Big and Beautiful

Big and beautiful…. the quilt, not me, you silly.

I have not been able to quilt as much as I normally do because I have been pretty sick.   But little by little, I finally got this quilt done.  It was on my machine for 18 days.  Normally, I would have been able to do this one in 4 days.    Thankfully, my friend Sammi has been patient about waiting for me to finish.

This is while it was still on my machine, being quilted:

 

finished:

 

 

 

 

 

And the back:

 

 

So Fine thread in bobbin, White Glide on top.  Quilter’s Dream Puff batting.

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Frozen

We had more freezing rain, snow, sleet, ice drips.

 

 

Guess what?!  I did not forget how to quilt.  I haven’t gotten too far on this, and it is taking much longer than it should, but I am working at it.  Only a couple hours a day at the most while in a flare, but doing it.  I have never done these curly feathers and not sure if I like them or not.  But it is good to try new things, right?

Playing with Possibilities

I got a few more dies for my GO! cutter and have been playing with so many possibilities!  I have always been smitten with hexes.

Combine hexes with stack n whack and I am in my glory!

And the taxes are done.  That is cause for celebration!

We had several days of warmth and snow melting.  Last night it snowed, sleeted, rained, froze, dripped, froze some more and snowed again.  Ugly.  And more to come tonight and tomorrow.

 

Birds on Birds in the Air

I added some birds to the birds in the air quilt for Quinn.  I haven’t decided on fabrics for borders yet.  Maybe this weekend I will get to that.

 

And just because I like this photo, here is a real bird out my window this morning:

 

And here are our amaryllis flowers.  We call them Mutt and Jeff.

Birds in the Air

I’ve been working on a quilt for my grand niece, Quinn.  All I know is, she likes blue and yellow together.  It has 35 different prints in it.  The pattern is called Birds in the Air.  I plan on doing some applique birds on it too.  And maybe a pieced border.  Not sure yet.

 

And….. we are ready for the Super Bowl, rooting for the Steelers of course.  Our neighbors will be shooting off fireworks if there is a win….. we hope to enjoy that!

Time for a little Super Bowl Party here…. tree comes down tomorrow.

 

Feathered Star done

I finished piecing my feathered star.  I did the borders differently than Ronda’s Spanish Rose pattern called for.  Instead, I used the template in the book Fans and Flutterbys.  I have used it before successfully, so didn’t want to re-invent the wheel.  My quilt, before the last border was not close enough to the measurement it said it should be to feel comfortable doing it Ronda’s way.  Hey….. there is always more than one way to do something!

As much as I like this quilt, I must say…. I am tired of looking at it and ready to hang it in the cabinet for quilting later.

And for fun, go see Gretchen’s blog for another version of this same quilt.  Very different, but also pretty.

I also got done with the applique on Cindy’s quilt for our round robin.  It isn’t perfect… which is why she will know that I did it!  This week, done is better than perfect.

 

My next project?  I don’t know for sure.  Something easy and scrappy I think.  I need to use my GO! cutter on some blue and yellow fat quarters that are singing to me.  Just have to decide on a pattern.

Amaryllis watch:

2 days ago:

And the taller one this morning:

Oh crap!

Have you ever used a quilt pattern that has lots of screw ups in it?  Or wrong measurements?  Or the pattern was just so poorly written that it made very little sense?  Yeah, me too.  I once followed a Pam Bono pattern and found measurements that were wrong.   I emailed her about what I thought was a mistake in her book.  In LESS THAN AN HOUR she emailed me back that I was correct and she apologized profusely.  What great service!  I have lots of her patterns and books, and will continue to buy them because they are well written and it was only once that I ever found a mistake.  Hey, we all mistakes, I know that.

But……

So our little quilt group is doing a mystery quilt.  One of the gals had done this same quilt in her guild and she provided the pattern to any of us who wanted to participate.

Well, let me tell you…this pattern is crap.  There.  I said it.  There are 2 sets of directions…. for the less adventurous and the more adventuresome quilters.  But not 2 COMPLETE sets, only partial sets.  And only for some sections.  And SOME of the directions are for everyone, and some are not.  But it is not clearly distinguished.  And in the end?  There are NO directions at all for the last 2 corner blocks.  Crap.  Total crap pattern.  I wouldn’t give her a nickle for anything else she ever wrote.   I don’t know the gal’s name who wrote the pattern, only her blog title is printed on the pattern.

Whew!  I feel better.  Got that out of my system.

So I got the center put together.  Got the pieced border put on, making up my own blocks to finish the corners.  Still have 2 more borders to go.  Got that much done in the last 2 days.  Go in the studio this morning to admire my work….. and OH CRAP!!

 

It doesn’t pay to work on something when I am pissed off.  It is counter-productive.   So maybe I will wait till Sunday’s Steelers game to rip that bottom row out, flip it, and sew it back in the right way.