Quilt Top Reveal...

Completed Quilt Top

I completed my quilt top for Handsome last night. It's so large that it's difficult to see the entire top - even with him holding it up. Once it's quilted and bound, you'll be able to see the entire quilt on a bed, but I wanted you to get a glimpse today.

All the borders are on the quilt, and they're the same all the way around. I know it's hard to see that at the bottom and top, but the are the same. You can also see some darker or lighter areas because the quilt is backlit. Those anomalies don't show in daylight.

Each yellow block now bears the names of all of our dogs for the past forty four years. Yellow labradors' names are stitched in a buttery-colored thread. The Golden retrievers are in a rusty color (except one that I forgot to change out). The black labs have black thread, and he even said I should put Fezzik and Tag's names on so they're in a darker gold with one letter in white (like their fur colors). 

Finally, I added a heart with a paw print in the center of each of the name blocks...just because. I'll share closeups of those blocks once I get this big boy quilted, which I'll at least start today. 

I work again tonight. Yes. It's the weekend again! My plan is to finish this by the time the Sunday rolls around, if not before. Of course, I'll hand bind it once I've assembled the top, back and batting. I'm going to do my best to show you a completed quilt on Monday.

Stay Warm and Safe! 

On My List...

I made it!! Two full days in a row at work, I can still walk (well, kind of), and I'm still upright! Unfortunately, it also means I didn't get to do a single creative thing at home yesterday either. 

I'm sharing a photo of dog-themed fabrics today because I need to remind myself of a project I'll tackle and complete in May. Over forty years ago, I made a "retriever quilt" for Handsome...Have I written about this before? I can't remember, so forgive me if I (again) repeat myself. Anyway, that quilt, although still in one piece, has seen better days. 

I made it early in our relationship, and I'd never made a real quilt before then, even though I'd done a lot of sewing. It was a panel of repeating hunting dog heads that could be purchased by the yard. As Handsome is a tall guy, I purchased enough to make an adequately long lap quilt. All these years, anyone who covers up with it was guaranteed to fall fast asleep. It's actually a joke around our house. Happens every time!

Handsome has asked me to make a new quilt for him, but not a "fancy" quilted one. He wants it to have high loft fiberfill like the first one. (sigh), with light outline quilting. As I was unable to find any panels like the first one - I don't mean the same design, but something in a repeating block format - I'm going to have to do some piecing, but in keeping with the original, I'll only do outline quilting once I complete the top, so it's puffy like the first one.

So, here's my plan: First I'm going to finish the bluebirds, and then I'll tackle this quilt project. In between, in the evenings, I'll make more spoolies and work on patterns for spoolie kits. I'll work a couple days a week along with that. 

Oh, Judy asked in the comments where I worked, so I'll answer that here. I work at a local BP Station close to home. It's a gas station/restaurant/convenience store. I don't work in the kitchen, staying out front on the cash register and taking food orders. I prefer interacting with customers to slinging burgers, etc. We actually have really great food, and on Friday evenings, I answer the phone for a few hours taking orders for a Midwest tradition - Friday fish fry (and other food, too). I'm to the point where I recognize callers' voices, and know what their orders will be. It's quite nice, actually.

Today, I'll start by baking bread, but will be sitting at my embroidery hoop this afternoon to return to my bluebird project. I'll be back tomorrow - May 1st!!! Have a great day!

A Perfect Studio Day...

 

I woke up Monday morning to SNOW! Noooooooo! Autumn is my very favorite time of year, and it seems we only had about three weeks of it. Where can I lodge a complaint? 

I went outside to make sure my girls were toasty warm in the current porch digs (you wouldn't believe what I've had rigged for them since late summer), and they were. Even so, I fortified it a bit, as I'm on restricted duty right now. The special heat reflecting beds I ordered for them arrived just in time, so I augmented their sleeping arrangements for now. Although it blew out of the west all day and wasn't conducive to a full move to the Compass Barn, it's supposed to warm up later this week, and I'll get that accomplished them (with a little help).

At any rate, it was a perfect day to work in the studio. I spent the entire day making half-square triangles for my Winter Song project. I used triangle paper because these blocks are 1-1/2" square when they're finished. The papers help keep things aligned and consistent. But, once they're all sewn, I have to cut, trim and removed all the papers. Lots of little shnibbles at the end. lol

I'll be back in the studio today as I work toward completing my wall hanging. I'll share more photos soon.

In the meantime, could someone please get some meds for Mother Nature? I think she could use some about now. She needs to settle down and enjoy a little more autumn before she puts on her white dress!

Let's Not Do That Again...

Image ©Disney

 

 Some days, it just doesn't go by the book. 

My plan was to use wool batting between my quilt layers, merrily stitch out my quilt design, and have my piece ready to bind by nightfall yesterday.

