Bear Paw - finished

Bear Paw (115" x 115")

The quilt so large that my space downstairs isn't adequate to photograph the finish.  Instead, I spread it out on our King size bed.  My parents have thicker mattresses, so this comforter should work nicely for them.  In fact...until my parents get their room painted, this lovely beauty may just remain out of harm's way and stay on our bed :D

1+ spool of Aurifil used (11 Bobbins and top-thread)

 Generic 7" feather pantograph by Cheryl Barnes' book Dot-to-Dot quilting

Extremely happy with the results.

Taming the beast: Bear Paw

I really wanted to show a "I'm FINISHED" picture tonight, but after almost a full day of quilting......

.....I'm done (physically).  

About 15 inches remain, which means I quilted 100 inches today; 115" wide.  I've gone through 9 bobbins so far and almost a full spool of Aurifil thread (see the almost bare spool on the top of my machine?)

Paul is cooking up a late dinner right now;  Sweet -n- Sour Pork, and the rest of us are relaxing with an hour of Olympic swimming trials.   I'm hungry.

We take a break from our normally scheduled quilting to bring you this message....

Paul:  {{standing in the doorway of our basement walk-out}}   "Hey honey, do you have the camera down here?"

Me:  {{just finishing my 3rd pass of quilting}}.  "No.  Why?"

Paul:  "I have this really cool salamander in the bucket of the tractor.  It has a deformed tail."

Me:  {{head upstairs to get camera}}

Paul is working on weeding the raspberry section;  LOOK!!!!  A few teasers are already out there :D

"And now back to our quilting session in progress."

PS:  Chick update:  The fifth has hatched!! :-)

Almost not quite....

The Bear Paw quilt has been loaded!  What a MONSTER!!!  Once the top was completed, it probably took me about two hours to piece the backing, the batting and get it all loaded and lined up on the frame.  This one has MAXED OUT my frame!

I literally only have half a centimeter left of space on the left side;  the carriage is flush against the frame here...

I have about an inch of space on the right side of the frame, BUT the pantograph pattern is non-exisitent for about an inch, so that'll be eye-balled up and lolligagged for the first bit for each path.

SO....my game plan today:  QUILT THIS MONSTER!!!!!  I have 12 bobbins prepped and ready;  I wonder how many this will take???

BABY CHICK UPDATE!!!!!

Four have hatched with one more on the verge of emerging (lower right egg in picture) and one more with a little chip out of it;  so.....I predict to have SIX babies by the end of the day.  We'll just keep wondering and practice our patience with the other two....

Happy Thursday

Bear Paw flimsy (almost)

Holy Big-Quilt Batman !

The quilt has almost reached flimsy status.  One more 6" border of the carmel colored fabric remains.

At this point, before the final border..... it measures 103" x 103"; do you see it extend beyond the carpet at the top of the pic???

Before deciding on the size of the final border, I measured the width of my quilting frame:  130", so I should be perfectly fine with a 115"x115" quilt for quilting.

But yikers!  BY FAR the biggest quilt to be placed on the frame.

My household at 1:40 PM

Oh boy---it's a LAZY Saturday at the Skatt-Ranch!

Overcast and low 70's.  It's actually a PERFECT day for some outside work, but I'm honestly POOOOOOPED out from my 8 hours of sunny gardening yesterday and 5 hours the evening before.  Paul isn't feeling that greatest, so I convinced him to do some relaxing too.  (His arm didn't need much twisting.)

Cassie's the only one awake with me right now, so she got the whole "licking bowl" to herself from a batch of scotch-a-roos I just made for a family outing tonight with friends.

I wanted something simple to work on OTHER than parking my butt in the recliner with the laptop.  THAT would have been simple, yes....but I actually wanted to accomplish something productive.  I definitely don't have the energy to stand for an hour-or-so at the quilting frame, so I grabbed the Bear Paw blocks and am working on piecing the quilt center.  

Hopefully your Saturday is meaningful!

Bear Paw and A BEAUTIFUL MARCH DAY!

While laying awake last night, I started thinking ahead to what my school plans would be for the upcoming week. I concluded that I will worry about it Monday morning and take one day at a time, rather than plan all 5 days and wittle away my Sunday by doing only work.

Therefore, ...

After some delicious coffee and a piece of toast (and tossing a load of clothes in the washing machine), I headed downstairs and decided to pull out the Bear Paw units and turned them into 19" blocks. This quilt will be BIG!!!! I have to be sure not to surpass the limit of my quilting frame, so it'll probably end up being about 105-110" square.

Just now, I came upstairs, looked at the outside temp, and went right back downstairs to shut everything off. Mind you, the thermometer is sitting in the sun, BUT STILL!!!!!



Going from a snow-storm last week that dropped 9-10" in our yard and offered me a LOVELY snowday....



to all the snow melted and temps in the 60's a week later.....

I am having a quick brunch with the girls....and OUTSIDE WE GO!!!! Our plan: take a garbage bag, put on some gloves, and go garbage picking while taking a walk along our road.

