Right Side Up

I needed a quick project for last week, so I dived back into the remnant boxes.

Choosing a couple of busy prints first gave me the colors to coordinate. Pink, yellow, orange and aqua solids, low volumes, and brights were cut into half rectangle triangles. I arranged them in horizontal rows for symmetry.

For that little something extra, I pieced the back using a single column of the triangles bordered with a muted yellow/green shell print. I used yellow thread to quilt straight stitches 1/2” from each seam.

Right Side Up finished at 48” square. I love it when an impromptu quilt idea comes together! And I finished just in time to relax with my sweetheart on our 51st anniversary weekend. 💖

🎉 Another milestone: last week was my 700th blog post!  

Dies used:
Blue Wren 6038 Half Rectangle Triangles 4” x 8” finished

Fifty Years Ago

Fifty Years Ago

This week is pretty special to me. In August of 1973 I walked down the aisle and exchanged vows with my sweet husband.

This year I made a double wedding ring quilt to mark the occasion. It's scrappy, but has a few common elements to connect the varied parts, kind of like us. 

I quilted with a straight stitch in white thread, following the curves. Fifty Years Ago finished out at 48” square.

Wow, fifty years together, just the two of us! What a milestone that is. We've had fine adventures, managed our quirks, worked hard, shared hobbies, and made loads of decisions. We're best friends and still enjoy each other's company. You just can't ask for more than that.

Accuquilt dies used:
55078 Double Wedding Ring
55017 Strip 2½”

I can't see me loving nobody but you
For all my life
When you're with me, baby
The skies will be blue for all my life

Happy Together, The Turtles, 1967

written by Alan Gordon & Garry Bonner

Sunset Flight, and a Surprise!

Red, gold, pink and orange are the colors of a hot summer sunset. I combined these prints in bright hues with a neutral gray and white pin dot fabric to create a striking little quilt.

Four patch squares alternating with kite blocks are set together in 8" blocks.   I rotated them and separated with gray sashing, making a secondary design almost like propellers. For quilting, I started with a small circle in the center and stitched continuously around in a spiral with dark gray thread, using a walking foot. Sunset Flight is 38½” square.  

( I saw this block in a vintage sampler quilt owned by a friend.  Another name for a very similar block is Twinkle, designed by Terri Vanden Bosch for Accuquilt. )

Sunset Flight, designed in EQ8

THE SURPRISE: My amazing husband executed quite a surprise for our 48^th anniversary last week: a 1948 Singer 221 Featherweight, with original accessories and case. He worked some magic to buy and get her delivered without me knowing, since we're together nearly all the time. I married a sweet, thoughtful, and generous man!

Annie, my 221 Featherweight

The little machine looks adorable and sews a pretty stitch, but needs a clean and polish. I named her Annie. We'll work together to shine her up and restore the case. I'll keep y'all posted on our progress.

Accuquilt dies used:
55254 Kite 4” finished
55059 Squares 2½” multi
55017 Strip 2½”

Thrifty Fifties Flour Sacks

Here's a classic design that makes a pretty quilt. Unequal nine patch blocks are simple, quick and easy to sew.

I chose a variety of navy and green prints from my collection of flour and sugar sacks and paired them with natural muslin and a navy calico sashing. I finally splurged and bought a 10” Qube Mix & Match set on sale last month and used those dies to cut the pieces.

For quilting, I used cream thread for a serpentine stitch horizontally and vertically, then switched to straight stitch across the large squares of the blocks. 

Thrifty Fifties Flour Sacks is 50” square, and has a vintage look and feel.

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic this week...we are celebrating our 48^th wedding anniversary. Two kids born in the fifties fell in love after a blind date and are still happily married in 2021. Cheers to us!

Greenway

In this hot August weather, I've been staying inside working on something cool, green, and fresh. I saw a photo of this design online, done up in different colors, so I sewed my version of the pattern.

My Greenway quilt was fairly quick to stitch up. The ten inch blocks are set on point, alternating each block design. The simple cross is made of squares and rectangles in neutral tans, aqua, and white on cream vine print. For the green blocks, I added a small cream half-square triangle across the corner of finished HST squares.

I sewed partial blocks to fill in the corners and sides for this 43” x 57” snuggle quilt. Quilting is a straight stitch in cream thread along both sides of the seams. For backing, I used a large scale stripe in green, aqua and cream with an off center ten inch wide strip of a green tiny print. Green binding frames it up nicely.

Accuquilt dies used:

55031 Half Square 4” finished
55159 Rectangle 2 ½” x 4 ½”
55018 Small Value die 4 ½” square and 2 ½” HST
55017 2½” strip for binding

Side note: This week's our 47^th anniversary, a low key celebration for sure. No elegant restaurant meal or trip to the beach; still too much COVID around for us to venture out. That's ok, all we need is each other. We're not fancy people anyhow. We'll be happy to enjoy a simple grilled steak, salad, and baked potato dinner, a bottle of wine, and a movie. Sounds like a perfect night in the home we've created together.

Country Spools

A few weeks ago I took advantage of a sale and ordered a new Accuquilt die. The day it arrived, I dropped everything and started cutting. The spool die is really cute and I can see that some of pieces will combine with other dies to create other designs. (As if I need more to do!)

