{Post 1,516} What Has Joan Been Doing?

As I get older, I realize how important it is to have plans, but to be flexible.  One thing I'm trying to do more consciously is to invest in other people's lives.  

Here is a picture of Timmy and me.  We got him Sunday night and I took him home Tuesday afternoon.  So that meant some overnights and a lot of hands-on time.  While I was not expecting to do that, it was an investment in my daughter and son-in-law's life.  And I enjoy spending time with him.  He will be 2 in July.

Another investment I have been making is to teach a woman in my church how to quilt.  Here is her first large quilt.  She has also made a placemat-sized flag and a table runner.  I machine quilted this with Pajama Quilter's wonky feathers.  It is from a Quilt in a Day book.  All Thimbleberries fabrics.  Close up of quilting in the second picture.

Which one of these things is not like the others?  Ha ha...the man on the far right is NOT my son (but he is a wannabe).  One of my son's had to be at work last-minute because of a death in one of his coworker's family, so this man is filling in.  There is a slight resemblance, but he is definitely not Luke.

This my husband and I with 7/8 of our children.  Taken in January this year.  So proud of the people they are and are becoming.  Age 26 down to 16.  Well, 53 down to 15, but you get it!

{Post 1,505} Quilty Update

Here is the back of a customer quilt I have been working on.  It's a white-on-white fabric for the back.  I machine quilted free-motion wonky feathers on it.  

Now that I finally have finished it I can start on a quilt I promised I'd finish by Christmas as a gift.  I will be spending most of today on that.

Here is my current leader/ender a la Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com.  It is the tumbler.  Mine finish at 2" tall.  I am cutting up every scrap I can find, willy nilly.  Funny thing about scrap quilts...the more you add, the more looks right.  A close-up, then a view from the end of my quilt frame.  It is 98" wide.

Four rows strong, and lots of bits and pieces ready to add on:

{Post 1,498} Wonky Again

Started quilting my Past and Present 58" x 70" quilt top today.  I used Wonky Feathers from Pajama Quilter AGAIN...it's a personal favorite.  I am over halfway finished, and it is looking good...

This will be ready for couch use this Christmas!!

{Post 1,490} Two Big Finishes

Here is the finished baby quilt.  It measures 40" square.  I love the way it turned out.  The cream is muslin.  The quiltiness right out of the dryer is amazing!!  The quilt pattern is from Christina Cameli.  I forget the name of the exact design.  It quilted up so quickly.

My second really big finish is a pattern from an old American Patchwork & Quilting magazine.  I think it was called Pick & Choose in the mag.  It measures about 68" x 85".  Don't remember exactly.

This is a gift for my daughter that will be married on September 26.

This quilting pattern was found on YouTube by the same woman as above.  I love a good free-motion all-over quilting design.

{Post 1,488} Waiting for Binding Fabric

Here is the baby quilt, quilted!  I like the design.  Next time, I'll be sure to get those pebbles traced exactly right.  But I don't think the baby will be very picky.  The design is from a book called Step-by-Step Free-Motion Quilting by Christina Cameli.  I bought the Kindle version of the book.  I like to many of them.

This design reminds me of several things...an abacus, a string of wooden blocks like ones a baby would string on a rawhide strip, etc.  It quilted up soooo quickly.

I ordered fabric to bind this one and the pastel one today on eBay.  

It measures 40" square.

Here is my guest room.  Still needs a lot of work, but my sister and niece are coming Friday to stay, and I had to get something set up down there.  Here are pictures of the side table and headboard in my process of painting them, then a picture of the room as it.  When we were setting up the box springs, mattress, sheets, etc., I forgot to put the bed skirt on.  I haven't planned anything for the walls or anything yet.  The framed star is something I made for my sister, and that is her reminder to take it with her when she leaves.

What we have so far.  The crib is leaving as soon as it's sold.  

In the corner is a twin bed with another twin mattress beneath it.  So the room could sleep 4 adults and a baby.

{Post 1,468} Squares Surrounded in Use!!!

Here is my latest quilt for our bedroom, Squares Surrounded.  It is, of course, my favorite so far.  It combines my favorite things...scraps, a unifying striking color, scraps, small pieces, scraps, upcycled shirts, and scraps!!

