More little dresses for Africa

Mom has been at the sewing machine again and look what she has created. One cuter than the next. These will surely bless two little girls somewhere!!

Keith's Harvest Quilt

This a block that was featured on the cover of the latest Connecting Threads catalogue.  I love love love batiks and was itching to do a scrappy quilt for our bed. DH Keith has been wanting a quilt with brighter colors. 

Right now our quilt is the Millennium quilt which happens to have 2000 peices. It was made in 1999 for the New Millennium. It was fabulous back then but now we are over it and are looking for something new. Big, bold and bright. 

The kit that was offered I think used a jelly roll so the quilt used 2 1/2 inch strips of fabric. 

Since I had a layer cake which is 10 inch squares I recalculated the pattern to use 3 inch strips instead of 2 1/2 inch strips.Now I only need 16 full blocks made up 48 quarter blocks.

The quilt has a scrappy look even though I am using a sampler collection from Connecting Threads. It is called changing leaves . 

In the last year or so I have been loving the idea of a scrap quilt so finally I am getting to make a scrappy looking quilt but I am not technically using scraps yet!!

I am using a concept I learned from Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville to make bonus half square triangle units from each block.  More later on the details. Have a great day everyone. 

First quilt for new VA hospital in Las Vegas

Daughter Jennifer pieced this so quickly using favorite fat quarters from her stash.  We found the tutorial from Missouri Star Quilt Company on YouTube. It is called Double Slice Layer Cake Quilt Tutorial   It is amazing all the free tutorials for fast and easy quilts. Can't wait to get to the fun part--the quilting! More later.

Charity items to Lil Troopers

These were sent to Lil Troopers a Florida charity that provides going home outfits/packs to three military hospitals. The Mickey Mouse quilt panel was perfect and fun to do both patriotic and baby cute. Who doesn't love Mickey? The booties are knit and were also fun. I have made red, white and blue hats for the troops before but these tiny booties were much more fun and lots quicker too. The camo sweater sets were a departure from my idea of appropriate baby colors, but after I heard how much they were appreciated by the military families it was all good. Living and learning go hand in hand. It is just soooo good to have these on their way finally. It is always a challenge for me to get the items sent off once they are finished. So that is progress and a good feeling.

Charity Booties finally on their way to Minnesota

Finally these got sent off to Bundles of Love a charity based  in Minnesota. These were part of a project with my online charity group All Crafts for Charity I have a soft spot for Minnesota since that is where Mom was born--along with her 5 sisiters and a brother. She knew first hand how cold the winters are in Minnesota.

Happy October

Now that the weather is finally getting cooler here in Sunny South Carolina, it is time to bake and make wonderful cold weather foods.

After finding the wonderful Yahoo group Home canning, I was able to get enough information to buy a pressure canner. Of course these people are hard core canners!!! They are talking about canning whole chickens, sausage, peach apple sauce and some items I have never heard of.

Mind you all I want to do is can some soups and chili. But you know how it is when you are in a group of excited people, but canning fever has not overtaken me YET. So far I have not hijacked a produce truck or a Tyson Chicken truck.

Yesterday I made mom's famous banana bread. There were too many overripe bananas so I mashed and froze two containers. They even made it to the freezer inventory so there is hope that they will not be forgotten. I am ever hopeful that it will happen.

Today is Friday and Keith is coming home tonight. Since he has to go back on Sunday I am grateful for the extra night he will be home.

Have a great weekend everyone,

Nancy, an ever hopeful canning wannabee