Quilting in the Snow

I braved the cold of our unheated basement to quilt two small projects last weekend.

The first one is the scrappy baby quilt with white washings and borders all around.  I decided to do a freehand Feathers All Over motif to counteract all those straight lines.

I stitched curvy stems from side to side the whole length of the quilt, and then created feathers and outlined them.  Where there was too much space between the rows of feathers, I quilted in some ribbons and flowers.

The other one is a little smaller.  I did a leafy meander with some posies here and there.  Nothing like dreaming of some actual foliage and flora in the middle of winter!

This is my setup in the basement.  If you look out those double French doors, you can see the world of white outside.

                              

Two of these babies helped a little.

 It was really beautiful outside.  It snowed about ten inches the weekend before, and there was lots of fluffy snow left for us to enjoy outside.

It is amazing how much color is in the winter landscape.  I took this picture during a late afternoon walk along the creek.

 This time next week we will be leaving again for Florida.  It is hard to imagine.

Baby Quilts

Hello out there!  I'm still here.  I actually did some long-arm quilting recently!

First up is a baby quilt that a friend asked me to quilt for her.  It is what is known as a "cheater panel" because the top is actually just printed with the quilting design.

I love the colors and the Noah's Ark theme.

I decided to use swirls and curls free-motion quilting.  I try to find something in the quilt top to echo in the quilting.  In this case, both the sheep and the clouds had the curly design.

Love these little cuddly animals!

The backing is a pastel stripe.

Next is a baby quilt for our mountain neighbor's new grandson.  His father is the one for whom I recently repaired the binding on his high school graduation quilt.  The baby's nursery decor is puppies  with lots of light blue and tan.   I had the perfect top...which I did not even have to sew!  I purchased it online a couple of years ago.

This one is not a cheater cloth.  The top is actually pieced from Minkee, flannel, cotton, and some sort of soft fleece for the puppies.  But it came already assembled.  Woo hoo!

The puppies are adorable.

This quilt is so soft and cuddly!  I just did some loopy free-motion quilting since the border print had big dots.  The back is blue Minkee, and I chose not to use any batting so it would be super soft.

We have been gone so much in the past month.  We spent ten days in the mountains over the Fourth of July.

 We took the grandkids up Grandfather Mountain, about an hour's drive from our cabin.  It is famous for the mile-high swinging bridge.  Here are my hubby and I just after crossing the bridge.  It was so gusty and cold up there that I had to stop at the gift shop and buy myself a warm hooded sweatshirt.  My husband Nanook, on the other hand, was perfectly comfortable.

We all had a great time at this fun family attraction.

The next weekend we went back to the cabin, this time babysitting for our youngest grand baby.  Her parents were at a destination wedding in Mexico.  We had such a good time with little Charlie!

I have lots more to show you and will try to be more faithful about blogging.  It was kind of hard while playing with the grandkids non-stop for a couple of weeks!

Catching Up

It has been raining hard off and on for days now.  That actually has given me lots of extra time for my artsy projects!

On Thursday I went to Clayton to exercise my visitation rights on my Gammill machine.  I managed to quilt both my baby quilt and the flower challenge quilt while I was there.

The baby quilt just has loopy meanders with some flowers and maybe a butterfly for fun.  The baby's name is Holly, so I added her name and a holly leaf.

The backing is pieced from leftover fabrics in the quilt and some others that coordinate.

I made a label today, and will try to finish hand-sewing the binding and label tonight.  I'd like to give it to Holly when we are in the mountains for the Fourth of July.

Here is the flower challenge quilt, now that it is quilted.  I did not touch the flower or stem, only the background.  That makes the non-quilted areas pop.  I will be doing some stitching/beading in the flower area.

I did a lot of small, artistic freestyle quilting.  Near the base, feathery ferns. 

I added some quilted leaves along the stem.

Around the flower I just added some spiral swirls.

Next up for this project is to add beads, crystals, embroidery etc. to embellish the flower.

While I was at Maureen's, there was a severe thunderstorm with heavy rain and dark skies.  I finished quilting just as it started to storm, and by the time I traveled home the rain was over.

On my design wall is the beginning of another child's quilt.  I can't really call this a baby quilt because the baby is already three years old.  This one is for our friends, Ricky and Mary's granddaughter Shelby.  I made  quilts for both of her older brothers, but got in a slump on baby quilts a few years ago and could not keep up!  

This one is going to be a sort of I Spy quilt with pairs of blocks with the same center fabric.  Two mermaids, two butterflies, etc.  Hopefully she can make a game of finding the matching pairs.  

