Opportunity Quilt

This is the opportunity quilt that I was working on a week or so ago. It is for the American Legion Riders. A wife of one of the members pieced it. She is a longarm quilter herself, but she only quilts using pantographs, or all over designs. She didn't want this one done with an all over design, so it came to me.

Pre-quilting it measured 91"x104". I didn't measure it post-quilting, but I suspect it now measures about 89"x102". It took me awhile to quilt it. There were some killer seams that kept breaking the needles on the longarm. l went through five needles on this one! I finally learned the trick for my machine to get through those seams. I have to quilt up to the seam, and then use the single stitch button to go though the bulky seam slowly, one stitch at a time.

Inspiration

I delivered Karen's Aunt Millie's Garden quilt at the LQS today. I arrived quite early so that I would have lots of time to check out the new arrivals. I found this beautiful fabric. I even got the first cut off the bolt! Now, as beautiful as it is I bought it because I see all kinds of ideas for quilting designs.

Then when I was checking out greeting cards at Target I found this great card. Again, I see all kinds of inspiration for quilting designs.

As soon as I can fit an afternoon of personal work in, I plan on loading up some muslin to see what I can stitch. I'm very excited to see what I can come up with.

Late Season

We had a late season snow last night. It was so quiet when I woke up this morning that I suspected there might be snow. Sure enough! There it was.

It must have been pretty windy up here on the ridge. The snow was plastered to the windward side of the house.

We have had such a mild winter everything was blooming. A friend mentioned yesterday that her apricot tree was loaded with blossoms. I hope she still gets some apricots. Maybe she is at a low enough elevation that she didn't get snow.

Getting into the Swing of Things

I always find it difficult to get back into the swing of things after my trips to California. It was especially hard this time for several reasons. I came home recovering from the flu. It was a longer trip, meaning more time away from my home routines. I also had to deal with the feelings of sadness at leaving my kids and grandchildren. That really slowed me down.

However, I am getting back to work at the longarm. This is Karen's quilt. The pattern is Aunt Millie's Garden by Piece O' Cake.

 I had started working on it before I left for California. I just finished it a couple of days ago. The poor thing had to sit with it's beauty covered with a plain sheet waiting until I recuperated enough to resume working.

The quilt is now finished. I'm back into the swing of things. I'm now working on an opportunity quilt for one of the local charitable groups. Pictures to follow.

For All Moms

For all moms, not just moms of teenagers.

Soft

My daughter and I went to JoAnn Fabrics to get some border fabric for this quilt.


While we were there Bubba found the superhero flannel fabric. Bubba is very into superheroes. DD and I were looking at the flannels, but Bubba wandered over and found the superhero fleece fabrics.

A decision was made to make him a no-sew tied fleece blanket. He selected Superman and Batman fleece. He carried the Batman bolt to the cutting counter. On the way over this conversation occurred.

Bubba, "Mommy. "
DD, "Yes.
Bubba, "Pet it, Mommy. It's soft"


He watched carefully as the clerk cut his blanket fabric.

I worked quickly once we got back to the house, and had the blanket done by the time he was finished with baseball practice. It was a success. He cuddled with it when he went to bed.



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Come September

I'm still getting my baby cuddles, but I took a short break to meet up with some friends and visit a local quilt show. I was pleasantly surprised to find "Come September" hanging in one of the rows.

My customer created this to commemorate her 50th wedding anniversary. She collected fabrics for two years. Each of the fabrics used in the quilt has metallic gold accents. The wedding rings in the center are gold lame (I would have put the accent mark in, if  I knew how to do that). It took me in the neighborhood of 50 hours to quilt.









It was so rewarding to see people pouring over the quilt.

The quilt garnered four ribbons. First Place in Mixed Techniques, Large Quilt. Past Presidents Ribbon, Judges Choice, and one other. This other one has both my customer and myself quite confused. It is a First Place for Computer Assisted Custom Quilting. The confusion comes from the fact that none of the quilting is computer assisted. I don't have a computer on my longarm.

All we can figure is that the judges moved it into that category. On the entry forms there is a statement that judges may move quilts to a category that they feel is more appropriate for the quilt.

Unfortunately, the judges are not around for us to ask. Quite perplexing.