" strips which made a 12" finished block. Cotton batting, machine quilted on my longarm.

Both of these quilts were made with fabrics fron my "other stash", my main stash is mostly so called "Civil War" fabrics, 19th century reproductions and shirtings, I call them creamies.

I guess this is it for my first blog post ever! I hope you enjoyed it. I expect I'll get better at writing as I go along.