My Anniversary

Today is my anniversary. Dave and I have been married for 27 years. How could I possibly be old enough to have been married that long?


I didn’t have much time to quilt this week. Between finishing getting the tax stuff together, getting ready to go to retreat, getting my hair done, and having the car serviced, I only did a few pantograms this week.

Sunday I leave for Ocean City, Maryland for quilt Retreat until Wednesday. This retreat is through my guild, Bayside Quilters. I am so looking forward to some me time with just the girls. I have a total of about 10 quilts to work on. I guess I should finish the ones that are almost done before I start some new ones.


The 7-Sisters Quilt Guild meets every Friday night at the Fire House. Tonight I hope to get bindings on two quilts.


My friend just called. She got her Tin-Lizzy the other day and is nervous about using it. I am going to go over there and hopefully get her going on it.


My lap-top crashed 2 days ago. I hope to get it fixed while I am at retreat. Therefore, I will not be posting while I am gone. There should be lots of finished tops to show when I return.

Getting Ready for Retreat

Next week I am going on a quilt retreat from Sunday to Wednesday. So, this weekend I spent some time going through my projects trying to decide what to take.

In this picture are about 5 projects ready to go so far. Some just need finished and some are not even started. I have more but they are not all organized yet. The most difficult thing will be deciding what order to work on my projects.

I have been following the String Thing Challenge and have been thinking about doing one of those with my scraps. Here are some of my scraps. I was surprised how many were already cut in strips.

7 Sisters Top Finished

This week I did not get as much quilting done as I would have liked because I had to work on tax stuff. Yes, it is that dreaded time of year.

Yesterday the Bayside Quilters 300 Birthday Bee had a meeting. Easton, Maryland is 300 years old this year and we are making a commemorative quilt for the occasion. The opening ceremony is the parade on April 24th. We hope to have the quilt ready to unveil then. I am so tempted to post a picture of our progress but I will try to wait until it is complete. The top is assembled and all of the blocks are complete. We are now working on the borders, lettering and the label. I will have the pleasure of quilting it.

Finally, last evening the 7 Sisters Quilt Guild got to meet again. The first time since all of the snow. It was great to be back. We meet weekly at the firehouse so, each year we make a quilt to be raffled to benefit the Fire Company. The winner is chosen each year at the summer carnival. Anyway last night we completed the top. I hope to get it quilted this coming week.

New Books

Over the weekend I went and purchased background fabric for my Joseph's Coat. It is really not like anything I had auditioned. Also, it is not a typical fabric choice for me. I have spent the last few days gluing down edges on the melon pieces while I was watching TV. I would like to have all the applique prepared before I begin putting them on to the background.

I am a member of The Quilt Show and I try to watch every episode. After watching episode 603 last week I had to get Karla Alexander's book. But, while I was shopping for her book I ended up ordering 4 books (2 of hers and 2 other ones). Great stuff! I can't wait to start something from one of her books.

A Couple More Done

Bayside Quilters Raffle Quilt

Nan's Quilt

I got a lot of quilting done this week. We were snowed in but my daughter had a friend here. My husband just took her friend home and now she wants me to watch a movie with her. While I am watching I will glue down edges on the melon shapes for my Joseph's Coat. I was looking forward to my Friday night out quilting at the local firehouse but it has been cancelled because not enough of the parking is cleared. I have a pot of beef vegetable soup on; boy it smells good.

Nana's Quilt

I got a lot of quilting done yesterday. My daughter was again home from school but she still has a friend here. This is my Mom's quilt. It is a pattern by Debra Gabel of Zebra Patterns.

February Finish

My daughter was home again today because of the snow. She had a friend over so she was entertained and I had plenty of time to quilt. On Friday I had a lot of trouble with thread breakage, and I didn't have much luck solving the problem. I was frustrated and did not know what to do today. I was apprehensive about working on a customer quilt so I decided to quilt my UFO top for February. Surprisingly I had no problems. As far as I can tell, the only difference was the fabric.

Anyway, I am so glad to finally have this done. (I still need to bind)  I started this top in the Spring of 2002 when the Baltimore Album Bee was first formed in my guild. It is the first hand appliqued  project I ever started and the first one I ever completed. This is a pattern from a Mimi Dietrich book. This was truly a learning experience for me. I tried so many different ways of hand appliqueing. I really tried to like hand-turned because the hand applique police say that is the right way to do it, but I did not like that method. I believe I have settled on the freezer paper method. But my real preference is machine applique. Hand work just takes too long.

I now have many hand applique projects started.  My taste in fabric has changed a lot since I started this.

Auditions

Time to audition for the background. I glued the melon shapes to clear plastic so it would be easy to audition for the background. Doing this made changing the fabric quick and easy, but the difficult part was trying to get a good picture without the light glaring on the plastic. I usually don't ask for anyone else's opinion in my quilt making except my 12 year old daughter. She has such a great eye for color and we have very similar taste. So, I am really not asking for your opinion, just showing you my choices. I am not sure which one I will choose.  I don't even know yet what I intend to do with this quilt. I will probably like for it to go somewhere in my house, so that rules out the bright pink.

Snowed-In

There was a major snow storm in Maryland yesterday. This is the biggest snow since 2003. Being on the Eastern Shore we usually don't get much snow at all.

This is what it looks like out my back window.

This is what it looks like inside.

I planned on working on my Joseph's Coat. I am using scraps for the melon shapes. I wanted to use some Kaffe Fassett's in it. All of my Kaffe's are waiting to be used in another quilt, so I had to begin cutting out that quilt. I plan on piecing my Kaffe quilt in a couple of weekends when I go on retreat. Anyway, I cut out the blocks for my Kaffe quilt. Then I was able to cut out the pieces for my Joseph's Coat. I am not going to make mine as big as the quilt-along. Instead of 49 blocks I am making 35, and my quilt will be 5 blocks by 7 blocks. I did get all of the melons cut out. Today I am hoping to get some edges glued down and try to decide on the background fabric.

Lucille's Quilts

Here are 2 of the quilts I got done this week. They belong to Lucille.

We are preparing for a major winter snow storm on the east coast. We went to Blockbuster last night and rented 4 movies, and went to the store and got our milk, bread and toilet paper. My DH brought in extra wood. Hopefully the heavy snow and strong winds will not cause any power outages!

UFO Challenge

The UFO Challenge is a great thing. I have 12 tops of my own (most of them have been around for years) waiting to be quilted. When you are a longarm quilter everyone else's quilts get done first. The UFO Challenge has prompted me to set a goal this year I intend on keeping. I also have many tops started. My goal for this year is 2-fold; actually probably 3-fold.

1. Quilt 1 finished top each month

2. Finish 1 top each month

3. Quilt the top that was finished that month

I actually quilted the top that I finished in January on February 1st. My excuse is that I joined the challenge late. Both of these quilts need binding and I plan on doing that Friday night. The top I finished and quilted for January is "Field of Flowers" from McCall's Quilting /August 2009.

I got started on Joseph's Coat.

Joseph's Coat quilt-along

I have decided to join along with "Don't Look Now's" "Joseph's Coat" quilt-along. I am starting late, but I just discovered it. Seeing all of the beautiful creations in the Flickr pool has made it irresistible. I downloaded the pattern from Petit Debutant, instead of drafting my own. I will be taking fabric from my stash except for the background. I am not sure what direction I will go with it yet.

I probably won't get to quilt all day because my daughter is off of school due to the snow that fell over the weekend. Maybe I will have the chance to choose some fabric for this project and start cutting since I will not be in my workshop.