Quilting is Done

The quilting is done on Baby Steps!!  

I did in the ditch in the center and did some big stitch quilting in the border.  I wanted to go around that vine but the presser foot was scrapping some of the color off of the buttons.  Since I am not a real hand quilting, I just had fun.  

Too bad the quilting doesn't show but it really makes those center rows with the vine and buttons pop.  

Here is a close up of the hand quilting.

I might do the inside of the vine also, just to give it a little more definition.  

You have seen me mention the mini quilts I have been adding sleeves on the back.  Here is one for August I just finished.  I should do September's now also, since this one is so late getting done.  Only four more to complete. 

Yes I had a piece of the backing still available to make the sleeve.  

This is the front I finished it in Aug of 2009. 

Some of my quilting friends are in Show Low at 

Quilting on the Rim, for a quilting retreat.  

I went with them in 2012 but now that I have the girls I can't go.  I wish them fun, relaxation and lots of good sewing.  I know the food will be great and it will be cooler than here in Phoenix. 

Well Happy Stitching!!

She lives...

 

What it may appear as if I fell off the face of the earth but I really haven't.  I have been dealing with a cough on and off since December 23rd and it is about to drive me nuts.  I get well for a week and hardly cough at all and then it starts up again, and I am coughing my head off.  Yesterday I hardly coughed at all but today I am coughing like crazy.  Not good.  I feel fine, I just get tired from coughing.  The doctor thinks it has something to do with allergies and I might have to get tested for allergies.  I'll talk to the doctor about that next week.  So that is one reason why I haven't posted a lot. 

 

The other is I haven't been doing a lot, you know those girls keep me busy.  I have done some scrapbooking pages both for me an my ancestors and the girls but I can't show them here. 

 

I have also done several adding of sleeves to small quilts.  Now doesn't that sound exciting?!  Well it is in a way.  A couple of years ago a co-worker gave me these nice little quilt racks.  I asked my husband to fix them so the rod which was fixed could come on and off to change out quilts.  He did fix them for me and hung them.  They have been up since before Christmas.  So two Christmas quilts have new sleeves, a Valentine quilt has a new sleeve as well as two spring to summer wall hangings. 

 

Here is a picture with the two current quilt hanging up.

 

I think they look lovely on my wall.  The lovely picture in the middle is the LDS Mesa Temple a limited copy done by a friend Thomas Manning.  He does good work.

 
 

I also have added a sleeve to three of my mini monthly quilts so they can hang nicely on their little hanger.  This one is for March and I have done January & February. 

How exciting can this get??

 

 

Above is Mr. B's quilt in December, I am showing you how much is rolled up on the take up bar.  Like I have said before, I have not enjoyed tying this quilt on the frame, wrong frame for the job, but I am using what I have. But look I have made progress!!

 

Look how much fatter the roll is!! 

I keep telling myself, if I would do 15 minutes a day it will get done.  Somehow I never find those 15 minutes a day.

 

 

Today I worked on tying the quilt and when I was taking my pictures looked at what I found peeking out on the bottom roller. 

It is the bottom first borders!!!  So I only have

1 and a 1/2 rows of blocks left to tie!!

 

I have more to share but it time to pick up girls from school, so I will stop here for now and get back to you!

 

Have fun sewing, quilting, scrapbooking and just living!

 

 

Christmas Eve 2009

Richard & I had a quiet day at the house. My poor honey is feeling under the weather again, so he slept most of the day. I went grocery shopping to buy the last few items I needed for tomorrows Christmas Brunch. I spent the day doing the hand embroidery on my last Monthly Mini. I have been working on these for two years. At 11:20 I put the last stitch in the binding & took the pictures. Yes they are all done!!!


One of my friends asked me to take a picture of all of them, so Kathy here is the pictures. Count them, there are 12!!


I also spent time wrapping the Christmas gifts. In the evening we went to Richard's sister house for Christmas Eve dinner and to watch Tom play Santa to the the grand kids and great grand kids. This is one of the three pictures I took tonight. This is my great niece and her husband and baby James who is 1 month old. Aren't they a cute little family.
About nine I made the breakfast casserole and put it in the refrigerator. In the morning all I have to do it pop it in the oven. It is a stuffed French Toast recipe. I had it last an at a pop luck breakfast. It sure tasted good and my co-worker shared the recipe. If it turns out as good as I remember tomorrow, I'll post it here.
Well I need to go to bed. Good Night all and a Merry Christmas!!

Sunday Quilting Upate

Well I designed it last Sunday and I finished it today. I did purchase the border fabric and the paint for the numbers, the rest I have in my stash. Always a good thing to do is use your stash! I'm very happy with how it turned out.



While I was working on the September Mini, my husband asked me to make him a little quilt for his cubical at work. I went to my trusty EQ6 program and they had some wonderful computer images for me to use. Now if I can just find 1/2 a yard of fabric with computer thingies on it, I'll be all set. He works as a desk top engineer, he fixes software and hardware issues at work. He also repairs computers for friends and co-workers. He is always happy fixing computers. He is trying to recover some files on some one's computer right now.



