Patriotic Irish Chain--blocks done

All the blocks are done, now I have to sew them together and put on the borders. I have no idea what I will quilt on this. I might find a partner longarmer through QOV an let her do the quilting. I think this one will be done soon--and that feels good. I bought some skull fabric for the next QOV--a request as well. No accounting for taste!

Patriotic Irish Chain

This is the next quilt I'll be working on. I was going to quilt the retirement quilt next, but I got a request for another Quilt of Valor, so I'm working on it. The person who asked for it, has a particular person in mind, and said he would really appreciate something in red, white and blue. This is the Irish Chain pattern I used on the last QOV, but as you can see I have adjusted the colors.

Since I live in a town with lots of military, I have plenty of folks in the area who are deserving. I now have a contact so that I can get them to folks locally.

I'll post pictures as I complete it.

All done and washed

Finished up 6 quilts in the past 3 days--well, actually I'm counting that I finished them because they got washed and dried today--though I did finish 4 quilts since Friday.

I had three quilts that were just waiting for binding from at least 8 months ago--those are the tetrad-bargello, Irish chain, and curved log cabin. The tetrad and the log cabin I quilted. I rented some time on a handi-quilter 16 and used one free pattern I found online, and another (the dragonflies) that I bought as a stencil. I think I like my quilting better on my home machine. I feel like I have more control--and I know that if I need to stop, I won't have to pay for that time.

I feel great knowing that these are all done. I'll send the three baby quilts off to California tomorrow. The bargello is for me. I used a wool blanket I bought at a surplus store for the batting, I hope it will be warm. The back of the house (where I sit to read) is quite cool in the winter time. We have a wood burning stove to keep it warm, and a two-story wall of south facing windows with a curtain that goes up and down automatically depending on the temperature difference between inside and outside. Sometimes when I am sitting working on the computer or reading it's in the mid 50's, and that's cold when you're sitting still; so, the wool batting.

The log-cabin is only a year late for a birthday present--but then that's what Julie has come to expect over the years!

These two are finished. I just have to wash them and they'll be ready to go. The brown and yellow quilt, is a Quilt of Valor and will be given locally. The Sunflower and Ladybugs quilt will be sent to California for a great-niece.

Next comes a quilt top that I made for a friend who retired; that was last May. She'll have it before next May!



Here's a preview of that quilt. I don't know what I am going to do for the quilting, but I am going to "hairspray" baste it. I'll let you know how it goes.

Sunflowers and Ladybugs...and other stuff

I have all the flowers quilted on this top. They remind me of sunflowers, so that's what I'm calling them. The intersections of the corners needed something, so as I was laying in bed a couple of nights ago before I fell asleep I was thinking about bees. I looked around online, and them remembered I had downloaded some quilting motifs a while ago from the Quiltmaker magazine site. (They don't seem to have them available anymore.) I looked through them and one was a ladybug that looked easy to doodle so away I went. The ladybugs among the flowers make me smile--so I'm happy to have them.


Earlier I was reading the HGTV quilting forum, and someone had a link to a site for free software for making quilts from photos. It's not the typical mosaic type, but lets you draw your own lines to make a pattern. It's called QuiltAssistant. Here's a sample of a photo I played with in Photoshop elements last year blocked out to piece using QuiltAssistant. I think this will help me get started using my photos to do some quilting I've been wanting to, but not knowing how. I don't think I'll use the templates that the program produces, I'll just use the line drawing as a general guideline as to what the pieces might look like, and about what size they might be. It will also give me a guide as to about what colors I might want to to dye. I've done some dyeing, but I really want to do more.

Started quilting

Well,I got the back together for this quilt, (I used John Flynn's diagonal piecing method to save fabric found here toward the bottom of the page.) I just forgot that I had to start with the measurements I wanted the back to be, not the measurements of the quilt top (so it was a little close). I played around some and came up the the pattern you see quilted. I watched the pajama quilter DVD again, and got some more ideas.

Since I've started looking at quilting as doodling with thread I'm good. I can doodle--no problem. It's when I try to make something exactly "this way" or "that way" that I go insane.

Each of the flowers I've done (there are 3 finished so far) probably took about 5-7 minutes. I only have 20 to do, so I should have this one quilted by Wednesday (she says with great confidence.)

I still haven't bought any fabric. I'm going to do my best to keep it that way. I have lots and lots of fabric, and I really want to use it up.

I've been Tagged

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long. I've been doing things other than quilting--putting in a tile floor--getting over a cold--that sort of thing. We haven't grouted the floor yet--we only have the entryway done and I want to grout it and the kitchen all at once so the grout color is consistent.

Penny tagged me yesterday and even though I haven't been blogging long I'll do this--

here are the rules:

1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post THE RULES on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link to them.
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

facts about me:
1. I lived in Germany near Heidelberg for 2 years and neither I nor my husband are in the military or have ever been.
2. I read for my light entertainment--haven't had TV reception in my home for 14 years (including the 2 years in Germany).
3. I have traveled to Israel, New Zealand, and many countries in Europe.
4. I have 6 siblings, 14 nieces/nephews, 9 great-nieces/nephews and 3 on the way.
5. I own a Prius and get about 46 mpg.
6. With my husband, I tore down a really small and unusual closet in my bedroom (it had shake shingles on it) and built a walk in closet this past summer, and am replacing all the flooring in our 2200 square foot home.
7. I live on 16 acres of pine and aspen in the mountains of Colorado.

I haven't been reading blogs long enough to know if many have been tagged, but when I've done searches of sites most already have been. I guess the geometric progression makes it difficult to leave someone out when the community of bloggers is relatively small. After only 8 "layers" of tagging as many as 5, 764,801 people could have been tagged (7 to the 8th power) so I'll just list some of the folks below I find very interesting reading.

Gone Aussie Quilting
Lazy Gal Quilting
Feed Dog
Quilt Antics
ooh Pretty Colors
Fabric Dyeing 101
Quilting Twin