Awards Banquet Pictures

Do you ever feel like you're being stared at? I asked Rachel (12) if I could take a picture of her hair, and this is the look I got...



Here is Emily's hair from the side. The girls in the youth group usually congregate at a few of the girls' houses to do their hair. Some of the college-age girls help with that. My oldest daughter was one of them this year! Thanks, Elisabeth.


Here is a shot of all five of my youth-group-aged children...from left to right, Rachel, Benjamin, Emily, Luke and Susanna. Although Benjamin's team won the award for the year, he doesn't look very happy about it! He was probably sad for the teams that did not win.

I wish I could have gotten some good pictures of the inside of our church building. It was amazing, but there was very little light, so it was difficult to photograph. It was a "seeking the truth" theme, and was based on an Indiana Jones-esque type theme (from what I'm told...I've never seen Indiana Jones myself)...sand on the floor, stone walls, burlap-looking swags draped from the ceiling, torchlight, etc. The guides (seaters) were dressed in outback outfits.

Good night!

~Joan

Spring is in the Quilting?

Here is a quilting project I started today. The top thread has already broken on my machine at least ten times. That really takes the joy out of machine quilting for me, but to avoid basting has its price.

I am using a variegated cream/tan/taupe Signature thread. I have not had problems with the S thread in the past, but perhaps the variegating makes the thread weaker? Hmmm..

This was pieced a million quilting years ago. It was one of my first leader/ender projects. I saw and fell in love with the strip between the pieced units. Unfortunately, it was no longer in print when I first saw it. eBay to the rescue! I got a 2 yard piece. Then I picked 2" squares from my scraps that matched the colors in the strip. The strip has blue flowers, raspberries, and little tan birds. It is so beautiful. Thimbleberries, of course.

Off to my children's year-end youth group award banquet. Here are pics from last year. My sweet husband bought our three girls corsages and our two guys boutonnieres. You can be sure I'll post lots of pictures.

~Joan

More Hand Quilting

Here is my other hand-quilting project. I call this The Grass is Always Greener (Click on the link to see all past posts for this quilt). To explain the quilting...I did a machine-stitched meander quilting in all the green areas. Everywhere except for the cream and the 4-patch inside of it.

I don't like the quilts to have varying amounts of puffiness, so I am hand quilting in the ditch around the cream square and an "X" through the 4-patch from corner to corner on each block. I am marking in the cream area with a water soluble marker to make it easy to see and remove.

Since I had several hours to quilt this past Sunday afternoon (stayed at church with nothing to do, boo hoo), I am over half finished with the blocks. The binding is sewn down by hand about 1/4 of the way around, too.

Closer...four of the blocks that have been quilted...

...and closer still. This was an incredibly easy block to piece. The book I got the pattern from had a lot of neat tips in it for making this block a piece of cake.

My only "recipe" for the color layout was that I did not use greens in the outermost part of the block. That is because they were surrounded by greens, and the design would have been lost if they blended in.





I have always been partial to wearing green clothes because I have green eyes. Now I guess that gives me license to wear this quilt around the house...or not.

~Joan

Quilted Cotton Seeds

Above is the progress on my spool quilt. I am very discouraged because I am not hearing back from the woman that is sending my last set of 25 blocks. It's been nearly a month since I wrote her. I am at the point where I need to just fill in the last corner. I really want to wait to get the last set so I can mix them together. Assistant: very cute 10-year-old son. I am not sure if I should just go ahead and piece 25 more blocks of my own or what.

I am so glad I blog. I was able to look back and see where all the little HSTs came from for this next top. I remember that I had enough to make this quilt and one top to sell from wherever it was. Here is the quilt and picture of this one unquilted.

I've been working on it the past week or so and am nearly finished hand quilting the center. I'm quilting it with lines about 1" apart that go in the ditch of the pieced rows. My border is looking wavy since the quilting is pulling the center in a little. The yellow threads are my basting.

Here is the whole thing. The HSTs finish at 1" square. I am finished up to the last large block in the top left corner. Now I'm wishing I had continued the quilting right into the border. I guess the reason I didn't was that I am using a dark tan thread, and I did not want it showing up that much in the border.

I am hand quilting one other "piece", but I'll photograph that in the morning light. These were taken in my sewing room after sundown, so the lighting isn't so great.

Good night!

~Joan