My life has been through some huge changes this past year!  Most of which have been positive changes.  Life changing for sure.  I will sit down one day and write all about it, but for now my blog, Stillmeadow Quilting, will remain dormant a little while longer.  

I've joined Bloglovin (where future posts to Stillmeadow Quilting may be read) and this is where I can continue to follow along with some of my favorite bloggers.  It appears that my list of blogs that I followed through Google Reader has been transferred to Bloglovin and to Feedly as well.  Apparently several other bloggers are using Feedly to continue reading their blog list.  I've found that Feedly works very well and is perhaps more user friendly than Google Reader has been...apparently I need to claim Stillmeadow Quilting as my blog - for Bloglovin, which I will now claim, boring content and all.  Ha!  There is no "claiming" of blogs required at Feedly.

Hope to keep up with all of you.
All the best,

The Joy of the Luck

I left a comment at Carol's Crafty Creations for her Schnibbles pattern giveaway and now, believe it or not, Carol is sending Mon Ami, A Little Bit Country, Joy Luck, Plan C, Sunday Best, Tagalong, Roundabout, Imagine and Daily Doodler. Hmm. I think I'll begin with Roundabout! Or should I start with Joy Luck - considering the joy of my luck, lol. Thanks so much Carol!

Photo borrowed from Carol's blog. :)

I was very surprised recently to find a package in my mailbox. It was from my friend Karen, who blogs at Quilts A Lot! and is a very talented traditional quilter and is also a very accomplished hand-quilter.

Karen made this needle keep and enclosed a pair of her favorite brand of scissors as well. I added needles and a spool of thread and packed it in my bag to use that very day while waiting through Tom's tests at the clinic. I sewed the binding on a little postage stamp quilt - you know those appointments can take a while. Until now I didn't own a needle keep! This really is nice to have.
Thank you, Karen! I'll think of you each time I pop it in the quilting to-go bag.

I'll Leave You With This...

It's time for me to get back to work here, there's a lot to get done around the house. More fixing, painting and arranging ahead. This time I'm working on painting some furniture, the bathrooms will be torn apart and hopefully put back together again...we'll see how that goes, I may need a bucket. I'll be absent from posting and visiting friends in blogland again for a while, hopefully not for months and months, but for a while.

Until next time. Happy Quilting!

Hand knits by D' Marie and a very large chicken

D' knit this cozy soft wool hat and pair of double mittens for Tom. Here's Tom modeling them and waving hello. :-Oh my, he really should come in from the cold.

Deputy Chicken

D' knits for us and I quilt for her. She wanted this rather large Country Threads chicken (Deputy Chicken because of it's star badge) quilt so this is my latest finish for her. It's been on the list of to dos for a long time. Some quilters have UFOs. I have USOs. Unstarted Objects.

Many of you can probably relate to this USO thing, it comes in the form of kits, patterns and fabric purchases that are all tucked away and in some cases for years at a time. I figure that I have enough supplies to keep me busy for a while longer and will require very little shopping in order to finish a project. Typically I need to buy fabric for backing or binding and quilting thread in order to finish things up. Here's an idea, if you need a book of great ideas for using up your stash you might like to follow along with Kim Brackett's Scrap-Basket Sensations Blog Tour. Leave a comment at each blog and you might win your very own signed copy. This is a very special book as it contains the work of a few of quilter friends of mine who helped Kim bring the contents of this book together. I hope you'll follow along.

D' is knitting me a pretty red hat and mittens, but she knits things up so quickly! I can't keep up with this bartering of knitting for quilting thing we've started! Oh well, a happy problem to have.

Happy Quilting!

Kindness Matters

Sharlotte!!

Tom drew your name out of the hat. :-D

Thanks to all of you for your fun comments!

If it's worth doing once it's got to be worth doing twice! The Kindness Matters door banner pictured on the left is a gift that I sent to a friend and the quilt on the right is hanging on my front door.

I am ready to pass this Cottage Creek pattern for Kindness Matters on to another quilter. If you would like to try your hand at making one, just leave me a note to put your name in the hat. I'll have Tom draw a name "out of the hat" in a couple of days so there will be time to whip one up before Valentine's Day if you'd like, although seeing this happy bird is nice for any time of the year.