Country Spools is 36” square, made up of sixteen 6” spool blocks plus sashing. I pulled red, black, white and grey prints from my remnant baskets. I liked the small center pieces but decided to switch things up by using squares and quarter squares for some of the centers. Tiny stripes for the sashing with bandana squares frame them beautifully.

I quilted across the sashing with white thread in a loopy decorative stitch. A small serpentine stitch was used across the block sections. Backing is black and white chevrons with binding in a paisley print.

Accuquilt dies used: 55180 Spool BOB, 55006 3 ½” Square, 55018 Value die (2 ½” HST)

Side note: Even though I've been sewing up a storm, I took time off over the weekend to celebrate with my husband...we've been married 46 years! Seems like yesterday that we were starting out in that little four room duplex.

It's been fun and sometimes crazy. We worked hard and learned as we went, always moving ahead together. Now we're retired and pursuing our hobbies. Of course, there's still work to do, like helping him repair fuel lines on the truck the morning of our anniversary. Yeah, I have mechanic skills as well as sewing expertise.

We are a great team and still enjoy each other's company. It's fabulous to have a loving partner to share life's adventures. I am thankful for every single day.

Love is: being Happy Together

44 Years And Counting

When I went on my first date with my future husband, to a high school football game, I was fifteen years old. I had no idea that a mere four years later, we would be at the church house getting married. I figured out pretty quickly that he was the one and he apparently agreed.

I'm so glad we made those choices. We've had some fine adventures.  

Forty-four years, just the two of us. 

I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Happy Anniversary week, sweetheart!

If you really know what you want,

and how to get there,

then everything else falls into place.

42 Years And Counting

We are celebrating our wedding anniversary this week. The years rack up pretty quickly when you are enjoying life. I could swear that it has only been twenty-something years since we walked down that aisle on a hot August evening in 1973, but the calendar doesn't lie.

I was only nineteen, but apparently we chose well and the marriage took. Naturally there have been ups and downs along the way, several moves, three different careers for me and one for him. Adventures, fun, laughter, and love have been the best parts of our journey. Now we're retired and life is better than ever. 

Happy Anniversary, sweetie!

They say we're young and we don't know
We won't find out until we grow

Well I don't know if all that's true
'Cause you got me, and baby I got you

I Got You Babe, Sonny & Cher, 1965

written by Sonny Bono

I can't see me loving nobody
But you for all my life
When you're with me, baby
The skies will be blue for all my life

Happy Together, The Turtles, 1967

written by Alan Gordon & Garry Bonner

Rearranging Furniture

Wow, a busy week completed and another already started here at Casa Ireland. Even with normal housework, appointments, mowing two yards, and checking on my mama, I found time for a few extras.

First, for our anniversary my sweetheart bought me a fabulous tiger oak sideboard at a local antique mall. The label says Home Furniture Company, East York, PA. There's no date but I'm thinking early 1920's. They manufactured oak dining furniture from 1898 to 1928, when they changed to radio cabinets and bedroom suites. It is exactly what I was looking for and matches my other tiger oak pieces perfectly. I love the detail on the doors!

Getting a new piece of furniture means rearranging...not only the room where it will be, but overflow into other rooms. I had to unload the china cabinet to move it, which led to cleaning the glass shelves, finding forgotten treasures, and reorganizing the shelves. I dusted baseboards and chair rails, swept and swiffered, rehung pictures and wall décor. I brought in his old Philco radio to sit on the new sideboard, moved a mirror to the hallway. My dining room sparkles and looks totally redecorated.

We already have a house full of stuff, so I donated one old filing cabinet and plan to sell another piece. I have two boxes of stuff from the kitchen and dining room ready to go to Goodwill. After dealing with an estate sale, my plan is to simplify and purge our household items. This year and from now on, the one in, one out (maybe two out) rule will apply to nearly everything. My fabric and his electronics are excluded, of course.

By the way, I know that the current trend is not brown furniture. I don't follow trends, I use what I like. I decorate for my own happiness, pleasure and comfort.  

Decorating Golden Rule:  

Live with what you love

Forty Years Ago

Lots of interesting things happened in 1973. It seems like such a long time ago. The cost of a gallon of gas was about thirty-nine cents. Minimum wage was $1.60 per hour; I was working as a medical receptionist. 

In August, I walked down the aisle with a bouquet of yellow roses and daisies. Yep, my sweetheart and I have been married for forty years this week. We were two kids beginning the adventure of a lifetime, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Love ya, baby!

Other historic events of 1973

The Young & The Restless soap opera premieres

The Sting wins best motion picture at the Academy Awards

Watergate unfolds, Vietnam War ends

Pioneer 11 and Skylab space station are launched

Live and Let Die premieres with Roger Moore as Bond, James Bond

Secretariat wins the Triple Crown

Roy Clark is named CMA Entertainer of the Year

The World Trade Center opens in New York

Kojak, The Celebrity Match Game, and The Addams Family cartoon debut on TV

Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in battle-of-sexes tennis match

Elvis and Priscilla Presley divorce

Benny Parsons wins the NASCAR Winston Cup Championship

Some classic songs hit number one

You're So Vain – Carly Simon

The Most Beautiful Girl and Behind Closed Doors – Charlie Rich

Angie – Rolling Stones

Time in A Bottle and Bad, Bad Leroy Brown – Jim Croce

Satin Sheets – Jeanne Pruett

Let's Get It On – Marvin Gaye

Killing Me Softly – Roberta Flack

You've Never Been This Far Before – Conway Twitty