Well summer slipped through my needle hole I do believe!

I did get my custom log cabin off the frame and quilted a couple of quilts for long-time customers. Now I'm onto quilting a Big Forks applique chickadee quilt that I just adore!!! I'll have to put up a couple photos later!

I am feeling the need for some inspirational color. I've got 3 inch squares of a 12 step dye run all over our guest bed. Now just to decide how to put them all together into something lovely!

Quilt on, all!

Pre-WIP

My goal this week is to have the log cabin quilt off my frame before Wednesday, so I can list it on the WIP as completed!!! Then all I have to do is bind it, but the major work will be done.

I've got 3 more blocks to hand piece to be able to work on a little wall quilt that I can do some inklique on. I think I'm going to put feathered wreaths in it on white so I can ink them. We'll see how that goes and hopefully I'll be posting pics along the way! The fabric I'm using for the inklingo hand-pieced blocks is from my hand dyed stash. Yippee!

Todays goal is to get the white areas quilted (on the log cabin) and try to figure out if my 1.5 inch border is still bothering me and needs more quilting. I'm not sure I want to leave this type of a border unquilted, even though it is stitched in the ditch....

Onward to another quilty type day!

WIP Wednesday (work in progress)

Log Cabin being quilted on the long-arm
Super Nova - sad this isn't done but now I'll get to post it on the new little feather weight!!! There is a reason for everything!!!
Pics to come!

A Quiltin' I will go

A Quiltin' I will go, A quiltin' I will go, Hi-Ho the Dairy-O, A quiltin' I will go!!!

Well it's been a while since I've been out here....planting season lasted a wee bit longer then I really expected. Got the pleasure of working one field 3 times before the rain/dry cycle let Brad get it planted. Boy was I getting tired of seeing that piece of ground! Hopefully Fall won't come too fast!

I'm sad to say, but the same quilt is on my long arm frame as when we started planting. Dang.... I'm hoping that today will be the day that I can possibly get it all finished. I've been able to work a little here and a little there. I think our schedules are slowing down now that softball is done. Now we just have swimming lessons and daily school work to keep up on things. So I should have more time...

More time for QUILTING : )

I was able to finally adorn my new little jeep with it's own personalized plates....Can you imagine what they say???? LV2KWLT and they are Simpson College plates to boot! I just love them and they match a dear friend in Nebraska's plates! Love ya Rosie!!!

Well along with long-arming I really need to get some time to play with the oldest/newest toy to my little collection!!! I bought a spring green refurbished featherweight! She is the most adorable thing, but I haven't gotten to sew a stitch with her. Although I know that she and I will sew happily together for many years to come! Dang she is cute! I'll have to post a pic or you'll have to catch a glimpse at her at the next class or something!

Better go be stitchin'
Have a fantastic day! Rainy and good for sewing!

Windy and cold sent us to the sewing room

Amelia finished the first mini block and made two more blocks. These are the centers of another round of fabric for each block. These are to be wonky, strippy constructed miniquilts that go into the larger block. I didn't cut as narrow stripping as what the pattern calls for. Afraid Amelia would feel that it could take forever to get a block done. Need some immediate gratification with this.

She is very proud to get 3 blocks done. 13 more mini blocks to get done and we can complete the actual whole block.

A fun afternoon of ironing for my little one!

Great weather day...so far

Today brought us a warm and sunny morning, which we took advantage of by dedicating it to kite flying. The tops of our Loess Hills provide the perfect kite flying venue. The parrot and rainbow kites took flight today. Our box kite didn't get to play, since I was helping Amelia learn to fly her kite. Quilting wise there is a log cabin quilt on the frame now. It's a top that I bought years ago and put a couple borders on it. Been trying to figure out how I wanted to quilt it so I attempted some free-hand feathers in the border. Took a shot from under the long-arm so you all could see it. Not perfect by any means. I believe I like things a little more marked, formal and defined. But it's a utility quilt anyway. Practice, practice, practice I keep reminding myself. So why the heck have I been fretting about what filler to put in the white areas of the quilt. Still haven't decided. Been playing on Amelia's little etcha-sketch thing. Haven't figured out what feels right yet, and then I remember utility. Just meander the dang thing and have it done. Does that set right? hmmm. Probably not. Well enjoy the shots! It's suppose to get colder as the day goes on and I know I will be in fields here soon. So trying to get whatever I can done!!

Doodle kind of day

Machine is timed and had some other issues with a cone of thread...but thanks to the APQS forum, I got that taken care of... it's now in the trash. Dang thing.

Anyway, I had muslin loaded on and spent my day just playing and making doodles. I guess it's a fun way to waste a day huh? Now it's time to get busy! But I thought I'd share what I did yesterday, after all....should we do it, if it can't be fun?

Snowy day it the northerlands

Well we woke up this morning to the cold finger of winter still trying to claim what should now be spring! 2-3 inches of wet white snow blanketed our farm. Burrrr. Now just down the road, where you drop out of the higher elevation of the Loess Hills there was no snow. Crazy!

