One more finish for March!

Another chunky quilt is done - the Chunky Brown Quilt. This is really a variation as it has two wide rows followed by a narrower row which continually repeats before ending with two wide rows.  

I was going to make a quilt with various colored batik scraps but when I saw that I had so many brown pieces, I decided to go with all brown batiks and to use the narrower widths too. We may keep this quilt; it goes nicely with our furniture. The size, 60" by 80", is good for reading and/or napping on the couch.

I quilted it with a double loop using 40-wt Glide thread #20464 Medium Brown thread. 

The back is a medium brown with darker brown flecks.

Now it's time I get real serious about a graduation quilt that I need for later this spring...

Another Retreat Finish

I finished one other quilt at the retreat. This 48" by 54" quilt is for a special little guy. 

The center has roads with firetrucks and I think little cars could drive those same roads.

The sides have cars, trucks, school buses, campers, emergency vehicles,...

The backing is airplanes. I free-motion quilted this with a large meander using 40-wt Glide #10877 Sterling thread on the front and #70187 Ruby on the back.

I worked on a couple other projects at the retreat also. 

I am making quarter square triangles in bright colors. This is an ongoing, fun project.

I enjoy the improv when making these - anything goes. Fifteen blocks are done; I think I need around fifty. This will end up as an I-spy donation quilt.

I finished piecing the Pink Chunky Quilt. Yes, I'm still trying to use up my many scraps.

Today is Thursday - I think that means it's time for a storm since we have a storm almost every Thursday lately. Looks like the rain will begin soon and change to snow overnight. Sounds like a good day for quilting!

Time goes on ...

I'm not sure where the time goes and most days fly by.

Among other things, I've been busy quilting,

A donation quilt

doing a little shopping for a special quilt,

We are expecting a great niece and great nephew.
The adoption of the 8 year old and 5 year old should be soon.

delivering quilts to the Ronald McDonald House in Madison, WI (the Children's Hospital is not taking quilts at the time),

They would only take up to 20 due to space limitations.
I took 19.

spending a little road time with Ray, my favorite photographer,

enjoying out of town friends,

With the oldest daughter living a little over an hour away now,
we hope to see all of them more often.

relaxing at a snowy retreat with friends,

and seeing the last hockey games of the season for three of our grandsons. This 3-on-3 tournament, ended with a championship!

DS2 is the coach and GS2 is next to his dad.

The quilt retreat was this past weekend. We arrived on Thursday morning before the snow began so we were able to enjoy the snow and watching someone else deal with it while we visited, quilted, ate, and enjoyed ourselves.

I did finish The Chunky Turquoise quilt at the retreat. It is 58" by 64".

This donation quilt is quilted with 40 wt Glide #10877 Sterling (gray) thread. I free-motioned lazy eights on the first two rows, horizontal stippling on the next two rows, and continued in this way ending with two rows of lazy eights.

The backing is a tone-on-tone coral, a color seen on the front in a few blocks.

It's taking me some time to recover from the weekend; guess I overdid a little. I have more stamina than I did and it is slowly improving. I'll rest for a couple days and then all should be okay. I'm hoping to sew tomorrow.

Blogger problems resolved!

 Blogger problems resolved!

I finally figured out the problem. I'm not sure why settings on my MacBook changed because I deleted cookies but they did. I've been methodically researching and trying things and then today I was going to use online banking and couldn't. I then, knew exactly what the problem was (I've encountered this before): in Safari (my browser), under Settings, Privacy, "Prevent cross site tracking" cannot be checked. Glad that's resolved!

The Argyle Sweater by Scott Hilburn for August 04, 2011 | GoComics.com; Opens a new tab

Blogger problems

Two days ago I decided to delete the cookies on my MacBook. And now I cannot comment on any blog posts. I have researched, followed suggestions, and nothing changes. I will continue looking for the problem but for the time being, I will not be leaving any comments. 

A finish, a new griddle, and more

I saw the Missouri Star Quilt Company Disappearing Half-Square Triangle Nightfall Quilt tutorial and decided to make that quilt.

I bought a coral print ombre fabric at Sew Complete in Eau Claire, WI, last fall and decided to use that with various grays that were in my stash from the same trip and before. I arranged the blocks going from dark (upper left) to light (lower right).

The backing is a gray with circles that I found at Lolly's in Shipshewana, IN, last summer.

I free motion quilted this on the long arm with a meander stitch using Glide 40-wt #10877 Sterling Gray thread on the top and Glide 40-wt #10430 Battleship Gray thread on the back. 

This donation quilt is 57" by 68". It was fun to make and went together quickly.

There are 3 quilt designs in my head that I haven't quite put together yet. Hopefully soon. In the meantime, this quilt is on the design wall. The white background squares are Stargazer from MSQC. The blue squares are my addition.

When I last wrote, I was excited about the new kitchen appliances coming. The refrigerator caused all kinds of drama-- it's too tall... I ordered the right size... phone call.. it is the right height in back so it will fit... old one out...new one in...oops the doors won't open like they should...new one out... old one back in. So we have a new dishwasher and we still have our old refrigerator. Thank goodness it is still working and I hope it continues to run until we find a new one. We have to have a 33" with the doors opening level to the sides - which one can't find right now because they are only making 36". Eventually all things should return to more or less normal so we'll have to wait...

