Feathers Done!

Click on the photos to enlarge.

Well the custom with the feathers is finally done and already delivered! This one was a real challenge. Well all the custom quilts are a real challenge. Kathi wanted feathers. The piecing really dictated the space those feathers had to fill and the entire space was to be filled. The biggest problem was figuring out how to make the feathers fill the space, look nice and not leave empty space and make it all flow effortlessly. After some drawing on paper I finally was able to figure out each of the spaces. Since I am a huge fan of feathers this challenge was fun and I am pretty thrilled with the final result. Since I was working on a deadline I was not able to get a full on photo of the entire quilt and hope that Kathi will send me one as it was pretty darned spectacular.

I delivered two quilts yesterday and sent off my entry to Road to California so now I am taking a vacation from all customer quilts till January..................that means I get to play with my own stuff. Oh my where do I even begin. I have a pile of UFOs that is pretty scary. Actually I do know what I am going to work on. Last year I posted some photos of my log cabin swap on About.com Quilting and I set the blocks into a big star. Then I added a border with a vine, flowers, some bunnies, a little log cabin and a bear. It took me a year to finish the needle turn applique by hand. That was competed this February and the top has been languishing since then. I pulled it out yesterday and have some backing fabric selected. My goal for today (believe me I have to clean the house as well and do other things) is to seam the backing and load the quilt on the longarm. I have not shown photos of much of this top but will give a few more teaser photos of some of the quilting in the coming weeks.

Feather Meander As Fill

Click on the photo to enlarge.

I guess quilters have some unusual terms. The word fill is really a verb meaning: To make full; to supply with as much as can be held or contained; to put or pour into, till no more can be received; to occupy the whole capacity of. That is all fine and nice for the rest of the world but to a quilter the term fill is a noun.

Fill: the quilting stitches that are used to densely fill in area or space in a quilt to enhance other elements of that quilt.

In other words it is basically a term that describes a bunch of stitches. The photo above is a new to me kind of "fill". It has been appearing allot lately on webshots and blogs. Basically this is the "feather meander" by Suzanne Early. It seems quilters are using this as a way to fill up spaces in a quilt but making this design smaller. When I saw the above customer quilt I knew that background space was just screaming for the little feather meander and my customer agreed. I do know that I will be using it alto more in the future as it is just a beautiful delicate fill technique to add to the repertoire.

Tribute to Thomas, The Best Cat There Ever Was.

The photo is Thomas and his best friend Sadie the hound dog. Thomas passed away last Friday and I am pretty torn up about it.

We got Thomas five years ago the day after Thanksgiving. We went down to Pet Smart to get a cat. There were lots of cats there that day as they were all brought in from their foster homes. My husband was looking at a really nice fluffy adult cat. May daughters were checking out the adorable kittens. Well I saw this half grown gangley grey tabby and we locked eyes. He and I just knew it was meant to be. I asked if I could hold him and he just nuzzled up. It was love for sure. Well I then told hubby to hold him and said this was the one. He said that he wanted the adult cat but took the gangley kitty I handed him. Ok he said we could have him. Then I walked over the kids and told them to hold this one. Well we took him home that day. One of the kids suggested Tom as a name. Nope I decided Tom did not fit..............he was defiantly a Thomas and so that is what we called him.

Thomas met our two dogs that decided to do what they had done to our last cat, bark and the kitty ran, it was their favorite game. Well so there they went and barked at Thomas. Well Thomas did not run. Not only did he not run but waked right over and looked the huge golden retriever right in the eye. The big dog did not know what to do about that! Thomas settled into the family really well. He would lie in wait for the retriever Casey and jump out at him, or pounce on him form the back of the sofa. They were soon best friends. The other dog Max just kept his distance and was afraid of Thomas.

Thomas would greet people at the door and loved to be picked up. If there was a lap he found it. we all loved him. At night he found a bed and frequently burrowed under the covers and curled up as a little bed warmer. He was my fabric inspector and would keep an eye on my sewing, quilting and other crafts. He loved knitting and wanted to help with the yarn. He also tried his hand at sewing and wanted to bat at the presser foot............that was the day I had to put him in the bathroom with the door closed.

