Pink Chunky Race is finished

Pink Chunky Race is a 50" by 71" donation quilt. I think a little girl will love it.

The fabrics are all from my stash - most of them scraps. A friend of mine said this top reminds her of cotton candy and there was almost a name change!

I used 40-wt Glide #10430 Battleship Gray thread to quilt loops and daisies. 

The back and binding are a dark pink fabric which I had to buy. I just don't have large pieces of pink fabric in may stash.

I'm slowly making my way through the pile of tops that I need to quilt but you know how it is - I had to start another one. I saw a picture, found a free pattern, and just did my thing. It's not done but I have some pieces (which need trimming) finished.

I haven't been spending much time quilting lately. Maybe things will change soon but we are enjoying some really nice weather so who knows?!

A walk and a very special friend

On Monday, we took a short trip to Madison, Wisconsin to visit the UW Arboretum. It's hard to believe that we've never been there. Many of the wildflowers were already gone but we saw some flowering trees,

many lilacs,

and a few wildflowers.

There were ponds,

interesting fungi,

an interesting tree,

and many kinds of paths.

Our only wildlife sighting was this turkey.

After our hike, we headed to FreshFin for lunch. It was our first visit there but it won't be our last!

I had the CYOB (craft your own bowl) with sauce on the side. It was delicious!

Our day was planned in advance but it was exactly the day we needed. Early that morning I found out that one of my best friends, Colleen Gift, had died on Sunday. She had a stroke on Good Friday and after about two weeks in the hospital went to a rehab center. We visited her there and she was doing well with a good prognosis but that changed. She was moved after a couple weeks to a long term care facility. We visited her Saturday afternoon. She wasn't doing well but the news of her death a day later was a shock. 

I met Colleen in 1979 when I began teaching at Highland College in Freeport, IL. We became close friends within a few weeks. Colleen was that very special, rare type of friend that ALWAYS said "yes" when I said "Could you" or "Would you". I know Ray always has my back and Colleen was always right there behind him. Our kids are near the same age and we went through many life events together. I will dearly miss her.

A walk in the woods gave me the time to reflect and the peace to shed some tears. It was the perfect place for me to be with Ray by my side. 

Maybe Equal?

The Maybe Equal? quilt is finished. The design reminds me of greater-than and less-than signs in mathematics, thus the name. (All of this math talk made me think of my undergrad advisor. He was my favorite math instructor and always used the word thus.) 

This donation quilt is made with a variety of grey fabrics for the background and then yellows, oranges, and turquoise fabrics for the 'lines'.  

The quilt is 51-1/2" square and is made with 289 HSTs. It was easy and fun to make and I love the all of the grays in the background. (HST means half square triangle - a square with a triangle for each half. An example: in the following picture, a yellow triangle and the gray triangle to the right make a square, a HST)

You can't easily tell that the colored stripes are quilted differently than the background but they are. The stripes are quilted with a lazy eight motif and the background is stippled. I used 40-wt Glide #10879 Sterling gray thread.

I decided to quilt the areas differently so I could practice rolling a quilt back and forth on the frame as I quilted it. I put the quilt on the frame and basted it using my longarm. Then I was able to roll it in either direction to quilt - no problems at all! I probably could have removed it and put it back on the frame without a problem. It's nice to know that I can quilt a whole stripe without breaking thread.

The back is a dark print with many colors from my stash.

Today the sun has been out and the wind has finally died down some. It was so nice to wear sweatshirts instead of coats while we were out doing errands. The weather people say we'll see 70s tomorrow - I'm ready!