Awesome helpers with Bear Paw

Quilting with helpers SUUUURE makes for more progress!

Caitlyn joined me by 7:15 this morning (since she decided to wake up at 5:30 with a sore throat :|). With our little assembly line going, the HSTs had their dogears trimmed at the same time as they were pieced into twosies for the Bear Paw edges.

Shortly after 8:00, Candace joined us and wanted to help too. So, I grabbed my stacks of Blue/Neutral HSTs for Jamestown Landing that hadn't had their dogears trimmed and let her have at 'em.

I'd LOVE to say that all 25 blocks for Bear Paw were completed, but not quite. Each corner unit measures 9" finished, with a 1" sash. So....19" blocks, set 5-by-5, will make for a big quilt. :0)

This will simply have to wait until my next quilting moment.

I have NOT set fabrics aside for Bonnie's mystery (YET!), but I have FULLLLL intentions of joining in! We have the day off of school on Friday; Cassie will be with a friend, and I've invited playdates over for Caitlyn and Candace each, so I am hoping to get some good quilting time in on Friday once Bonnie posts the first clue.

Happy Sunday!

Bear Paw beginnings

Ahhhhh.........a full day with the rotary cutter and sewing machine FINALLY! The Bear Paw fabrics that were purchased two weeks ago were pressed first off, and then almost two hours of cutting commenced before I finally sat at the machine to piece 400 HSTs.

I have completed 11 full blocks (44 "corner" units), but haven't cut any sashing yet. The sashing will be a butterscotch/gold fabric with some dark brown highlights.

The pattern itself is simply simple (um.....is that redundant?) BUT, the real labor will come from the size. It'll be the largest quilt I've made to date, a full KING 120"x120" (or SLIGHTLY smaller so that it will fit on my quilting frame).

After dinner, the girls and I sat at the kitchen table, coloring. Our school collects boxtops, Cambell's labels, and a few other "fundraising" labels, milk tops, ink cartridges, etc... On Friday, all the girls came home with a informational packet that included some boxtop organizational sheets.

After some coloring, cutting, and gluing, 55 boxtop labels will be making their way to school on Monday, in addition to some of the other collection items.

And now, we are all sitting watching Harry Potter #7 - Part #1. This afternoon, Cassie finished reading the chapter where the first movie ends, and she's been pleading and pleading to watch the movie :0) I haven't gone out to purchase Part #2 yet, and I have the restraint and control not to run out like a crazed Harry Potter fan to pick one up. Since Cass has started the 7th book and all the previews have been out for the DVD release, Paul has been asking questions again...."Does Harry die? Does Dumbledore come back?".... I just smile and say "Read the book." Cassie and I had some fun teasing Paul too....by having her repeat after me "I promise....not to tell Dad....what happens in the book."

Cassie came home so excited yesterday after school. She used her AR (Accelerated Reader) points to buy ALMOST the complete HP set. She now has books 1-5. Book #1 is on loan to a friend. So tonight, Caitlyn (2nd grade!) grabbed book number 2 and read the first two pages before we started the movie. We'll see how long she stays motivated on THAT book.

Tidying lead to a quilt center

I didn't think I was going to have any time this weekend for quilting. However, after almost 3 hours of prepping this morning, I decided that enough time was spent on it; I feel I'm ready for the week well enough.

Yesterday afternoon, my mother (visiting for the weekend) and I went shopping for fabrics for the quilt she requested a few months ago for their "new bedroom." Come to find out, they haven't even painted their bedroom yet!!!! Guess I don't feel so bad anymore.

The quilt pictured was a google find, and thankfully my mother liked the simple elegance of it (... keyword being SIMPLE!)

I fell in love with it; both for the ease of pattern and for the simple geometric beauty of it. Plus---she needs it in King size! This will be the first quilt I will have made where I spared no cost. All the fabric for the top was purchased at full quilt shop prices ('cept for the 20% discount for finishing off TWO bolts. THAT worked out nicely!) With all the batting that my mother has purchased for me, it's really the least I can do.

So, when I headed downstairs today, I had full intensions of cutting into some LOVELY new fabric!!!!

However, since I haven't been sewing much, I wanted to do some tidying up from my previous projects. Blue-n-Gold Pride scraps were cut down and filed into drawers.....

And these Buckeye Beauty units have been moved around for the past two months. I wasn't about to move them around one more time.....therefore they were sewed up, and added to my design wall.

These blocks have been up on the wall for the past month. Rather than have them spend another few months up there, I sewed them too.

And a 64"x80" quilt center was pieced. An inner border is yet to come, and perhaps a pieced border using these extra 4-patch blocks I found....

Unfortunately, this WILL now be set aside until I decide to get back to it again.

Paul snuck downstairs and took a picture of Caitlyn hanging around with me.

Time for me to make sure we're ready for Halloween tomorrow. Nothing like the last minute.