The hubster

The hubby with the "Golden Doodle" that lives next door.

What a sweet looking picture.......(he posed)

Spring Fling Pantograph

Started the quilting.

Grandma Mary's Five Patch

The original pattern was only 61 x 72.  I ended up adding another row of blocks and an 8 inch border.  Mine ended up about 91 x 91.  After my last summery quilt shrunk up and is now too small for the Queen bed, I was determined to make this one big enough. Now I get to decide how to quilt it.  Would love to custom quilt it, but just not sure yet.  You can find the pattern here.

I used mostly scraps, plus a few 1/2 yard cuts I purchased last week at our local quilt shop sale.  Yesterday, I found the cute border fabric at JoAnn's on sale for only $2.49/yard.  It seems to be a good quality fabric.

Saturday Sewing

A nice day.  Walked on the walking trail listening to some Nicole C. Mullen, Anthony Evans, Allen Asbury. Great music.  Then worked on this.

Also did internet research on cameras.  My little "freebie" fujifilm (work anniversary gift) just doesn't make the quilt photos I would like to see.  They aren't bad, but I can tell from other blogs the difference in good photos and great photos.  I'd like to take mine up a notch.

Another Summer quilt

After I gave up on making a bed skirt (I need to stick to quilting), I started another summery looking quilt. Our local quilt shop had a sale today, 25% off all fabric on bolts.  I brought a few 1/2 yard cuts home.  I searched through my stash for some bright colors and started cutting.  I had to put a few of these together tonight, although you can't really see the overall pattern with only those four blocks.

  It is a simple pattern of 2 1/2 inch strips and 6 1/2 inch squares. Much like the one I just finished.

Supper

Kabobs!

And Jesse enjoying the nice weather outside near his daddy, while the kabobs are cooking.

I guess letting his leg hang off feels better on his sore knee.

By the way, any of you readers ever made a bedskirt?  I am going to try it tomorrow......

Jesse's Knee

The vet says most likely he has a torn ligament in his knee.  He has been limping around for a couple of weeks, but it really hasn't hampered his active lifestyle much.  Our choice was x-ray and then possible surgery (ching, ching!) and then he still may get arthritis, or give him an anti-inflammatory medicine for a few days and see how he heals on his own.  I voted for that.  Either way, he is probably going to get arthritis in his little furry knee.

Dry Thread

Yes, dry thread.  That was the cause of all my problems on the machine last night and today.  I should have known.  It has happened before.  The spool of thread was less than a year old but it does get hot up in my sewing room. This is the little chair quilt I was trying to make for my friend. 

I bet I had it on and off the machine about 3 times. Tried to quilt it on my little one, but that was unsuccessful.  After my mom mentioned the thread may be my problem, I changed to another color and it worked, but this was after I already had the straight lines stitched on the little machine.  I just hope it will work for my friend's husband, and will keep his head cool when he is in his leather recliner.

Arrrgggg!

The top thread keeps breaking on my quilting machine.  I hope the timing isn't off ---I don't know if I can fix that.  I've always dreaded the day when something messed up on it.  Even though I took a maintenance class, that was two years ago, and it has been humming along fine with no problems.

And I was working on a special little chair quilt for my friend's husband who is battling cancer.....

Summer Quilt

I am a few months late in getting my spring/summer quilt made, but it is done, with shams!

Sorry the above picture is a bit dark.

Really like the shams.

Pillow Shams

I made one of the shams to go with the new quilt.  These take a while (~3-4 hours) but they are so worth it.  I used Heather Mulder Peterson's Book, Shams with Style.  She has a few different versions and good instructions.  My 9-patch version wasn't in her book, but it was easy enough to adapt and use her cutting measurements and sewing directions.

I hope to make the other one tomorrow.

Elephant Ear

I thought I would share this picture of the elephant ear plant on our front porch.  It is so big and pretty!

A New Favorite

I have a new favorite quit.  I love the fact that I used all scraps and fat quarters I already had (except 1). I love the scrappy binding; I love the mix of creams and whites; I love the bright summery look; I love the traditional pattern; I love the quilting, oh my, I really love this quilt.

It is made from 2 1/2 inch scrap strips of colors and neutrals for the 9-patch units cut 6 1/2 inches and alternating rows of creams and whites in between the 9-patches. I added a 2 inch white-on-white border and a 5 inch cream (muslin) border so it would be big enough for our queen size bed. Backed with the same premium muslin used on the border.  The quilting is beautiful on the back too!

Beautiful.

Banner year for pickles!

I finally finished up the sweet pickles.  This years total is 17 pints of dills and 21 pints of sweets.

I took off a few hours from work yesterday to work on my 9-patch.  I finished all the quilting and am working on the binding.  I really like it!  It is bright and summery.  I am pleased with my quilting except for the border.  I didn't do a good job of that. I am doing a scrappy binding.  Stay tuned, I'll post a finished picture soon.

UV light

I used the UV light on my quilting machine today for the first time.  I was doing some custom quilting with cream thread on cream fabric and I could not see my stitching at all.  It really helped. I really enjoyed making these sunburst/octopus designs.

Continuous curves are still my enemy.  I am terrible at them.  I read that you should keep your eye about an inch ahead of the pantograph pattern when you quilt using them, so I tried to keep my eye ahead and focus on where I wanted to go (the corners).  That helped.  I think those are the hardest thing to do in custom quilting.