Retreating in Shipshewana

I had a wonderful time last week at the Jane Stickle Quilt Retreat in Shipshewana, Indiana.   The town is a fun place to visit, and it's always nice to catch up with friends that I haven't seen in awhile.   Our group came together over 25 years ago because we were all making the Dear Jane quilt.  I started attending the retreat in 2001.  I've missed a few retreats, but for the most part I've been there.  

Here are some photos from around town:

Yoders Department Store.  

At the side of the building there are several barn quilts.

The Free Manure sign always makes me laugh.

The gazebo out in front of Yoders.  

The Blue Gate.  

There's popcorn at the north end of town.......

and popcorn at the south end of town.  

Things are quiet on Sunday mornings.   Everything is closed.  

There are a lot of different shops and restaurants in the Davis Mercantile building.  

These are just a few photos from around town.  In my next post I'll show you some of the shops I visited while I was there.  

I did a lot of socializing at the retreat, but I really did sew.   Here are the hexagons I worked on.  They are 3/4".   I don't really have a plan for a quilt just yet.   I just like cutting and sewing them.  

I also did some needle turn applique on the leaves in the border of my Just Judie quilt.  The center hexagons are all done in Tilda fabrics. 

I was able to sit out on the porch yesterday afternoon and stitch some, but it's a lot cooler today.   We have another freeze warning for tonight.  Our frost free date where I live is May 10 so I won't plant any flowers until at least that date.  

Until next time.....

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today.

Famous Last Words

You've heard the expression act your age and not your shoe size.   I guess maybe I forgot that.   I had a set of shelves in the basement that I wanted moved upstairs.   There is a nice storage area in the bottom part where I can store my hexagon and applique' projects.  My husband wanted to call our son to help him get the shelves up the stairs, but I was just sure we could do it ourselves.   About half way up with the top part of the shelves (the lightest part), I knew this was a bad  terrible idea.   My back is better, but I've found muscles I didn't know I had.   It still hurts to walk very far.  Our son happily came over the next day and they finished the job.   I've learned my lesson:   no more furniture moving.   

I've finished sewing the rows of this hexagon project together.  I found these hexagon rows rolled up and stuffed in a bag underneath something in the closet.   I still need to fill in the sides with partial blocks and finish the top with white.   I'll probably add some sort of  a border when all the hexagons are pieced.  These are 1" hexagons, and I don't know if it's because they've been glue basted so long or because they are larger than I'm used to working with, but sewing these rows together was like wrestling an alligator.   I really like the scrappy look of this quilt.  

 This is the first clue of the Jemima's Quilting Mystery 2025.   The second part of the mystery has been released.  I'll save the clue, but I think I'll try and finish some of the other things I have started before getting back to this one.   

I'm still cross stitching, too.  This is called Stitch Spool by Jeanette Douglas.  This was a start for my friend, Jeanetta's birthday.   She sent the kit and spool that I'll finish this on.  This is stitched on 36 count linen.   For those of you that don't cross stitch, it's a "thing" that if a friend has a birthday we start a new cross stitch project along with her.   You should have seen my husband roll his eyes when I tried explaining this to him.  

 

I've done a bit of spring/Easter decorating.  I'll do more of that later.   Right now I'm getting ready to leave for the Jane Stickle quilt retreat in the morning.   We stitch, talk, eat and talk some more.   I've gone to this retreat twice a year for over 20 years and always look forward to connecting with old friends again.  

Until next time.....

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today. 

More Progress on Projects

As you can see by scrolling through this post, I've been busy.   I've scrapped my plan for the Jemima's Creative Quilting Mystery 2025 and switched to the colors below.   I love fall colors especially the rust color, and I like this color pallet a lot better.   I also fussy cut 7 hexagons from another fabric, but those will go into another project.  I know I could finish more things if I just picked something and stuck with it.  Click the link above if you want to join in.  

 

The photo below shows a bit of the process I go through when putting a hexagon project together.   My favorite size is 3/4" hexagons, so if I'm not fussy cutting I cut 2 1/2" squares.   Then to make the hexagons I just lay a plastic template on top of a stack of squares and trim the corners.   This is a lot faster than using a rotary cutter and cutting out each hexagon individually.   You can see that I end up with a lot of extra squares.   These all go into a bag for future projects. 

This is bird number 6 for my Cousin's Walk quilt.   There are 28 applique' bird blocks.   

This is my first border for the Just Judie quilt.   

The quilt is the one shown on the cover of this book.   I  have the hexagon center all pieced, and I basted all of the diamonds for the border.   But I decided I really liked the look of leaves in the border better, so I'm taking the diamond papers out and turning them into leaves.   I'm doing needle turn applique' so this will take awhile to finish.....especially since I keep switching projects.   

The corners are supposed to a diamond flower, but I'm changing that to a hexagon flower.   

  I live in Indianapolis, and the weather has been crazy.   We were at my son's Sunday for family birthday celebrations, and right before dark we noticed there was sleet on his deck.   Today it's 70, and we have the windows open.   Tomorrow there's a wind advisory, and they are predicting snow flurries for Thursday morning.   It's really true.   If you don't like the weather, stick around awhile and it will change.  

I'm linking to Judy's Design Wall Monday post.    

Until next time.....

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today. 

Starting Another Project?

