What's Been in the Works

I have been busy doing a little cutting for one Quilts of Valor Mystery – the clues will be offered on Aug 12^th.  And I have been following the clues for a second QOV Mystery – clue 1 has been posted so far:

I have quilted two of the tops I brought back with me from my fun quilting retreat in Omaha:

Floral Wave

Butterfly Enchantment

And I did a little yardwork – not too much since it has been oppressively hot and humid here.

This is our typical forecast – the lightning chases me out of the sewing room each day:

mon	tue	wed	thu	fri	sat	sun
jul 17 Scattered Thunderstorms 90° 78°	jul 18 Thunderstorms 88° 77°	jul 19 Scattered Thunderstorms 91° 78°	jul 20 Scattered Thunderstorms 91° 78°	jul 21 Scattered Thunderstorms 90° 78°	jul 22 PM Thunderstorms 91° 79°	jul 23 AM Thunderstorms 91° 78°

And this is my latest kitchen gadget purchase.  So far, I love, love, love it.  I’ve made lots of chicken, beef roasts, and these pork chops:

Several things I really like about it are that it keeps the kitchen cooler since I am not using the hot oven and it makes putting an entire meal on the table much quicker.  The roast took 40 minutes rather than 3 hours.  That’s a win!

Quilts of Valor Meeting

Posting some photos of quilts turned in quilted and/or bound at the June meeting of the CT Quilters QOV Group in Tampa, FL so I can link up with Alycia's blog.  A big "thank you" goes out to our great longarm quilters.

The little cards pinned to the quilts are the tracking system we use so we now where the quilts are in each stage of the process.  Some awards pictures to follow soon - we have made 44 awards so far this year!

Local Community Service Part 1

The weeks have flown by.  I had my Local Community Service Week early this month and my calendar has been jam-packed.

My Quilts of Valor (QOV) group was to have a medium-size presentation (11 quilts) and a planned large presentation (30 quilts) plus several individual presentations and we started the year with zero quilts on hand.  Everybody in our group was enthused to get busy.  I was given a lovely quilt top to quilt, but it had an issue:

Did you see the block facing the wrong way?  So, even though it had its borders on, I couldn’t leave it that way:

It wasn’t a hard fix and now its lines are all straight:

And onto the frame it went to be quilted with a panto called Stardust:

Then it got returned to the group to get its binding sewn on and a label put on by hand (I don’t do any hand sewing, but some members of my group are delighted to do that part, thank heavens!).

And, of course, I had to finish up my QOVFoundation Mystery Quilt for 2017.  This quilt was designed by Sandy Berg of Raspberry Bramble Designs who coordinated the mystery.  It was fun to sew.  The pattern is available here:  http://2017qovmystery.weebly.com/

This is a little of my progress as I waited in between receiving clues:

See those little post-it notes on the computer?  I highly recommend you label your pieces as you go as Sandy suggests ... The result is grand!

It went off to another quilter since I have only done edge-to-edge pantos so far and it is more likely to get some special quilting with another quilter.

More on my Local Community Service Week activities in tomorrow’s post.

Sunday Summary

Another week has gone zooming past.  I finished quilting the Quilts of Valor quilt and went to my monthly QOV meeting on Friday. 

Then I went to a class on Saturday to learn how to make a 2-Hour Backpack.  A local quilt shop a little north of me, Scrap & Sew, offered the class.  I am making mine to give to kids in need.

Ha!  There’s no such thing as a 2-hour backpack.  We were instructed to cut out all of the pattern pieces and have them fused to the interfacing before we went to class – that took me an hour and a half on Friday night.  Then the class took three hours and we all took the entire time to make our projects.

this was the class sample

The above pictures are the projects made by two other participants in the class.  Don’t you love their fabric choices?

And this is mine.  I LOVE IT !!

I will be making more of these – it was great fun once you understood the pattern (parts of it were not clear/instructions not included but the picture was there/conflicting instructions, etc).  Good thing the instructor had made a sample because we referred to it often, but the process will go more quickly the next time.

What's Up Wednesday

This is Local Community Service week here at the homefront.  I have been busy quilting for the two local groups that I support - Project Linus and Quilts of Valor (QOV).

These are the two that I quilted for Project Linus:

Panto is I Love It by Anne Bright

Panto is Stardust by Patricia Ritter

I don't make these tops, nor do I bind them - I'm just the quilter!

And sometimes the tops I receive need a little TLC.  This is the top I received to quilt for QOV:

Do you see the minor boo-boo in the upper right corner where the stripe isn't going straight?  Since this was an easy fix, I saw no reason not to go ahead and make the adjustment.

And, Voila!  The top looks better and worthy of a Veteran.

And it is now on the frame to be turned in at the local group meeting this Friday:

Panto is Stardust again - by Patricia Ritter

So, that's What's Up ...

Saturday Summary

Finished quilting the Quilt of Valor that I was working on.  It was a bear to quilt because the borders were not put on properly.  It is a charming quilt - I think the block is called Sparkler, and the center is very well made:

If you are a quilter, please take the time to measure and cut your borders to fit properly.  If you just sew a length of fabric on the sides and chop if off, it will stretch and buckle and bunch up when quilting instead of laying nice and flat.  The little extra time it takes to measure and pin will make your quilts so much nicer and your longarmer will appreciate you!

This one was quilted with a panto called Stardust:

And in the week coming up, I will be back to working on child-size quilts.