Casey disappeared one day and never came back. Thomas was pretty sad to lose his dog friend. Last year my daughter got Sadie and she and Thomas bonded. You can see in the photo how they used to curl up together. When they weren't sleeping Thomas was attacking her.

Thomas got very sick a few days before he died. The vet said his red count went critical low. His last day I spent feeding him high nutrient cat food with a syringe and giving him water as well. He was so weak. Well the poor guy died at five that afternoon with all four of us there with him.

We will get another cat but it will never replace what Thomas was to us. I think he was a cat bigger than life. Always at the center of everything around here and not afraid of anything. He was the boss and ruled the house.

Today Is Feather Day

Things are hopping in the studio the past couple of weeks. The holiday rush is in full swing here. Today I am quilting feathers on Kathi's beautiful quilt. This is the first motif and there are quite a few to go. What do you think?

Having Fun With Feathers

I have been having fun with feathers lately. I got inspired with all the photos everyone has been showing on Machine Quilters Resource of their version of Feather Meander the brainchild of Suzanne Early. Here is my take on them. This is just the back of the quilt but the back really shows the feathers. Right now I am working on a custom quilt with the feather meander as the background fill...............boy is that a great fill. I think it is my new favorite. When I get that one done there will be photos to share.

On another note. Can you belive that it is almost Thanksgiving!!! I always try to figure out what I am most thankful for. I think for me it is my family and friends. I am also thankful for my health, my home and being able to do what I love which is being a fiber artist. Some days I really have to pinch myself that I am actually starting to live my dream which is quilting for a living.

What are you thankful for?

Round Robin Next Round

I received the second round of the crazy quilt blocks and just love her colors. I have begun work and hope to work on this piece daily just a little at a time. In this round we were instructed to embelish the seam treatments further. We are to do flat work and not add beads, buttons or silk ribbon embroidery.............well we can do a little if we feel we really need to. I have so far added some flowers along one side of the purple block and a very simple treatment in green on the other side. These were done yesterday. Today I have already done a couple more things but have not taken photos of them.

Blog Giveaway On Caron's Site

Visit Caron Mosey: Michigan Quilts to participate in a Thanksgiving drawing for a FREE copy of Contemporary Quilts From Traditional Designs.





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http://home.comcast.net/~cmosey/ CaronMoseyQuiltsm.jpg

The link to her blog is: http://blog.caronmosey.com/

Sari Quilt Done

I finally finished the Sari quilt. Seems like this one took forever. India silk is very delicate which means it is slippery and does not like to play nice when you try to lay it out on the grain. Once cut it will fray if you even breath therefore each seam is a French seam...............in other words sewn twice on this double bed sized quilt.

Back From Houston

Houston was amazing. Our group quilt won a third place ribbon. I was just excited to have it hung in the show much less a ribbon. Here is yours truely with the quilt. I did the two trees via freemotion embroidery and then did the quilting.

I'm Off To Houston!

I am off to Houston in the morning. This will be my first time at the Houston Quilt Festival and I am pretty darned excited about it. I am on pins and needles to see what ribbon we won on "Oregon Shores". I am also excited to see all the other amazing quilts. The vendor mall is calling to me already like a siren with all the great wares waiting for me to check them out...................boy am I gonna try my best to stick to the list of things I am looking for. A few embellishemt items for crazy quilting, stencils and some threads I am in need of.

I have almost finished up Round 1 of the Crazy Quilt Round Robin I am in. This is the block I recieved and I have done all the seam treatments. When I get back from Houston I plan to do a few extra things.

You Are The Star

You are The Star

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Crazy Quilt Round Robin

I have been invited to participate in a round robin. The theme is crazy quilting which is something I did a few years ago and then put down. I have a ton of great supplies to use and am most excited to get those out and try some new things. The photo is the base I am going to send around. Kathi the leader of the round robin suggested we do small projects that could be framed. Well I was thinking what would I want to frame. A nice thing to frame is a landscape. After googling combinations of words including photo, crazy quilt, and landscape I found some awesome things. Then I found a gallery somewhere that had pictorial art quilts and looked at some of those. The next day I drew a little line drawing and pulled out an assortment of blues for the sky, purple and greens for the hills and mountains. A brilliant rust for the sun and a dark blue for the river. Hopefully the other participants in my round robin will have fun with my little landscape.

