It’s that time of year again when Christmas is newly past & a new season begins; the 12 Days of Christmas.
As the 3 Wise Men begin their journey, it’s a good time for us to find our sewing machines after all the busy, busy Christmas shopping, gift wrapping, food making & visiting. I’m exhausted but excited to make a small mystery quilt for you!
Want to join me?
You can even use your featherweight machine!
Day 1 we’ll make 1 little house block. Just 6 pieces of fabric!
Trust me when I say the fabric decision making takes longer than the 2 minutes needed to sew this block!
I hope you’ve been enjoying the fun things other quilters have been posting to help encourage everyone to get their annual Mammogram.
There are lots of creative minds out there & we all hope that getting that pesky mammogram will help catch possible breast cancer early, because it’s typically very treatable if it’s caught early.
NO EXCUSES! JUST DO IT!
I have a “love-ly” little quilt, Alpine Love, that I designed & am sharing with you here for free.
I hope you’ll like it & offer a donation to
Think of it as a little incentive to get your mammogram done &
maybe make one for a friend that needs that encouragement.
We all know someone that could use some extra love!
Click the link below to download the Alpine Love PDF pattern.
The #SewPink Initiative was created by ByAnnie.com LLC to raise awareness for breast cancer throughout the year. Our efforts culminate in an annual blog hop during October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month to promote self-care, awareness, early detection, and support for those affected by breast cancer.
Breast cancer affects 1 in 8 women, and unfortunately, many of us know someone or have ourselves been affected by this disease. The good news is we can do something about it because breast cancer is detectable with monthly breast self-exams and mammograms.
In addition to participating in #SewPINK, Fat Quarter Shop invites you to support the National Breast Cancer Foundation with the goal of raising $20,000. To find the Fat Quarter Shop fundraiser, visit:https://fundraise.nbcf.org/team/fqs
The #SewPink Initiative was created by ByAnnie.com LLC to raise awareness for breast cancer throughout the year. Our efforts culminate in an annual blog hop during October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month to promote self-care, awareness, early detection, and support for those affected by breast cancer.
In addition to participating in the #SewPINK Initiative, Fat Quarter Shop invites you to support the National Breast Cancer Foundation with the goal of raising $10,000.
My new patterns are all now on my website! I have 8 new patterns! With a variety of sizes & styles, you’re sure to fall in love with at least one (I hope!).
With a quick click you can see them all just by clicking here.
3 of my new quilts are made with Veranda fabric collection by Renee Nanneman of Need’l Love. It’s such a beautiful fabric collection, very classic.
Veranda Chains is the first. It uses my Tiny Dresden template #216 in simple square-in-a-square blocks.
Another Veranda fabric quilt is Power Of Love. It uses my Tiny Dresden #216, Mini Dresden #186 & also my Tiny Tree Template Set #286.
I think this would make a lovely wedding or anniversary gift, don’t you?
My third quilt using Veranda is Plumfield Petals. It uses my Tiny Dresden #216 & Tiny Tree #286 templates.
Reminiscent of an antique quilt, it’s made simple with my templates.
My next new pattern is A Few Of My Favorite Things. It also uses my Tiny Dresden #216 & Tiny Tree #286 templates.
If it looks familiar, that’s because I featured it here on my blog as my 3rd annual “12 Days of Christmas” sew along.
You may remember my new Candy Corn Sampler pattern released late in season last fall. If you’d like some encouragement in sewing this quilt, I spent the month of October doing just that. You can follow by clicking here.
It’s made with Renee’s fabrics also. It uses my Tiny Dresden #216, Mini Dresden #186 & Tiny Tree #286 templates.
Also using more of Renee’s fabrics… BOO WHO! It uses my Tiny Dresden template #216.
Fusible web appliqué makes it a quick little Halloween quilt.
My Halloween table runner is one of my favorites…
The candy corn block border strips were so fun to make! They’re made using my Tiny Tree template set #286 & the “O” is made with my Tiny Dresden template #216 if you didn’t already know.
And last, but not least, is my Fall Colors quilt. It uses A combination of Renee’s fabrics with my Tiny Tree template #286.
I hope you’ll be joining the fun & making some little Dresdens & trees with me this summer. Paper templates are included in each pattern, but the plastic templates make your cutting so much quicker & accurate.
Ken Burns is undoubtedly THEstorytellerof our time.
I’ve enjoyed many of his historical documentaries. I’ve watched most of them, some more than once. My favorite is The Civil War.
Ashokan Farewell, the theme song, was eventually enjoyed over & over again while being played by all 3 of our kids in orchestra.
When I saw on KCRQF’s FB page that a traveling show of some of the quilts from his private collection were going to be on display at the Peoria Riverfront Museum I immediately thought of my quilting friends who live in the Peoria area & contacted them to see if they would be visiting the show.
We set a date & this week we met at The Quilt Corner in Morton, visited over lunch & then went to see the quilt exhibit.
The one thing that all of the quilts have in common is that they are all very visual.
Some were beautiful & some were just quilts to me.
Some are in pristine condition & others just ordinary & in less than perfect condition.
As my quilting friends & I were observing the quilts we found ourselves wondering why some of these quilts were chosen for his collection & for display at this show.
Eventually we came across a quote of Ken’s,
It makes me think of quilts & other objects that I own. In some instances the object is valuable in worldly, monetary value & other times it’s a heart thing that the object invokes; a memory of a place, time or person.
Those memories can be more valuable to me than any amount of money.
I’d like to hear the “Storyteller’s” tale of some of those quilts! Since they’re not all valuable monetarily, I’m betting the stories of places or people or memories would be very interesting to hear.
This is a quick video about Ken’s collection & the show. You can see some awesome quilts that didn’t end up in this show too!
While we were there visiting the museum & gift shop, the topic of the Peoria Holocaust Memorial came up. I remembered seeing it when it was new & at the north end of Peoria at an outdoor mall about 20 years ago.
I remember it partly because it was made of buttons.
So… many… buttons… 11 million total. Very sad.
What do you know, the memorial is ironically now exhibited right outside the Peoria Museum so we were able to walk outside & see it in it’s newer location.
“The purpose of the Peoria Holocaust Memorial (formerly called “The Button Project”) is to remember the 6 million Jews and 5 million enemies of the state who lost their lives during the Nazi Holocaust.”
1 button for each soul lost was collected from all over the world to make this memorial.
Interesting, since seeing that exhibit 20 or so years ago I think of it sometimes when I walk past a jar of my own antique buttons that I’ve collected over the years. Thought provoking art, wouldn’t you say?
If you can, I recommend visiting the quilt exhibit. Peoria is it’s last stop.
Make some memories for later storytelling.
For more information, click here to go to the Peoria Riverfront Museum website.
Quilting my way through life! 