All of the center patches have an animal or other novelty print fabric.  Many are left over from the last three quilts I have made for Charlotte, Lucas, and Holly.

In fact, I have so many leftover scraps that I am piecing together scrap quilts for yet another baby quilt.  I have two more to go before I have made one for all the great-nieces and great-nephews.

I keep a basket of scraps by the sewing machine, and when I am in the mood for some mindless sewing, I just stitch the scraps together randomly until I can cut an eight-and-a-half-inch square.  Very relaxing!

I also have been working on two watercolor paintings.  One is another view of the dam at our mountain place, this time from the bridge with dogwood branches reaching over the creek.  

Before, I had a lot of heavy branches above the dam, and did not like the way they looked.  So, I lifted the out by using a "thirsty" brush and going over the areas to remove the paint.  This left a kind of ghostly effect, not unlike when the mists rise off the water.  But I am filling back in with some color.

I want to have this one ready to take to Michael's to frame when I pick up the one that is there now.

The other painting is a practice portrait of my granddaughter Lily.  I had a good closeup of her face, so I used her as the subject even though she was in my last portrait, as well.  I want to work on the eyes and the shading a little more, and decide if I want to add some background color.  I already have the same face drawn on another paper, so I will try some different color tones for that one.  

Tomorrow we are going back to the mountains for the Fourth of July.  We have a big group gathering there. Lots of children, grandchildren, and friends.  We are looking forward to it...and hope that the BIG RAINS will be over by then.  Charlie and I went up last weekend to do some preparations since we had not been up there in a month.  It was lovely and cool.  We enjoyed watching my sister Katy and her husband Kenny feed the fish in the pond, the pigs, the chickens, and the goats. 

 And of course, the ride over the Christmas tree farms in the Gator is always a highlight.

After running up there, my dog Kasey looks like a lion lying in the savanna of Africa.

Guess that's it for now!  My art quilt bee met yesterday, but I will save that report for another post.

Hello Again

Sometimes bloggers don't post for awhile because they have nothing new to write.

Sometimes it is because they have too darn much new stuff to write about!

We went to our mountain place for Easter weekend.  Beautiful weather for being outside almost all the time, although it was still chilly.  The distant mountain peaks were still covered with snow.

 

On Easter Monday, my art quilt bee met at Peg's house.  I returned the last of the round-robin fabric challenge pieces, which belongs to Marion.  Hers ended up being in four distinct "layers."  In fact, if she cut it up and sewed it back together in different order, it would almost look like worms under the ground!

 

 

I did not touch the button-dot candy section.  The bottom section had been yellow swirls.  I decided to use it as a background layer for some ferny greenery.  Using both positive and negative stamps and stencils, I applied the designs with Setacolor Paints.  Since all the other sections had circle designs, I added some green dots with acrylic paint on bubble wrap.

 

 
The other layers looked like little one-celled organisms like spirochetes, so I added some Lumiere shiny paint and some Zentangle-like doodles.

 
Toni had already added some buttons to the upper sections, so I doodled around them.

 

 

Peg had already taken her piece of finished fabric,

 

and made it into two art quilts!

 
 

Even the quilt backing was made from her "artsy" fabric.

 

 

The next day, I started my new part-time job!  The commute is fairly long (45 minutes), the pay is non-existent, but there are good perks.  I get to wear shorts, bring my dog and my latest novel to work, and play with this all day!

 

 

 

I am babysitting for Baby Charlie on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  I am having such a good time with her!

 

The Whacky Ladies met on Thursday night last week.  Here are a few pictures from our meeting.

 

Carolyn is making great progress on her batik sampler Block-of-the-Month from Wish Upon a Quilt.  She is using a Sharyn Craig setting for the blocks.

 

 

Irene had a gorgeous blue and yellow Yellow Brick Road top to show.

 

 

Mary finished the batik quilt that she was concerned about the fabric in the sashing last time.  We all thought it turned out great.

 

 

Mary also had a quilt that she made for one of her grandsons.

 

 

Donna made two quilted versions of the Challenge Quilt for the Carolina Longarm Association's next show.  She quilted the first one in radiating rays.

 

 

The second one had very decorative feathers and swirls in a contrasting red thread.

 

 

Marilyn finished the Christmas table runner that she has been working on at our meetings.

 

 

I got to show off my finished quilt for Baby Charlie.  I named it Mermaid Lagoon.

 

 

I also had great-nephew Lucas's quilt, which I have named Monkey Business.  I still have to hand stitch the binding on the back.

 

 

 

Okay, I hope that is enough quilty stuff to get me caught up!  We just got back Sunday from a family weekend at the beach, and I have some beautiful pictures to show off.