Destiny hates wool (who knew?), to the extent that she blew her automatic cutter, and possibly chewed up her bobbin case. Dang! 

So, I thought I'd let Jane give it a go. Apparently, my semi-industrial machine can pitch a fit, too. She decided to just hang out in one place on my quilt and weave her own thread nest on the back of my quilt. Well, as that wasn't in my original design, I told Jane to go on break before she injured herself (or I did something I'd regret later).

I unpacked my Janome 3160 QDC ("Q", standing for QUILTING!), and she did the same darn thing! I guess they all had a plan to boycott wool batting. Word spread quickly. I was miffed, to say the least. 

 

Last night, I spent about a half hour unstitching what I had managed to accomplish before my machines decided to contract Sewing Machine Flu. Why? Because I give in. I'm switching out the wool to replace it with an organic cotton batting. We'll see if anyone will deign to produce a beautiful stitch for the front and back of my "Song of Spring" quilt today. Wouldn't that be nice?

Thanksgiving Table Quilt Update...

Brynwood Needleworks - Thanksgiving Quilt

 

Last week, I told you I was going to Kathy D.'s home to work on my Thanksgiving quilt. This piece began life as a vintage tablecloth. I found two of them, so one was for our table, and I gave the other one to Kathy.

 

We made plans to get together to put them on her longarm machine and quilt them. I showed you the fabrics I chose for the backing, and was happy that I had enough of the the caramel-colored fabric, as that was my first choice.

 

Whole Cloth Thanksgiving Quilt

I worked on the quilt one day last week, and I went back again yesterday, intending to complete it. Fortunately, I did finish the quilting. This tablecloth was much larger once I started working on it, than it initially appeared.

Detail - Whole Cloth Thanksgiving Quilt

This was my first time using Kathy's longarm machine, so I got off to a tentative start. I decided to use a pattern that I've doodled in pen/pencil/marker since I was in junior high school (more than a few decades ago). I have muscle memory for drawing it over and over, so it was the perfect design for me to stitch in freehand (by machine).

Whole Cloth Thanksgiving Quilt

 

Kathy zeroed out the "odometer" on the machine before I started sewing, so that it would keep track of the total time I spent on the design. When we finally took it off the machine last night, the timer registered 6 hours, 15 minutes (and 33 seconds). 

 

We laughed because, to tell the truth, that was just the time the machine was running. I was at Kathy's house much longer than the initial 2 hours that registered on the machine. Yesterday, I arrived at 10:30 in the morning, and left some time around 6:45 in the evening. Did I say I was gassed by the end of the day? I was...but in a good way.

I love how my doodles translated to fabric and thread. All I have left to do is cut off the excess fabric and batting, and bind the edge. I'll do that over the next few days. I think I'll take a little break and just admire my first real exposure to the longarm. 

By the way, I'd like to give a shout-out to my longarm "expert" friends, Susan Slaton, Pat Alderman, Rhonda King, Melinda Sword, and, of course, my hands-on tutor, Kathy D. I have a new found appreciation for just how much practice, attention, skill, and talent it takes to do the work they seem to do so effortlessly. Kathy doesn't hire out her longarm work, but for all the quilters who do, you don't charge nearly enough!

It Was Supposed To Be Easy...

 Choose a backing, sandwich with batting and the top, and quilt. That's all I
needed to do. I secured the backing to my table, pinned everything in place
(more than I needed to) and double-checked to make sure there were no
wrinkles on the back. I meandered until the quilt was assembled. All I'd
have to do would be to add the binding and I'd be finished. Simple, right?

I used the best fabrics. I chose Moda's French General fabric for the back, and
I should have been finished by last evening. Except for one thing...the backing
fabric stretched during the quilting process and left puckers in one back section.

I had to make a decision. How was I going to fix this mess? If I picked out the meandering, I'd have to remove over half the stitching. As it's a Headstart quilt, we are asked to do a lot of quilting so they don't fall apart in the weekly wash.   That means that frogging those stitches would take me all weekend. I'm just like everyone else. I don't really like to pick out mistakes - especially if it's the fabric's fault! I decided that I'd grab a needle and sew a pucker down to see  whether or not it would "disappear" into the quilt. Wishful thinking. It didn't.   After looking at it a little longer, I decided that I'd hand applique' baseballs over the quilting snafu. I'm thinking it's going to look great. Even though it will take another day to do the applique' and red embroidery, I'd much rather spend my time doing this, than undoing something else. I'm happy.   I think it's going to be really cool when it's finished, and I definitely won't be using that fabric as a backing again! I'll be sure to use a nice, crisp,  fabric for the back of the "girly" quilt. I don't want this to happen again.   I'm off for my Saturday morning date with Handsome and then I'll get  this quilt finished so I can move on to the next one. Do something fun, ok?

