Finishes

Friday, June 30, 2017

LAQ Session #3

Last week I went and played with the Longarm machine again
and finished another quilt.
I had wanted to work on a larger quilt,
but had another commitment that afternoon and was afraid
I wouldn't have enough time.

This little quilt only took me an hour and 45 minutes to quilt,
start to finish.
It seems like it takes longer to get the quilt loaded onto the longarm
than it does to quilt it.
Of course, my quilting is basic at this point!



This pattern is super easy and quick,
especially since I had a layer cake to use.




The quilting started off a bit wonky,
but got better as I went along.
I might need to make an extra long backing
and put a piece of fabric at the top on which to practice,
before getting to the actual quilt.



 This will go in my
"waiting to see where it belongs"
pile.



I love the backing fabric.
It doesn't match the top at all,
but it's pretty.



Speaking of pretty...


I was able to snap a photo of this moth on my Lantana this morning.
Beautiful!

Happy Quilting!
Happy Friday!

Monday, June 26, 2017

Another Found Treasure

I'm almost embarrassed to tell you about my latest find from the
 cabinets in my Hidey Hole,
but confession is good for the soul, right??

Six years ago, yes... SIX!.... my goddaughter
(the one who was married in May)
asked me to help her with a school project.
She is very artistic and had to make a project for a class
her Senior year of high school.
I can't remember what the theme was or what the project was supposed
to represent,
but she asked if I would help her make a quilt.

Of Course I would!

She came over and went through my fabric stash and found
fabrics she wanted to use
and away we went.


My goddaughter had sewn some,
so she did a great job putting this quilt top together.
She received an "A" for her project
and was really happy with the results.
 

Then it came back to me to quilt.
And there it sat....
hidden in a cabinet.
OH, I'd find it every once in a while
and remember that I needed to get it quilted,
but back into the cabinet it went.

My goddaughter never said anything about it,
but her mom asked about it recently.

Wow! How could I have NOT quilted it in all of these years?

Last week I pulled it out, 
found some backing fabric,
pin basted it,
quilted it,
bound it,
and.....


It's finished!





It didn't take long to quilt once I sat down to do it.


Maybe it was waiting until I could quilt feathers into it?
Six years ago it would have been straight line quilting all the way.

 


I don't know why we do this....
start something and not finish it for years.
How often, when we do finish it, do we say
"Why did I wait so long?"



It is finished and will be delivered to her this week.
She doesn't know I've finished it,
so, hopefully, will have nice surprise.
Hopefully she remembers making it!
:D



I picked these from my garden last night.
They are the biggest zinnia's I have ever seen!



I'm linking to Judy's Design Wall Monday at
Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

Happy Quilting!

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Triangles by the Sea

Do you ever find a fabric and want to buy bolts and bolts of it?
This is how I feel about Kaffe Fassett's Spiral Shell fabric. 
I love this fabric and have used it in several quilts already.




I've also made a couple of quilts with triangles and really like this design.
They are quick, easy and look so nice.



Polka dots are some of my favorite prints.
This color palate makes me smile! 

 

This baby quilt will be put away for a future baby.
It was nice to do some mindless sewing and quilting.
 





Happy Quilting!

Monday, June 19, 2017

Natalie's Tree Skirt

A dear friend has a daughter who is getting married on Saturday
and her gift is finished,
just in time.

My Traditional Wedding Gift....
when appropriate, of course.
:)




I love the glitz and sparkle in the fabrics used for this
Christmas Tree skirt.
It would have been fun to quilt it with silver thread,
but I didn't have any and needed to get it quilted.

 

It will be wrapped and delivered this week.
 

This pattern is can be found here
and uses one layer cake with some yardage for the setting triangles.
Easy pattern, but I love the design.

I am linking to Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Happy Quilting!


Saturday, June 17, 2017

Seeing Wonderful Sights...

Late Thursday night,
my husband and I returned home from a wonderful vacation.
We took a Rhine River cruise with our dear friends
and saw some beautiful sights.
Cruising up river, even though we were going south,
was so relaxing and fun.
The scenery along the Rhine is amazing and the history we saw
and learned about was wonderful.

Here are just a few of the photos I took on our trip.


We started the trip by spending a couple of days in Amsterdam.
It rained and rained while we were there,
but we slogged and trudged through the storms
and saw some wonderful things.

It was too late for the tulips,
but we found these at the flower market.

 

A few of the many houseboats along the canals.

 

You can't go to the Netherlands without seeing the windmills.
There were 19 of these historic windmills in this one area.
They are on the historical registry and have to be maintained
by the owners.



