Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Beautiful "I Spy" Quilt and Updates

 First off, I let me show you this beautiful "I Spy" quilt that my SIL, Kellie made before I catch you up on everything else. 
 She made this beautiful quilt for my youngest son, Gabe.  They had a blast picking out fabrics together. 
 She pieced this by hand using the EPP method.
 I had so much fun quilting this quilt!  I enjoyed all of the different fabrics.  It was just really fun!
 For the backing she picked a beautiful shade of blue minkee.  It was so soft and I just love quilting with that stuff.  I used a panto called, Becker's Shooting Star.  It is a fun design that I love using.  Look how well the quilting shows on this minkee.
 Now let me catch you up on a few other things from over the weekend.  Richard was off this weekend.  On Friday, I had a lady stop by that brought me some quilt tops.  I had talked with her a couple of months ago about the tops.  She lives in NC but was coming up to KY for a family reunion this past weekend so she brought the tops with her.  She and her daughter brought them by.  She brought 7 KING size quilt tops!!!!  I can't wait for you all to see them!  Of course, I will be posting as I quilt them but I do have several ahead that I have to do.  

Saturday we decided at the last minute to go to a community yard sale.  Richard bought some tools and I bought a cookbook and a decorative plate.  LOL!  Not much of anything be we had a good time.  Hunter went as well but didn't buy anything.  

Sunday we had a wonderful Church service and then a family cookout at my mom's.  It was nice and we finished planning our family vacation.  There will be 14 of us going on vacation.  More on all of that later.  We are all very excited.

Monday...mom, Chantal, Addison, Hunter and I all had a little shopping trip.  All that I bought was a pair of flip flops.  LOL!  Oh and I also met a lady in town and picked up another quilt top to quilt.  YAY!  

My bp is doing some better.  I have a doctor's appointment today (Tuesday) so I will update you on that later.  I've had a few weeks off from quilting due to my bp issues so I desperately need to get back to quilting! I plan on piecing a backing this morning and loading a customer quilt on the frame before my appointment and working on it afterwards.  Hunter also has a friend coming over later. 

Friday, May 26, 2017

Grandmother's Flower Garden in RED

I want to show you this beautiful customer quilt that I quilted.  This belongs to a friend and also a co-worker of my SIL. A couple of years ago I taught my SIL to English Paper Piece.  She instantly fell in love with it and started working on her projects at work between patients.  So by doing that her co-workers also fell in love with EPP.  This beautiful red Grandmother's Flower Garden belongs to Christy. 
 This is one that I would have loved to have kept!  She did an awesome job.
 I absolutely loved the fabrics. 
 A pic of the back.  Quilted with a beautiful lush leaves design.  This backing showed up a little light in the pic but it's the same red as in the front side. 
Hope you enjoyed seeing this beautiful quilt. 

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Fabric Shopping Trip

 Back in February hubby surprised me with a fabric shopping trip.  This was just a few weeks before my birthday in March.  He took me to Guhl's in Jackson Ohio.  It's about 2 hours from here.  Here are some pics from the trip...
 Look!  Windham fat quarters for $1.25 each.  Needless to say that I loaded up on those!
 More fabric...  They have a lot that is precut into something like 2yards or so but you can have anything over 2 yards cut.  The yardage ran $3.99 yard and it was name brand fabric.
 Yep, that is me!  Hubby was snapping pics because I was a little overwhelmed.  LOL
 I spent just under $100 and this is what I brought home...These are 2 pieces of 2yd each
 Then a bunch of fat quarters...
 more...
 more...
 still more...
 more...
 This is all of the fat quarters...
 I am planning another trip in the fall.  I absolutely loved it!!!!

Today I did a little bit of handpiecing on my Kindred Hexies but not a lot.  I was babysitting my 2yr old niece so we did a lot of playing and then we took a nice long nap. :)  

Tomorrow is grocery shopping day!  I really need to go but always dread it.  At some point this coming week, I need to run to Joann's which is an hour away to pick up some fabrics for a customer quilt that I will be making.  I have to be in that area anyway so I'll just pick it all up then.  I also need to purchase some stabilizer for a t-shirt quilt.  

Mom comes home from work tomorrow and Richard has the weekend off.  Not sure what we will do this weekend.  I think at this point we are supposed to get a lot of rain.   


Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Hexies and Quilts

 Here is my current progress on my Kindred Hexies.  I have a bunch of them prepped and I am sewing some of them together.  Sorry the pic is dark but it was late when I took this pic. 
 I enjoy the handwork during the evenings. 
 I should make more progress tomorrow (Wednesday). Hunter and I will be babysitting my little 2yr old niece, Addison.  She is so sweet and not a problem at all to watch.  I love babysitting her.  This will only be for a few hours.  

Here are a couple of Antique customer quilts that I quilted a few months ago.  Just trying to get you all caught up on the quilts.  

 I have several more customer quilts that need quilting as soon as I get my bp back on track.  I had a lady call me last night that is driving up from NC this weekend for a family reunion and is bringing me 7 quilt tops for me to quilt.  I also have a few more besides those. 


Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Kindred Hexies

 I am really enjoying being back to blogging.  :) Thought I would show you my Kindred Hexies.  My SIL, Kellie and I are both making a quilt with this shape.  I have a bunch of them prepped and have some already sewn together but not shown in this pic. 
 These are about 4.5" long so when sewing you see a lot of progress with them.  I'm just using scraps on them.
 I have a bunch of them prepped and ready to sew.  This evening I did sew a few of them as I relaxed on the couch trying to deal with my blood pressure issues. 
 Speaking of blood pressure issues, this is what I am dealing with. 
 Richard was off work today and he stayed close by to keep an eye on me.  He and Hunter were right outside building a swing.  :)  This one is sold to one of Richard's coworkers at the hospital.  Richard told Hunter that if he did half of the work with him then he would give him half of the money.  Hunter was all for that!  LOL!  Richard made me a special swing a little while back and I just love it.  It's not like this one and it fits me perfectly since I am short.  LOL!  He measured and made it to fit me.  He also made one like this one below for his mom for mother's day.  My mom already has a porch swing so she didn't need another one.  :)  The swing below is made from Cherry wood.
 I've also been keeping a close eye on my Kiowa Blackberries.  They get up to 3" long!  Right now they are looking pretty good.  We also have a huge path of regular blackberries and raspberries.  I can't wait for them!  When I am up to it, I will walk up there and take a few pics for you.  :)
  I guess that is all for tonight.  I will probably sew a little more on my Kindred Hexies and then go to bed. 


Monday, May 22, 2017

Two Memory Quilts

 A dear friend of mine contacted me several months back asking if I could make a Cross quilt out of her father's shirts that had passed away.  I've made several of these memory quilts and she had saw one and wanted one as well.  

I pressed, cut the shirts and pieced this memory top of her.  Then I quilted it on the longarm.  I forgot the name of this quilting panto that I used but I love the texture that it gave the quilt.
 A close up view...
 She was very pleased with the final result and asked me if I had enough leftover shirt fabric to make a baby quilt for her grandson that is on the way.  She sent me a pic of what she had in mind so this is the end result.  Btw...his name starts with a "H"
 She loved it and so did her daughter.  I quilted this one with a star design.  The backing is a minke and it quilted up nicely. 
 I've spent most of the day on the couch again dealing with blood pressure issues.  Sadly I didn't even go to Church today, I just wasn't up to it.  Anyway, I have planned all day to work on some EPP while I have some downtime but I honestly just didn't have the energy to even do that.  I will say that my BP is still running crazy high but I am feeling a tad better tonight.  

So I guess that is all for this post.  I have so many quilts (past and present) to share with you.  


Sunday, May 21, 2017

A Ton of Quilting Going On Here!!!!

 Hi All!  I'm back once again!  Hope I still have some readers out there.  I finally got the laptop fixed and I just found it really hard to type a blog post on the cell or the tablet.  So now that I have the laptop fixed I should be back in business. 

Lots of quilt pics in this post!  Life has been very busy in many ways lately but I do miss blogging.  So let me start with a few customer quilts that I have quilted.  I think these were in March.  

This first one was a beautiful queen size purple Bargello.  I really hated to give this one back because it was so pretty.  The lady won this at a family reunion.  It was just the quilt top and needed to be quilted.  Not sure who pieced it but I was told that it was pieced by a man and it was completely pieced on a serger!  
 This one was a beautiful hand pieced Double Wedding Ring pieced in the 30's.  I absolutely loved quilting this one.  This was another one that I hated to see leave.  It was pieced by this lady's mother and she was giving it to her granddaughter as a college graduation gift.  Of course, it had scalloped edges and it turned out beautifully.
 This one is one of those comfy quilts.  It was pieced by my SIL, Kellie which is a relatively new quilter and is doing an awesome job.  It is nice to have another quilter in the family to talk "quilts" with.  This is a memory quilt that she made for her father.  These were all flannel shirts and pj pants that belonged to his brother.  I saw her dad a few weeks after she gave it to him and he was absolutely in love with it.  

She backed it with flannel as well and it was just so cozy soft.
 You can really see the texture in this pic.  I quilted it with the Dazzle panto design. 
 This one was pieced by a 93 yr old lady.  I've know her for years and her husband used to preach at our church but he passed away several years back.  Her name is Joy and I must say it was a "joy" to quilt this for her. 
 This one was pieced by a dear friend.  She pieces all of her quilts by hand.  This one was made for one of her sons that is a cop.  I quilted it with a star panto design and it had a fleece backing.
 Last but not least, this was a piece of Sofia the First fabric that I quilted for my 2yr old niece that loves Sofia.  :)  I sewed the binding on and called it finished.  She loves it!
 That's all for now.  I will schedule this to post on Sunday morning but I am typing this on Saturday night.  It's been a long day.  I've spent most of it at the ER dealing with BP issues again.  It's been a long week for that.  Chest pains and pressure with a BP of 178/119.  When I got to the ER this morning it was 215/110.  Now I just feel exhausted.  

Thanks for reading and I missed you all!