It's a Finish!

Pathways of My Life (a design from Melva Loves Scraps which she calls Pieces of My Life) is finished!  I put the last hand stitches in the binding on Tuesday evening, and then hung it up for some beauty shots.  I really wanted to take it outside for photos, but the light was never quite right - I think it's the time of year.

This quilt journey began in March of 2024 when Melva introduced the idea of making a quilt to tell the story of your life.  Since I was going to be celebrating my 70th birthday in September of 2024, this seemed like the perfect project for the year.  And I enjoyed it immensely!

57.5 x 61.5

I loved making each and every block in this quilt - 

not a one of then gave me any trouble.

Thank you, Melva, for great instructions for each block and section, plus

the how-to for finishing this in Quilt As You Go style!  

It all worked out well!

I've been trying to decide if I have a favorite block - and it could be this one, the large spool block.  It represents my wedding dress - read more about it here.

In particular, this one is special to me because my mom made my dress and I included this photo in the post.  A memory of happy times!  What girl wouldn't remember her wedding dress as her favorite dress ever?!

The backing for Pathways of My Life is this pretty yellow with floral wreaths on it.

I quilted each block a little differently - some stitch-in-the-ditch, some topstitching, some grids, some gentle curves.  It was fun looking at the blocks and figuring out what might work in each one.

To bind it, I used the same blue Grunge, called "Sea," that I used for the sashing throughout the quilt.  As I put the quilt together, I had an up and down relationship with that sashing color - questioning my decision-making in choosing it, since it's pretty dark.  But it came to symbolize the pathways that life takes you on - meandering all around the quilt - just as through life - and I grew to like it.

A lot of you have followed along all the way through this project, and I thank you so much for that!  As much for myself as for any other reason, I'm going to list all the previous posts about making this quilt in this post, but if you're curious about any of them, you can click on the links below.

1.  Bow block:  March 12, 2024

2.  Friendship Stars: April 2, 2024

3.  Bachelor's Puzzle: April 14, 2024

4.  Ohio Star and Bow Tie:  May 21, 2024

5.  Love and Friendship - Heart block:  June 18, 2024

6.  Steps to the Altar:  July 2, 2024

7.  Wedding dress (spool block):  July 23, 2024

8.   Wedding Ring (Day):  August 18, 2024

9.  Chimney and Cornerstones:  September 1, 2024

10.  Early married years (first post about the house):  September 9, 2024 

11.   Who taught you to sew?/ parents:  September 24, 2024 

12.  Family and travel (block - Rough Road): October 8, 2024

13.  More about the kids (block - Broken Dishes):  October 22, 2024

14.  Maple Leaf block/Fall/work:  November 5, 

15.  Jacob's Ladder - Mike’s family, kids, work life: November 19, 2024

16.  Final blocks - home and family, friends and activities: December 8, 2024

Thank you, Melva, for all the inspiration, memory ideas, 

great instructions, and beautiful quilt blocks!

Sharing at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

And at Melva Loves Scraps for TGIFF

I Like Thursday #420

Happy Thursday!

I saw this online somewhere the other day, and liked it.  

I'm thankful for soft quilts, warm mugs, and kind friends!

When it snows here, the juncos show up, and we enjoy seeing them.  They are such pretty birds - but very active, so hard to get many photos of them.

After looking through my stash for coordinating fabrics for this year's Stay At Home Round Robin project, I decided to go shopping at my LQS.  This is what I brought home - 

Definitely a feeling of Spring here!

Younger son decided to bake bread the other day.  He used a yeast bread recipe from my old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook for "Cheese Bread" and it turned out to be really good!  We decided to do smaller loaves just to make sure they baked all the way through.  I don't always trust my oven temperature - does anyone else have trouble with that?  Some things bake just fine - other things can be way off and under done.

One of our favorite PBS shows came back for a new season this past Sunday, "All Creatures Great and Small."  We enjoyed the first episode!

PBS

Hope you're having a great week!  I finished the Pieces of My Life quilt - that's a big celebration - I'm working on a finished post for tomorrow.

Joining in with Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday.