Here are two views and then a peek at the back.

I am glad I took the extra time to make a beautiful machine quilting pattern instead of just meandering or something simple.  My only regret?  I would have made it longer.  Ah, well...it is fine!!

If you are new to my blog, here is a tip for you.  If you click on the label at the bottom, it will take you to all the posts for that subject.

{Post 1,467} Machine Quilting Squares Surrounded

Just started quilting this today.  I was going to do a fast and easy meandering, but it's for MY bed, and I'll be seeing it a lot.  I thought it was worth the extra time for the fancier stitching.  Only have two passes done.

We had bad weather yesterday afternoon and night...sleet, rain, then snow.  Everything was covered with a thin layer of ice.  We never lost power though, and we are thankful for that.

View out my front door:

{Post 1,459} Customer Quilt and Mine

Here is a customer quilt (a jelly roll race) I machine quilted yesterday.  I did a large meander in purple thread.  

Here's the back:

Here's the grandson I babysat yesterday and today (right about 6 months old):

Here's my Grandmother's Flower Garden that I'm taking to hand stitch before church.  My kids have to be there 2 hours early, so I'll be sewing.  I am attaching the light blue flower that is on the 3rd row right to the mother ship.  The bottom row is not all sewn together, and I hope to get to start adding that to the mother ship as well.  Wish me luck!!

{Post 1,378} Machine Quilting Again

I have had this quilt top and backing since August 2013.  Couldn't let quite a year go by without starting it.  So much has happened to keep me from getting to it.  But here it is.

The top picture was taken so I could remember how I quilted the corners.  I made up a swirl in the center with an 8-point flower coming off of it.  The border is done in a large feather.  I am trying something new.  Quilting all the way down the quilt, then reloading it sideways so I can stitch what are now the side borders horizontally.  That way I won't be advancing the quilt over and over and having to break thread and start over.  Cross your fingers for me.

I have had the thread break over and over.  It is so frustrating and takes the joy out of an otherwise pleasant occasion.

The back had to be pieced (I thought it was ready for me).  This belongs to a friend.  It sports the blocks that were meant for embroidery.  Someone painted them for her instead.  I am using a variegated peacock-colored thread on the colored fabrics and invisible on the white blocks.  

My quilting skills are rusty.  They are not that great anyway, so I decided to do a simple meander in the embroidered blocks.  That was for two reasons.  One is that I had no idea how the invisible thread would behave.  Secondly, I could not come up with a pattern that wouldn't have looked dreadful.

{Post 1,274} Four Pics of Finished Machine Quilting

The machine quilting is finished.  The binding is sewn end-to-end and ironed in half.  Tomorrow I will try to trim the top and put the binding on.  I am going to sew it to the back by machine (it is a bed quilt after all), so there is a good chance I could get it finished tomorrow.

{Post 1,234} Quilting Finished...On To Binding!

I have just enough of the backing fabric (a favorite navy Moda with little stars with blue dots in the center) for binding.  It's what's left on the sides and the end of the quilt.  I am going to do the back to front all by machine style.  

That will have to wait a couple weeks though.  We are making a trip to Florida to celebrate our anniversary with our daughter, whose anniversary is on the same day as ours.  Twenty-five years for us, and two for her :)

Then we are hosting a family for 5 days.  I might be able to squeeze binding time in there somewhere.  You know I'll try!

It was hard to get a picture of the quilting.  I used a light blue thread, and it was such a good choice!  It blended very well.  I like the quilting pattern and can picture using this one in various scale often in the future.  It feels so good to have another pattern in my very limited arsenal!!

{Post 1,233} Some Center Quilting

{Post 1,232} Quilting Underway on Shirts Abound

After much practice yesterday (OK, not all that much) on paper, I am attempting the swirl pattern.  I have learned what NOT to do...not if I can just remember to NOT do it!  Here is a sample of what I'm doing.  I took the picture with my hand there so you can see how LARGE and scale of the pattern is!  Light blue thread seemed the best match for the myriad of colors on the top.  I used the same thread in the bobbin although the backing fabric is navy blue (I had one 2" wide piece left on the bolt after piecing the back...whew!).  I can't take the pressure of making sure the thread tension is perfect so I don't get dots on the opposite side of that color thread.  This is FLYING along!

