Quilting Progress, Dress Sewing Day, Winds and Tumbleweeds

Tuesday we had a sewing day to make pretty dresses for a couple of people to take to two orphanages in Africa.  I had lots of fun making pretty pockets for the dresses (after making one dress).

 I think the total of the dresses was close to two dozen, but I had to leave a little early.

 I did buy some yardage for bindings for prayer quilts, and my friend bought several more.

 I bought these for another prayer quilt.  I have to admit that I do love how soothing blue and white are.

Then Connie wanted to see some tumbleweeds.  We've had a lot of high winds.  Just .01 inch of rain in the last two months, however.  Not enough to even make puddles.

I'm linking to Connie's Blog for her LinkyTuesday.

 Normally by this time of year I've trimmed the "lawn" at least once.  This year it's still brown and we are amassing a platoon of tumble weeds along our houses and/or the edges of our properties.

 Sometimes they congregate in bigger groups.  Obviously, it's too windy to cook anything outside!

 Those two wildfires are still growing, and we pray for the firefighters, the area residents, and fire containment daily.

Judy sent this wonderful quilt home for me to quilt.  It's finished.  She has the binding at her house.

I'm linking this quilt to Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday.

The azure blue Fil-Tec Glide thread I used on this quilt was perfect--although a bit hard to see in places.

 Judy pieced the back--it is gorgeous--not these somewhat washed out colors.

 I quilted two other quilts--but forgot to take more pictures.

 The lesson from this quilt and the other one that I forgot to photograph is that if you choose to use up some fashion fabric on the back, and if that fabric is not the same weight as quilting cottons, please let the quilter know.

 I kept getting thread messes on the back of both of these quilts.  When I had to go to town, I bought Schmetz Jeans Needles in size 16 and 18.  I had to use size 18 on this quilt, but it did eliminate the thread problems.

Sweet Teen returned from the state FFA Convention with a couple of awards and immediately plunged back into activities.  She does need to get in a few hours of practice as her flute recital is late Sunday afternoon--and we haven't even begun baking for the reception afterwards.

In other good news, the rehab specialist approved an old generic medication for me to try for the vertigo from my head injury.  It WORKS!  It makes me sleepy, but I have none of the nausea or dizziness that has been challenging me for 15 months.  I just don't understand why I couldn't have tried this medication over a year ago.  Much higher quality of life now!

I'm headed back to the machines to work on more prayer quilts!

Happy quiltmaking....

Quilting Complete: Judy's Postcards from the Garden

This is one of my favorite of the most recently quilted quilts:

 The fabrics were heavenly--both in color and in the texture of the prints.

 The quilt invited all over feminine feathers.

 The postcards invited slightly different quilting designs--a good chance to stretch.

 The narrow and wide batik borders required different quilting designs.

And the blue batik was perfect for the quilt. I also changed back and forth between various beautiful shades of Fil-Tec Glide for the quilting.

It was one of those quilts that reminds me how therapeutic quilting can be and why I so love doing it. This one was also treadle quilted on my Necchi BU from the 1940's, which is in my 1919 treadle cabinet and irons.

If you click the "home" tab above, you'll get to see a lot more of the quilts I've been working on.

New Mexico is suffering from an intense drought.  Yesterday's high winds--in which we watched a crow attempt in vain to fly forward instead of backward--helped ignite a fire north of Pecos, about 100 miles from us.  This afternoon when I drove to the county seat, I saw countless more dust devils and lots more things blowing across the roads--I hit quite a few tumbles weeds!  We pray for all those who were evacuated. Where I live, the bigger issues right now are winds and blowing stuff--and the smoke hasn't yet made it's way to us.  (Since we live at a high altitude without air conditioning, we have little protection from heavy smoke.)

Happy quiltmaking.....

Aaah! Quiltmaking Again...

I'm back to quiltmaking again.
With school finished, I'm hoping to get a great deal of quilt work done.

