Books, Hooks, Sticks, etc.: April 2016

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Fun visit to Baltimore

Recently Mr. Books and I spent a couple of days near Baltimore, Maryland.

We had wanted to explore the Inner Harbor area, but neither of us are the type to deal with traffic so we hit a quick retreat to quieter areas to explore.

Since Mr. Books loves trains a visit to the B & O Museum was a must. The round house has quite the display of all types of rail cars and other types of vehicles (with the exception of motor cars).

We did take some pictures. . . I will have to try to upload them later.

One of the other highlights of our trip was our visit to the Belair Mansion. While we were there they had a quilt bee of sorts going on --- a quilt is being done for one of the beds in the mansion and visitors were given an opportunity to work on the Broiderie Perse border section.

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Of course, since I had done my research before we left I was prepared with my thimble. My stitches will now be part of history as long as the Belair Mansion is maintained as a museum and the quilt resides there.

It was fun to talk with other quilters (some were young girls and boys) from different areas while working on a common goal.

Should we ever return to the Belair Mansion it will be fun to see the quilt laying on the bed and on display.

Ok, gotta go. . . . .

In peace and pieces,

This content was originally posted on the quilt blog Books, Hooks, Sticks, etc. (www.bookshookssticksetc.blogspot.com). If you are reading this on any site other than the original or quilterblogs.com it is WITHOUT my permission and the content has been stolen.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

What I have been busy with. . . . .

I have completed a number of things recently. . . .and none of them stayed with me!

These first photos are of blocks that I made for the March and April Stash Bee blocks:

The Friendship Star blocks were for March. The large one is 12" and the small one is 6".

I did not realize until I loaded the picture that they are spinning in different directions. So much for being observant, eh?!

The request was for stars in any size in Americana color way. I used the same fabric in the center of each block but picked different fabrics for the star points.

I may start making 6" Friendship Star blocks as a long-term project since it looks so cute.

This block is for April. We were to choose a main color that was in our stash and then make the star using the complement color.

When I was looking through my scrap basket (since I only needed smaller pieces) I was amazed to see how much blue I had.

I never really considered blue as a favorite color. . . . . but, just like I found out a couple of years ago when I realized how much green I had in my stash (which really floored me). . . . .it seems that what we think are favorites and what we tend to purchase can sometimes be completely different.

Now, yellow, which is one of the very favorite colors, was very hard to find in my scrap basket. . .go figure!

The member that requested this block said that she was trying to "ease" herself into scrap quilting but she did not think she could work with "willy nilly" (my words, not hers) blocks of all different colors.

From what I have seen it looks like a lot of us have a lot of blue in our stashes!

Then, for something completely different, we have a baby afghan that I crocheted:

The manager of the cafeteria where I work is a registered foster parent. He and his family were recently asked to take care of a baby girl (I think she is 3 months old now).

So I made one of the baby afghans that is my "go to" pattern. . . . filet crochet teddy bears.

I tend to like larger baby afghans. . . . the pictures show it laying across the width of a double bed to give you an idea of the size.

I think that the larger size lets the child get a lot more use out of the blanket than a smaller one does.