Incidentally, this is only one of two places where the exact same light border fabric is on both sides of the dark plaid center.  I have a lot of freckles, and here they are in living color:

{Post 1,167} Tree of Life - One Side Bound

Finished the machine quilting on my Tree of Life quilt.  When I trimmed the backing, I had enough for binding without cutting any more strips.  While I was on a roll, I sewed the binding to the front and have one side turned to the back and machine stitched down.  

I stopped to make a label.  Whew--there's no stopping me today!

Heading back down to sew the label in place so it will be sewn in as I attach the binding.

A picture of the back first.  I am surprised this looks so light in the picture.  The binding in the second picture is the same fabric.

{Post 1,153} Snowball Quilt Machine Quilted

This is heavy on pictures and short on words.  I did the first loops in navy, second in dark red.  The quilting pattern is called Double Bubble.  

All Thimbleberries fabrics.  Finishes at 68" x 80".

{Post 1,139} Today's Progress in Pictures

Border and center:

From the back:

The quilting on this might be finished tomorrow or Saturday!

~Joan

{Post 1,137} Start of Spool Quilting

Finally got the backing pieced for my spool quilt.  It's been a long time since I made a quilt this big.  OK--now that I think about it, maybe not that long (look here).

The difference is that this one has a row of pieced blocks in it.  And I might have forgotten to carry a one, making all 3 rows of the backing 10" too narrow, which meant I had to add an 11" piece to each length of fabric.  Maybe.

Here is a picture as I rolled the quilt top onto the frame.  This is the back of the quilt.

Here are two shots of the machine quilting.  I've only done two passes, but I am making the motifs fairly large.  I don't want a densely quilted quilt.  

Have you ever considered how confusing quilting vocabulary can be? 

~What are you making?  A quilt.  

~Can I see it?  It doesn't look like a quilt.  Isn't there usually puffy stuff in it?  This is just the quilt top.  

~Now I'm quilting my quilt.  Usually I piece them and have someone else quilt them.  

Most people who say they quilt really don't quilt at all.  They piece.  But we all know what they mean, right?

Here is the machine quilting on my quilt that I pieced along with 6 friends' contributions :)

In the top picture, the flash lightened it up some.  Most of these in the borders are Thimbleberries, with a few exceptions.

I used Pajama Quilter's wonky feather pattern.  I am doing it all-over, no special inner border treatment.  Sam sent me a great idea for the border, interlocking S feathers.  I'm not sure my skills would make it look good enough, so I'm opting to go with what I know I can do well.  This is a caramel colored thread.

{Post 1,124} Scrappy String Selvage Spiderweb Quilted

Today this entire quilt has been quilted.  I did a simple design so it would not be so stiff (the selvages make it stiffer than usual anyway).  I did a Fern Ziggle (Pajama Quilter design) on the center, reverse curlicues on the gold inner border, and what I call a hook feather on the outside border.

I did the center and inner border with a variegated pastel thread.  After that was finished, I realized I didn't have any thread that matched the outer border.  I didn't really want to wait until the sewing shop opened tomorrow because I had time to sew TODAY.  I looked through my machine quilting threads again, and came across one that sorta matched, but it looked way too gray.  It was from a box my friend Sam sent me a long time ago.  She was getting rid of threads she didn't like and sent me a box.  Thanks, Sam!  After quilting, this one really filled the bill!  it matched so well that I had a hard time seeing it as I quilted.

I'm so grateful for the GOOD things the internet provides.  I have made many new friends through it.  I used a design that I saw just a few days ago on my friend's blog.  The pattern was easy to figure out and went so quickly.  

There was also time to sew on the binding to the front.  I am going to start sewing it to the back tonight.  My daughter's baby was due 2/28 but has not been born yet.  This will keep me busy until we get the word that she is in labor and we start the 8-9 hour drive to go see our grandson!

These are the best pictures I could get until it's washed and dried.