End of the month

I have been laid back after the retreat not really motivated to sew. It was good to be home in my own bed eating my own food. And I was especially glad to have a settled stomach. I still need to be aware of what I eat as pizza set it off yesterday. 

Anyway, my daughter had come home to be near humans. Without having work and now that her semester is over, she was getting a little bored on her own. We are always grateful to have our kids here. But it does change things a little for us. Her cat is here as well and we will cat sit this weekend.  She does cook good food. 

In the evenings I have been able to finish up bindings on my 2 flag wall hangings. And I have been doing counted cross stitch on perforated paper.

Today, I finally set up the sewing machine and did some stitching on blocks:

A)   10 more blocks to add to the chandelier  design are going to be added to make it a little longer. ( I had 15 extra centers anyway.) I did unsew the setting triangles.

B)   I am sewing up the New York Beauty Blocks I started at retreat. They are a nice challenge. This is another old UFO and all the paper pieced borders were completed. I have a box of collected fabrics and patterns ready to go. I think I need 36 total blocks. 3 DONE and 1 cut out!

We have had 2 tornado sirens this weekend. Watching the Doppler Radar is kind of scary knowing others are in harms way. We are fortunate. 

Another retreat

 I had the delightful opportunity to go on another quilting retreat.  This one is in rural Wisconsin southwest of Madison, our capitol. I love this one where you can see the sunset over the fields and farms. And the weather was warm, which I had not quite anticipated.  And the air conditioner was turned on when only in the 70s.  Oh well.

But the food, the comradery, the shared ideas, and the hours of quilting.  So great to get things moving on projects. We had trivia and campfire songs, and lots of fun together. And I forgot the good food, although my stomach was revolting at the time.

Anyway, here are some of their projects:

This was an exchange project. Many of the knick knacks are personal and titles on books , family photos, etc. Very cool! Love the arched center.

A found set of blocks from a free table 

Fat cat designs of a Southern Gentlemen from last fall.

Things I worked on:

Quilted my small flag quilt to send to Mom for her door. 

It was a free pattern from Buttermilk Basin without the applique, a UFO from the past.

The binding was handsewn once I got home.

Another flag banner which had been left as a top last year.

Also hand sewn binding at home.

This is Bonnie Hunter's Bitcoin pattern with large strips of color in between.  

It was a UFO from 2021:     link for the  bitcoin start

I ran out of the pieced parts and will had 2 more strips: 

one pieced and one solid making a twin quilt.

These blocks were comprised of the hourglass blocks leftover from another wall hanging. 

Blocks were made over a year ago.

I left the back of odd blocks at home. 

So it will end up longer. 

Machine quilting

 I really like to send my quilts out for others to do the wonderful quilting. And that is my go to for the larger quilts. Quilting by check book, so they say.   And I prefer my hand work to be applique or cross stitch or embroidery. So no hand quilting here, although I have tried it and like it. 

But several smaller tops have been waiting for my to finish by machine.  And I was even supposed to enter one in the recent guild show that had been started. I can do straight line stitch in the ditch, I even have a great stipple that I can do large or small. A set of quilting templates have been sitting unused.   Excuses, excuses. 

So I got the guild show one out and have been working on it several evenings. 

So here are a few progress photos:  free motion tiny stippling around the wool applique.

I                                                     like how that turned out. 

Straight line quilting in the blocks with a walking foot.

I just wish I had a BSR to keep the stitches an even length. 

Progress so far.  And I have a couple plans in place for a few of the other areas.

This is my stay at home round robin from a couple years ago. 

Sunday, we had the coolest rain while it was sunny.  And I got a short little video. But it would not transfer to my computer. 

But here is the double rainbow in the other direction.  

God is good!

Round the blocks!

 I am so excited to get my basic 8 blocks completed!   I had to, of course, make extra single blocks to frame the larger circles.  But that it ok; I have lots of strips cut to the 1 1/2 inch size.  

2  different angles.

So now I realized it is already 100 inches long and that does not include any sashing which I plan to add in black.  That is just too long for a twin bed. That makes it is easy to decide on  9 blocks and make it more squarish of a 3 by 3 setting. And then add the borders all around the 4 sides. 

Making a light blue centered block for the 9th block...

This will go on a back burner until my fall retreat where I will collaborate with a creative friend. Or I may just let it marinate as I decide what to do for borders.  I have a couple ideas. but having a friend  who has good ideas and helps try them out is awesome.   She even helps work on the math. I do enjoy working with her. 

Little projects and blocks

 I just have been chugging along on projects.  Although a headache/migraine slowed me down for several days. That is so not like me. 

Here I made more of my rounded log cabin quilt.  I think I only need about a dozen more for the basic 8 blocks. I haven't decided if I need 4 large blocks of 13 individual blocks more to make it bigger? 

I also finished my round robing block for guild which is due next week.  The square in a square blocks are 2 inch paper pieced. it was hard to decide what to do as most all her colors were blues and yellows. I just need to pull off the newsprint paper from the back.

I also made an improvisation block for my May  Stash Bee. Interesting. 

I am enjoying the lovely spring weather. My lilacs are starting to show the purple flowers almost ready to open. We have a ground hog coming and going in the back.  He was even sun bathing on our porch.  And I did buy some pots of a fern and a coleus for outdoors. 

Here is a new visitor to the back porch: