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.....

Quilting Complete: Blue and Yellow Split 4-Patch

Blue and yellow is a timeless combination--This blue is an April Cornell print from several years ago--not the first quilt with this fabric line, but it is the special quilt made with just two of the prints that I purchased extra of because two fabric quilts are so timeless and I love this line (from Moda, several years ago).

This is part of the back that I made wider by sticking in some blocks left over from the quilt I'd made from this line several years ago.  The rest of the backing was an even older fabric that says "Peter Pan", so I'm guessing it was from the 80s or early 90s.

Fun to make, fun to quilt, fun to look at--and I hope the recipient will enjoy looking at it for years and years.

Happy quiltmaking......

Quilting Complete: Handkerchief Quilt

When I was quilting up that stack of prayer quilts, I said I'd share details later.  Here are the details for the lovely Handkerchief Quilt, pieced by Judy.

 None of the shots are perfect because the wind was already coming up when these were taken and the sun was at an angle that made things harder to photograph.  But for the most part, I'm happy with how the quilting showed up.

Technically, it's still a work in progress because I have found nothing for the binding.

Over there on the right sidebar you'll find a link to Esther's WIPs on Wednesdays; that link will take you to her most recent post and give you the chance to go see what others are working on this week.

Happy quiltmaking....

Quilting Accomplished: Memorial Day Weekend 2013

These are the finishes for this weekend.  I have one more prayer quilt ready to quilt and do not know if I will get it started today.  My legs are telling me it's been a long time since I've treadled for so many hours.

I should also make it clear that the only reason I was able to be so productive is that all these quilts were already layered and ready for quilting--and the first two only needed binding sewn down on the back and Mary did that and returned them to me.

 #1 The Four Pigs Quilt.  Mary finished the binding and handed it back to me yesterday.

 #2 Circus Song: also with binding finished by Mary.

 #3 Violet Merry-Go-Round, pieced by Judy.

 #4 Lilac Post Cards, pieced by Judy.

 #5 Postcards from the Garden, pieced by Judy.

 #6 Handkerchief Memories, pieced by Judy.

 #7 Spit Four Patch, pieced and quilted by Dora.

I did take detail photos, too many for a single post, so I'll probably do multiple posts in order to share the quilting and closeups.

We've had a beautiful Memorial Day.  We've had what's known in New Mexico as a mostly cloudy day--meaning there have been more than a few clouds and less than our usual hours of sunshine.  The temperatures have been mild.  Yes, we've still had wind, and that did interfere with some of the picture taking.  Yes, the tumbleweeds traveled.  In fact, they started congregating in my yard.  However, it's been the kind of day that is just about as close to perfect as it can get.


Happy quiltmaking.....


P.S.:  I just linked to Judy's What's on Your Design Wall (although I'm designing quilting rather than patchwork or applique) and Connie's Free Motion Tuesday (links on the side bar).

Quilts, Etc.

Been quilting.....

 Finished one that had been started and quilted three more.  I didn't make it outside to photograph these, so maybe I'll have more luck tomorrow.
They were all fun, but the pink and blue was the most fun.  Five of the blocks are hankie prints, and they brought back so many memories.

Then I called Rocky, the Sew Man, to see if he would take a look at the Necchi Leila BF I was given a couple of weeks ago.  The card board face plate was courtesy of Bob when he serviced the machine years ago--at least I'm guessing it was years ago by the label.  Rocky thinks he has a similar model at home that he's been using for parts, so he'll see if he has the face plate.  I asked on my on-line Necchi group, but no one offered one.

 I took it in to Rocky because the motor was throwing some carbon "dust."  He cleaned it and said it's safe to use until I see it sparking throughout the motor rotation.  I'm pretty sure that somewhere I have the motors I removed from a couple of 1940 BUs when I decided to treadle them.  I think I had taken Rocky the Singer motors but not the Necchi ones.

Officially this machine is pink.  I thought it was from the early 1960's, but Rocky thinks it's ten years older than that.  When I got it back home, I used it to quilt the border on the pink and blue quilt.  It stitches sooooooo much faster than my treadles--which is interesting, because when I began treadling, I thought I treadled as fast as my electric machines sewed.  However, this is a finely engineered Italian machine, so it may stitch faster than the electrics I was using.

For the time being, I'm just leaving the end of the machine open since I oil them after every six hours or so of use.

The other adventure I had was that when I bought groceries yesterday, my card was declined--twice!  Someone had put through a small charge from a little town in Illinois that is so small that I'm sure it doesn't have the kind of business it claimed to be from.  Anyway, since my info was stolen, I had to make another trip to the city to get a new card.

I had been there earlier in the day to attend the Fiber Arts Fiesta.  There were some interesting quilts, fewer vendors than in the past, and none of the long-arm dealers were allowing potential customers to actually try the machines.  I purchased nothing--although that was probably a good thing since my card would have been declined.--Don't get me wrong; I'm immensely grateful that the fraudulent charge was spotted by someone with really good perceptions.

Okay, I'm going to try to get some quilting into another quilt yet tonight.  I do love quilting!!!(However, I have to admit that part of the fun of quilting right now is watching the tree in my front yard leaf out--it had just a few tiny leaves on Thursday.  It has a lot more now!)

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....

First Graduation Complete

Cool but very windy graduation......

 Very, very, very early this morning.

 She said I needed to take a "shooting for the stars" picture.

 The mortarboard picture,  

which also qualifies as "we are in a horrible drought" picture.

 The "Martin's picking me up" picture.  (And, he always tips his head back for pictures, she says.)

 Her two favorite grandmas [from church], Ms. Loreta and Ms. Joann.

 Tiny portion of the crowd.  See how blue the sky is?  It didn't last because the winds came up. Now the sky is dust colored.

 One-size-fits-all caps do not work well in high winds.

Ahh, that's better.  

Aside from the winds, it was a nice graduation.  The state attorney general, who graduated from this high school in 1972, was the speaker.  He scrapped his prepared speech and just talked to the kids.  Much nicer.

The only downside was the usual single-mother-can't-take-photos-and-be-in-them-at-the-same-time situation.  I'm thinking she's going to have to get dressed up again so we can take some together.

We took the grandmas out for brunch, and Sweet Teen is off to a round of graduation parties and a sleep-over.

I'm off to do some quilty things.

Happy quiltmaking.....