Oh My Gosh!!!

Last night on the way home from town my hubby called on my cell phone. He asked if I wanted to hear the good news first or the bad news first. Well being a very practical person I wanted the bad new first because it would be followed by good news and thus end on a good note. Ok so the bad news was the my daughter was out of her lunch account at school. Well that was not so bad. Now I was ready for a little bit of good news. Since the bad news was a small thing the good news would likely also be some little thing.....................................wrong!!!!! Turns out the group quilt I quilted Oregon Shores is a finalist at the HOUSTON INTERNATIONAL QUILT FESTIVAL!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh.............................I sure hope I do not wake up and realize it is just a dream. I have never entered Houston before and was just happy that we got juried into the show much less are going to get a ribbon. Now to see what place we got........................can you see the huge smile on my face!!!!

Chris's Row Robin

Being so far behind on the row robin is not a good thing for my mental health so I forged on and decided to do the next in line. This is my second one this week but now I only have two left to finish. This one belongs to Chris. Her theme is wonkey blocks. She said to think of the Flinstones when making these blocks. Guess that is kinda like Caveman quilting. She made the wonkey log cabins and sent around all of her own fabrics as well as a book for each of us to use. Pat made the square in a square on the top, then one of Ellen's two flying geese, next are Hilda's stars, then more of Ellen's geese, Chris's log cabins and finally my addition; the wonkey pinwheel blocks.

One would think pinwheel blocks are pretty straight forward to make. Not wonkey ones. These really took concentration to get them to have the wonkey look. I did have fun making them.

Another Sari Quilt

That's right the traditional Indian ladies attire. These are beautiful silk saris from a customer who is Indian. She wants these made into to a quilt for her bed. I made one for her last year for her twin guest bed and she loves it so much she wants a bigger one for her own bed. The silks are just beautiful but are not the easiest to sew. I am making French seams which takes more time but also keeps the fabrics from fraying. The past few days I have been cutting these into strips and resewing the strips. Hopefully in a few more days those strips will evolve into blocks.
I think the best thing about making this quilt is that I am gifted with the leftover and the saris are each have about 6 yards of fabric. I am not sure what to do with them yet but the sure are pretty.

I Want To Win!

Carla is having another Blog Giveaway. You can link to her site here:

http://featheredfibers.wordpress.com/

To win her awesome crochet scarf. She has also generously posted a tutorial on how she makes these scarfs so if you are not luck enough to win you can make your own. I am sure going to try to make one and see if what happens.

Pat's Row Robin

This is the latest row for the row robin I am part of. There are seven of us and each of us made our own row of blocks 48 inches wide. Then we pass them to the next person in line who adds another block, and then pass it to the next person, this continues till everyone has done a row on every one's RowRobin. As you might guess this is Pat's Row Robin and I am the fourth one to work on it. After it leaves here there will be three more rows added by the last three members of the group. In order from the top are Pat's own row on her project, Ellen's addition, Hilda's addition and finally my addition on the bottom. Of course the rows are not attached so when Pat gets her rows back she can arrange them any way she chooses.

Pat asked for asymmetry so I made my blocks in three different sizes; nine inch, six inch and the tiny three inch ones. I tried to scatter them randomly and hope they look nice. Her background fabric has been traveling with the rows and we were each asked to use batiks from our stashes with her beautiful background fabric. I made my stars with my brand new Tri Rec rulers I picked up at JoAnn's on Saturday with my 40% off coupon. I was intrigued by the rules after reading about them on about.com quilting and decided to buy a set. They gave me the inspiration I needed to make the stars for Pat's row.

You can see Ellen's and Hilda's rows on my previous blog entries.

Ode To Spring!

