Merry Christmas

May the Christmas spirit of love, hope, peace and happiness be with you and your family.

The Eagle is Back

We haven't seen the American Bald Eagle for several months now. But yesterday he perched in one of the trees near our house. He flew off about dusk. This morning he is back. He is so magnificent looking. He hunts the Laguna near Timber Hill.

Sunset

Sassy and I sat out on the bench in the back yard and enjoyed a beautiful sunset this evening before dinner.

Busy Times

It has been so long since I've blogged. It's the season of busy around here just like I'm sure it is at your house. Here are some pictures of what I've been doing. Quilting of course----

These are five toddler quilts for my friend Joyce's great grandchildren.

I finally finished our neighbor Al's quilt. He is a Vietnam Vet. I still have the label to embroider. I'm excited to present this to him.

Finished quilting this for Linda. It's a Christmas gift she hoped I could squeeze in. Circle Lord Swirls template boards to the rescue. Done in a flash! Love the colors Linda used in this bed quilt.

These are two large pillow panels Cora asked me to do months ago. I was looking for some fabric yesterday and found them.

Cora was probably wondering what happened to them and too polite to ask---anyway, I decided spur of the moment to complete them just in case she wants them for the holidays. The thread painting was so much fun and a nice break from regular quilting.

I noticed on our morning walk along Timber Hill that the Fiddlehead ferns are starting to sprout. They are such a beautiful shade of green this time of the year. I hope you are almost finished with your Christmas projects, and find some time to simply enjoy the season. We have had beautiful weather for this time of the year here in Sonoma county.

Thanksgiving

Doris Lee~Thanksgiving painting. Oil on canvas c.1935

Thanksgiving brings so many nostalgic feelings. I'm thankful for the many blessings in my life. My family, my home, my health, my freedom and so much that I can't even put into words. Today, I also think of Thanksgivings past. This painting by Doris Lee reminds of those Thanksgivings of when as a child.---Thanksgiving was a huge family event. Aunts, uncles, Nonna, cousins, friends all together preparing the Thanksgiving feast.

My Uncles who made their own wine would arrive with their bottles of wine and conduct their annual wine tasting. Debating who had made the best wine that year.... My mother and her sisters made homemade ravioli downstairs on my aunts big basement kitchen table the day before. Layers of homemade pasta and fillings covered the huge long table. Several wooden ravioli rollers compressed the sections. I would get to use the little rolling cutter to separate each little ravioli. Sauces simmered on the stove. Cheese was grated. The turkey was the side dish. The ravioli was the main dish! Wonderful assorted antipasto dishes all arranged on the side board of the formal dining room table. The best china, glassware and linens.

Memories. Wonderful memories---I'm so thankful for those too.

I hope you are making many happy memories with your families today. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

How Do You Primarily Buy Fabric?

While browsing around other bloggers sites, or peeking into their sewing space I notice many quilters have large stashes of fabric. That was not too surprising!---but, what surprised me is that their stashes primarily consist of large Bolts of Fabric! I'm not noticing they are in a business, they are hobby quilters like myself.
I have bought my share of fabric through the years, but I don't recall buying bolts and bolts of fabric. Occasionally I splurge on six or seven yards, or a wide quilt backing fabric.

Am I missing some unknown advantage to buying fabric by the bolt?

How do you buy fabric? Yards, fat quarters, precuts---bolts of fabric?

If you buy bolts of fabric, is it cost cutting to buy fabric this way?

Do you ever get tired of having so much of the same fabric on hand. A bolt is 15 yards. That seems like a lot of one print or color.

Storage issues?

I would love comments about this, and I've also set up a poll here on the side bar.

Quilts of Valor

Perhaps it is coincidental that I finished quilting several quilts for our soldiers this past week which makes me feel useful in some small way this Veterans Day.

This wonderful quilt top was made by Linda who lives north of me in California. I loved quilting this top for many reasons, but looking at the various patriotic fabrics Linda had collected to make this top made it interesting and fun to quilt. I don't believe I've ever seen so many wonderful patriotic prints combined in one quilt.


