Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Happy Blockheads Wednesday

I'll always think of Wednesday

as Blockheads Wednesday so

that's what I'll say from now on.

Now, however I'm working on 

the 2021 Mystery Quilt and 

"Starting the Day with Appliqué".

This is Block 3 of "Bees, Birds and Baskets".  

Come join us by emailing Tammy at

janpatekquiltsinc@gmail.com.

The temperatures are coming back

up - it was 60 degrees here yesterday

afternoon after days registering a high 

of -3.  While it was so cold we filled the

bird feeders twice a day.  This is the small birds

feeder up close to the house,

and these are the two on further out.

(My poor big house I got at Country Threads

one year has a battered roof from getting

knocked over so much by raccoons. We finally

started going out at dusk and setting it on the ground

so they wouldn't ruin it.). 

We scatter feed on both the large bench and 

around the birdhouse.


This is Midnight, my sister Nancy's cat.  
He follows her around like a dog and we all
love him.  And unfortunately he is a great hunter.
That is just fine with me if its mice - but not birds.


The middle feeder sits on concrete
blocks on both sides.  
From where Pep sits to read he could see
Midnight go in-between the blocks, be very still,
and grab a bird that came too close.  
Then he brought it to the house
to give to us.  It was still alive so we got it 
and put it in a box to warm up. When 
we let it out later   - it flew away.

We couldn't count of that kind 
of good luck again so I had to come
up with something else to do.  The birds
really needed that much food 
and that many feeders

First I stopped leaving food there 
but needed another feeder.

Here's the new feeder we cobbled up
in the front.  And the great thing is
that I can see it from the chair where I appliqué.


So now I can watch birds in the kitchen and 
the living room.  :). Thanks Midnight.  

This is "Living the Good Life"

the Mystery Quilt from 2019.

I'm not sure what happened but

somehow we never got the pattern or 

kits in the store.  

Well they are both in there now and 

you can go to the store to get one 

by clicking here.

           I thought each week I would start showing 
                                                       you a few quilts people have made using 
                                                         my patterns or elements of my designs.  
I just love seeing what people have
done with them and thought you
            might like to see them too.                     


This is an awesome log cabin by Janet Hedberg. 
She's pulled designs from quite a few different patterns.
I love it.
 
And this is the Stinson Family Homestead by Denise French.
She said that she'd never appliquéd a pig before.
Georgie Farney and Russ Stinson were our neighbors 
and with the good old Missouri red clay, Denise,
that probably would have been how Santa got 
a sleigh full of toys out here.


If you want me to include a quilt you've made just
send a jpg to Tammy at janpatekquiltsinc@gmail.com.

I'm going to borrow a tip from Country Threads 
and ask you to attach a piece of paper with
your name on it.

That's all for today. I'm going to get off
of the computer and go to the loft after lunch
to start working on my Blockheads 3 quilt.

See you. next week and
Keep Quilting. 
:)


Thursday, February 11, 2021

Snow and cold and No heater :(

We did indeed 
get the Winter Storm.


This morning I opened the door to
let the dogs out, 
Elizabeth stuck her head out and
turned around and came back in.


Dobby - our Welch Corgi - has 
quite a bit more fur than a bulldog,
so he went out.  Elizabeth finally did too,
but only after I grabbed my coat and earmuffs 
and went out first.


The first things we did was go
out back to the bird feeders and 
load them up.   When the day starts 
out at 9 degrees, we have to fill them twice.


This is what the living room looked like 
for two days - only with the door closed.   The
wood burning stove sits inside out fireplace. 
Mice had gotten into the heat pump - they
fried themselves but they fried the switches
on the heat pump too so we heated with wood for 
2 days.  And Pep and I only got to sleep for 2 hour 
stretches so we could load up the stove to keep it going.


This is a space heater that helped a little


And here's what helped a lot.

This is "Living the Good Life" our
Mystery Quilt from two years ago.

I sat in my chair and dozed and sewed
on the binding.  

Anyway.  The heat pump is fixed now and 
both the pattern and the kit for the quilt will be in the
store later today now that I finally finished it.
Its been hanging over the railing in the foyer all
of this time because I forgot to do the hand sewing on
the binding.


And this is the back of the Winter Tablestand 
that I'm working on.
Right now - I'm off the the beauty parlor.
Have a good week ladies.  

 

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Blockheads 3, Block 56

Dancing Stars

by Joanna of Fig Tree

 


You can go to her blog
to download the pattern
by clicking here.

And now it's February - 
the month of Groundhogs
and love.  :)


So this is our tribute to
the second - "Hearts and Flowers Mini"
27" x 27".  You can go to our store to
get the pattern or the kit by clicking here.

As soon as you do that, let's go see
what the others have done with Joanne's block.

          Jan Patek - http://janpatek.blogspot.com/
                                                       Brigitte Heitland - https://www.brigitteheitland.de/blog
 Lisa Bongean - https://lisabongean.com/
 Lissa Alexander - http://modalissa.com/

That was the last of the Blocks for Blockheads 3.
I hope you have liked doing them as much as I have.
I don't know if there will be a Blockheads 4
but I certainly hope so because I really
enjoy them.
Have a good week ladies and see you 
next Wednesday.  :)