A Blue Quilt for a Special Friend

I finished this one last night for a friend of ours. He's been through some tough battles lately and I believe this quilt will be a comfort to him. He likes blue.

 

Edited to add:  I totally forgot to mention that this a free pattern from the very generous Bonnie Hunter, Strip Twist. You'll find it on the Free Patterns tab at the top of her blog.

Here are a few more shots of it. I do love the crinkly one this morning after a run through the washer and dryer!  The one on the lower left is the backing. I bought a bolt of a Mary Fons fabric. It's a very small design but the feel of it is wonderful! On the upper right you might notice that Miss Dinah immediately jumped up on it to test it while I was going to get my phone to take a photo. No boundaries at all for that young lady!

Mr. Muddling and I took a little drive the other day and ended up at a garden center that had a few plants begging to go in our garden. Of course we had to bring them home and into the ground most of the went! I am impatient for Spring to be fully here. We have the rain part! It's been raining here for days and more to come. Too bad we can't save some of that for the Summer when we'll be needing rain so badly.

I had to buy this red geranium to go on the patio and keep company with the new red table and chairs that were our Christmas present to each other.

They look pretty happy together!

I hope you are finding something or lots of somethings that are making you happy today. Sometimes you have to look a little harder than other times, but there are always things for which to be thankful, and I AM!

Hugs and kisses,

Well, Hello

I know I said I wouldn't go crazy and get too much mulch again, but it might have somehow happened. And garden soil. But thanks to the mighty muscles of Mr. Muddling, large areas of our yard look much better! 

In this season perpetual hope known as almost Spring, I'm believing we'll have glorious gardens this year. 

I started playing with some log cabin blocks made of 1 1/2 inch strips. 

So far they have grown into this. I'm liking it a lot. I found the most tempting YouTube tutorial of cutting them using the Go! Cutter. I do love accuracy and saving time! You should see my little assembly line I have going in the sewing room! 

I finished this one for our darling son. The name of the fabric is Jamaica. You may remember that he and his sweet, sweet wife took our two daughters on a trip there several years back. It was such a high point of Miss Ru's life and we are all so glad she got to make the trip.

The backing is this fleece that Mr. Muddling is sure looks like an underwater garden. (And yes, Mr. Muddling did indeed try to keep this one, just like so many others!)

Here is its crinkly after washing and drying picture. It is a lightweight, yet still warm and comfy quilt!  This is fabric from Jordan Fabrics, and the pattern is her tutorial I've used a couple of times before. Fun and easy quilt to make!

I've started cutting for another rail fence quilt - this one in patriotic red, white and blue.

Not saying that our dogs are in any way spoiled, but today has been that kind of day where you don't really feel like doing much of anything. Ariel and Lady are masters of that! Don't they look comfy!

I do hope you have a wonderful weekend, full of fun. I am so thankful for the life the Lord has given me.

Hugs and kisses,

Family Time

Our daughter Mary and her boyfriend are visiting from New York State. It is so good to see them both again!  I made this quilt for Mary for Christmas. Blue is her favorite color. This one is made with flannel on the front and fleece on the back with batting in the middle, so a warm quilt. I chose to use a flannel binding, too, which was not my brightest moment. Let's just say it was more of a challenge than I bargained for to get it all put together! But it was worth it to see her face.

Of course I had to make a quilt for Matt, too.

Here you can see a bit of the fleece backing. I used the same fleece fabric on both quilts. Matt and Mary drove down and will be headed back in a couple of days. 

Hopefully, all this snow and ice business will be cleared up by then and they won't have any problems getting back!  I know this looks like such a small amount to those of you who deal with this stuff for months on end, but down here in Texas, we just are not accustomed to it! Seriously, people drive crazy on ice. 

Our son and his darling wife found this great metal art rooster for us for Christmas. I thought it would be funny to put it at the back door, and sure enough - it was. The chickens all gathered like they were waiting for him to either come out and play or maybe give them orders! Chickens are endlessly amusing.

I am seriously ready for Spring! However, I'm also seriously thankful for a safe, warm house!  Hope your weather is cooperating.

Hugs and kisses,

A Brand New Year

First of all I am so sorry I have not posted in so long. I have absolutely no excuse.