This past Monday I started another hexagon mystery quilt over at Jemima's Quilting Blog.   The first clue showed up in my email Monday, and I'd bought these blue fabrics to use in the mystery.  The quilt will be started in the center, and this is how mine would look.  I'm using 3/4" hexagons.  Well, after I let this sit and percolate overnight, Tuesday morning I decided that I really don't like this.   And I know if I don't like it going in, I won't keep up with it.   So now I'm on to plan B.   I haven't quite figured out what that is yet.  This mystery is completely free.  Just click on the link above.  

This is as far as I got on last year's mystery quilt.   I'm thinking that I should get the fabrics out for this one and finish it.   But you all know how tempting it is to start a new quilt.

While pondering what fabrics to use on the mystery quilt, I finished another bird block for my Cousin's Walk quilt.  This is bird number 4, but I have 5 appliqued'.   (I skipped around.)

I also added the outer border on my Lil' Sugar Chain quilt by Vicki Bellino.   Carla, Nancy, and I ended up at Caroline's Cottage Cottons in Rome City at the same time last November so we decided we needed to start a project together.  This little quilt measures 30" X 32".   My border is wider, so it might be just a bit larger than that.   

Our two grandsons were here for the weekend.   The oldest who is almost 13 taught me how to do a collage for my blog header.   It's really true that if you want to do something on your computer or phone, just ask someone younger!  

I think I'm going to look through my stash to see if I can find something interesting just in case I want to start the Jemima's Mystery Hexagon 2025 quilt.  

Until next time.....

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today.  

The Cousin's Walk Quilt Blocks

 Hello Friends

Twice a year I've been going to the Dear Jane retreat (now called the Jane Stickle retreat) up in Shipshewana, Indiana.  That's about 3 hours north of where I live.  I've missed two or three retreats, but for the most part I've been going twice a year for 20+ years.  There are a lot of accomplished quilters in the group, and most of them aren't afraid to jump in and try something new.  There are a lot of times that I jump right in and go along with them.   

One of the girls got permission to make copies of the out of print Cousin's Walk pattern so we could all jump in together.   The date on the envelope that she mailed my patterns in is dated December 2022.   I started shortly after that and did the first two or three birds.  OK.    I left parts off of them like flower centers, eyes and some leaves.   I've pulled them back out and added all the missing parts, and I plan to continue.  In all honesty, I'm not much of a planner.  When I get up in the morning, I usually work on whatever I'm in the mood for.   

Right now I'm working on block 4.  The first photo is blocks 1, 2, 3 and 5. I'm working on block 4 now.  I can see why I skipped it because it had more flowers and leaves than the others.  

The original quilt has most birds done in reds and cheddars.  I hardly ever do a pattern as it was designed so I've done a bird in brown and another in blue.  I'll probably do more in other colors, too.  

Here's the cover from the original pattern.  I think I might do something different in the center, and I'm not sure about the border either.  For right now I'm enjoying the applique'.   Most of my handwork is usually stitching hexagons, but I'm enjoying the needle turn applique' on these blocks.  

d

Until next time.....

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today.  

Winter Update

Hello Blog Friends

I'm finding that writing a blog post after so much time has gone by is like writing a letter to a friend that you've known since childhood, but you've somehow lost touch.  It's just hard to know where to begin.  During COVID I mostly watched YouTube videos of quilters and cross stitchers.  It was like spending time with a friend.  Lately, I've really enjoyed reading blogs again, and I'm excited to see that a lot of you are still writing blog posts.   Since I've enjoyed reading and seeing what all of you are doing, I thought I'd start to write again.   Not many days go by that I don't work on some kind of craft, so I'll take some photos soon and post them.   I had these photos of my winter decorations so thought I'd start with those.   For this first post I mainly wanted to see if I could change the header and still get photos into a post.

For a change we had some show this winter.  We got 9" of snow during this storm.   It actually snowed during the day when we could watch it.   I enjoy watching the birds on the feeder.   These are my two finch feeders.   Under the tree over to the right of the photo I have another feeder, seed cake holder and a suet cake holder.    

Here are some of my friends that come up to eat the seed that falls off the feeders.   I put a pile of seed under the tree for them.   When I go out back and shake the feed container, they come up out of the pond and toward the tree.  They're spoiled, and I'm not sure what the neighbors think.  

I like winter because I really enjoy the fireplace.   It's gas so starts up with the flip of a switch.  It's not messy, and there's no wood chopping.   

This is a quilt pattern that I designed.   I had fun with the wool applique' and embroidery in the center.   I still like handwork and have just started working on an applique' project.

This is a table topper made from one of my patterns.   The colors didn't come out looking quite like they should.   We have so many gray days in winter that it's hard to get good photos sometimes.

I bought this giant tiered tray when a lot of other cross stitchers were doing the same.  It's a good way to display seasonal cross stitching.

I love these little patterns from Small Town Needleworks on Etsy.  I have the January stitch fastened on the backer with double sided tape so I can change it out monthly.   I only have November and December left to stitch.  Somehow February has gotten away from me, so I might just skip to March.

My youngest  Grandson belongs to a service club at his school, and toward the end of year they collect knit/crochet hats and scarves to donate to our local pantry.   I'm getting a head start this year.  Knitting these hats and scarves is more relaxing than any other craft, I think.  This is an easy hat pattern.  I'll share more of the hats and scarves that I have finished in a later post along with the patterns.   

Until next time.....

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today.