Pushing your luck has it's rewards

You haven't seen hide nor hair of Tom for a good while now, so here he is all bundled up, and despite the -5 degrees F (a warm up from a bone chilling -27 degrees F earlier in the morning), he is cheerfully holding my quilt...moving it this way and that until it was straight and not blowing in the wind, lol . Pretty sweet of him, huh?!

Here's the final chapter on this quilt story. I spent a couple of winter months in 2009 gathering materials and piecing together Midwest Pride. I spent the autumn of 2010 hand quilting it. No rush, huh? I finally finished the quilting and hand sewed the binding on last weekend. Because I used some recycled materials such as the sweet soft wool that I felted a while back, some gently used 100% cotton shirts that I found at the thrift shops (needless to say these were also washed - this was the best fabric to work with!), some prewashed new cottons, some unwashed new cottons and a prewashed 100% cotton bed sheet from IKEA (backing). I was curious to see how this blend would wash up and felt a good deal nervous while it tumbled around in the front loader (love the front loading machine for my quilts). The quilt washed up beautifully and was followed with about twenty minutes in a low temp dryer to reshape the cotton and was then laid out flat, smoothed into shape a bit and left to finish drying. I had such good luck with this mix of materials! I intend to push my luck again!

I think it looks nice in our dining room. The quilt is 55 inches square. Here's a peek of it hanging in the freshly painted room. There are decorating and furniture changes to make, but this quilt is definitely the focal point of the room and I love it there! Tom will hang a dining room light and I'll add some antique things to the space. The entire house is a work in progress right now so it felt real good to hang this quilt and better yet, to declare a finish!!

Now it's your turn to push your luck. Break away from the traditional same old, same old materials in the sewing and quilting department. It absolutely has it rewards!

Happy quilting!

Between Friends

Friendship and a quilt

both treasured gifts at Christmastime

from Mary at Quilt Hollow

Mary said she was thinking about me when she made this quilt and by the time she finished it she just knew she would be sending it to me . Isn't it pretty?! I love it and my snow folks are looking pretty comfy resting there on it, too. Thanks, Mary. :)

We have plenty of snow here at Stillmeadow so no doubt we will enjoy a very white Christmas. Happy Holidays everyone!

Welcome Back...

Hi everyone! I'm blowing the dust off my blog, checking to see if I can crank this thing up again after what has proven to be a very busy few months of non-quilt related activities here at Stillmeadow. We had house related fixing and painting projects. There was a lot of work outdoors that began very early last spring and kept on going until just last week as we enjoyed a gorgeous spurt of warm late autumn weather...a perfect opportunity to finish yard and garden work in addition to more painting while it was not too hot (that was a relief) or too cold. Now we are covered with snow and it's cold again. Brrr! Now I can go back to the rooms indoors. I've tried the paint brands that claim to stink less, but they still stink! OMG, the fumes!

In the sewing room, I did find time for two quilt projects on the days that I just had to take a rest from the above and thought I would share them with you before the autumn season turns to winter.

I collected the fabric for the Black Cat Quilt while touring Minnesota quilt shops a couple of years ago, and it lay waiting for two years! Where does time go? This is a Country Threads quilt design. Found that while enjoying a visit to their shop in Iowa. Love the style of their designs, and the farm setting there is anything but typical. The quilt is 24 x 54 inches and is the perfect quilt to hang in the front hall of our home. I like it waaay up there and would like to make another less seasonal quilt to hang when this comes down. If any of you have an idea for a quilt this size, please be sure to let me know.

Before the Black Cat jumped over the pumpkin patch, I made this quilt for a friend. She's a treasure and a person I am thankful to know. Be Thankful is a Cottage Creek design that is a so much fun to make that this is my third time making this for family and friends. I was thinking that I might like to have one of my own too. One of these days I might.

Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating in the week ahead. The holiday season is sneaking up on me this year. Guess I had better focus on a nice turkey dinner and let that paint brush dry for a while.

I used Natalia's tutorial, a few odd charms and a bit of leftover yardage for a nice scrappy looking top. Add some free-motion meandering and there you have it, a sweet little 38"x38" quilt ready and waiting for another little one to come along. The binding is Make Life by Sweetwater's raspberry red, which BTW, is not the official name for this color - I made that up...I do wish I had more of it.

Hope you find a few simple yet delightful quilts to make. There certainly is something to be said for simplicity. Happy quilting!