A new project involves this stack of lime, chocolate, and aqua and a baby quilt for Katie's baby Paisley, who will arrive at the end of July.  Katie is one of the teachers I work with.

I photographed the quilt fabric on some silvery gray paper because I think I need to add some silvery gray fabric as this quilt's neutral.  I also need to find a lime to yellow green batik with paisleys--and I'd be happy with a silvery gray paisley print.  So, if any of my dear readers have knowledge of such fabrics, please let me know.  I love the batik at the bottom of this stack (as does Katie), but I have only a couple of 10 inch squares of it.

I also finished the quilting on three prayer quilts--although these pictures are "before" shots.

The last two have gone out to another member of our Victory Prayer Quilt group who is very, very speedy when it comes to sewing down binding.

We were down to just 11 quilts this past Sunday and need to get a bunch made and/or finished for our next quilt dedication on June 16.

I do want to add a non-quilt comment.  That is that in all my decades of teaching, although it was busy, this was the easiest end-of-school year I've experienced.  I do like the charter school where I'm teaching!

My quilting plans are to piece and quilt today and to attend the Fiber-Arts Festival in Albuquerque tomorrow--and then to quilt some more as I watch the tree in my front yard begin to leaf out.  Late spring here--due in no small part to our severe drought.  While many of our prayers are for rain, we're also praying that we will not have to deal with wildfires and smoke and the devastation that accompanies them.

Happy quiltmaking....

Spring Breeze Getting Close!

 Spring Breeze was layered and pinned at least a week ago.  I used many fewer pins than I usually do because I decided to do quite a bit of stabilizing quilting.

 I used Fil-Tec's Bobbin line thread for both the upper thread and bobbin thread, so the stabilizing is barely visible.

 I found an older spool of bright lime green to quilt some leafty things.

 Then I quilted the body of the quilt.  I was so happy when I finally reached the big white boarder.  But I've only managed to get a few minutes here and there to work on it.

So....I now have about 1.75 white boarders to finish and then four of the narrow pink outer borders.

Addition to Post:  This is being quilted on a Necchi BU from the 1940's that is in 1919 Singer treadle irons.

I'm going to share at Karen's Find a Friend Friday, since we can share our whole blogs, not just one post there.

I'm still hopeful I can finish this, write a new post, and share it a couple more places within the next few hours.

Sweet Teen is visiting a friend, so I'm just sharing my place with the wind and some smoke from the fires in the Gila and Manzanos. We noticed the fire in the Manzanos yesterday evening as we were driving Sweet Teen to an FFA Officer get together.  It was reported that it was set by a couple of boys who got separated from their party and wanted to be found. Later it was reported that it was set by a group of 11 boys, fresh graduates of Belen High School.  Hmmmmm.....lost in the forest, high winds, fire-setting.  Gotta question that logic.  I understand the boys may be charged--and, if so, their parents will be charged with the cost of fighting the fire. I read a report the the fire is contained and being monitored for hot spots. There is a crew of about 80 still monitoring--and the wind is still pretty wild here (about 25 miles or so from the fire).

Green?....

Top o' the mornin' to ya!

Back during the wicked weather of January and early February, I began these so I'd have something green and special to wear for St. Patrick's day.  I'm thinking it's likely that too much time was spent while I watched a few movies with my hands were pausing.  Anyway, they're not quite long enough, so I can't wear them today.  (I'm wearing a Kelly green knit top instead.) 
And for my green activity, I'll be working on some quilts using one of my people-powered sewing machines (PPM).  That counts as green, right?

I thought I might have lunch at my outdoor table since we're supposed to have the warmest day we've had thus far this year.  But we also have high winds and regional fire danger, so I'll have to be content with eating inside, since I wouldn't want my lunch to blow to the next county! Here's our current wind/fire danger map, courtesy of www.weatherbug.com

I'm taking comfort in the fact that it's still yellow and not red--which is what we'll see later this afternoon.

Have a fun St. Paddy's Day.