Winter Greetings

Wishing you peace and joy this holiday season!

Corduroy Quilt #2

I'm loving my corduroy quilt so much, I just had to make another one.  This one is for my son, who moved to his own place last month.  He's a guy who loves the forest, and he's lucky to have a job where he works there everyday.

So we'll need some tree trunks,

And some greens,

Some light shining through the trees, some more browns and greens, and some red maple leaves.  Wa-la!  It's 80 x 77 inches, nice and big.  I think I'll call it, "Corduroy Forest."

Now to tie it before Christmas!

Rocky Roads

Just last night, I was drooling over this "Rocky Road to Kansas" quilt, made in 1930, pictured in Gwen Marston's Liberated String Quilts book.

This book is one of my absolute favorites, for the amazing collection of old string quilts shown.

Grey shot cotton

Some months ago, I made about 150 kite shaped "string" pieces with Victoria's 15 minutes play method.  I was going to use them in a spider web quilt, but then changed my mind.  Ah-hah!  I could use them for a "Rocky Road to Kansas"quilt!  I looked up instructions for the block before I went to bed last night.  

This morning, I woke up to a beautiful "Rocky Road to Kansas" block on the NYC Metro Mod Quilter's blog!  Hmm.  Something must be in the air.   THEN, Nadia at Multicolored Pieces wrote about the "rocky road ahead" in Tunisia.

OK, I got it!  It's time to start this quilt!

They say, "Great minds think alike."  So I'd like some help choosing the setting fabric from your great minds.  Here are several auditions, none that I'm really thrilled with.  Any thoughts on these or other directions would be welcome.  Thank you!!

Kona "Cinnamon"

Olivey Shot Cotton

Vintage Turquoise

Kaffe Fasset Red Chard (generously gifted by Mary K.)

A Kona Green, not sure of the name.

Kaffe Fasset disappearing act

Ho Ho Ho!

Santa Claus has come to town!  I found him at Goodwill, and just couldn't resist.  I think he likes the orphan blocks surrounding him.  Maybe I'll name this quilt, "Santa and the orphan blocks."   Some of these are from my beginning quilt class, six years ago.

Kim got to be the first to tell him about her Christmas list a few weeks ago.  She came all the way from Pokeytown, New York!

Did you ever wonder how large the REAL Santa is?  According to this "life size" rendition, he's about 44" tall and 13" wide.  So THAT'S how he gets down all those chimneys!

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who offered sweet comfort and great advice about hand pain.  I'm sorry to hear that so many suffer from the same thing, and glad to read there is help.  Quilt-makers really make a warm, helpful community!