The really big project I decided to work on is my Dear Jane Halloween swap from maybe 2003?? It is one of my goals to finish this year. I had a tilted blocks plan but when I was in CO, I found this book Beyond the Block. I found one design in there I really liked, it looked like it would hold about 20 blocks. Here is the picture from the book of the design I like. You can double click on the pictures to enlarge them.



Here is my custom quilt plan I made in EQ6, I did not draw it exactly, but just enough to give me an idea. It isn't a good picture but you might get an idea of what I might do. You will also notice some hand written notes on it, of where I plan to put what blocks. I have 36 Dear Jane Blocks, all 4.5 inches big or is that small. It also has a water stain, one of the cats jumped up on the ironing board and knock over my spray bottle of water.


And here is my progress so far!! It's going to be a busy quilt but I have this collection of fun Halloween fabric that I picked out for this quilt, so I'm going to find a place for all of them.

Sunday Quilting Upate

Today was a lazy day after a busy Saturday. I designed this little Monthly Mini to go with the other minis I have made. The designer from Patch Abilities made some really cute monthly designs, but she had pumpkins for September and they just don't work for me. I made that design last year and made it for November. This is from her series #1. So I had this bright idea last night just before going to bed and I finished designing it this morning. I have printed all my applique pieces and found the fabric for the applique pieces. I really want a bright border in a school theme or primary colors. Nothing like that in my stash. Or darn I have to go find some fabric.
I spent the rest of the day doing the binding by hand on one of my panels for the French doors. I have one long side done, two short sides and a half of the second long side. I was doing the binding while watching the PBS Sense and Sensibility DVD. Just too engrossing to sew fast.
This week I also joined all four flying geese borders. The are not attached to my Washington Medallion yet but hopefully this week. I just felt like hand sewing today. I'll have to take a picture in the morning. I'm off to bed now, I am beat. I stayed up too late last night (12:15 AM) and I have been up since 5:20 this morning. That's a short night for me and it is my fault. Some nights I just don't know when to quit.

Close up of Grass

OK the handle of the shovel is a little dorky but I like the grass!! In to work it goes tomorrow!

Sunday Quilting Upate

Well my Sand Castle is as done as it is going to get for now. I want to hang it at work tomorrow. Some of the sea grass is only drawn on with a pigma pen instead of embroidered. I'm just plum out of time. I wasn't sure what color to do my sea grass, green or tan, so I used one strand of green & one of tan, I like how it turned out. On second thought I might wait until Tuesday to hang it and finish it tomorrow night. I only have three medium grasses to do and the rest are all short. I'm thinking I want this finished completely.
I do know I have to go to bed now. Tomorrow it is back to work. Here's hoping I don't get anymore calls tonight. I love that feeling when I wake up after being on call and realize the pager didn't go off all night. Here is hoping!!!

Sunday Quilting Upate

The first thing I did for quilting this week when I came home was go to a quilt store for their Christmas in July sale, everything was 30% off. That was on Friday. On Saturday I drew the 11th block in EQ6 for my Caribbean Sea Block of the Month. I probably won't make it until I finish my August monthly mini.


I did finish all my flying geese and pin wheels for the Washington Medallion while in CO. I finished all the half square triangles but I haven't made the blocks yet. So I didn't take a picture of them. That also will wait until I finish the August mini.


Here it is the August mini, the Sand Castles. I pieced the background and the borders last night. I had traced the designs for the sand castles on the fusing material before I left for CO. Tonight I fused the sand, and cut all the pieces and fused them to the background. I hope to have this finished to take to work on Monday August 3rd.

Another Project Done!

I was going to wait until tomorrow night to report on my weeks progress. But it always a good feeling to get something done! I finished my May Flowers Mini wall hanging. YES!! It's not a big thing but it is a done thing!
I also have been working on a Mystery Project, I'm trying to do a cross stitch picture for my friend. I purchased the lime green fabric I needed with out checking out the size of the thread count. I'm suppose to use two threads but it looked to heavy, so I took it out and tried one strand. It looks OK but I had such problems seeing the threads I had to cross I gave up. That's even with my light and the magnifying glass and new glasses. So today I ran to Hobby Lobby and found some Aida cloth in a slightly different shade of lime green but it is 14 count. I hope it works easier, it won't look as nice as the linen but it will be done. I won't post pictures until it has been delivered, only because I don't want to spoil the surprise. She know she is getting something because I'm going to see her for her Birthday in May. She lives in Miami FL. After 17 years of marriage I'm finally taking my husband back to my old stomping grounds. Last year when she was in town for my birthday we made plans for me to be in town for her Birthday this year. I'm counting the days until I'm on vacation and out of here!

A very Late Quilting Update

I had planned to do this Monday night after work, but I was working on cleaning out my EQ5 files and moving them to EQ6. I had done some of this re-organizing on Sunday also, between cooking Easter dinner. I also was working on my handouts and lesson plan for tonight's EQ6 club meeting. Last Saturday I also taught an EQ6 Beginner's Class. I had four students and they had a very good time. I love teaching this class because I can see the lights come on when they start to understand how the software works.
I only had one student for the EQ6 club tonight, but she sure enjoyed her private lesson. We got a lot accomplished and I was able to teach her lots of tricks and answer a lot of her questions. We had a good time and I missed my other regulars.

