Visiting a Friend

 Yesterday Chris and I drove to Valparaiso, Indiana 

to visit a couple we have been friends with for over 35 years.  

Our friend, Jim, has been diagnosed with brain cancer. 

 Even though he has done radiation and is doing chemo the tumor is not changing. 

 We decided we wanted to be able to visit before we could not communicate with him.  

It was SO good to see him and his wife yesterday! 

 He is still in there and even though he was not able to say much I could see his eyes light up when we spoke with him. 

 He could still say yes and give me the thumbs up!  

I am very thankful we made the 3 1/2 hour drive for the visit! 

 We gave him a brown scapular (Google it if you want more information). 

 He happily put it on and hopefully will continue to wear it.

My amazing husband took the back roads and planned 2 quilt shop stops on the way there.  

The first shop was called Robin's Nest.  

I struggled a little to find something to buy (surprising right?). 

 I always feel like I should buy something when I stop into a shop though.

I did find this adorable, vintage bunny fabric.  

I had picked some up from a "garage sale" a long time ago. 

 It is one of my favorite vintage fabrics so I was thrilled about that! 

 It's hard to tell but the background is a light blue.

We continued on and stopped at a shop in Chesterton, IN. 

 It was called Sweet Stitches Quilt Shop.  What a beautiful shop!  It was a joy to shop there!

This is some of the loot I bought there.  

I needed this pink for a border for my 52 weeks block of the week quilt.

I could not walk away from these patterns either. 

 I am itching to start that cat one, but it has to wait.

If the day was not eventful enough, my car rolled over the 100,000 mile mark!

We got home around 9 PM and we were both so happy we went.

Please pray for our friend and his wife.  They will need all the prayers they can get.

~XOP~

Bee Positive 2 Quilt

I have finished up the Bee Positive 2 quilt for Father Cooper!  The binding was the last thing.  

I had much help with applying this!

 Her eyes matched the quilt!

This, though, was truly obnoxious!  I had to move her with the quilt!

Here it is in all it's glory!
I am completely smitten with this.

I can't wait to do a quilt along with this block!
Don't forget to stop back in January for a Bee Positive Quilt Along.
I hope you all are as excited as I am for this!!!

I know you may not think you can do it but trust me you totally can!
They are very addicting to make though so watch out.
You will begin and then get lost in the process.
I found it difficult to stop once I began.

I made a few improv pieced crosses for the back and I love how they came out too.
They were pretty time consuming to make but I love the finished look.

I put them next to the blocks that were signed by everyone in the parish.
Yes, it is a pretty small church.

You can see the lay out of the entire back in this photo.

I did embroider a label that I sewed into the back.
As I may have already stated, I really don't like making labels so this is my new way.
Embroider the label and put it into the back.
No label to sew on when the quilt is finished!

Just in case you have not noticed the spectacular quilting(done by my friend Liz) here is a close up.

My plan is to give this to Father Cooper's mom on Sunday so he will have it soon.

I am going to link up to Finish It Up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Have a wonderful weekend and

GO STATE!!

~XOP~

I Need Your Help (Again)

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  

Mine had some good and some bad.  I lost a dear friend to cancer over the weekend.  

I knew it was coming and yet it did not soften the blow.  

I now have yet another friend (our priest) to add to the list of quilts to make that also has cancer. 

 His cancer is terminal.  

He is going in for a bone marrow transplant to buy time, but sadly there is no cure.

  I would love to repeat the green and gray cross quilt for him to use 

as he goes through this time in his life. 

 I also know that it will be difficult for me to make all the blocks that I need for this. 

 I am putting out a call for help once again, to all my generous friends for help making the blocks.  This is a photo of the finished quilt from last time.

It turned out so amazing and the man I made it for uses it all the time (even better).  

So here is the deal. 

I am asking for greens in the kelly, lime and forest color way as well as ANY gray from dark to light. 

The gray should be in the more clear gray not tending toward brown or blue.  

Light, medium or dark are fine, keeping to modern, more manly fabric,

 not girly or novelty. 

Solids or prints are GREAT!  

Square, pieced, wonky, single, multiple skinny or fat, that part is up to you.  

The only consistent part is the height needs to be 9.5".  

This means the finished size in the quilt will be 9.0", and the width is up to YOU.

Want to see a few examples?

I made a double block up in the left hand, top, corner.  

So smaller blocks are ok as long as when combined they equal 9.5"

Don't even worry about trimming them, just send them and I will trim them.

Gray on gray, green on gray or gray on green, 

As you can see I made some with a gray background and green crosses, 

and some with gray crosses.  

I made some with green backgrounds but only gray crosses.  

I'm trying to get an equitable distribution of gray and green but as I learned on the purple and gray wedding quilt, the color very quickly overwhelms the gray.  

**I need the blocks mailed to arrive by November 6th.**  

If you are willing to help, please email me at mamaspark@gmail.com 

I will send you my address.

Here is a recap of the block details:

• design: cross / plus (wonky, squared up, pieced, single, multiple) Like in this quilt here
• size: 9.5″ high (9.0″ finished) and I’ll leave the width up to you (so that it looks like the cross blocks in the quilt shown above).
• fabric colors: masculine greens and grays
• fabric style: solids and prints (anything but feminine or juvenile prints).
• deadline:November 6th or sooner
• If you are on Instagram please post your photos and include the #beepositivequilt2

Just in case you need a tutorial you can find one right here on Mrs.Schmenkman's blog.  

