Proven Progress

The last three months have flown by and we’ve been keeping busy in a variety of ways. We took a land tour of Alaska with Moostash Joe Tours and travelled to Minnesota to return our granddaughter Ruby to her parents after she spent a week with us. We celebrated my parent’s 65th wedding anniversary with dinner at Lost Rail Golf Club

and my cousin’s 60th anniversary with dinner at Chances R. We spent a weekend at Czech Days in Wilber enjoying polka music and Czech culture. Tom babysat our grandson Finn while Lindsay and I attended the Husker Volleyball Alumni game. And we had our grandson Henry for a long weekend and were amazed by his knowledge of dinosaurs and ability to put together jigsaw puzzles.

There has also been plenty of activity in the quilting world including participation in three quilt shows. The first show was the Gage County Fair in which the Forest Acres Quilting Club entered five Quilts of Valor and received five blue ribbons. The second was the Quilt Show at Czech Days in Wilber where I showed three of my quilts. And the third was the Gage County Historical Society Quilt Show at the Filley Stone Barn. There were 17 quilts displayed, two of which were mine. 

While I was not able to check off any projects from my original to-do list, there was progress made on several projects. For example, the three stamped cross-stitch quilt blocks are getting closer to completion. The yellow flowers quilt top is finished and ready to quilt.

The fabric for the circle of flowers quilt is purchased and ready for construction to begin on the top. And I finished two more purple flower blocks so that eight of the 30 blocks are done.

A little more progress was made on Hank’s dinosaur quilt. I finished the six vine blocks and have started on the six Brachiosaurus blocks. This Elizabeth Hartman pattern is so much fun to work on! I did make an error when stitching the neck part of the Brachiosaurus and needed to make a quick to Quilt Stitches in Beatrice to purchase more fabric. Oops! Luckily they still had the six - yes six, not just one - pieces that I needed. I’m looking forward to seeing how much progress I can make on this quilt between now and the end of the year.

As is usually the case during the year I added a couple of projects to my list. These were two small quilts that I made after resizing the Limelight pattern from Villa Rosa Designs. The first was a quilt for my grandson Hank that I made from fabric I purchased during our trip to Alaska. He was fascinated with the whale videos that we shared during our trip so when I found fabric with whales on it I knew that was just right for him. The second quilt that I made from that pattern was for our granddaughter Ruby. I had leftover fabric (Sincerely Yours by Sherri and Chelsi for Moda Fabrics) from a large quilt that I made for her last year that was just perfect for this project. I used minky for the backing on these quilts which made them just right for snuggling with Grandma!

I also finished 13 customer quilts and 6 Quilts of Valor during these last three months so it has definitely been a busy time in the sewing room. I have lofty goals for the last three months of this year but we also have travel plans as well as the holidays to look forward to. Tune in to a future blog to see just what I was able to accomplish.