Yes I know it is now officially Fall but I have decided to name my quilt "Ode To Spring". This is the one I was working on a couple of weeks ago and it is now done. This quilt is really all about the quilting. The top, which is fairly small just 31x31 was a class sample I made for a class I taught about 9 years ago. It is a paper pieced pineapple block in a 12" size. I played with Electric Quilt and came up with the arrangement of colors so decided to piece the top with the fun arrangement. Well the top has just been languishing in my UFO pile until I recently decided it was small and might be something fast and fun to finish on my longarm. I tried some new things with this top. I used metallic thread on the longarm for the first time. It will defiantly not be the last time I use it either. I also tried a feather border technique I have admired on other quilts. I marked the spine of the feathers and did the rest freehand. The stencil in the middle was something that Sherry Rodgers Hammerstein on the APQS forum showed us a couple of years ago. I ordered one and it has been sitting unused since. Well there it is and I will defiantly use it again. Basically this was just for fun.

The only disappointment was that I entered it in our guild show at the State Fair. The awards are viewers choice. I was told by the people that went to the show that the lighting, well there was no lighting. I was also given an apology when the quilts were returned at the meeting on Monday for my quilt being hung with an incorrect category. Well it was really about the quilting and I guess if nobody could see the quilting and it being hung with the wrong group it did not win anything. I guess I will always wonder if it might have won something had it gotten better lighting and been hung with the rest of the category.

Strings In The Cabin Swap

I am doing a lock swap on about.com.quilting called String In The Cabin. The inspiration quilt for the swap is king sized and I do not think my quilt will be that big. Here are the blocks that I have made for the swap. I figure if I can add one more row of string blocks inside the log cabin blocks my quilt will make a great lap or wall quilt. Now that these babies are done they are heading off to Lou's and I will get back blocks the other swappers made. Note to self "Another UFO created!" I am actually going to try to get these sewn together and quilted very soon after getting my squishie of new blocks in the mail................at least that is the plan.

We Will Never Forget!

It was a different world on the morning of September 11, 2001. I woke up like any other day and took my kids to the school bus where I was informed by my neighbour that one of the twin towers in New York City had been bombed. I rushed home and turned on the TV and my mom (who was visiting) and I sat there and watched our world change. We saw the second plane crash into the second tower. We watched as the smoke billowed out of the two buildings. We watched as the towers crashed to the ground. We watched as the Pentagon in Washington D.C. was hit. We listened as we heard the news of a fourth plane crash and speculated that it was another plane destined for a target and much to our dismay we were later informed we were right. Later that day after the nightmare on TV had played out I went outside and saw a sky with no contrails from all the planes overhead. There was total silence in the sky above. Later the military helicopters came by breaking the silence.

Today it has been seven years and I am still saddened by the events that forever changed our world. Do not forget and let us all stand proud Americans, strong, brave and together as one, united!

A Good Day Quilting

It is really nice to be quilting something of mine for a change. The only person I have to please is me! Today I tried out the metallic thread I got at the Longbeach Quiltfestival at the Superior Threads booth. The thread is specifically made for longarm machines so can take the high speed and the long thread path. I used Bottom Line in the bobbin and it worked just great. I decided to make freeform feathers that were not all alike on the top. These come from a center circle. I really like the look of the shiney thread with the feathers. I premarked the design for the center of the circle. After I took these photos I continued to work and have about half of the background around the feathers filled with pebbles in purple Bottom Line thread. The pebbles really mash down the quilt so the feathers really pop. So far I am pretty pleased with how this is coming out, not to mention I am having a good time working on it. I hope to work a bit more tonight and maybe even finish the pebbles.

Time To Quilt One For Me!

I really truly love being a longarm quilter for hire. It is just great fun to quilt all kinds of things that I would never piece myself. I also get to try tons of new things and get tons of practice, practice, practice. There is a downside to being a professional longarm quilter and that is that I hardly ever get to quilt my own stuff. Mostly because I set my own hours and as long as I have customer quilts I try to get them done and back to their owners. Well I have decided that since I just finished another customer custom quilt it is time to do one of mine.

