Perseverance

Well this is my most recently finished quilt. I'm calling it Perseverance because there were so many times I just wanted to chuck it in the trash. I do not do well quilting if you need to go to the complete edge of the quilt. Actually I don't do well handquilting to the edge and I was handquilting this one. I stitched in the ditch around the black areas and then there are flowers and butterflies on the cream part. The flowers and butterflies don't really show up because the thread is too light. Of course the green I used for the stems and leaves does show up. Live and learn. The in the ditch was what I was having the problems with. When I got to the edge it always got puckered or bunched or something. I even at one point put it on the machine but I didn't have much luck with that either. But I was determined to get it finished. The fabric was a gift from my kids this past Mother's Day. The black is from one of the Elm Creek Quilts collections - Dorothea's. I just love it. I did have the foresight to snap a picture of the flowers before I washed out the blue markings so that the pattern could be seen. Now I'm on to a few other things. I have two round robins with online groups going or starting. I have until September 15 to come up with a center for the second one. The first one is off and I believe right now on to the third or fourth person. I'm also doing a log cabin swap in Autumn fabrics. Autumn is absolutely my favorite season. I'm going to use the log cabins in another quilt I'm making. It's a medallion with additional rounds. I think the log cabin round is the fifth or sixth so I have plenty to work on until the swap is completed.

Until next time. Hugs and stitches.

Catching up

Well it's been almost a month since I last posted. So much for posting weekly. I suppose I'm posting "weakly". So what has been happening? My dh and I celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary this month. We went out for Chinese - without the kids. He got me the most beautiful necklace. It's heart shaped and there are two roses on it. They are separate at the top but joined at the bottom. That's us - separate but joined.

Ryan had his placement testing and orientation for college two days after our anniversary so while we were in California we went to a movie. We saw Live Free or Die Hard. The Die Hard movies are my guilty pleasure. We very seldom go to a movie theater so it was a real treat. We stayed in a hotel that was supposed to have a 24 hour heated pool but it closed at 10 PM and it was cold so our thoughts of swimming half the night were not realized.

On the remodeling front Rodger is really cooking along. The kitchen is close to being finished. He put up shelves close to the ceiling for my collection of houses (like Cats Meow except most of them are Hometowne Collectibles). And he's putting up paneling that looks like brick. He pulled down the decorative wood that was above the sink and now I can hang a curtain there. He has a little bit more paneling to do and then he needs to do something with the cabinet doors and drawer fronts and finish up the trim. And painting. We'll paint after everything else is done. He's really pushing because it's almost football season and then everything will come to a dead stop until football season is over.

As for quilting I finally finished up the quilt I was making for my friend Julie. She got it and loves it and that makes me very happy :0) Now I'm doing some swap stuff. The QWHT group I'm on is doing a round robin. We did a row by row earlier in the year and it went so well that we decided to do this too. My row by row is gorgeous and I can't wait to finish it up. Right now I'm doing the handquilting on the quilt I made with the fabric the kids gave me for Mother's Day. I'm generally an "in the ditch" quilter but I'm doing flowers and butterflies on this one. I had done some hearts and a wreath design on a wallhanging and I really like how it looks so I wanted to do something more along those lines.

And speaking of QWHT I finally met the two ladies who live close to me. We have talked and talked and talked about getting together. But when Frances decided to move from VA to RI we decided we better stop talking and actually do something. So we met in Gaithersburg - Frances and Deborah and me. But Frances had a little surprise planned. Marilyn (another lady from our group who lives in IN) was there too! I've met Marilyn before but it was a real surprise to see her there. We had lunch at Panera and then went to Capital Quilts. We did a little shopping and all got a Capital Quilts pin to commemorate our trip. Then we went back to Panera and had chocolate!

I guess that's about it for today. Hopefully it won't be three weeks before I make on again.

This blogging stuff will make me crazy

I wrote out an entire post, posted it, opened a new window to make sure it was there (it was) and then did another post. When it posted I couldn't find the other one I posted. Argh!

