Fun in the studio...practice form presentation

Start the day with the sky on fire! The sunrise on Thursday was stunning. It looked like there was a huge fire in the distance. Beautiful!

I ran outside in my pajamas to get a picture before it went away!

Get ready for many photos of the custom quilt finish. The quilt gave me some jitters because I am not a fan of samplers and struggle to figure out some kind of quilting scheme to tie the disparate blocks together.

It is a king size quilt for the customer's bed

The remaining blocks are hiding behind the back roller!

Most blocks have either geometric patterns, or soft feathers. I hope they even out the look!

My favorite block is the customer's schnauzer. The background fill is things a dog says.

Geometry block. There are a lot of paper pieced blocks similar to this. All perfectly done and with tiny, precise bits.

Who doesn't like a house block? I want to make a whole quilt of house blocks.

Fussy cut squares inspired the flower and leaf quilting

This is the logo of the Appalachian Trail.

A peek at the border quilting. Black quilting on black fabric...makes my eyes go goofy!

These pinwheels are softened by the feathering

Lovely Celtic knot

Geometric card trick block

I forgot to take a picture of the back (a white on white print)

Maybe because I subconciously hate  dark thread on light fabric.

I was so happy to have this quilt off the machine. I took a break for a day before thinking of loading the next custom project.

I was busy with pantographs, too, and here they are!

It is still Christmas at Wazoo! I love the panel. It is so happy.

Panto: Let it snow with Pearl Glide thread

Cheerful back, as well.

These are the cutest, bubbling whales! A small, cuddly soft baby quilt.

Panto: Ebb and Flow with light seafood green thread.

The back is plush Minkie fabric 

* Tip: don't cut Minkie with a rotary cutter. Use scissors to prevent the messy fluff getting all over your cutting table and stuck in the self-mending slits made in the mat.

This customer makes pretty and simply patterned quilts. They are always flat and nicely sewn. I love her!!

Panto: Swan's Journey in dusty rose thread

Muslin backing is usually not my choice, but here, it shows off the quilting pattern.

The 9 tee shirt quilts are in progress. I have sorted and stabilized the first batch. 

I had to pause this to practice my Zoom presentation for next Tuesday.

Sunset pink and pretty behind the house and over the mountain top. It turned bitterly cold with howling winds as the evening progressed, with a heavy snow falling (or blowing) all around. I'm dreading the last trot with Penny. I'm sure she won't want to go either...

Go to www.rgvquiltshow.org to see all about the virtual show I will be a part of. Click 'schedule' for my photo and bio. There will be a link to the presentation during the show days. I'm scared silly and excited at the same time!!

 

Happy Birthday to me!

I had a very nice day today. Mr Wazoo got me a lovely Crabtree and Evelyn set of lavender-rosemary foaming soap and hand cream in a pretty holder. It will grace the bathroom counter. He also granted my wish for a chaise for the yard. I will be using it when the weather warms up, for sure! Friends dropped by and I shared my cake with them for lunch. Dinner was a steak, grilled to perfection by the main man, accompanied by a baked potato and steamed broccoli. Plus, I had flowers delivered from my daughter! They fragranced the studio while I worked. A good day all in all.

The binding on the second vintage quilt had to wait because I had a rush baby quilt come in today. The new baby arrived early, and the customer needs the quilt finished before she leaves on Friday to see her. I made the back bigger (no surprise here),  quilted it and just finished the hand sewing on the binding. I think it will be a nice gift.

A fairly new quilter, she did a splendid job on this on point quilt.

Panto: Frolic, in variegated pastels thread

Because I had fabric for the binding, it was easy to add a strip to the backing that matched the quilt.

The binding is on in the pictures, and it is now sewn and finished! Yippee!

The next quilt is a bold, colorful quilt for a young lady. The fabric screams modern and chic. I love the big block pattern. It suits the large scale of the prints.

This is so fresh and pretty. I love it!

The4 panto is new. It's the name of a flower, I think...Alegeria?

I hope that's it.

Anyway, the customer picked it and it really does look good on the quilt.

At the end of the day, I'm okay with "pushing 70" as my daughter reminded me. At least I got flowers!

Busy weekend with some quilting thrown in

 I spent some time on my presentation this weekend, and have all but the live part done. I will be giving a Zoom presentation for a virtual quilt show on the 9th. When I have all the particulars, I'll post them here so you can come see the fun. The show is free, put on by the Rio Grande Valley Quilt Guild. Fingers crossed it will not be a disaster!

I also put together the January newsletter for the evening guild. There isn't a pack of news because of Covid, so it is more of a "what's up?", with show and tell. Loads of pictures and some newsy bits from the members.

Work is progressing well on the black, whits and red custom sampler. I have finished all the colors but black. Quilting black on black is hard on the eyes and difficult to keep designs from running into one another. All I have left is the four appliquéd border backgrounds.

I was working on the red when I took this picture

Meanwhile, I added the borders onto the vintage wedding ring quilt and quilted the vintage Dresden plate top. The binding is on and I did about half the hand sewing on Saturday night. The binding went on the wedding ring quilt today, and I'll finish that one after the other is done. Then they will both get a thorough cleaning before going home.

The Dresden plate has a few tucks accidentally quilted in, but I am not too upset...the top was wonky with a lot of fullness in the blocks.

Panto: Baptist Fan

Plain muslin backing, but with a lovely hand. It is a Moda fabric.

This is a strange wedding ring quilt. I love that the maker probably saw one somewhere and decided to make it with no idea how to go about it. There are arcs that overlap eachother, but weren't sewn down where they overlapped! The pink squares and triangles are sewn over the arcs. It may be a weird way to make the rings, but they look fine. I added the pink inner border and calico outer border. The binding is also pink.

Panto: Splat

This is the silkiest cotton fabric I have ever seen. It is soft and drapes fabulously! It is a Moda, along the feel of the French General fabrics.

I also did some customer quilting over the weekend. This beauty is the customer's first quilt! It was absolutely perfect. I love perfect quilts!

The colors are pleasing, the blocks all square and flat and the backing (drumroll please...) was plenty big enough!

Panto: Garden Fairies, although there are no fairies in the pattern. Go figure.

This fabric is so pretty!!

Today, I quilted this log cabin quilt that will be a wedding gift. Too small backing. A couple of seams open. It took an hour to remedy the situation and get the quilt loaded. It was smooth sailing from there.

The ciustomer made the quilt with the requested colors from the happy couple. Do you see the misplaced block? She's going to kick herself later.

They also wanted a geometric panto, nothing cutesy. This is Woven Wind, like a curvy log cabin!

The backing is ombre brown. I added a similar color brown to both sides to make it big enough.

I started my next repair job on Sunday. I needed one for the demo that goes along with my presentation. The quilt is colorful and scrappy, but has 55 pieces to replace. It will take a while to do.

This is the quilt. the spiderweb blocks are a little wonky.

I have placed safety pins where I need to replace a fabric.

One border really needs help. Holes all the way through the quilt are a challenge.

You have to admit, the fabrics are fun to look at.

I'm off to bed after I take Penny out for her last trot. Tomorrow I get my second Covid vaccine, and will have a zoom meeting to give my presentation a dry run. I hope I don't fail too badly. I've worked hard on this! I'll tell you how it went in the next post.