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.

Freehanding

Sometimes I just want to let loose and quilt whatever I want. No particular designs, no pantographs and no template boards. Just start up in one corner and take off with some designs I feel comfortable doing.

Leaves, hearts, small twirly-whirlies. Some feathers, some flowers with feather petals.
Here is one of the Martha Quilts---Freehanded.
It's fun to do this type of free handing. If you need some more structure than going it on your own, there is a good book by Diana Phillips of Cozy Creations. "Friendly Freehanding". Backgrounds and Overalls Volume 1. Floral Medley on page 6 provided some inspiration for this.

Donation Quilting

I quilted two of The Martha quilts this weekend, and put the binding on one, and have the binding made for the next one.

I meandered this Disappearing 9-Patch. We Remnants have been busy!

Never underestimate the basic free motion meander to get a quilt finished fast. This took me less than an hour on the long arm.

For this one---a larger Disappearing 9-Patch quilt, I used the Circle Lord "Square Dance" template board. Dancing was fun!

This took about an hour and a half to complete. Legacy 80/20 batting.

Stolen Quilts-Karen Combs

Thiefs have struck again. A quilt instructors worst case scenerio is to have their quilts stolen or go missing while traveling.

Karen Combs quilts have been stolen!

Karen is a delightful teacher and I had the pleasure of taking a class from her through our guild workshop program. I learned so many useful tips and ideas from Karen. Please read more about the theft and see pictures of Karen's stolen quilts on her blog. I sooo---hope her beautiful quilts are found soon.

http://karencombs.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/quilts-stolen/

Karen's quilts are very distinctive and beautiful. So be on the look out for them on eBay, Craigs list, thrift shops, resale shops, antique shops, yard sales and newspaper ads.

This was my project with Karen done in her patchwork illusions class.

Sort of Spring Cleaning

The weather has been rainy, and when it's not raining, it's windy and cold. Winter has arrived here in Sonoma county where we once had Spring. (like a few weeks ago) The daffodils have long since bloomed and actually shriveled up due to lack of rain this winter. Now the tulips are struggling to bloom but have been beaten down into the mud by the currant rain and wind. It's much needed, but plants and weather are all mixed up this year.

So, with the wet weather keeping us indoors and my not being in the mood to stand at the long arm for whatever reason, I decided to organize many of the embroidery files I have been downloading so I can find them more easily. A job I have been putting off for a long time. Now I don't have to resort to searching around in different files where I downloaded them to, but can't remember where. I also backed up all my lap top files which I had not done for a few years. I deleted a bunch of old machine embroidery designs too---and wondered why I ever thought I wanted them. Funny how our tastes change.

I found more day of the week embroidery designs on some old floppy disks and moved them. I use Designer Gallery software to sort and store the embroidery designs. I set up a catalog for all the day of the week designs which will really will help me find each set of designs.

I organized some of my sewing room tools while the doing the computer back up. I wondered at how I have accumulated so many fabric marking pencils! White, pink, blue, black, graphite, chalk, and others. Some were so short, I couldn't even sharpen them any more---trashed those! Geesh!

Then I organized some polyester embroidery threads that I had in shipping box and I had not decided where to put.

And finally I cleaned off the cutting table and sorted out some rulers that I rarely use and put them down under the table. I even put a new blade in the rotary cutter!

Today I spent some time working on a UFO that has been up on my design wall forever. I finished 3 blocks late this afternoon. If I set my mind to it I could have the whole top done in a few days---and if it keeps raining as predicted maybe I will get more things cleaned up and finished.