Recap of the Busy Times

I am s-o-o-o-o not used to being busy.  I live a pretty nice, dull and sedate life with an occasional outing.  But I ran into a spate of things that each took up a little time and blogging fell by the wayside.  One more big occasion (for me) and I’ll get back to my regularly scheduled programming … sewing and snoozing ...

Here’s a synopsis of the last few months:

Out of town visitors

Got to meet and greet and shop a little

Yardwork

Planted some new annual sacrifices (and no, the delphiniums aren’t going to last thru the heat) – lots of mushrooms are growing because we’ve had tons of rain (that we really needed)

Golf

I get to substitute when the boys aren’t available to play with my husband ...

My "caddy" retrieving my ball - lol

this ibis tried to get the cranes to adopt him - his tribe soon came to gather him up

Travel

Had a wonderful trip to Indiana to visit my cousins/spouses/children/grandchildren/aunt

unset on the river from my cousin's front lanai

Sewed and quilted

Got a box off to Wrap-a-Smile and almost have one ready to go to Quilts Beyond Borders

Tammy assembled these quilt tops and I quilted and put the bindings on

Bought a new car

I love my smaller SUV – a stripped down Jeep Cherokee with almost no bells and whistles (but had to keep my Sirius radio – love that)

stock photo - mine has no chrome

Lots of Vet visits

The dog rules in my house – she’s almost healthy now - had a paw infection - lots of pills and creams and cream cheese

One more bit of traveling on the schedule and then it’s back to normal !!

Another Box to Wrap-a-Smile

Finally!  The box is leaving the building.  Finished the bindings on all of the quilts that are going to Wrap-a-Smile.

Moved on to making more colorful Elephants, but photos of that will wait until tomorrow.  Here are the quilts in the box:

Feathers ...

Square Dancing in Space?

Fish, fish and more fish

Musical notes and treble clefs

Got this one at a quilt show for a really low price - sadly, quilters don't often get a return on the value of their labor.  But it makes a welcome addition to the donation box ...

Sunday Summary

An on-line friend and I had an email discussion about borders of quilt tops - especially borders that are wavy and ripple and really don't fit properly on the quilt and cause untold angst when trying to longarm quilt that top!

I pulled out a v-e-r-y old quilt top that I had made and laid aside for many years.  And lo and behold, there was an improperly applied border.  I must have learned a lot since the 1990s - lol.  But did I unstitch the border and apply it correctly?  No, I did not.  I receive quite a few quilt tops to quilt for donations to various groups and I decided to practice on my very own *mistake* in case I encounter another in the near future.

So, this is a part of the rippled border - see that waviness?

I just decided to quilt the entire top with a denser pattern than I usually use and expected that to flatten down the border.  This is the result - it worked pretty well:

I think the feathers (Feather Elegance by Christy Dillon) look pretty good on this relatively plain quilt:

Lyn Durbin's YouTube video was the first one I had ever seen where it showed how to quilt and work in excessive fullness and waviness of borders - this is almost magic!  Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPHsBYa36W0

So, this Bars and Strips quilt is on the pile that need bindings (only two left now!).  It will go in the box to Wrap-a-Smile.

And I finished quilting a little Duckie panel, but I didn't get a full photo of it yet.  It will have to wait for its binding until the other box goes out the door - this one is destined for Quilts Beyond Borders.  Here's a sneak preview:

Sunday Summary

I just took another quilt destined for Wrap-a-Smile off of the quilting frame.  Last summer, we had a Challenge in my quilter's group to make a quilt using the colors of the Olympic Rings.  So I used all of the colors, but made squares instead (no copyright issues here!).  We had all kinds of cute quilt designs result from the Challenge, but I am happy with my simple version.

Then I found the cutest backing fabric at Connecting Threads on sale.

Now I don't know what to name my quilt.  I was calling it Stepping Up to the Olympics, but now I am considering calling it Out of This World Athletes just for fun.

I really like the quilting I selected, too.  I have worked up this pattern before - it's called Square Dance by Anne Bright - and it always turns out nicely.

So let's hope this one doesn't languish in the to-be-bound basket too long ...

Bits and Pieces of Quilting

Here's a little of what has been in the works here lately:

Finished quilting Project Linus quilts numbers 7 & 8 for this year (they do the binding):

this one was soft flannel

Quilted one more Quilt of Valor for our meeting this Friday:

Finished up quilting and binding my Scrappy Trails quilt.  It will go into a stack until I fill a box for Wrap-a-Smile:

And kept taking my walks - these are the guest ducks that visited out pond recently.  They must have been blown off of their normal migration path because we don't often see a beautiful Mallard in our little pond!

Friday’s February UFO Finish

This quilt was a finish from a homemade kit I had from December – only the blocks had been put together until now:

I had made up some kits for myself before my husband went in for surgery in December (it was successful) and they are coming in handy now to grab a kit and make up a quick quilt.  The Numbers Game in the Yahoo Stashbusters Group had pulled #2 and that was this kit on my list.  It was a fun finish for February!  It will go to a group called Wrap-a-Smile for children around the world who will have cleft lip/palate surgery.

I quilted using a panto called Paw Prints that were fun, too!

Fun is Packing a Box!

I finally finished up quilting a few more donation quilts for Beth in NJ and have enough kid-size quilts to fill a box.

These will be going to Wrap-a-Smile for children undergoing cleft lip/cleft palate surgery around the world.  These are the last two I quilted up for Beth:

panto is Cotton Candy

aren't those cats darling?!

panto is called Floral Garden

And I scored big when a friend told us about The Cotton Loft’s going-out-of-business sale on-line.  The prices are excellent for quilt shop quality fabric.  The hitch is that you take what you get.  If you order 5 yds and they only have 3 yds left, they will ship you the 3 yds.  I got most of everything I ordered (only ½ yd short on one fabric and 1 yd short on another).  It was kind of a surprise package, but they definitely warn you before you order – and they keep the website really current.  It has been going on for awhile, so I expect more shortages if you order now.  I got these for backings:

I sure feel sorry for those readers who live in the parts of the US/Canada that are being pounded by snow, sleet, ice and extremely cold conditions.  I hope you stay inside, safe and warm!  We will be getting rain today and tomorrow and then a big drop in the temperature.  When it gets in the 40s and 50s (4 -10 C), we freeze down here in Florida!  But meanwhile, things are blooming here:

 

azaleas

 

redbud trees

lots of ornamental grasses

Let’s hope the plants enjoy the rain that’s coming …