Retreating

I've been away quilting for four glorious days! Twice a year since 2003 I've attended the Ranch Hands quilt retreat here in northern California. Here we have the pleasure of being together once again and sharing our friendship and love of quilting.

In one of the most tranquil and beautiful settings you can imagine.

 It's really difficult to come back to the reality of laundry, cooking and cleaning  

War on Weeds

I have a new toy to wage warfare on the weeds. I've been looking for just the right weight and size battery powered trimmer. This one is quite powerful and handles some heavy duty weeds around here.

Greenworks Trimmer Edger. The battery last approx. 45 mins. before it needs recharging---which by the way coincides nicely with about how long I can last!

Swirled Strings

This is a pretty string quilt that my friend Christy made that I just took off the long arm. Swirled with the Circle Lord.

Baby Quilt, Sassy and Stuff

I'm so torn lately between being out in the yard and finishing up projects in the house. Here is a view looking down the hill from our front steps. The California Poppies are so pretty this Spring day. It has been rainy a lot this past week, but today the sunshine is calling me.

Sassy has no problem deciding which to do. She loves sitting out on the garden bench overlooking her domain.

We headed back to the house after a walk around the yard.

I finished the binding on this baby quilt panel this morning. It's my first time quilting on Minkie. I like how the front of the quilt turned out, I don't like how the quilting played out on the back. Thankfully I have two of these panels and I'm going to make a second baby quilt, only this time I plan to do edge to edge quilting.

All the quilting looks messy to me on the Minkie backing. It has no defined quilting lines. I did outline the blocks and go around the animals and the lettering. But, from the back of the minkie it looks like a scramble. Here is the front.

I had no problems working with the minkie. You hear about stretching, but I was careful to not let the power roller pull to much, and I tensioned the sides very loosely. It all helped. The batting is Quilters Dream "Angel" Request. It's very thin, and seems perfect for between the quilt panel the minkie backing.

I purchased this cute JW Frisch Hungry Animals Alphabet panel from Hancocks of Paducah online.

Vintage Easter Greetings!

Happy Easter! This is a vintage postcard from my collection. Dated March 1910.

Finished Donation Quilts

I finished all the donation quilts, including the bindings. I have a couple more quilts to complete for friends, and then maybe---I can do some of my own quilts. I certainly admire quilter that do long arm quilting as a business, and are also able to do their own quilts. I'm not sure how they do it as I can't seem to find enough hours in the day.

Free motion quilting on this one--

All these quilt tops were assembled by The Remnants using Martha's fabrics. They will be donated to various community charitable organizations.