I have resurrected this beauty from the UFO pile. There really was not much left to do to get it ready for the machine. I only had to miter the black part of the final border, which took way less time than it did thinking about it. With that done I cleaned the top of lint and threads and go it ready for the machine. I have decided to really experiment and have fun with this so the firs thing I have done out of the box is to load it with Hobbs 80/20 on the bottom next to the backing and then added a layer of a high loft poly trimmed off of another project. I simply cut the long strip of poly into two pieces and connected them by making a wavy line to nest them and then loosely basting with huge stitches. Well the top is loaded and ready for quilting. I have some ideas of what I am going to do but until I actually begin I am not sure exactly what will happen as I go. Basically I love to just begin and then allow the quilting to flow from there. I do know that I will not be following the piecing pattern too much for the quilting and I do see feathers. Stay tuned for what happens next!

More Information on Crochet Fabric

Carla sent me the info for a direct link to her tutorial on the crochet bags in case you are interested: http://featheredfibers.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/fabric-crochet-purse-tutorial/

Treasure From Trash

I hear over and over how quilters (and I guess other crafters as well) go thru their stash and purge stuff they do not like. To me this is a waste. When you consider the cost of the fabric (as my stash is made of fabric) and the replacement cost it is like tossing money out the window. Well call me frugal. I figure any fabric can be used if you just figure out the best way to showcase it. In this case the fabrics made to crochet my bag are showcased because they have different colors. These fabrics were from a box that I was gifted by another quilter that was doing the above mentioned purging. They are really old, dated, not to mention not good quality (you can hold some of them up and see right thru them, likely if you spit at them the spit would go right thru!), and above all they are pretty darned ugly. So being the frugal person I am I cut them into long strips across the width of the fabric 5/8" wide. Then I did a freeform bag...................by this I mean that I made up the pattern as I went along so there is no pattern for this beauty. I think with the next bag I will write down my series of steps, the number of stitches and such so that I will have a clear pattern. This bag was really just a trial. The bottom line was that it was fun to make, looks pretty darned good considering what the fabrics it was made from look like and it is is functional.

I really want to credit Carla with the inspiration to make this bag. Hers are made from handyed fabrics and are truely a work of art where mine is just a way to use up stuff and get it out of my stash. You can visit Carla's blog here: http://featheredfibers.wordpress.com/

I just signed up for Carla's contest. Mabye I will be lucky and win one of her amazing scarfs. You can go see them and sign up by clicking on the link below:

http://featheredfibers.wordpress.com/

My Lastest Custom Quilting

When I was asked to quilt this one I felt very honored. The blocks on this sampler were each made by different members of my guild for our president for 2007. I just fell in love with this top along the way, well the day I took it to my studio! Here are some of the blocks.

What to do with those Crown Royal Bags.

So here is what you can do with a collection of Crown Royal bags. No this is not for me but rather was custom made for someone. It was a pretty daunting project and finally once I got going it was not so bad. One thing I really like is that the bags have a variation in color even though they are all new. All in all I really had fun making this.

Another Row

This is my latest round in the Row Robin I am participating in. The way these row robins work is that in our group (we have seven people) each person makes a row of a specified length. Our group decided on a 48 inch width for each row. Then we pass the row to the next person and they add a new row. Then to the third person who adds a row and so forth. The rows then go back to the first person who arranges them in whatever order they like and finishes up their quilt. These are Ellen's rows. She is defiantly an overachiever. The three top feathered stars are her inspiration row.The next row was done by Hilda and added a wonderful compliment to Ellen's stars. Then the bottom row is the one I made. I love these stars and love to use them in lots of different quilts. Well I hope that Ellen likes them when this comes back home to her. Now I have to figure out what I am going to do for Pat's Row Robin which is already here waiting for my row.

The Sampler

When my friend Ellen asked me to do this quilt I was really excited. To see a large picture simply click your mouse on the photo and you will get a larger view. Samplers are pretty fun to do as each block is different, which means that each block can be quilted differently. I really had fun with this one. This is also the first time that I tried to do echo quilting around applique and I just loved the way those applique blocks came out. The sashing was all done with feathers and the help of one of my wavey rulers to do the spines. Then the final border was a place to play with my new grid boards from Quilt EZ.