Guild Night...

Pauline's Scrappy Quilt

 Last night was our monthly guild meeting, and I took lots of photos.

I'm going to share my favorites today, but you'll see more creations later.

 

 Our member, Jettie, has a friend who pieces her quilts up north and

sends them south to be quilted by Susan Slaton. This is one of the 

two shared by Jettie last night before she ships them back to her

northern friend. I really liked the blocks and the color play on this one.

 This was the other one Jettie showed for her friend. The circles

are hand appliqued'. You know I love this one, don't you? I might

have to file this idea away to make one for myself. So much fun!

 Marti showed the result of a recent art quilt class she took.

It's a wonderful little piece, and I really hope she'll make more

like this one. I think she's found her niche. I love the colors, too.

I don't know if I've said this before or not, but I really enjoy being

a member of our Disconnected Piecers Quilt Guild. Our members

are so talented, and we really become friends. They're a great group

of beautiful women. As I said, I took lots of pictures. Every quilt was

a work of love by its creator. These are just a very few. More later.

I hope your day is filled with happy moments and creative endeavors.

Thanks for visiting. I'll be back tomorrow.

Don't Know What I'm Waitin' For...

 The table topper is finished. I have lots of choices for thread colors.

 Choosing the backing was a piece of cake.

 It's all ready and waiting for me to quilt it, but I can't seem

to motivate myself to actually do the work. I'm hesitating on the

quilting design...meander? stitch-in-the-ditch? specific pattern?

What to do? What to do?

I'm going to leave it on the worktable until I decide. I just know 

I'll have it finished in plenty of time to celebrate Spring and Easter.

David's memorial service is this afternoon. 

I freely admit that my mind is on other things these days.

I'll be back tomorrow with a new focus.

Today, God's Grace will carry us.

Quilting The Nest...

 The first "Sweet Stitches" pattern I ever stitched was the "Bluebell Nest" 

design. I really liked the way it turned out, but I realized (after stitching three 

others) that I used a completely different stitch on this one than all the others.

I'm going to stitch it again (after I finish the others), so I decided to do something

different with this one. It's perfectly fine, but doesn't match the rest, so I made a

table runner with it. I assembled the top yesterday and then set about quilting it.

 I placed the bird's nest panel in the center and added machine-stitched

branches (from the design) in mirror image on each end. I've already finished

 one here, using echo and decorative stitching all around the branch motif.

I'll finish quilting the third panel today and then trim and bind it to finish the runner. 

I'm also going to make matching napkins to go with it. If all goes as planned, I'll

have one Christmas gift finished by the end of the day. (Photos tomorrow.)

Off to the studio...Wish me luck!

Rainy Days and Thursdays...

 What to do on a cloudy Thursday that quickly turned to rain?

Well, for starters, teach the final class for the Over The River quilt.

That was really fun. I saw one finished quilt and helped with pointers

on another. My third student had a funeral to attend and couldn't come.

I headed home and went to the studio to work on the Princeton Plates.

 

 I asked Handsome for his input and together we chose the sashing, 

cornerstone and border fabrics. The blocks are all assembled now, 

so today, I'll square up the quilt and add the first and second borders.

 Then, I'll be ready to send it off to the long-arm. While it's away, I'll make

 coordinating pillowcases, shams and prepare the binding for its return.

There's still a bunch to do, but I couldn't wait to share my progress.

 If you need me, I'll be in the studio.

Catch ya later!

Last Look Before The Longarm...

  Well, dearies. 

This is the last time you see my Over The River quilt until after it comes back
from the long-arm and the binding is attached. I couldn't resist this great paisley
 fabric to use for the backing and I think it's just "right" to go with the designs
and colors on the quilt top. (You remember how I love paisleys, right?)

Although the images for the stitcheries are winter scenes, my memories of
trips to my grandparents' house make me think of more autumnal drives.
The paisley seems more like fall to me. I can almost smell the rustling leaves.

I spent last weekend forming and joining the pieces for my corner appliques'. This

is my shot of them "in progress". They're waiting for the right side leaves to be 

attached here, which are now done. I've found that it takes me about three hours

to stitch each of these corner sets to the ground fabric, so I'll have them sewn soon.

If you are someone who checks out the items in my sidebars, you may have seen the

"Pledge To Share Step-by-Step" button. Each time I share my progress on a project,

it's really not so you'll be impressed with what I'm doing, but so that you can see

the steps that go into creating a finished piece. In my case, I like to consider those

steps to be part of my artistic process. Sometimes my finished piece is nothing like

I imagined it would be when I first started choosing materials, cutting and sewing.
I hope you find as much enjoyment following my progress as I do with my "work". 

After stitching down the first set and assessing my work, I knew they were exactly 

what I wanted for the final touch for my quilt. They make it a true one-of-a-kind.