And the real excitement in the kitchen is our new Teppanyaki Griddle. Here it is on our gas stove right after we seasoned it. We did bubble the panel on the back of our stove from excessive heat when we were seasoning it. It's just the panel cover that bubbled a bit; everything still works fine. 

Here is one recent meal - smash burgers, buns, grilled onions, zucchini, and potatoes.

It's fun to cook on and easy to clean. We have a long list of things we want to try on it. Bon Appétit!

Small Gems is finished!

 In November, I finished Bright Gems. 

Small Gems is the same pattern but with smaller blocks and pastels. When I pulled scraps for Bright Gems, the pastels didn't work with the bright colors so I set them aside. Since there were so many pastels, I decided to make a second quilt with them. I also wanted to see the quilt with smaller blocks so Small Gems was created with 3 1/2" blocks instead of 4 1/2" blocks.

This donation quilt is 60 inches square.

The back is a purple/blue/green fabric from my stash. I free-motioned quilted this on the long arm using 40-wt Glide thread - #17443 Bone for the top and #10877 Sterling for the back.

I quilted this with a motif that I'm not sure has a name. I made two elongated loops similar to feathers and then echoed them before making two more loops. Sometimes I used only one loop and sometimes I echoed more than once. It is very typical with FMQ to use parts of a design as an area is filled. I haven't used this design for quite a while and it was fun, especially now that I can make everything larger on the long arm.

This week is a little exciting around here. Now remember it doesn't take much for us to be excited. Our new refrigerator and dishwasher will arrive shortly. All of our appliances will be the same color again! It's been a while - we never thought the fridge and dishwasher would last this long but we are not complaining. Tomorrow our Teppanyaki Griddle is supposed to arrive. It is custom made to fit our gas stove. I am more excited about the griddle than the appliances - both of us are excited to cook on it!

Interwoven Batiks

A while back, I saw a picture of a quilt like this on Facebook and in a couple of blogs. One version was called Intulawoven (that person had used Tula Pink fabrics) and she had done some beautiful custom quilting emphasizing the 'interwoveness'. I'm calling mine Interwoven Batiks. I made it months (years?) ago and then left it sit in the to-be-quilted pile. I fully intended to do some custom quilting on it using my domestic machine. But... the longarm arrived a year ago and I'm not sure how to do the quilting that I wanted to do on it and I have no desire to quilt on the domestic.

The quilt is made with batiks from my scrap basket and white. For the last few years, I've only used Bella Solid White #98 (bleached white) for solid white so all solid white scraps match. It sounds lazy on my part but saves a lot of time trying to figure out which white is which. It took a little work to get the colors where I wanted them so I used this diagram. There is one block (16 finished squares). I made my squares 3.5" finished but any size works. My blocks are 14" finished.

I wanted to use two colors of thread and am happy that my machine tension is fine to do that with Glide thread. I've tried it with both Finesse and Aurifil without success. I used Glide 40-wt thread - #17443 Bone on the top and #70187 Ruby on the back. I free motion quilted a large loop de loop motif. 

This 56" square quilt is a donation quilt. The back is red and black; it's Sedona Wave by Blank Quilting.

You can see by my design wall, that I am back to working on the tiny house quilt. I have added a few trees and I think I'll finish the top within a week. 

I don't think I have a good backing for this quilt so I think shopping will be in the near future!

Joy's Block and more

I get inspiration from a lot of places but sometimes it comes from blog friends. I try not to copy things but once in a while, I really want to. On November 5, Joy from The Joyful Quilter posted this little block - I'm guessing it's about 8-9" square. It intrigued me and I decided I had to make it...but I wanted to make it a much larger quilt.

This is the picture that inspired my quilt - I think Joy's hand is holding the block. Later she put a cute orange binding on the quilt. You'll find the finished quilt in Joy's post.

From Joy's blog 

I went to my stash and just pulled fabric that I thought would work. I made 5.5" HSTs. I did add 5.5" borders to the quilt and I finished the dark diamond in the border. The border and binding are Modern Muse by Stephanie Brandenburg for Frond Design Studios. I do love her fabrics!

This donation quilt is about 61" square. I free-motion quilted this with loops and double loops using 40-wt Glide thread, #10877 Sterling. 

The back is a blue and green swirl from my stash

Some other things I've been working include a couple more Chunky Race quilts. (Jasmine at Quilt Kisses inspired these quilts).When the quilts are finished, I'll get much better pictures.

Yesterday I finished Joy's Block. I finished piecing this quilt top, a disappearing HST that I saw on a Missouri Star Quilt Company tutorial.

And I finished quilting this quilt. It was a productive day!

I enjoy this "quiet time" of year because some days, I have lots of time to quilt! I still can't sew for hours at a time but I'm doing more than I was and I'm optomistic that will just keep improving.