What do you do with all of your small quilts? Quite a few of mine are stored in two little antique French cabinets.

I have a very busy week and not much time in the sewing room. So I thought I’d share just what is hidden in here. It will take several posts.

First, a bit about the cabinets themselves. My parents purchased them at a flea market in France when they visited us there in 1999. We lived there for a couple years and brought them back to the states in our household shipment. My mom gave them to me when she sold her house. Here are some of the quilts inside.

You may have noticed that my cabinet was missing the knob. We removed them when we moved to AZ and I could never find them! Until I took these photos. They were tucked in between quilts.

That’s better!

More quilts and another story coming soon.

Have a great day!

So I got a bunch of squares cut. I have no idea how many. I may have leftovers, or I may need to cut more.

And this is where I’m headed with this project.

It could take a bit to get it to a good size throw quilt.

Have a great day!

Still playing with rocks. I decided to try my hand at making g some crosses.

The gray one broke so it’s shorter than it should be. Cutting rocks is a skill that requires lots of practice!

So true!

We’ve been enjoying spring blossoms.

And a poem from a favorite author.

Have a great day!

Since I started working on a quilt with a panel, I thought I’d share this one I made ten years ago. Enjoy!

Finish It Up Friday ~ Grant and Lee

I’m calling this one, The Get Along Quilt. Have you seen the internet pictures of the two kids wearing a single t-shirt that says “Get Along Shirt” on it? The idea is that they have to wear it until they can get along and play nicely together. I was reminded of that with this center panel. In this case, Grant and Lee seem to be getting along quite well!

Or maybe they are just giving each other the silent treatment.

In any case, the picture above  shows the quilt before washing and the rest  after.

The last time I did a panel quilt, I quilted around the images in the panel. I wanted to do something differently here so I used a cross hatch. I also used invisible thread on this part. I didn’t want them to look like they were in jail.

I am most pleased with the border quilting on this one. I will definitely do this again.

The fabric on the back is a Mary Koval print that I picked up out in AZ.

My foyer is a bit tight and I can’t get a straight on shot, but I wanted to show you where I decided to hang this.

And one last shot on the fence.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day

I got distracted. This time my my OWN leftovers!

I’ve had this vintage quilt pinned on Pinterest for ages. The image went to a dead link so I don’t know the source.

When I found some leftover diamonds, I wondered if I could come up with a similar effect on a much smaller scale.

Hmmm…. It needs some tweaking.

Have a great day!

Here are the last photos from the show. Enjoy!

I shared this panel before, but now I have a plan. I think.

I trimmed it and added an oversized red border. I didn’t know when I added that border what the next step would be. But I knew I’d likely have to trim it down to a logical size for the next step.

And I decided to add squares. Two and a half inch squares in red, blue, black, and shirting prints, with the occasional double pink thrown in.

I have a lot more cutting to do and may refine the palette in the process.

I may even cut into this long hoarded bundle.

I’m aiming for a throw size, but I really don’t have much of a plan. Stay tuned.

Have a great day!

On our recent trip to Michigan, I was on a mission to find septarian nodules, also known as lightening stones. Here are a couple as found on a beach in SW Michigan. Would you have picked these up? If I didn’t know ahead of time what they were, I likely would have passed them by.

They are pretty nondescript. Not surprising since they are in fact, ancient mud balls!

But when they are cut open, you can clearly see the lightening.

As the mud balls dried, they cracked inside. Eventually these cracks were filled with calcite.

Here is another one I cut. First you see the outside.

And the inside after polishing.

I liked the red on this one, but there was almost no clue that there was anything at all inside.

But there was!

And one more. I didn’t take a before photo of this one, but I wish I had.

Here is the outside after polishing.

I am fascinated that a lowly mud ball, dried out and cracked, can turn into something so beautiful when the pure calcite is able to flow in, filling the cracks.

Isn’t that how we are? God takes a muddy , broken mess, fills it with His Spirit, and we become beautiful on the inside!

I wonder how often I only see the crusty outside of people and completely miss the beauty within.

So many lessons from rocks.

Have a great day!

Daughter #3 is in charge of online marketing for a large Midwest grocery store chain. Every store has one of these. She loved to ride Sandy every time we went to the store when she was little! It’s fun that they still have them and now she works for the company.

I nearly bought this sign. Maybe a huge pack of stickers would be better….I’m being snarky.

Just one more reason to live in Arizona.

Grand dog Charlie loves quilts.

Have a great day!