One of my quilting friends, Pam made this quilt top, wonderful earthy African animal prints! I love the name Pam gave this quilt. "Peaceful Warriors". I'm sure it will bring much needed peace and comfort to one of our wounded warriors---

Peggy sent me this beautiful quilt top several weeks ago. I just finished the quilting today as I had been waiting for the Milky Way template boards to arrive from Circle Lord that I especially wanted to use on this quilt. Swirls & stars on "For Which It Stands" It will be off in the mail this coming week to one of our brave soldiers. (click on any pic. to enlarge)

A special thank you to all the soldiers who have served our country. We appreciate all the sacrifices you have made.

11-11-2011

It All Started So Innocently

2001 machine quilting sampler from Sue Nickels class.

I've been digging around in the quilt closet back in the sewing room area. I came across one of my very first ever machine quilting projects. It's a small sampler that consist of two colors of fabrics. Yellow and beige.

How boring now that I think about it. Light yellow and beige. I must have been afraid of color. Well, that soon passed. Thank goodness!

I remember being so excited to take a machine quilting class with Sue Nickels. One of my machine quilting idols. Still is---I remember the class room had all new Bernina sewing machines to use, and Sue was so attentive and giving of her knowledge about machine quilting with all of us newbies.

The class was Oct. 2001 according to the faint lettering I can just barely read now on the back of the stitch sampler. 6" x 6" squares that comprised our nine patch project. I'm looking at it today, 2011, and thinking, hey ---that was the start of it all. My fascination with machine quilting.

I'm also thinking how perhaps I was much more freer back then with my free motion and design work.

As I look at some of the stitches that Sue encouraged us to do, I realize she was way ahead of her time. Now there is some notoriety with certain online machine quilters that are teaching machine quilting on domestic sewing machines using small squares of fabric. Like it's a new concept. Not so. We just never heard or knew about it back in 2001.

Sue Nickels was a pioneer of sorts. Teaching sit down machine quilting back in 2000 and earlier when machine quilting was not as popular, and was just taking roots. The internet classroom and blogging were unheard of then.

One of the six inch squares with a flourish of curves and petals Sue taught us.

---and how about this curved cross hatching. Ahead of it's time for sure.

Or this triangular filler stitch. Whoa--

I think Sue called these echoing teardrops. I've since heard the term peacock feathering.

Terms and wording have certainly changed for the various quilting designs since 2001.

I can't believe I stitched out these small free motion daises and leaves back then. No intimidation. I was much more freer with my quilting then than I am now. How did that happen. Self doubt perhaps. Fear of failure. Striving for that elusive perfect quilt design and stitch.

Grapes, tendrils and leaves. Now they call this "pebbling". I haven't a clue what that middle of the block design is supposed to be. Backward, every which way feathers perhaps? Having fun.

Thank you Sue Nichols for sparking my interest in machine quilting.

Happy Halloween!

I had hopes of getting my Halloween quilt, "Witch Way", quilted. But, I guess the goblins & ghosts did not have it in the cards. :o)

Here is "Witch Way" on the design wall. The backing is pinned up next to it. That's pretty wild too!

The cutting of this kit, and the pieced star blocks took quite a while. I did most of it at quilt retreat. I want to do some custom quilting on this project, and so I did not rush to get it quilted this month, as I knew it would take a week or more to finish.

Two of my favorite blocks in this quilt are the black cats!

Apples

Spring in the apple orchard

We have an old, but still producing apple orchard. All we do is an occasionally pruning of broken branches so Bill can disc with his tractor every Spring. Otherwise the property is somewhat neglected. Many of the trees are at least 50 yrs. old now. However, we still have many that produce. Gravensteins and Rome's mostly. Come mid September Bill starts picking the ripe Gravensteins and he gets his trusty apple peeler out. The applesauce making process starts. It goes on for several weeks as the apples ripen.

I do the sauce cooking. Add some cinnamon and a bit of sugar to taste.

A good supply of plastic freezer containers

Some freezer space!

And we are stocked up with delicious applesauce until about mid April!

We also make a few pies in the process!

(The cute quilted apple table runner is a gift from my friend Jane.)