Thank You

Today, my husband and I carried on a tradition held by our parents and grand parents to place fresh flowers on the graves of our family members gone before us. We do this to honor their memories. We wondered if the tradition will die out with our generation. For some reason, it's a tradition I have always enjoyed.

A sweet commenter alerted me to the facebook page of Quiltmaker Magazine who had posted a picture of my patriotic rendition of a Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt. I shared it with you a couple of years ago, and do so again today.

"The greatest glory of a free-born people is to transmit that freedom to their children."

William Havard

P.S. I'd love to have your vote in the Baby Quilt category of the Blogger Quilt Festival going on now. You can see the entries here. My quilt is #23.

Queen of Scraps

You probably know by now that I save my fabric scraps. I like to cut them into strips and store them in plastic tubs.  I have tubs for 1.5 inch, 2 inch, 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch strips. When I get ready to make a scrap  quilt, these are the sizes that I find I use the most and it gets me sewing before I know it and without much time cutting.  Bonnie Hunter is the mastermind of the scrap saving method that I use. I'm so grateful to her, so when I heard that she was coming to Kansas City to speak at several local guilds, you can bet I used a red marker to mark my calendar!  The red letter day finally arrived yesterday!

Bonnie's energetic and delightful program did not disappoint! Her trunk show was filled with scrap quilts of every sort.  Some contain pieces so small that it boggles my mind and I  wonder if she ever sleeps. Up close, some of the fabrics she uses might be termed "ugly", but, viewed from a distance, the decades spanning plethora of color creates quilts that might  be mistaken for antiques, especially the ones she hand quilts. I went away determined to follow her advice to try to sew at least 15 minutes every day.

Over the last few years, I have followed and completed four mystery quilts designed and offered by Bonnie on her website, Quiltville.com. Remember this one? Thinking Bonnie might like to know that people really do follow her scrap saving advice and make quilts using the free patterns she offers, I loaded up three of my Mystery Quilts and took them with me to the Olathe Quilt Guild meeting last night.
I showed you Patriotic Road back on Memorial Day.  Here's another, made for my grandson, Oliver, for his fifth birthday. Bonnie's pattern is called Orange Crush.

Oliver sleeps under his quilt every night. Since I used quite a few novelty print scraps, it is sort of an eye spy quilt.  The lettering along the outside borders spell out his name and initials. I used a tutorial by Lazy Gal Quilts to make the letters. Tonya is coming out with a book in December with lots of ideas for using this method.  I can hardly wait! It is called Word Play Quilts.  Look for it  if you would like to learn to make these freeform letters.

I worried that the bright colors in this quilt might keep Ollie awake at night, but when he told his mom that he wanted to paint his room orange I knew it would be perfect for him!

There's one more mystery quilt.  I'll show you that another day. After all, it is supposed to be a mystery!

P.S. Joyce T. who likes strawberry shortcake as a summer treat, please contact me by the weekend to claim your Hope Valley prize. Thanks.