You'd think I'd have all the time in the world to work on quilting (being summer vacation-n-all). But in the last couple of days, I seriously don't know where the time has gone! However, in the hour time slots that I've had here-n-there, I was able to quilt the OC wall-hanging. Thanks to Angela (Soscrappy) and a post from the Quiltville chat, I have found some great quilt motiv sites.
-- Quilts complete
-- Fast-n-Free FREEdownloads
I don't think the quilting style I chose was on either of these sites---to be honest, I can't really remember. But somehow I got the idea of concentric circles which resembles oranges and the letter "O," which seemed to "make sense" for the Orange Crush quilt. With that said, though, I don't think I'll use this same quilting pattern on the Full-size OC quilt. It is NOT easy to make circles. In fact, trying to follow the marked pattern was down-right IMPOSSIBLE. I needed to completly free-hand one inner-circle because I had forgotten to mark it. THAT circle turned out better than most of my marked ones----I didn't have to worry about trying to follow any lines---I just moved my hands in a nice circular motion. V'iola---MUCH EASIER! I'll probably give in and do a simple meander on the Full-quilt, when I finally get around to it.
Back to the wall-hanging----In the border, I used one of the HUNDREDS of decorative stitches that are on my Bernina, and quilted about half an inch in from the seams on all the blue "geese" pieces. You can catch a small glimpse of the border quilting on the close-up shot. This quilt might actually find a home in the spot above the piano in the main area. Either that, or it'll help cover up the ugly styrofoam walls down in my quilting space.
Wednesday afternoon, the muggy humid summer weather FINALLY arrived, so I threw together a make-shift "water-play-area" for the girls. We didn't have much sand in the turtle anyway, so it didn't take too much to clean it up. Placing the little slide from the play-cube into the water was Cassie's idea (even though she's QUITE a bit too big to really enjoy it now)---I'm giving up trying to load her pic--it just doesn't want to load. But here are some pics of the other two. I'm sure you can well imagine Cassie's legs extend beyond the dimensions of the turtle when she comes down the slide....
I haven't been watching ANY news over the past two weeks---I have no idea what is going on in my community or the world, for that matter. Nor do I know what the forecast has in store, but it sure looks gloomy outside--as if it could rain any moment. Very cloudy, and decent temps---68 degrees right now (8:15 am). All the girls are home with me today--yesterday was the last day of the 1st session of summer school for #1 and #2. I think we'll just kick back today, relax, and hopefully they'll let me get downstairs for an hour (or so) to putz. I really don't know what I'm going to work on. I have the OC Full quilt, but I just don't want to tackle that yet. I could always work on some more blocks for my Oklahoma Backroads, ---maybe. OR, I could start cutting material for a NEW PROJECT that needs to be completed by the end of August.
In fact, if any of you have looked at the January 08 Quiltmaker (the one that has Bonnie's Leaders/enders and her Blue Ridge Mountain pattern) , the pattern I am going to be making is the Marti Mitchell design on the cover. My MIL had purchased 4 yards of a beatiful flowered fabric at Walmart a couple of months ago, and our family-friend Oooo'd and Ahhhh'd over the colors! So, we KNEW we needed to use that fabric---we just needed to find the right pattern. While I was cleaning and organizing my stash and magazines a couple of weeks ago, I came across this magazine and knew right away it HAD to be the pattern we use. So, using both my MIL's and my stashes, we put together the other fabrics. We only needed to buy a couple of yards of a mauve and a couple of yards of a light-gold to make it complete.
Yeah....that might be the project of choice today.....something new. (JUST what we always need, right???)
5 comments:
The wall hanging looks good. I'm planning to use some of the embroidery stitches on my new machine to quilt something soon too, now that I've got the walking foot. The circles look great too - I must try something like that soon - perhaps on my Strawberry Crush when I get round to it.
Great job! Machine quilting is really fun once you learn to relax and just let it flow. :D
Your wall hanging is really pretty, and I'm sure it will brighten up whatever area you decide to hang it in. Looks like your girls are enjoying their day off, and I hope you get (got) your hour to play. The quilt on the cover is very pretty, and your fabrics sound lovely.
Way to go on the machine quilting. Can you remember now how you used to fight with your old machine? The pattern you chose is way too cute. It really looks great on the quilt! I have exactly that same Quiltmaker magazine, I got it because Bonnie was in it. I loved the Marti Michell pattern with the flying geese, and even put it in my someday pile. Is the quilting world really that small?
Your OC looks great! Congrats on finishing!
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