Last Three Mystery Quilt Blocks Available Now....

No, I haven't forgotten. I was just overtaken by life and a huge pile of quilt patterns. Needless to say, I fell over, so to speak.

But I'm upright again and have posted the last three Odessa Quilt Guild Mystery Quilt blocks on the Craftsy site.

# 7 - Ohio Star

#8 - Bear Claw

# 9 - Snail Trail or Monkey Wrench

These are the last three quilts in the 9-block quilt pattern. We have been teaching "quilt-as-you-go" in our guild, so that all of our members know they can have a finished, hand or free-motion-quilted quilt without having to go to a professional quilter.

Don't get me wrong. We have nothing against our long-arm helpers. It's just that some quilters have real difficulty finding funds for the service and, consequently, have produced tied quilts only. This is our effort to help those quilters.

Here is a very good tutorial on the blog, Quilt Matters, for this technique. We will be doing a demonstration of the technique in our December Quilt College session here in Odessa, WA, on December 19th at 7 PM at the Quilt Barn (north entrance to the museum).

Our chosen technique makes a very narrow sashing. This photo is from Quilt Matters.

By January 31st, we hope to have our quilts done. The deadline for submitting them to the Odessa Quilt Show is April 1st. You can obtain an entry form here about March 1st, 2017. We accept quilts from out-of-towners, so please participate, if you can. Instructions for shipping, etc., are on the form.

Additionally, there are excellent tutorials online for hand quilting and free-motion machine quilting. I'll let you search those out. Just GOOGLE "quilt as you go hand quilting" or "quilt as you go free-motion machine quilting".

You'll find some real inspiration in these techniques.

Ta-ta for now. Thanks for stopping by!

For the Holiday......shhhhhhhh! It's a cover-up.....

.....just in time to keep you clean and tidy while you roll out the holiday spirit! It takes a lot of work: picking up, sweeping, dusting, waxing, decorating. Then, there's the mixing, flouring, rolling, mulling, stirring, steaming, cooking side of it. A person can get down-right messy trying to roll out the holiday.

Well, here's something that's just in time for all that stuff we have to do every December. It takes about 3 hours to make. No buttons or ties. Just slips on right over your head. You can find the pattern at Etsy and Craftsy, as well as, here, in Odessa, WA, at Experience Quilts!

Here are a bunch of different color ideas for this apron.....

My grandmother introduced me to this shift-style apron. She liked it because it covered her house dresses, well, had pockets and straps that didn't give her a headache. Here's a page from the pattern:

She said the "around the neck" apron bothered her neck and gave her a headache.

This is a pretty good gift or stocking stuffer for your stitching friend.

Or, made up, altogether, in a pretty box, tied with a red ribbon!

It's a pattern from the 1880's, I've been told. You can make it any length you like and it fits women sized small to plus whatever.

Before cutting the fabric, you can fit this. The length of the straps determine the size of the apron; so, you can lengthen or shorten the straps accordingly.

Here's the pocket. It's lined and done up with applique', which you can sew on your machine or do by hand.

That's about it for today. Oh, the pattern costs $9 retail. I'm making some up for myself this winter. You can never have too many aprons. Keeps my clothes nice underneath, no matter how messy the chore!