The cathedral in Cologne, Germany was just beautiful.
Amazingly, very little damage was done to this cathedral during WWII.

Below is the cathedral at night from across the Rhine.
 



One afternoon we cruised up the Middle Rhine
and saw castle after castle after castle.

 

Some have been restored and are now hotels,
restaurants or youth hostels.



Marksburg Castle is the only castle that had never been destroyed.



Some look over quaint little towns with vineyards growing up the hills.
These vines are planted in vertical rows on these hills.
Some of the hills are very steep and we were amazed that they could grow like that
and be harvested!

 

Some castles looked over other castles.
This white one in the river was built to collect tolls from the boats traveling on the Rhine.
The Rhine River has the most boat traffic of any river in the world.



There were more beautiful, big churches than I could count along the way.
I love the little chapel on the hill, looking down on the town and river.




 When in Germany, do what the Germans do....
drink beer.
We went on a Pub crawl and this is what you do when you don't 
want another glass of beer.



In Heidelberg we toured a castle that had been added onto several 
different times and was then destroyed by Louis XIV.
Three different centuries are represented here.



 And then there was the architecture of the homes.
Half timber homes, old plaster homes...
all with gorgeous flowers in window boxes and pots.






 I loved this building.
It held a pottery shop in the first floor space
and hung the examples on the outside of the building.




This is one of HUNDREDS of wineries in Alsace, France.
They grow seven different varieties of grapes and have to follow rigid guidelines
when making the wine.
These barrels are 90 to 200 years old!


The world's largest cuckoo clock can be found in the Black Forest of Germany
where cuckoo clocks are made.
There were some fancy clocks in this shop!

 

This is a stork!
Annabelle is her name and she lives in her nest on top
of the remnants of a church that was bombed in WWII.
Storks mate for life, migrate to South Africa and other places
and come back to the same nest year after year.
She put on quite a show for us this day!

 

On our last day we visited Colmar.
My husband is a bit of a WWII history buff and was pleased to be able to see this memorial
to Audie Murphy.
We went on a tour of the battle in Colmar and had an excellent guide.
It was a sobering afternoon.


We are adjusting back to east coast time, while remembering the 
wonderful time we had on the river cruise.



Happy Weekend!

Monday, June 12, 2017

Kaleidoscope Quilt Top Finish

This kit has been a lot of fun to make!
The fabrics are cheery,
the design is random and freeing
and a quilt top is finished.


This is the top half sewn together.

 

And the whole quilt top.
I need to find a good place to take photos of my large quilts.
They are too big for my design wall
and I don't have a good place to stand and hold them up for photographs.

 

You get to see the fabrics and colors here, though.

 

The Design Floor Shot.

 

This will go in the
"waiting to be quilted" stack.
Another quilt out of my cabinet
and almost finished.

Happy Quilting!

Friday, June 9, 2017

Second Quilting Session

I've mentioned here before that I am taking classes to learn how to use a
Long arm quilting machine.
I've had my second quilting session and
I love it!!

The most challenging thing for me at this point is getting used to how
"loose" the long arm feels.
I'm used to having to pull fabric through my sewing machine
and the drag that the quilt has on the quilting.
With the long arm, I feel like I just have to touch it and it goes.

So...
I've been saving another ugly quilt for practice.

What do you get when you combine fabric you don't like
with a boring pattern?


You get a great quilt to use for practice
when learning to long arm!


Some of the fabrics in this jelly roll has stars,
so I decided to quilt stars throughout.
Some of the stars are spot-on,
others.... not so much.

 

Using the long arm is becoming more comfortable for me,
but I am a LONG way from being "good" on it.
Practice makes perfect!
(Or better. :))

The next session has been scheduled.

Happy Quilting!

Monday, June 5, 2017

Christmas in June

Usually the retail market calls for
Christmas in July,
but I don't have a wedding in July.
A wedding gift is needed for June.
As some of you know,
my traditional wedding gift is a 
Christmas Tree Skirt.

The top is finished and it's ready for quilting.




This is a shimmery, sparkly, silvery tree skirt.
I love these festive prints and colors.
It's all basted and ready to quilt.

 

Hopefully it will be finished soon.

The pattern is called
by Moda Bakeshop.
It goes together in a snap!




I'm making progress on the
Kaleidoscope kit  
and have one quarter of it sewn together.
The randomness of the fabric placement is so fun.
As I was placing the blocks on my design wall,
I left a few of the same fabrics next to each other.
It gives it more visual interest, I think.

Hopefully this will be a finished top soon.

Happy quilting!