Because It's Carnival Time

 No stitching taking place here - I hope that will soon be remedied!

Our home repair projects got finished up early this week, but then I spent several days cleaning up the mess!  I thought the contractors used drop cloths and other protective gear, but there was still paint spatter and drywall dust everywhere.  And furniture to be moved back in place, etc.

Since it's almost Mardi Gras, the boys are both back home to enjoy the festivities.  So in  addition to cleaning and organizing, there was cooking to be done.  Gotta have some of the family favorites on hand to share with the kids!

Making the gumbo

 

Once the house was all put back together, I got the Mardi Gras quilts out for display.

"Beautiful Crescent" was finished last year. 

Mardi Gras Memories was finished earlier this year.  I finally took it outside for some pictures this week.  The final quilt measures 60" x 72".

I love the scrappy exuberance of all those purple, green, and gold fabrics!

 

The Mardi Gras Memories pattern was written by Diane Knott, so I asked her to do the long-arm quilting as well.  

 

 

My local quilt shop had the perfect backing fabric - a Fabric Finders Mardi Gras print.

 

I made a printed label so I could use a fun font for the quilt name.  It's a quick way to make a label, especially if there's a lot of info you want to include.  Just iron your label fabric to a sheet of freezer paper.  You can cut the paper to size or use pre-cut paper.  Design the label in a word processing program and print the label using a dot-matrix OR laser printer.  Note: some sources say not to feed fabric through a laser printer, but I've done it plenty of times with no problems.  

Time for another cup of coffee and maybe (finally!) some stitching time!

 

 

As the Needle Sews

 Hi quilting friends!

I thought my quilt blogging days might be over as I lost my blogging mojo somewhere during the second half of 2022.  I decided to take a break from blogging and see if I was well and truly finished with the medium.  It's only been in the last few days I've thought about giving the blog a visit.

I don't know how my blogging efforts will carry out in 2023, but I'm going to make a start and see what happens.

Even though I lost my blogging mojo, I didn't lose any quilting mojo!  Here are a few finished projects from 2022.

 

I finished this mini quilt in June, 2022 with plans to share it for Wendy's  (The Constant Quilter) monthly mini challenge.  I never got around to posting it, as I got called away to help my mom move to an independent living facility.  The selvedge basket blocks were made in 2016 for a blog hop celebrating Diane Knott's first book, Scrap Quilt Secrets.  It doesn't show up in the pictures, but I hand quilted some flowers inside the basket handle, then machine quilted the basket outline.  Now I have the perfect Easter wall hanging!
 

Yay!  I finally finished Blackbird Designs' Gathered Harvest quilt!  Well, it's still waiting for binding, sleeve, and label, but I should have that finished by the end of January.

Undercover in Chicago V - a mystery quilt by Debbie Caffrey.  My local quilt guild does a mystery quilt every year.  As a new member, this was my first year to participate.  The goal is to finish the quilt and share it at our annual Christmas meeting in December.  I'm happy to say I met the goal!  I still need to add a label, so I'll share more pictures when that's done.

Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Chain.  The blocks were made as a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project and finally assembled late last summer.  The finished quilt has already been gifted (and I forgot to take more pictures!).

Another Rainbow Scrap Challenge project - Burgoyne Surrounded - which got started in 2017.  The picture only shows the block arrangement prior to assembly, but they got assembled and are awaiting their turn to be quilted.

 Mardi Gras Memories, pattern by Diane Knott.  My regional quilt guild - Gulf States Quilting Association - will be holding their quarterly meeting this month in New Orleans.  My local guild (Cotton Pickin' Quilters 😁) is co-hosting the meeting, and our theme is Mardi Gras (Mardi Gras will be celebrated February 21 this year).  The call went out for Mardi Gras-themed quilts to decorate the meeting venue, so of course I had to contribute.  Fortunately, I had started the quilt much earlier in the year, so it wasn't a huge hurdle to finish. 

OK, that's enough for now!  I still have some holiday projects to talk about, and then there's that pesky planning for 2023 quilts.  Maybe the blogging mojo is returning?