Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Stars are heading home.


I went all out on this quilt; and I am pretty pleased with myself. 


Ignore the blue pen marks.  I thought I needed them for doing the border, but decided I was doing well enough without them, so all blue pen marks have to be removed  before going home.  

Here you can see the design on the back of the quilt.  


I used White Glide on the top of the quilt and a medium gray So Fine on the back.  

This quilt will get a little cleaning up and then it is off to the owner.  

Next up......Halloween!



Sunday, June 19, 2016

Half way there......

Working on my next customer quilt.  



Half way there.

Then need to figure out what  I will do for the borders.

Once that is done, this one is off to the owner.  

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Finally quilting....

I said I would put the knitting needles away so that I could and would get to my quilting projects.  

I pulled this customer quilt off the long arm this evening.


I have been procrastinating on this one.  I find it hard to knuckle down when the time line is open ended (no rush) and the design is up to me.  Lots of open space and what to do with it caused me  to think and rethink my design decisions.  

I finally decided to "divide and conquer"....something I heard a fellow long armer say.  

So, I took the length of the ivory area and the width and divided it up in sections.  I then drew out a feather pattern on a piece of tissue paper a quarter of the width of the fabric to fill that area.  I liked what I came up with and then stitched down the spine of the feather to perforate it. 


I then took my chalk pounce pad and marked the spine four times across each ivory strip.  

From there, I free motioned the feathers.  



I thought that was the hard part, but then I had to decide what to put in the...what I will call Chinese Coins.....area.

I think I had a harder time figuring that out than I did the feathers.

Anyways, the blocks were all different sizes....2", 4" and 7".  So, I decided to divide the larger block in half and this is what I came up for this area.  



Curvy lines and petals.  The only block that didn't get petals was the 2" block.  

I used an Ivory Glide thread on top and a golden colored So Fine thread on the bottom. 

This is what the back looks like. Here you can really see the overall quilting design.  


I have a few threads to weave in, blue marker to remove and dust off the chalk marks and then this one is ready to go home.  

Ok....tomorrow, another customer quilt goes on the machine.  




Friday, June 10, 2016

One more knit project.......

This Brio Poncho just took two days to make.



One more cold weather project out of the way.

But, here's the cutest model.


Ok.....before I pick up anymore yarn (which I have at least three more projects planned), I need to get back to quilting.



Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Let's think Winter for a moment.....

I say that only because I just finished knitting a wool scarf.



It is the Broken Garter Scarf from PurlSoho and I love it.  
It's soft, warm and I love this color (pink ballet).

Ok, moment is over. 

It's too hot outside to think Winter.  We need to enjoy the beautiful weather we have been having here in Michigan.  

I have been busy the last few days.  I had a customer request a baby quilt (Wednesday), so we texted back and forth for over an hour.  She showed me a quilt from Etsy that she liked.  It was  super simple, so I agreed.  It had to be done by the 12th.  That gave me 11 days to order the fabric, make the quilt, quilt it and bind it.    

She showed me the fabrics that she wanted from Hawthorne Threads.  

Here are the fabrics that came in the mail on Saturday. 

.
This gal is really retro/eclectic.

The baby's room is turquoise, orange and white, so I think her choices are pretty good for the room and her style, too.  

The design she decided on was this. 


Super simple and quick. 

The binding is made. 


I loaded it on the longarm and used a panto called Prism which goes well with the fabric design.  I even used a soft orange colored thread to quilt this.  




Quilting is done.


You can see the orange thread on the dimpled, white minky.

I have to say that this baby minky from Hawthorne Threads had lots of dimples and is so very soft.  I love it.  


Here it is with the binding on.  



Finished in plenty of time.  

Thursday, June 2, 2016

OH NO!!!!

Seriously.....I told my sister-in-law that I am going to quit hanging with her.  
My husband and I met up with her today for lunch and a little shopping (!!!).  

There were beads  to buy for some of the yarn that I bought last week; 


and, we thought we would just pop in to another yarn shop to look for a bead threader (which they didn't have) and I ended up buying a kit for  a poncho.



This is getting out of hand!!! Of course, I love it.  

The sole purpose of meeting up originally was because my husband broke his foot  over the holiday weekend and she had a boot to help stabilize his foot; otherwise, I wouldn't have found myself in another yarn shop for awhile. 

Oh well....it's off to the doctor's tomorrow. Knitting will be a great way to wile the time away waiting for DH as he is  being seen by the orthopedic.  



Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Time needs to SLOOOOWWW down......

Prior to leaving for retreat #2 I finished Nancy's nautical quilt.




Then it was packing up for Shipshewana, IN.

I have never been there and we stayed at the Farmstead Inn where I highly recommend having a quilt retreat.  The facility was perfect for a retreat.....great accommodations, good lighting in the sewing areas and located by lots of great shopping.  

While there I made all the blocks for my Diamond Detour and started putting it together. Here is what I have done so far.  


I did some shopping and have to say I absolutely loved Yoder's and Lolly's.  

.  

I have plans for the yellow.  The minions is going to be a pillowcase for my grandson and no plans for the black and white.  Then there was this embossed minky.  I fell in love with it and will most likely back a baby quilt with it.  


Besides quilting, I have been winding yarn and doing some knitting.  



Over the Memorial Weekend I attended a Plucky Knitter trunk show and bought the following five skeins of yarn that I, also, wound.  





This is what I started out knitting with.....PurlSoho, Ballet Pink,  Merino Mulberry.


As of today, I have used two skeins to get it to here. 


It's still on the needles and I am deciding whether to add another skein to it or stop here at 50" and make a matching hat or continue as the pattern says and get it to near 75-78".  

I have plans for the other skeins, except for the aqua ones.  I'll find something.  These are just great take along projects or late night projects to work on.   

I have been back from retreat for over a week, but  because we went up North over the long holiday weekend, I am just now getting my retreat stuff unpacked, so now it is time to get really busy.  

There are just too many things I want to do and still doesn't appear to be enough time to do them.  


Michigan quilters, take note

  Come see us at our first Quilter's to Quilter's sale.   Don't know what that is?  Well, it will be 28 quilters/vendors selling...