These are the quilts I finished in 2017. Some were really challenging to me, but that's always a good thing, isn't it. If it's not a challenge, you're not learning anything!

I had a lot of fun with each and every one of these and I am so happy to have completed them.

Hugs and kisses,

Stripes and Spots

I finished another one that will be a Christmas gift, but it will be a late one. It's in the mail though!

This is another one made from a tutorial from Jordan Fabrics. For this one though, I changed the layout. Really fun and easy blocks to make.

Got to love that crinkly fresh from the washer and dryer portrait!

The spots are the fleece backing. I used a thicker batting (Warm and Plush from the Warm Company) on this one, too, since it is going to upstate New York to a dear friend.

Another friend all the way from London sent the lovely floral arrangement to us. I do love flowers!

 I have two little Christmas cacti blooming out on the patio. We had to retire the porch swing out there that I have enjoyed for so long. It had a long run, both out in the back yard and on the porch, but the canvas seat just got too tired!.  We decided to put a table and some chairs out there this time around. Seems like a good idea to have a sheltered outdoor place to enjoy a meal or snack sometimes.  We'll be getting those in place sometime soon.

We are having a bit of colder weather here for Christmas. That always makes it seem more like Christmas. We had family here today for a meal and will be sharing Christmas day with our son's family. He and his darling wife were part of the family here today, but we get to spend two days (and share two meals) with them this Christmas.

I hope you have a really good Christmas. Jesus IS the reason for the season!

Hugs and kisses,

This little cutie got finished last night.

I do love that crinkly look after it's been through the washer and dryer.

This is before any quilting. I had these Winding Ways blocks done for a while. I had a specific place for them to go, but somehow the desire to work on them just left me. It turned out that the couple for whom I was making the quilts suffered major damage in Hurricane Harvey. They lost their home. If I had finished the quilts when I'd planned, the odds are good that they would have been lost, too. Isn't the Lord good to let me finish the first one now that the flood is over! I do still plan on making the other quilt, which will also be a Winding Ways for the wife, but this one goes to the husband. He needs one now.

Here it is getting quilted. I don't remember if I've ever shared the design I like to use. A lot, if you haven't noticed. For some reason it is really easy for me, and so I use it again and again. It is called Loopy Clams and is a freehand design by Lyn Durbin. Here is a link to your YouTube tutorial.

The weather here today has been dreary, so I did not even attempt to get any outside photos, but this is last night before it took a dive in the washer.

I hope all your preparations for Christmas are going well, and that you have lots of joy in store!

Chloe and all of us here at Muddle Manor would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Hugs and kisses,

Lisa's Quilt

This quilt is finished now and will hopefully be delivered tomorrow to our so-sweet Lisa, our son Larry's wife. She is such a blessing to us! 

The backing is this pretty rose print fleece. Since it is cold here right now (Don't laugh, Anna!), I'm glad it has this warm backing.

I picked a jelly roll of  2 1/2 inch strips from my batik strip bin and used a pattern called Teatime (Not in Bali) from a video tutorial done by the wonderful Donna Jordan of Jordan Fabrics. I changed up her layout a bit, but this is what it looked like when I first started putting it up on the design wall. It is always interesting to me to see how the quilts grow and develop as I go along. Muddling, you know!

It was fun and pretty quick to quilt after I figured out its final layout. I hope she likes it!

Now, I'm playing again with the quarter square triangle and 6 1/2 inch floral block layout I started a while back.

And, I've put some Winding Ways blocks up on the other design wall. I may just add a couple of borders and quilt this one. I have someone in mind who needs this one!

Here is an exciting to me picture of the beautiful variety of colored eggs our pretty chickens have started laying. 

I took this picture last month of our chickens apparently trying to bury themselves out in our garden! LOL! 

Believe it or not, we had snow last night and early this morning here in Houston! That is a very rare occurrence. Buddy and I stayed up to see the beginning of the snowfall, then we went to our cozy warm beds. We did not get a lot of snow, but there was still some on the ground and rooftops when we got up this morning. 

I hope there are lots of beautiful and exciting things going on in your part of the world. There is always so much to see and to be thankful for, isn't there?

Hugs and kisses,