So anyhow the post was about all the work my dh has been doing as he has been laid off for 5 weeks. He's been very busy - working outside when it's not too hot. He painted the front door, porch and all the shutters on the house. He also handwashed the entire front of the house! He poured a new concrete step in front of the door from our bedroom to the outside of the house. He's going to do a brick walkway that will lead from the driveway, turn to that door and also continue straight to the "garbage garage" he's building for our trash and recycling cans. Also in the works are a basketball court and a clothesline.

When it got really hot he moved inside and built me this gorgeous spice rack into the back of my pantry door. Now he's putting up brick paneling in the kitchen and repainting (if I can decide what color I want).

recent quilting adventures

I'm so new to this blogging stuff that I have no clue how to add more than one picture at a time without them ending up in a row along the top. So that leads to another post today.

This is the most recent quilt I finished. It's a flip flop quilt that is very lightweight. I didn't use any batting and tied it. It's the first thing I've done an entire top with machine applique. I enjoyed it and I'm happy with how it turned out but I do need more practice.

Another Day

I have finally gotten my digital problems worked out (I hope). So I'm posting pictures of my last three projects. The first one is the 30s repro. I already posted a picture of the top but it's finished now. I also have the picture of Ryan's football quilt. And the last project is a wallhanging I made for the bathroom. I found the pattern in a Quilter's World issue. Of course, having problems with following the rules like I do, I changed it a bit. This one is completely machine stitched. I do all my piecing by machine but like to quilt by hand. Every once in a while I decide I have too many tops that need quilted and so I'll do one or two by machine. I'm still not that good at machine quilting but the only way to get better is to keep practicing. I also did the binding by machine. I generally don't like how my machine bindings look but this one I did a self binding and just stitched as close to the edge as possible. I'm happy with how it turned out. I'm calling it Flowers for Mom because I finished it on Mother's Day. Giving names to my quilts is a bit new to me. I've named a few but I think I'd like to name them all now. So it's interesting coming up with names that "fit". The 30s quilt I named Gracie's Friends. I used a piece of Gracie fabric for the backing and the fabrics in the top came from my friends.

Today's accomplishments

Well I got my 30s repro quilt quilted. I just need to put the binding and label on. I finished up my oldest son's high school graduation quilt today. It's a football field with his name and jersey number on it. It's been done for a while but I hadn't done the label. I'll post some pictures as soon as I can get my computer to cooperate with me. I've been downloading pictures onto my webshots album and printing pictures all day because his prom was yesterday. Now the printer is telling me that I don't have the printer software loaded onto the computer. Enough to aggrevate anyone. But I can post a picture of my son and his girlfriend. They had a fabulous time and they looked so sweet together. I absolutely love her dress. You can't see it from the picture but it has a small train. The dress has a hook on the back that holds the train up in the back sort of like a wedding dress. The picture was taken at High Rock which is close to our house. It's high up on a mountain and there's a rock formation (behind them) that people hang glide from. Makes a gorgeous backdrop. I took over 200 hundred pictures but this is my favorite posed one. I have a favorite one that I took when they weren't looking too.

Starting Up

I've decided to jump into this blogging stuff. I'm hoping to post about my quilting on a regular basis. I'm working on a variety of projects right now and really have the urge to finish something up. I think my target project is going to be a lap quilt I've done in 30s repros fabrics. This one is very special to me because the fabrics all came from my friends. I'm on the best Yahoo group on the web - Quilter's Who Homeschool Too. These ladies are like my sisters and I feel like I've known them all my life. We were doing a 30s repros swap that I really wanted to participate in but we were going through a rough patch financially so I stayed out of the swap. Well these wonderful ladies knew how much I wanted to play along and so they each sent me a fq of gorgeous 30s fabrics. Did I mention they're the best? lol. I have a great backing fabric picked out from the Aunt Grace Signature Line II group that has pictures of Gracies all over it. I figure it will help to remind me of my "sisters" who sent me the fabric for the top. Hopefully it won't be too long until I can post the finished project.