 Although I've drawn the leaves with veining, I won't make a final decision on that

until after I've stitched everything else down. I'm still thinking about that.

If you're a quilter, stitcher, knitter or you choose to express your creative side in 

some other way...Do you take the time to diverge from a pattern or chart to do 

something that will make your piece unique from all the others that will be created 

from those same patterns? How do you personalize your work? If you're a quilter, 

of course, you probably choose fabrics that are different from the original, but what 

other ways do you change it up so that yours will be different? I'd love to know.

Treasures In Living Color...

 While Tag's been visiting with the neighbors, I've been at the sewing machine 

at Sandy's Quilt Shop. I actually didn't expect to have my picture taken (Thanks, 

Kathy!), so excuse the messy hair (haircut tomorrow) and overall scruffy appearance.

All the applique' blocks are finished, squared up and in this picture, I was 

occupied with sewing the rows together in the first sewing step toward assembly.

 Nora was busy at the cutting table cutting the scrap fabric left over from creating the

 blocks into pieces to be joined for the "piano key" border. It will be one of the borders

 in the finished quilt. Both Nora and Kathy got all the fabrics cut and sorted for me, so

 I'll sew that border together and attach it today.  I can't wait to show you how it looks!!

 This is the final arrangement for all the blocks. I've already sewn them together

in this image. The four blank blocks (one at each corner) will be filled with custom 

quilting for added interest. Sixteen blocks total and borders make a queen size quilt.

If you're wondering what the objects are projecting into the picture on 

the left side of this picture, it's just a stack of threads from the sewing table.

The blocks were actually hung horizontally (it was the only way I could fit

 the assembled blocks onto the design wall).  I then rotated the photo so that you 

don't have to stand on your head to see all the blocks. Aren't they wonderful???

I consider the women who worked together to create these blocks to

be the "Elite of the elite". I'm in awe of their collective talents!

I'm home all day today and if you're looking for me, I'll be in the studio making 

the piano key border and then finishing the quilt top with the final outside border. 

My plan is to deliver the completed quilt top to our talented, award-winning, 

custom long-arm quilter, Susan Slaton of Wazoo Quilter on Thursday.

Wish me luck!

Please send Handsome and Tag in to check on me from time to time. A 

beverage might be nice, but no coffee or anything else that might stain fabric.

Better safe, than sorry.

Moda Friendship Quilt Along...

Moda image

 I just want to share a quilt along link I recently found with you today.

If you're a quilter, I'm sure you're always looking for more ideas.

The Moda™Friendship Quilt Along is a great way to increase your

block library with inspiration from a number of quilt designers.

This quilt along will run from February 18th until March 1st, 2013.

I've added the link to my left sidebar so that you can remember to

visit three new designers each day of the quilt along. By the time the
event is finished, you'll have a total of thirty new blocks to sew!

Moda image

 Each designer will share a little story on her blog, along with

a download for her block design. You can click on the designer

links on Moda's page, so make sure you go there first to see who

will be submitting their designs each day of the quilt along.
Oh, and one more thing...each designer will host a giveaway of
Moda fabric that you can enter to win. Don't you just love that?!

Here's a quick link you can use to visit Moda's page from my blog today.

It's always fun to share inspiration with you. You're going to love these blocks!

To my Farmer's Wife friends...

I haven't forgotten our quilt along either. I'm only downloading the blocks from

the Moda link to share for future use! I'm not neglecting you, my friends. I've been

working on new foundation templates for you, and hope to share new ones with you

very, very soon. In the meantime, I hope you're all doing something fun and creative!

Coffee Drunk...

 I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the quilt class I took last Saturday!

 There were nine of us who gathered to take the class from Joyce Grande.

She taught us a "quilt as you go" technique using templates to create a pattern

called Drunkard's Path. Joyce gave great instruction, had handouts to help us 

after we returned home, and she brought along lots of inspiration!

 I don't have a photograph of the entire group, but I did manage to take one

or two of a few of my classmates. We all enjoyed learning from Joyce.

 Our class ran from 9 in the morning through to 4 in the afternoon.

We all sat and visited during a lunch break and were anxious to get

back to our sewing machines. By the end of the day, I had internalized

the technique, and I couldn't wait to get back to it on Sunday. By the

time I quit on Sunday afternoon, I had assembled nearly all the blocks.

I know by the end of today, I'll have my 50" x 50" quilt assembled!

Can you believe that these quilts can go together so quickly?

Tag will be here tomorrow, but trust me. You'll see the rest of it on

Wednesday. My drunkard's path quilt with coffee-themed fabric...

I'm calling it "Coffee Drunk". 

I just couldn't resist.

Happy Monday, y'all!

Hope you have a great week. Mine's lookin' better by the minute.