If you are on Instagram I am using the #beepositivequilt2  

I love the fact that we are making this an online "Bee".  I know why people do bees.  

It is so great to have all that *positive* energy all put into one quilt!!!

I realize it is a short turn around time but I certainly appreciate any help you can give.  

I am also hoping to get someone to quilt it at a discount as now that it is just me bringing home the bacon, these things add up!

So, thanks in advance to all of you for listening, and never fear, even if you are unable to send me a block or two, all prayers are GREATLY appreciated!

Have a blessed day!

~XOP~

Plus Quilt Gifted

I was fortunate enough to finish my quilt this week and to gift it yesterday to my friend that is going through treatment. 

 Here are some photos of the finished quilt.

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday.

 This came out so great! 

 Thank you to everyone that sent me blocks! 

 I was able to get this quilt plus 2 smaller ones

 (I still need to put the second one together) 

out of all the blocks.

 I am loving these cats.  It has been one of my "go to" gray fabrics!

Oh look, Sparty snuck in there.

I love Jenny's little Pezzy plus.

Metallics, and pearl bracelets and AGF oh my!

It was so fun to have skinny and chubby and such nice variety in this quilt.

You may remember that I did a large green cross on the back with the label centered but it really shows off the quilting on that flannel!

This may be my favorite photo of the group.  You can really see the quilting and the brilliant texture my LAQ, Kathy, gave this quilt.

I am working hard on the last wedding quilt (for now anyway).

It looks like my weekend is totally taken up with non-quilty things this weekend.

I am hoping to get time tonight to sew.

Anyone in North Carolina, Mebane area?

We are going to be in Mebane in 2 weeks.

We will be spending a few days in a cabin in the mountains near Ashville too.

So if you are anywhere near Durham, Charlotte or Raleigh lmk and maybe we can meet up!

Have a great weekend and thanks again, SO much for helping me complete this quilt so quickly!

The quilting community is the BEST!

Linking up to Let's Bee Social

~XOP~

Weekend Musings

My weekend was a little bit odd.  Husband and son were gone deer hunting 

from Friday to Saturday night. 

 Michigan had 2 odd deer hunting days in certain overpopulated counties. 

 Both my son and his friend, got a doe.  

That kept them busy for a few days.  

I had to hurry up and finish a quilt for a really dear friend that is in the hospital.  

She has cancer. 

 I don't want to show her quilt just yet but here is the label.

I can show you the back too.  I used cream flannel on the back. 

 She is in ICU but I am hoping that she will get to use this. 

 Please pray for her.

I almost have the green and gray plus quilt bound and finished too. 

 I need to take some photos once it is finished. 

 Kathy did a great job quilting both of these quilts for me!

I did happen to make an Infinity scarf and can see more of these in my future.

Though I would not make them so wide and I would wash the fabric first, for cotton.

My ever present helper was not in her usual place.  She got tired of me shoving her off the dark green flannel and retreated to a nice fabric lined cubby!

 I needed new jeans badly.  Mine were getting so big. They were on sale. 

 I tried on one size smaller and lo and behold it was still a little big. 

 I tried on TWO sizes lower and they fit!!!  

I texted this to my husband and he asked me if my cup size was two sizes lower too.  MEN?! 

 I sent this photo to my daughter and she said they looked big still, but they fit just fine!

I also managed to get the wedding quilt top finished but need to move on to embroidering the label.  Once the label is finished then I will figure out how to incorporate the signature blocks 

and the label directly into the back. 

 I HATE sewing on labels!!! 

 I did some weeding (pictures later) and finished the second baby quilt top for donation. 

 I need to make backs and bindings for those and take them to my other quilter friend.

Phew, glad to be back to work!  Wait...did I just say that??  LOL

How was your weekend?

~XOP~

Blocks for a New Friend

Since joining Instagram I have met some new folks.  

Interestingly enough some of them live in MI and not too far away either.  

One is Abby.  

She found out recently that her boyfirend's aunt has breast cancer. 

 This poor woman will be having a double mastecotomy shortly and Abby, as most of us are, 

was at a loss as to how she could help and let her know how much she is loved. 

 Abby is a quilter, and so of course making a quilt was what popped into her head first.  

It's so difficult to find the time to make an entire quilt especially by yourself, on a deadline!

  So she did what most of us would do, give a shout out for help!  

I know how this feels as I did this exact same thing last year so I volunteered to help. 

 She was asking for 9 patch and Ohio star blocks.  

I made 9 of the nine patch blocks and have 2 of the 4 (that I cut out) Ohio stars finished.  

My goal is to finish the other 2 tonight and mail them out no later than Monday. 

 I used mostly from my scraps which feels good too!

Sorry for the bad pics but it was night and I was too tired to get a real camera!  

If you remember, the fabric I used in this first star was the same fabric I used for the back

 of my friend that had cancer's quilt!

Madras plaid

Here are the Nine Patch blocks

Creepy Owls (one of my favorites!)

More owls but with an xoxo on the left side

So soothing

Reminds me of those gigantic puff balls you see on the huge dandelion looking weeds

Love me some DS Quilts

These dots are so rich looking

More DS Quilts and does that pink remind anyone else of jacks??

This is so much richer in person

Rainbows and flowers.  

What's not to love??

Alright, Abby, I will work on the other two star blocks tonight!  

I hope everything goes well for your BF's auntie.  

All my good thoughts and well wishes went into these blocks as I was making them.

~XOP~