Thursday, August 30, 2012

{Post 1,042} Ohio Quilt Progress


We got back from Ohio last night...sunburned, sniffly, and exhausted.  Glad to be sleeping in our own beds again!!  Be it ever so humble, there's NO place like home.  I like visiting others, but am always grateful to be back in my own little castle.

My son, Ben, drove all the way there and back, so I had plenty of time to read and hand quilt.  I read a whole book on the way up and a whole book on the way back.  I hand quilted for several hours MOST of one day there.  I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics 4 times!!  There isn't one near my house, but there was one 4 minutes from my parents' house.  I got a great machine quilting book.  I will be sharing from that later.

Here is what I got accomplished as far as the hand quilting.

My Grandmother's Flower Garden wall hanging is finished (the hand quilting, that is!).  I am going to machine quilt in the border (because one would not see it anyway) and add a hanging sleeve, hopefully today.

In the first picture, I had one row of straight line quilting to do.  Can you find the "space"?  It runs left to right (mostly) across the purple, red, and blue flowers.




Remember back when I couldn't decide which way to quilt it--outlining the hexagons or straight lines?  I decided to do both on this quilt.  

One of my sister's girls is a senior in high school.  I told her I'd make her a quilt as a graduation gift.  We went to Jo-Ann's one day and eliminated about 600 quilt patterns!!  She has no idea what kind of quilt she wants.  Then she saw me working on this and said, "THAT'S the kind of quilt I want!!"   I frankly told her what I told Ryan, "I love you, but not THAT much!"  I explained it was hand cut, hand pieced, and hand-quilted, but I'm not sure she got it.  

I also took the log cabin wall hanging (43" square) to work on, not having much hope of accomplishing anything on it.  Well, I not only quilted the stencil I had marked at home in the center, but I also quilted 3 straight lines in the creams and most of a leaf pattern I drew in the next row of darks.  Now I wonder, will I be ripping out the few Baptist fans I've already quilted at the bottom edge?  Probably!  I loved the idea of it being quilted with all Baptist fans, but the other goes soooo much faster and seems to be more in keeping with the quilt itself.



I will be posting another picture of the log cabin later today.

Today will be filled with getting things back in order here as far as stocking up on groceries, cooking, laundry, chiropractor visit, sewing...all the ordinary things of my life.  One exciting thing is taking Ben to Chick-fil-A to finish his paperwork and move ahead in his first job!

DH took Susie to visit his family in GA and will be back Sunday night.  Sure do miss them.


2 comments:

Ruth said...

Your hand quilting is perfect! I love both of your projects. Did your niece ever decide or are you just going to make something you decide on. We are traveling also - in VA right now to visit a niece in McLean. We have never seen her kids before. Then on to NY and New England. I'm mostly reading and knitting in the truck - it's too bouncy to do much embroidery - which is the hand project that I brought along. I will take some pictures soon.

Christina said...

love that flower quilt, Mrs. Parker! I would totally request that one too but I also understand somewhat of how much work goes into it too.

I think it is because it is a more modern/younger pattern is why she likes it :)