I Feel Like The Hare In Alice In Wonerland!

Yep seems like since I have been back from my trip it is just go, go go! I have been trying desparatly to get it all done and feel like it is all a juggling act. I have indeed gotten caught up on my quilts for everyone else and have three more projects that need quick attention and then I think I am back to my schedule again.

The Oregon Coast quilt is back for a few more stitches here and there. Yesterday I was looking at it loaded and while stitching I decided to unstitch a couple of elements and do them again but a little better. This is the quilt destined for Houston if they accept it and the deadline for it is looming. Well last night I spent a good deal of time frogging one part and today I will unstitch another part and restitch those. I hope that I can get those done today so I can send this one off to the person in our group that will do the binding and hanging sleeve.

With all of this activity and trying to juggle family I am really wanting to pull out UFO's of my own and quilt them. I have decided to work on one I pieced years ago. It was some Kansas Troubles blocks that I was going to use for the class sample for a scrap quilt class. The class never happened. I pulled it out a couple of years ago and added another round of bone colored solid with a swatooth border. I have the center on point so there are some really large bone triangles and a nice wide bone border to do some spectacular quilting. I think I am finally ready to tackle that. I have been doodling feathers the last few days and jsut need to design that quilting space and get it marked on the quilt. I am planning machine trapunto!

Ok I Am Back!

I cannot believe how long it has been since I made a blog entry! I guess first of all I was gone for a couple of weeks. In the photos above you can see my backyard. Well close enough in any case. Living in the Southwest all of those photos are within a days drive from where I live. I cannot see them from my house but I can get there easily when I want to see them. The photos are actually in reverse order of my trip. The first one is Hovenweep a small obscure National Monument a stones throw from Four Corners in Utah. It was an amazing site with five different sites of ruins. The only downside was the biting gnats.

The next photo is of Capital Reef. What an amazing place! The geology there is just spectacular. We spent one day hiking and saw some wonderful views from the high places down onto the giant uplift of the earths crust. The uplift goes for over a hundred miles.

Then of course there is Bryce Canyon (which we learned is not really a true canyon). I always love going there to see the unique hoodoos. Hiking into the canyon gives such a different perspective than from above. We spent a wonderful morning winding around the trails inside the canyon looking back up at the rim.

Zion is the next one. Now that place is one of a kind. Sheer rock walls and amazing views if you are up to hiking up the steep trails. We went out to Angel's Landing. Now that hike is not for anyone that has a fear of heights as you are actually climbing out on a large rock 1600 ft above the canyon floor and in many places there are chains to hold onto. One slip and you will plummet to your demise. The ranger said there are about two deaths a year. This is the third time I have gone out there. Yep I guess I have a few missing screws.

Then my favorite, the Grand Canyon. Nothing else like that anywhere. It always takes my breath away. I think that next summer I am going to try to get reservations to hike it. The girls are getting older and we do lots of hiking with them. You really do not get the grandeur of the Canyon until you hike into it. The photo was taken at sunset on the North Rim from the patio at the Lodge.

Now that I have been home I have been trying to get caught up on my quilting. Last week I quited 3 quilts. Now I am trying to finish piecing an Irish Chain that is a commission. I got the top finished yesterday and only need to add borders and it will be ready for the machine. I am currently working on a large quilt that is getting a sea turtle panto. Last night I changed the bobbin and it was late. I got the thread off the path and had to frog for about 45 min and went to bed.....................well I do hope to get that one done today!

Row Robin Round One

I am doing a Row Robin with a group of friends that I met on a quilting form. We go to a quilters retreat every February and this year decided to begin a row robin. Each of us has a theme and as the projects go around rows are added by each member.

The above row With the rabbit,turtle, and lizard belongs to my friend Hilda. Her theme is Nimbres art meets Gees Bend. Well I could not figure out the Gees Bend part so finally opted for more Southwest Indian art. My addition is the bottom row that is a simple border. Well it only looks simple. As you can see from the closeup there are many tiny pieces to create that simple design. The secret to doing it was first to work from a grid drawing and begin with strips sewn together. The strips are then cut across and sewn together with new neighbors.

