Staying green

I don't send much of anything from my sewing room to the landfill. Since I've had a long arm, I've had more trimmings of the excess batting and fabric at the edge of the quilt. Instead of tossing these into the trash, I've started using sturdy fabric to make a bag, leaving an opening for stuffing. All those scraps go into there and when it's full enough, I top stitch the opening closed. I write, in permanaent marker, "Machine wash and dry. Shake to fluff" along one edge and then donate these bags to a dog rescue shelter for use as dog beds. I'd rather make a bed to keep a caged dog off the cold concrete than send the scraps to a landfill to provide rats with material to make nests. :-)

Annette's quilt for Rachel's wedding gift

While Annette was visiting with me this summer in Idaho, we finished all the blocks needed for the quilt for her granddaughter and new grandson-in-law. I'll post pictures of the on point setting, the square set, and the probably border layout that she has chosen. She has decided on the on-point layout, and does plan to make the green border slightly narrower and the blue on slightly wider, but green still wider than blue.

Another UFO bites the dust!

Here's a 60" X 78" quilt that I quilted this morning. It still needs trimming and binding. I'm happy to get more UFOs done, but wonder why there doesn't seem to be any more space in the quilting room? This pattern is Four Patch Nine from www.quilterscache.com

More quilts completed

I've been a busy little bee, working on getting some quilts finished. Top left is a pattern I found in a magazine, which I need to dig out. I want to make another one of these. I bought pre-quilted borders, os had a challenge applying them correctly. Top right is a pattern called Lilabet's Garden, which was a block of the month pattern on a yahoo group. Midlle left is Logan's quilt. Her Mom, Dad and Logan are in the picture. Logan did most of the sewing getting the blocks constructed. Once blocks were put into rows, it was a bit much for her to manage.

Middle right is Nine Patch Garden. It involves trapunto, and I worked several years, getting this one to a completed stage. Bottom photo is a ssouthwest fabric Disappearing Nine Patch, with the trimmings from the 5" squares being used to make a piano key border.

Quilt for my boss

My boss (Lynda) had made a T-shirt quilt for her son who did a lot of wrestling in high school. It was tied, and had been well loved. The binding was coming loose and the batting shifting since it was tied a minimum of every 7" and sometimes much further apart than that. I resewed the binding on, adding some batting where needed, then put it on my longarm, and quilted it with my loop-de-loop style. She's very pleased with the look of the quilt.

Sharon trying to decide what to do next, Donna with pieces she put together for a backing, Becky putting together some borders for some blocks we received from Melissa at the retreat, and LindaPoo binding a quilt while Carolyn supervises.

Annette's first quilt

Annette had just received her Lilabet's Garden quilt back from the long armer, and she brought it over to show to us.

Also pictured is a top that Ellen finished which had been given to her partly completed.

Pictures of the gang at work, and of Cathy and Ellen on the longarm.

Charity Sew Day

I hosted a charity sew day, and we had 12 ladies attend. The first four pictures are of the house when there were only 5 of us here.

Linda's paints

After driving Carol to the airport, I stopped at JoAnn's and bought some white fabric that I needed, and some paints. I washed the fabric and tore off several inches to use for a paint trial. I re-wet the fabric, painted from one end down about 2/3 of the way and then came in 2/3 of the way from the other end with blue. The blue overpowered the yellow, where I expected to have green, so I applied more paint. I've hung it sideways to dry, so we'll see if the color gravitates.

Carol quilting

Pictures of Carol on Hoot and some of her finished product. She is very interested in the increasing and decreasing size of the quilting in relationship to the printed center of the pieces.

more of Carol's quilting

Carol had an idea for a piece of horse fabric that I have, and I quilted the 'sky' area in black with my famous loop-de-loop design, and she did her loop-de-loop in the 'ground' area. She plans to do hand quilting in the horse/shards of color area. The other piece is another paintstix/fabric painted item she quilted.

Carol's stuff, quilted

Carol has enjoyed using my longarm, and has quilted several of the pieces that used the paintstix with a stencil, and then painted afterwards.

still more

One picture is in twice, but I don't know how to edit. The two pieces of painting that are duplicates are for a cousin to chose which one she might like.

more

The larger turquoise piece is a pillow cover that I showed in an earlier posting. Carol has added more color and contrast to it.

Other pieces are done with paintsticks and with fabric painting.