Life is good!

Another charity quilt is finished and donated!  This is another one by Patricia in Spokane, and sent to Jo at Jo's Country Junction, and on to me to finish, then off to the ladies of the Kountry Quilters for binding.   I went with an all-over spiral pattern for this one.  I definitely need a little practice; I need to keep my spacing more even and just get more experience at filling in small areas, but practice makes better, and finished is better than perfect. This is a nice sized lap or throw, and will also be going to the SNICU ( Surgical and Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit) at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics . It's an adult unit that cares for and treats the most severely ill patients.  They care for patients with severe illnesses, catastrophic trauma, aneurysm patients and more.  As you can imagine, they deal with patients who pass away on a regular basis.  When a family makes the difficult decision to withdraw life support ...

Between the binding binge, and the retreat, and some open evenings, I'm getting some progress made.  At the early stages of a quilt it often doesn't seem like things are happening, and there are only so many pictures you can take of piles of chain pieces. I did get one block of Bitter Almond completely finished. I am loving how this looks so far, and debating about sizing up to bed sized.  We shall see.  I got two more blocks done for the Classic Meets Modern BOM. The binding to rows of cats is on! And the weather has turned to a lovely early summer.  Took some time for a bike ride with the kids.  I need to get some pictures taken of finishes.  I'm not yet feeling the need to break open another project.  I have a ways to go piecing Bitter Almond and the Morris quilt.  Neither of those is hard, but there are a LOT of blocks for each!  I actually had my nephew helping with the batik quilt.  He's 13, and very go...

A couple of things in the works - finished the first diamond for my Prism Star.  This is a demo for guild next Monday.  These aren't hard to do, but I have to double and triple check before each seam that I've got the right fabrics in the right place.   These are the April Blocks for the Classic Meets Modern BOM.  Loving the bright colors!  May's blocks are on the cutting table.  Bitter Almond is being chain pieced.  My main machine was giving me fits on the batik, so I had to get out the Featherweight to piece these.  Lots of blues, greens and browns.  I think I may end up enlarging this one to king-sized to go on my bed.  The quilting on this is finally done, and it's even bound!  Just need to bury the threads, and I think it's going to my son's first grade teacher as a gift.  It's her first year teaching, and my kiddo isn't easy.  She's done a fabulous job with him.  I haven't given a t...

It's May.  I used to think Christmas season was busy, but in some ways it's got nothing on May.  There's a great parody video out there that sums up my feelings perfectly... But one of the events on the calendar was our guild's spring retreat!  (And to go I had to NOT help at a TTT Bake Sale, a 4-H Sewing Workshop, the State Large Group Vocal Contest concessions for the Fine Arts Boosters and turn down an invitation to a party.) So progress was actually made on the WIP List!!!  It's becoming obvious I really need to buckle down and spend some time on the long-arm.  It's hard to find large enough blocks of time, but since I have a long-arm I really have no excuse for having a pile of half a dozen unquilted tops.  Although I swear half my problem is decision paralysis about what thread to use and how to quilt it.  Crystal Gems is definitely going to be just an all-over pattern, and I could probably use six different colors of thread and no one w...

This is another quilt top sent along by the fabulous Jo at Jo's Country Junction .  As I mentioned in the previous post, she sent along several tops for a friend and I to quilt and bind.  This one is a wonderfully fun crazy quilt style top.  The colors are not ones that I normally work with, but when I see projects like this it makes me want to change my mind!  This one is made by Patricia, in Spokane. It's good sized, at 60x72, so the perfect size for cuddling on the couch. As a relatively new long-armer, I went with basic all-over loops for the center.   With such a busy pattern, I thought an all-over design as best, as well.  I had a great variegated thread,with shades of gold, brown and tan, which was just perfect for the colors.  I went with loops in the fabulous pieced border, leaving the black border blank.  It's definitely comfortable!  My then six-year old was helping out with the photo shoot (again co...