I already have round two here but that is gonna wait for inspiration and a slot of time to work on it. I still have plenty of time. Well I thought the same with row one but it is now quite late getting to the next person.

I Did The Balloon Raffle Quilt For 2008

This is one that was hanging over my head for months. After several delays it finally arrived in my studio just as I was was off on vacation. Of course since it was already late getting done they wanted it yesterday. Well I got back from vacation and spent 4 days doning now much else but working on it. This is the final result. I actually finished it a few weeks ago but am just now shareing the photos of it. I hear that it is now finished, photographed by a professional photographer and post cards and pins have been ordered. My guild sells raffle tickets for a balloon quilt every year and it usually does really well. Hopefully this one will generate lots of ticket sales.

I have been quilting like a fiend since. Last week I quilted 4 quilts and delivered 3 of them. This week I picked up 4 more to do so I am status quo. I need to get on the ball this comming week and finish the landscape quilt and get that out the door so I can get back to the Business of quilting.

If there were only more hours in a day for me to get all the things done that need doing. I was really late in a Round Robin I am part of getting the first round out the door. I think it was two weeks late. Yesterday I spent a good part of the day working on that. We are doing rows for each other and the row that I needed to add has a Mimbres Indian theme. I finally figured out what I was doing and just did it. Since it was complicated I had been procrastinating which of course did not help in the least. It did require a fair amount of time but now it is done. I will photograph that tommorow and send it along to the next person. I already have the second round here and it is due in two week.................oh yes this seems like plenty of time, but I need to get that going very soon or I will be in the same boat again that I found myself in this round.

No Pressure On This One! Yeah Right!!!

This is a landscape quilt that is a group effort. I was asked to be the quilter and also was asked to do some thread painting on it. The two trees were merely fabric trunks with no branches when I was given this project to work on. After a couple of trial pieces I finally figured out how to make the branches and leaves on the tree on the right. This was done on my Phaff with an embroider hoop free motion embroidery. I had to put stabilizer behind the applique as well which had to be trimmed after I was finished. I am pretty pleased with the way the trees came out and defiantly see more trees in my future.


So now onto the quilting! A sky can be a daunting thing to quilt as any of you that have ever attempted it well know. I wanted to create lines but also give the feeling of "sky". Before I even began I spent over an hour looking at photos of landscape quilts on the Internet to see how other people did skys. Well I never found one that really said sky to me so I finally just started drawing on paper and came up with this. Then I drew it with the machine in metallic thread. I was really worried I would not get the metallic thread to play nice but after calling my friend Judy and asking her how she did hers I got a few pointers. I also have a little section off to the side of every quilt where I can play with tension, so I did that first. This is with Sulky Metallic on the top and Bottom Line in the bobbin. I do have a photo of what I did later on the mountains but for that I just used Mettler Silk Finish and Bottom Line in the Bottom. Simple lines in the mountains in matching thread.

Today I am going to figure out the water! Now that is gonna be a trick but hopefully I will figure that out.

What does one do on Spring Break to get out of the cold? Well mostly that means heading South to a warmer climate. For us this meant Texas right down to the Mexico border in Big Bend National Park. I had been there many years ago as a child so did not really remember much about it. The beauty of the desert is just awesome. There was so much to see and do. We spent 6 nights camping right there on the border. You could see Mexico right across the lazy Rio Grande slowly meandering its way towards the Gulf of Mexico.

One thing that amazed me was the history of the place. The park ranger described it as one of the most remote of places in the continental US. To me though it was full of people dating back to ancient times. There were many sites that held the ruins of old ranches and even a resort at a natural hotspring.

On the way home we stopped at the Salinas ruins where I took the photo of the pot. I just love the black on white pottery that is even still made today by the local Pueblo Indians.

The past week has been a very busy one trying to get caught up on quilting and projects that are waiting to be made. I did manage to cross four more things off my list of quilts to be finished.