New Floors!

So, here are the new floors!  Finally!  Esme chose hickory flooring!

Standing in the kitchen and looking in the dining room (note the lazy cat in the window seat and the lazy dog.......there is a new throw rug under the dog).  We haven't put all the leaves back in the table yet.  It's so cute when it's small like that!  Also moved the china hutch over to that corner.

And the other side of the dining room...........yes, the piano is now in the dining room.  The quilt ladder has it's corner and Willow is still on the throw rug.

The kitchen with a new floor rug that matches the one Willow covers up.

Looking into the living room.  We're unsure about a rug here yet.

And looking back towards the kitchen.  The bookcase now resides in the corner the piano has held for years.  The plan is to put the Christmas tree here and slide the bookcase into the spare bedroom.  We just loved the feel of having this corner uncovered from the piano.

The hallway...........

The spare bedroom.............

And bonus!  We did the bathroom too.  This wasn't in the original plan, but when we had to order another box of flooring, we just had them get enough for the bathroom which provided a really smooth transition.

 

We did a bit of relaxing over the weekend.  No, it's not March Madness.  This was a you tube video of one of my piano students who was playing in a week long tournament.  Esme needed to see it close up.

And Friday was David's birthday.  And bonus!  His new planter was delivered on his birthday!

And this was Esme and I late Saturday afternoon.  She was exhausted from making such a fabulous choice of flooring and I was exhausting from moving, rearranging, and cleaning.

Christi

Back to the Quilt Museum!

 I know, I was supposed to be back here to finish up the photos from the Museum Quilt Museum in Hamilton, but.............well, we've been a little busy.  You just don't realize how dirty your house is until you move everything for new flooring, or how much dirtier it will become in the flooring process.  And, it took longer because we had to order more flooring.  But the project is basically finished now and everything is about back in place.............photos to come.

So, back to the museum visit...........

There was an entire classroom (remember, this museum is in an old school building) full of the most amazing miniature quilts.  It was the Pat Kuhn Miniature Quilt Exhibit.

Unlike the ones I saw at the International Quilt Museum in Nebraska where there were only 3-4 quilts displayed on a shelf in a corner, these were displayed on the sweetest little beds and they were truly amazing.  I put my hand in the photo above for some perspective of the size.

There were so many of them!  

They were truly amazing.  

Note the little tiny pillows and lace edged sheet and pillow cases below..........

They were very inspiring.  My friend Mary gave me a set of postcards, one for each month of the year, and each one has the pattern for a small quilt.  I may have to get those out and work on them.  I probably won't need to purchase any fabric for quilts that small.

There were displays in the hallways as well...........we are always teasing David about choosing the biggest knife in the block for the smallest cutting jobs, well, this was the rotary cutter for him!  They had also taken some old school lockers and made an interactive display with quilt blocks on the doors and you had to guess the name of the block and then open the locker to check your answer.

There was a huge display of toy sewing machines..............

And I liked this quilt using old embroidery pieces in it.  There was so much to see.  The hallways were lined with stuff and I didn't take photos of anywhere near all of it.

Their "National Gallery" featured the quilts of Ann Petersen, the "Obsessive Quilter".   These were some fabulous quilts. 

This next one was David's favorite...........

Up close of the quilting design.........

There was so much to see.  I highly recommend this museum.  It is on three levels of the old school, but even walking the halls was interesting.  

We also enjoyed this display of thimbles...........so many different ones!  

The thimble display was by the RV Quilters - doesn't this sound like the ideal life!  Traveling by RV and Quilting!  Apparently the thing to do is collect thimbles along your travels.  They had obviously been lots of places.

And this concludes the trip to Hamilton.  It was fun, and I'd go back and do it all again!

Christi

Christi Mystery 2023

 Our guild meeting was last night and members brought their mystery quilts to share.  The first clue had been given at our February meeting and then a clue a week was posted on our Facebook page.  So here is my finished quilt.  I loved this layout for the motion it added to the quilt.  I put a narrow neutral border on it and then used the leftover scraps from the jelly roll to add a pieced border.

I showed it at the meeting last night and we got to see all of the mystery quilts.........

Marsha's black and white............

Georgann's in Christmas colors............I hope she and Marsha (above) bind in red.

Judy's reproductions fabrics.............the neutrals were all the same fabric and it had covered wagons on it.

Pam's version..........a little smaller because she skipped the last round, but it really looks like a poinsettia, don't you think?

Marty's done a little differently with small log cabins in the center........

A Valentine's version by Linda............

Another one from another Pam.............

Fran added a row and really played with the layout............  We all liked the "eyes" in the center.

Joyce's blocks (hot off the machine at 4:30) all done in batiks.  Can't wait to see it set together.

Gina's done in gray and yellow.  We're hoping she calls is Streaks of Lightning!

Mary's done in a colorful rick rack design......

And Carrie's done in Christmas fabrics...........love the pieced border!

And my Triple Treat quilt is finished!  Check off another UFO!  

So, funny story about this one.  I made all these blocks as Leader/Enders (in between other projects).  The blocks were so fun and soothing to piece.  But when I put them together, I really didn't care for the quilt.  So, I used up some fabrics I didn't care for and pieced a backing for it.  Now, I was doing this while we were moving/storing things and tearing up flooring to prepare for the new floors.  I had just finished quilting 11 smaller things for my mom, so I put it on the longarm and started quilting.  I used a basketweave pattern that I hadn't used on a big quilt before and quilted in gold thread.  Everything was going well and I was 2/3 finished when I was moving the quilt up and realized that the backing wasn't long enough.  Well, I couldn't figure out how this had happened.  I went back to my notes and finally realized that I had turned one of the backing fabrics when I cut it and sewed it together.  I really really really didn't want to take if off the machine and add a short strip to the bottom, so I finally just took my seam ripper and removed the bottom row of blocks.  Voila!  Problem solved.  Of course I looked this extra row over several times to see if there was any possible use for it, and none that were very attractive came to mind, so I just dropped it in one of the big trash cans that were full of carpet padding and other debris to be disposed of.  It's now a completed project with no lingering parts to have to deal with.  And I have to say I like the quilt better now that it's all done.  I finished it with a scrappy black binding, using up scraps of blacks -  grunge, dots, stripes, solids - and I think it worked and used up some more scraps.  Of course, everything looks good when it's quilted in gold!  

I'll get back to the rest of the Missouri Quilt Museum photos in the next post.  Stay tuned!  And Happy Birthday to my cousin, Susie!

Christi