Quilting as Necessary Therapy

I've been working very hard on quilting for the Row by Row Experience. As of Wednesday, I finished piecing two rows and cut the pieces for a third. I also made sure to finish the Dresden tea cozy before I started in on the Row by Row stuff.

Here's the first row. It's from Peoria, Illinois. I finished it Tuesday:

The second is from Morris, Illinois. I finished it Wednesday.:

I modified the design a bit. Their sample had the side finds more pillow-like and floppy. I decided to make them less so and appliqued them in place with some quilt batting underneath.

I was ironing the fabric for the third row when my mother called to say my father had just passed away.  The pieces are all cut and waiting for me to sew them together. I'm not sure when that will be exactly.

I'm numb right now. FH and I head south sometime tomorrow after his car gets an oil change and coolant flush. I'm not sure how long I will be gone, but I'm doubting I'll be posting this Sunday. Perhaps the following Sunday.

Until next time.

Been A Busy Week

Happy Father's Day!

Monday started off with me driving a transport of 25 dogs from downstate IL to the local no-kill shelter up here. They were confiscated from a mentally challenged man who didn't understand how to help the animals being dumped on his property and breeding to excess.

Tuesday Artie need to see the vet. He had an that wouldn't stop tearing and weeping. It was obviously irritating him and just didn't look good. Squinting was the word of the day, which made him jumpy too.

Some medicated eye drops have done the trick and he's back to normal now.

The rest of the week was divided between sewing/quilting, cleaning, laundry, studying Spanish, and getting organized for the Row by Row Experience nations-wide shop hop.

The chevron quilt fronts and backs are now completely finished. Just need to get them sandwiched and start quilting.

Also I put together a little pin cushion using a pattern from a Missouri Star Quilt Company magazine. Scraps from the flag wall quilts came in handy.

The Dresden tea cozy halves are sandwiched and basted now.

I've quilted around the applique with invisible thread. The rest of the quilting will be in variegated purple.

Friday I had a sewing day with a friend and we started a quilt-along. We're using the same pattern but I'm making a runner with metallic fabrics and she's making a huge quilt... doubling the size of the pattern!  These are the centers of the blocks for my runner. I still need to finish piecing the turquoise and brown ones.

That's it for now. Here's a picture of Victor checking out his toy that I picked up last weekend at the expo.

And a picture of Pixel for good measure.

Have a good one!

Quickie Update

I'm currently exhausted from getting sunburned yesterday and taking a turn around roadtrip with a friend to a bunny expo, patisserie, and quilt shop.

Here's when the chevron quilts look like right now. The first quilt's top and back are finished.

The second quilt is pictured here with just the rows pieced, but it is actually just waiting on borders now. Also its back is two-thirds of the way pieced.

I'm off to go find some more aloe and have a late dinner with FH. See you next weekend unless the rain washes us away.

Many Irons

In a complete contrast to last week's frustrations, many things have been going right. So much in fact that I had to make the decision to leave out pictures of the gardens' progress. Otherwise this post would take up lots of time and be saturated with photos. There are enough project pictures to choke bandwidth for anyone still using dial-up as it is...

Let's start off with miniatures! I have a few more quilt bolts for the shop. In this top picture, the dark brown bolt is a leftover from a project. The others were purchased to fill in the yellow, orange, and brown selections.

 In this photo, the bolt in the middle was bought specifically for the quilt shop. But it's from a line of fabrics that I purchased yardage of in other fabrics to make a quilt... so I don't feel very guilty about it. ;-) The other two are project leftovers.

Also the mini group project this week was hydrangeas. I made one of each color offered. The pink one still needs leaves though.

We "cheated" and used a punch for the flowers and the punch was 6-petaled and not 4-petaled. So we all have mutant hydrangeas. Made our lives easier for the two hour long meeting though!

Next up is me trying out my new prairie point guide with some extraneous fabric from my stash. I wanted to figure out the folds and cuts on fabric that wasn't purchased for the quilt I'm practicing the technique for. The results are pretty spiffy!

I did get the scrappy border on the other flag wall quilt this week. I'm very pleased with the results.

My healing shoulder got a bigger workout and I finally got this baby quilt quilted and halfway bound!

It's only been waiting since last fall... the baby in question is at the proto-crawling stage and loves to get hugs and kisses. He's a very happy boy. I can't wait to see his reaction to the different colors.

Now I'm working on a pair of quilts for twin boys born almost two weeks ago. The nursery is decorated in navy blue and white with chevrons.  I chose a larger quilt design and cut the squares half the size required. I'm getting two quilts for the same yardage this way. The blocks stored in the bag are actually in the order for the layout. The other stack is for the second quilt.

 And here's the layout for the first quilt. Not the best picture as it was taken last night when the light was bad. The second quilt's layout will be the same except I'm turning the blocks 180 degrees so the bottom becomes the top. I want the tops to be slightly different but these colors were difficult to get balanced. 

And that's it! Today I'll be piecing the chevron quilt tops and hopefully piecing the backs as well. I'm hoping I'll get to the quilting on at least one of them into the coming week. I also have that quilt to piece which require six width-of-fabric rows of prairie points! There are a few other UFO quilts waiting on their quilting too. Let's see how far I can get this week!