Vacation

Aahh, vacation! Back home next week.


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Finishes

 I've had a few finished in the last few days, but I haven't had a chance to get the posted. This is Janice's quilt. I have been calling it "Leading Ladies." There is a lot of piecing in this lap quilt!

 She does such great quilts.

I tried a new border design. It's from Dustin Farrell's book Freehand Filigree. I really like the way that it turned out.

 This one is by Anelise, for her grandson. He is a skate and snowboarder. I've been calling this one "Shred."

I'm not too familiar with current lingo, but I think shred is a term that boarders use. Though I'm not exactly how it works in a sentence. "You shred." "Shred it!" I have no idea. I'm just an old grammy.


She has inset photos of her grandson in the borders.

Anelise makes some of her quilts reversible. This is the back side of "Shred."





Well, back to work!

Yumm!

A while back I went on an internet search for oatmeal cookies. I found similar recipes here and here. I was intrigued by using the beer reduction to flavor the cookies. I used the recipe on the second link.

Well, let me tell you they are the best oatmeal cookies I've ever made. There is just one little problem, they turn out best if you use butter flavor Crisco. I feel guilty using hydrogenated vegetable shortening with all the bad press it gets, but boy are these good.

I think that the next time I make them I'll try using the spices that the recipe on the first link includes.

Try them! Bet you can't eat just one.

Whew!

Just barely enough backing for this quilt. I knew it was going to be close. Because longarmers have to pin the backing on the rollers we need more backing than hand quilters.

I'm glad we didn't run out!


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Sunflowers

A few weeks ago I posted a couple of pictures of sunflowers that I was quilting. I couldn't show the whole quilt because it was the quilt for the out-going president of Thumb Butte Quilters' Guild.

She was presented with the quilt yesterday, so I get to share the whole quilt today.

I like the way that the flowers and the rooster are poofy. It gives them some dimension.

There is a hidden dragonfly in the quilting. The rest of the background is a mix of designs from Dustin Farrell, Claudia Pfeil, Nichole Webb, Carla Barrett, Jamie Wallen, and every other teacher that I've taken classes from.  Carla calls it Artistic Freehand. I like that. It makes it sound so classy. I call it "Quilting for Those With a Short Attention Span."

Though they don't show, the quilt has loads of crystals on the sunflowers. The camera just couldn't capture the bling.

I have been privileged to quilt the quilts for two guild presidents this year. This is the quilt for Mountain Top Quilters'. 

Sunflowers

I have loved the blue and yellow color combination since I was a teenager. So, when Mary brought this quilt to me for quilting I fell in love with it.


I finished quilting it last night, and could hardly wait until this morning to take a picture of it.

This is an image from All People Quilt

I'm not sure what the pattern is called. I believe it is a variation of the Glorified Nine Patch pattern.





However, rather than melon shapes it has the quarter circles, and the nine-patch is on point within the block. I wouldn't be surprised if Mary designed it herself. She is very good at that.















I did have a little bit of trouble with some fullness in the circle spaces. I think that some of the fullness came from my quilting the blue nine-patch areas first. 



I was a little concerned about it working in. I started by stitching the centers, thinking that this would help start to pull in extra fabric. It did help a little bit.

Next was stitching the petals of the flowers, the echo, and swirls. I think they turned out well.

Baby Quilt

Isn't this adorable?

This cute baby quilt is going to Carolin Estefania. My friend, Julie, made it for the newest addition to her family. Julie does such beautiful work. It was a joy to quilt.

There is a mix of pieced blocks, machine applique, and hand applique.

These Dresdens with their heart centers are too cute!