Vintage Blocks

Thank you for all your lovely comments about my hand quilting in my last post. My stitches weren't as small as previosuly when I started again but it was relaxing and that was the most important thing at the time. The top was one I'd bought from an antique dealer in the US. In the 1990s, I bought quite a few tops and blocks as well as a couple of quilts which need repair and now they are on my list of UFOs to finish. I must show a few more photos of the finished quilts soon.
In the meantime this is a set of 20 vintage blocks called Hands All Round, with fabric from the 1930s and 1940s. Half of these blocks were finished and I took the background pieces off and I've been hand appliquing them to new background fabric. I will sash them with a pretty pale mint green sashing and borders and hand quilt it. I only have 2 blocks let to hand sew so it's getting closer to the hand quilting stage. I'll finish the current top though before I move onto this one.

Stress relief

I I pulled out one of my UFOs to work on today. It's a vintage 1940s feedsack quilt top which I'm hand quilting. I haven't worked on this one for 3 or 4 years so I thought it was time to get it finished. I was going to try a new hand quilting technique but decided to continue with my usual style as I don't want to make it more stressful for me. I find hand sewing is peaceful so I've also been hand sewing 1940s blocks to new backgrounds and only have 2 left to finish out of the 20 blocks. I want to finish this quilt before I start hand quilting the next one. I'm quilting flower shapes in between the star blocks and I was surprised to see that it's over half finished already. I'll try to do some every day and see how long it takes me. I didn't wash this one before I started as I wanted to wash it and shrink the batting when it's been quilted to give it an aged look.
Many thanks for all your kind comments.

Stressed Out

I didn't get back to showing some more photos of quilts as one of our children has been very sick and has moved back home. We're very stressed at the moment and I haven't been able to sew much. I wish I was one of those people who cleaned the house when they were stressed as it would be spotless. I'm hoping that some support services may be able to help a bit today.
The photo is of my 11th and 12th UFOs which I'm combining into a Christmas quilt. It's at the stage of adding borders and I'm hoping to get to that as soon as things settle down here.

Sunday update

Here's some of the photos of our trip showing Ray and I at the northern most tip of Australia and some of the river crossings we did to get there. It was a great trip and we plan to do it again in a few years. This weekend I've been finishing bindings on charity quilts and hand stitching my vintage blocks to a new background. I also found some 1940s star blocks that I'd started to hand stitch to a new background and I'm working on those as well and showing progress. I'm taking my Dad to visit Mum this afternoon and I'm grateful that we live closeby. More quilting photos of my progress tomorrow.

My 10th UFO finish

This is my 10th UFO finish for the year and it was one of the more recent ones. It was a siggy swap with other Quiltswapper (internet group) quilters in 2003. I like the way it looks and made it to fit the quilt hanger I have in the family room.
I am still busywith my charity quilts and am busy getting another shipment ready. I try to finish 8 to 10 a week and most of them are other quilters' UFOs. I put photos of those on my webshots page.
Most of my UFOs are also being donated to charity and it's wonderful to have them off the shelves and being put to use. A few days before we went on holidays I was invited to be a paid guest at a Quilt-In in Melbourne. The wonderful ladies passed the hat around and donated enough money to pay for a roll of batting which was a fabulous gift.
I haven't started Judy L's challeneg yet but plan to get on to it soon. LOL

Getting back into my routine

These are the 8th and 9th UFO finishes for this year. The photos aren't great but you get the idea. I'm just hand stitching the binding down on my 10th UFO and will post a photo soon. I made a list of the UFOs I wanted to finish first but seem to be working on lots that aren't on the list. It's just good to get them done so I'm going with whatever I feel like finishing at the moment. The basket quilt was to have 12 hand appliqued blocks and is about 14 years old. I found that I'd finished 5 and 1/2 blocks so I finished the 6th block and then found 2 blocks I'd made with the same fabric. I used white for these blocks and cream for the others so I tea-dyed them to match the basket blocks. I was going to piece the inset triangle blocks but found the fabric looked pretty without being pieced so now it's done and will be donated to the local women's refuge. The other quilt was a family siggy quilt from a family reunion on my mother's side and it's now hanging in her room at the care unit. I gave it to her the day before we left on our trip and I'm very happy that I got it finished as she loves it and it helped her transition to being in "care".

Back home

We came home a bit early as my mother's health deteriorated and she had to be admitted to a dementia care unit. We had a great trip though and did manage to see most of what we'd planned.
I'll post some photos of the trip soon but in the meantime here's the 6th and 7thUFOs I've finished this year. It's good to be back and catching up with all the blog news.