Here is a link to an interesting blog. Every Tuesday she posts a tool tip. Today it is a carrier for sewing supplies while traveling in the car. It's a cute idea.
Tool Time Tuesday

Of course I did have some machine time and did the machine applique on May's Monthly Mini quilt. I was also able to finish the hand embroidery for the stems on the flowers.

Sunday Quilting Upate

Hi again!
I hope everyone is well out there in Blog Land! I'm well and happy. I just heard from one of my missionary companions and we will be meeting for dinner tomorrow night. It will be fun to see her again. It was 30 years ago that I was on my mission. I went to the Bolivia Santa Cruz Mission and I entered the MTC on July 5, 1979 and returned home Jan of 1981. I was an Hermana de Bienestar, or Welfare Missionary. I loved my mission. I started my mission just 2 years after I was baptized.




Well I'll have more details tomorrow. Tonight is for the quilting update. I have been a little beaver of activity all week and this weekend. No students signed up for my paper piecing class yesterday so I had more time to sew!
Let's see, yesterday I finished quilting the quilt for my friend. I like how it turned out. Here it is with a close up of the quilting.

Today I finished the next part of the Washington Medallion quilt. Of course I had one of the borders on upside down and I had to rip it out and reapply it the right side up. That's after I decided I made my floating border a little too narrow, and I needed to trim down the center square a little more. I like my new blue borders better than the fabric they sent, so all is well that ends well.

This evening I also started my May Mini Quilt. Need to get this finished before the end of April so it can hang on my cubical wall at work.

This morning I cut, tied and finished this little baby blanket for my neighbor who had a little baby girl the end of March. She really like the little blanket. I took less than an hour to make. A simple thing to bring a little happiness to a person. This is her first girl after 3 boys.

I think that enough don't you. Have a good week and take care! Now to go to bed and get ready to start my work week.

Sunday Quilting Upate

Well I have beem productive, even if I had a cold and read a lot.
I finished my feathered star for the Washington Medallion Quilt I'm doing with my friends.

I also started and finished one of the monthly mini quilts I have on my list to do this year. I think I have three more of those to do to have a complete set of 12.

Well it's off to bed, tomorrow is Monday and it sure comes fast!

A Funny Thing Happened...

...on the way to finishing my Valentine Mini Wall hanging. I was doing free motion on my table top machine. It felt like the quilt was dragging a little and I felt like I had to work too hard. I was thinking something isn't right but for the life of me I couldn't figure it out. The stitches looked fine, but it was just hard to move the fabric. I quilted all the white background in the wall hanging. I jumped from area to area lifting the foot and lowering the foot, looking right at for my needle position. I looked at the foot several times and nothing registered. I'm changing the thread to brown for the borders and what do I notice. I had a straight stitch foot on and not my bouncing darning foot. I changed that foot right out and things went much easier. It's amazing what using the right tools will do!!

Here is the finished Valentine Mini, or Falling Hearts.

I tried to get a close up of the quilting to show you it came out OK but all my pictures are blurry, so maybe tomorrow I'll try to get another picture.

Jane's Pink Fabric Arrived

Jane,
The fabric you sent me is lovely!! I cut it right away and added two hearts to my Falling Hearts wall hanging. I liked so much I made a big heart and one medium heart. I'm eating dinner real fast now so I can leave and do an EQ6 demo for Cactus Patchers. Here is a picture for you all to admire the fabric Jane sent me.

Sunday Quilting Upate a Little Late

Sunday sure did go by in a hurry. I had my pictures taken and about ready to do my blog entry when Kinsen came home from work. Today (Monday)is his birthday he is 24 and since we work days & he works evenings we decided to do our cake and gift for him last night. So I visited with the guys instead.

I did a lot of non quilting type activities this week. I took my class sample to the shop, wrote a class description and supply list for the One Block Wonder Class I'm teaching in Feb and March. I decided to do a two part class with a month in between to give them time to sew all those hexagons.

I also worked on my outline for my EQ6 demonstration tomorrow night at my chapter of the Arizona Quilters Guild meeting. I have to have an outline so I show off everything I'm thinking about. I'm not worried about not having enough material, too much is more likely to be my problem. When I teach my Beginner's class for 3 hours I always go over. I have notebooks to show what the program can do, such as handout for my quilting classes and stuff you can print out. I also have some of the quilts I have designed in EQ6 to show off.


I did finish the binding on the Square Falling Hearts and worked on my Long Falling Hearts. I'm waiting for some pink fabric a friend of mine is sending to me to add another heart or two. I wished the pink showed up better. I also sewed the binding on my Winter Wonderland, and started doing the back side by hand. I'm not going to show a picture of that until it is complete.

I didn't get to work on my Mystery Quilt. I had planned to do some of that on the weekend. The instructor took her instructions off the website on Friday while I was at work. So I didn't want to do any thing without reviewing the instructions. So that will have to wait. Luckily the DVD came in the mail today, so I'm set now.