 

Midweek Update

I'm joining in again with the 2025 Stay At Home Round Robin!  This will be the fifth year that I've participated and it's always fun.  This year's center block and plan for the project is following along with what I did the last two years - I am using a finished embroidery piece in a seasonal wall-hanging.  In 2023 I made a winter wall-hanging; summer followed in 2024.

For 2025, the theme will be Spring!  This is a Kathy Schmitz design that I stitched a couple years ago and haven't done anything with.  

Spring colors will make the pieced blocks around it - pinks, blues, and greens.  Plus there is quite a bit of the floral left that I used in Pieces of My Life to add in, too.

Looking forward to getting started with the first round next Monday!  

Linking up with Quilting Gail for the SAHRR 2025 Center Block.

And at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I finished up the Woven Wreaths quilting earlier this week, and zigzagged around the edges just to hold all the layers together.  I'm still debating how to completely finish this - I could add binding to it just as is, or I could make it into a pillow cover.

I stitched my initials and the year of the project - 2024 - into the bottom small square.

But before I do anything more with Woven Wreaths, I have some binding to stitch!

This will keep me busy for a day or two!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Almost there...

On Thursday, I was able to finish up the last long seams that connected the top and bottom sections of Pieces of My Life - these are sashings on the front and back with a strip of batting in between.   Some curvy lines of quilting hold all the layers together.

I was going back through all the posts I've shared about this project and saw that I originally planned to use the floral inspiration print that's in most of the blocks for these long sashings.  But when I saw how the blue sashing around the blocks stands out, I decided to continue with it to connect all the "pieces of my life" together.   

The final step of sewing the two sections together with their sashings was actually pretty hard work!  Lots of layers and heavy/awkward to muscle through the machine and keep everything straight and lined up.  But - I did it!  Although Melva's design calls for borders, I think I'm ready to stop here.  This weekend's job is to get the binding sewn on.  I plan to have a finish to share by the end of next week!

I bet you can tell in this photo where I got the idea for the blue and pink combination in last week's quarter star blocks!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

And at Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! 

Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.

I Like Thursday #419

Happy 49th Anniversary to us!  Back in 2001 for our 25th anniversary, we celebrated by taking a trip to San Francisco.  A friend recommended the Beringer Winery as a great place for wine tasting, which we had never done before.  So we went there, and really enjoyed it!  We got our photo taken by the fountain at their beautiful property.

Well, guess where we had a picture taken this past September when we visited there on our most recent trip?

We're celebrating this anniversary by going out to breakfast.  Next year's the big one - our 50th!  Where should we celebrate next year?  I'm voting for Hawaii!  (Do you think I can get Mike to go?)  😘

Even though we live in the city, we are close to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and can see a lot of wildlife.  On New Year's Day last week, we went out for a scenic drive and found our local winter elk herd enjoying someone's field on the west side of town.  We've been told there are over 200 of them this year.  This is only a "small" group of them!

We found some wild turkeys, too.  There is a flock of them who hang around back in town - we call them the Downtown turkeys!  

Beautiful in the sun!

I read a really good book this week - one of those unexpected finds.  The Book Swap, by Tessa Bickers.  It's about two people who used to be friends in school, but have had a falling out.  They both love to read and to write in the margins of their books.  A Little Free Library brings them back together!

Goodreads

Happy Thursday!

Joining in with Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday.

 

Midweek Update

Snow day, sew day!  

View out the back window - it finally feels like winter!

The last few days have given me some time to make good progress on finishing up Pieces of My Life.  The first step was completing the quilting on section four, which I was able to do on Sunday.

The next step was to cut the sashing strips and narrow piece of batting that connect section three and section four.

After re-reading Melva's finishing instructions (thank you, Melva!), I sewed the back sashing first, added the batting, and sewed the front sashing, and voila!

A close-up of how the sashing connects on the front (and a favorite block):

The last step for finishing this part of the quilt is to connect the top and the bottom sections with sashing, just like I did with the side to side sections.  I'm hoping to get that done this week!  Here it is laid out with the blue sashing strip just set in the place where it will go.

Getting closer!

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.