I spent the morning finishing the timing of my long-arm. First time I've done it and definitely glad that I learned the process. Yippee, first time down. Then to test I played a bit with a new variation of feather that I've been penciling out. I like it.... It's a bit freeing, not so constrained. So the results look a little more modern, definitely not your grandmother's formal feather. I'm liking it. Will try to post a shot later.

I also have all my colored fabric cut for the Supernova block. Now just have to cut the background fabric. I think I'll play with it when I get the blocks together. I feel like it might need some type of applique border. Not sure. More to come on that.

Machine Class

I've spent the last two days trying to get over the fear of this great big hairy long-arm machine that I have. I wanted a bit more knowledge on the workings of the machine, as well as how to better take care of the thing. So I signed up and took a two day class on Machine Maintenance at APQS.

Now Amy was just the very best teacher and very patient with me and my fears! Hooray for her.

Well that's where my time has been spent.

Here's some sunshine

Can't wait to do something fun with this little grouping! What a ray of sunshine!!

Amelia's new project

On the way home with the totem pole yesterday, Amelia and I had made plans to stop and pick out some new fabric for her to start working on another quilt.

I had picked out the Cryptogram quilt from the new Fons and Porter magazine. It has little unique quilt blocks set into larger blocks. I figured that these little blocks are like mini quilts and she could practice her straight line stitching for these. The Cryptogram has some wonky type seams and it gives it some character, so if everything isn't so perfect it would be just fine and lend to the quilt.

Since she wants her new room decorated with a pink, black, white and a touch of green (Paris theme) we picked out those fabrics for her to make this 60x60 quilt.

This brought light to the day!!!

We got home and we started cutting random strip sizes for her to work with in the little 8.5 x 8.5 inch blocks. Too fun! Can't wait for next weekend so she can piece some more! It's so great seeing her get excited as things come together!

Hope the clouds part today and give everyone a bit of sunshine in one way or another!

Loving stitches to all!

Dollie

A day full of sorrow

Tonight I will be putting some more stitching in my fall quilt binding.

Amelia and I went down to one of my favorite places in my childhood/adult history...Camp Neyati. This was my beloved girl scout camp. I grew up there as my mother directed many girl scout camps and we had many family adventures there as well.

During this time my father and a wonderful master wood carver, from Glenwood, set out the plans to create a totem pole to showcase the different logos that my mother had used for the different camps that she directed. These two wonderful gentleman, with the help of all attending girl scouts, carved the pole at the last camp that she directed. The totem pole was housed in the great Rose Lodge at the girl scout camp. It has stood there for 26 great years, watching over all the fascinating girl scout adventures that went on in the lodge.

The council office decided that Neyati needed to be put on the sale block and sold. So today I went down to bring home the totem pole. Luckily I had some knowledge of the happenings so I could take care of this item. Otherwise it might have went onto the closing fire ring that is to happen there Thursday night.

Amelia and I spent a good amount of time walking, driving through the camp so I could show her where her grandfather loved to fish and where her grandmother took a tip off of a canoe on her first canoe ride. Lots of fun memories there... tears too from today.

Neyati you will be near to my heart always and greatly missed since my daughter will not be able to camp there.

Binding type of day

Well today is the day to get the binding applied to the fall quilt, which is posted in pics below. I tried a new technique of sewing 1/8 inch grossgain ribbon to the edge of the quilt to make sure that the edge hangs and lays absolutely flat. We'll see how that works out once the bindng is applied.

Once I get the binding on, I can happily stitch the edge at night! That will free up my last few days (before jumping in a tractor) to get another quilt on the long-arm!

Happy stitchin'
D

Happy National Quilt Day!

Well I made a point to finish the micro-stippling on this quilted piece this morning. Just so I could say that I finished on national quilting day! Hooray!

You can take a look at it. First attempt at wholecloth quilting. First thing on the frame with new M&M wheels, and first time to micro stipple. Learned ALOT! You might not want to look at the back of this one! ha.

Have a great quilty day!

Dollie

Post St. Patty's day

Well once again St. Patty's day has come and gone and I've yet to design or make something darling to honor that part of my wonderful heritage, and my most loved place to visit! I do really need to put that on my list of things to accomplish for 2011. Then it would be ready to proudly display for 2012 St. Patty's day!

I put a post out here yesterday for the supernova quilt along and forgot to put up the blog location. It's http://freshlypieced.blogspot.com/. So go visit it!!

Have a lovely day! and hopefully I'll get to post a pic of a small wholecloth that I'm quilting the be-geezes out of. Wanted to test out my new M&M wheels on some freehand stuff and found them to work wonderfully.

Dollie

Supernova quilt-along

Seen this lovely design out there on Freshly Pieced blog and decided that it might be the perfect design to use my hand-dyed rainbow on.

We'll see how this goes!!! I'm looking forward to it.