Quilting in the hoop !

I have a new bedroom and a new sewing room !! We decided to switch rooms, so I can use the large closet for storing my fabric and crafting items, and it's a larger room for all my machines and tables, so I've been moving things in and out all week. I had good luck with using the feather for quilting in the hoop, so I decided to try it on a quilt top I'd had stored for several years. It's coming along nicely. I have just the last border to finish and I'll have a new quilt for my new bedroom... It's a Delectable Mountains quilt from Eleanor Burns' Quilt in a Day series.. only this is more like a 'quilt in a decade', ggg

I quilted it on the kitchen table, where I had plenty of room to spread out the quilt so it wouldn't pull on the hoop. What a brilliant plan. I have decided to use a large table in my sewing room next time, so we can still eat spaghetti in the kitchen (grin)

We picked an odd color for the bedroom. I had some extremely pale pink left over from one room and some equally pale blue from another so we combined them and it's a white with lavender overtones now.. it was hard to paint because it goes on very white and then darkens later, so it was hard to see just where we missed.. only NOW we can see it and of course there's no more paint.. and it wasn't a formula from the paint store, so we'll just live with it.. there are only a few streaks unpainted, and nobody else is going to be looking up at the ceiling in my bedroom at any rate.

It's almost like moving into a new home, with all the things we've done this year ! So much easier than actually moving across town or across the country.. done that so many times as a military wife that I would much rather just switch rooms, believe me !

nearing the finish line..

It's quilted. I used the feather that Ricky Tims drew for the Quarterly Software Society lesson last spring, I had done it up without jumps, and then stitched it in variegated threads. I added the appliques the other night, digitized from the lesson in the magazine.. pretty easy to follow, too. Here's a closeup,

Then I took a pic of how it shows on the back, too.. with my circles all randomly stitched with feathers.. of course I have the quality control inspector standing by..

She rushed to check it out since she knows that's her job and she takes it very seriously!! Funny how she's terribly frightened of people but she's not the least bit camera shy.

pictures.. hopefully...

Success!

Sorry for the blurry image of the back, but when I get it all quilted I will take another picture and hopefully that one will be a bit clearer.

going in circles

It's been over a month since I did a blog entry.. yikes.
I've been working on some circular stuff with the Cut-A-Round tool, and I decided to try making that "Waiting For Sunset" quilt in the Bernina publication "Through the Needle" (issue #23)
Then I thought of using the circles I had removed from the backgrounds to do some back art on the quilt. It still needs the machine embroidered applique patches on the front, and then I need to quilt it, but here are the front Drunkard's Path blocks and the back with all its randomly placed circles.
The whole idea was to get out of my comfort zone, and work with random placement instead of "matchy-matchy".. it was very different than anything else I've ever done.
So of course the darn blog program won't let me upload pictures.. LOL that's par for the course..

Never a dull moment around here..

I went to Michael's looking for card stock for a class on embroidered cards.. and the pet shop next door was having a vet clinic today, so since both Sam and Boris need rabies shots, I went home and got shot records and Boris, (Sam was already in the car..).................
Boris got all sorts of attention. Nobody had ever seen a cat on a leash.. they thought he was a "love bug" (maybe we should have named him Herbie?) But Sam.. nearly bit me and the vet and we had to muzzle him for his second shot.. I was down on the floor holding him down, and the vet was trying to sneak up on him from behind.. it was nearly hilarious if I weren't worried about him getting loose and biting someone..

It really was pretty funny except for when he had to have the muzzle on and you should have seen the vet, on the floor with me, trying to sneak up on the dog with the syringe while trying to reassure him.. Sam knew darn well he had another shot coming, lol.. and meanwhile the cat is sitting in the shopping cart eyeing the mice in the cage nearby.... then when we left the store, Sam is pulling the cart like a sled dog, and Boris is riding in it.. so we get out to the car and I go to put the dog in the car first... Boris leaps over both of us to get into the car, pushing off from the shopping cart........ and off it goes, sailing across the parking lot with the shot records and my purse in it.. and a car is coming.. and I'm trying to get the dog and cat into the car so I can close the door.. and the dog is hung up on the seat, cos his leash nearly got caught in the cart as it rolled away.. Luckily the lady in the car narrowly missed the careening cart, and I was able to dash across the parking lot and catch the cart before it ended up rolling down into the highway....... sigh.. all the way home the cat jumping from back seat to front, looking out every window and meowing.. (he used to LOVE going for a ride but that was with DS..) he keeps wrapping the dog in his leash.. then he lands claws first on my leg at a traffic light.. yikes.. people looking at us like we are the guy who ran down Stephen King a few years ago..... eek.. Then Boris decided to jump on me halfway home.. claws and all.. nearly ended up in the ditch. I had to hold him on my lap and pet him with one hand while I drove with the other.. good thing Sam was calm by then.. and it's also a good thing that the rabies shot for cats is good for one year !! Sam doesn't need another for 3 yrs..
Usually I have someone go with me when I take the cats to the vet.. wonder why, lol !!
My life is anything but boring, hehehehe
So.
Last night I decided since yesterday had been such a nice dry day, I'd put the glaze on the porch walls. I left the light on to help the paint dry. DS walks in this morning and says, "so, what's the idea of gluing bugs all over the wall ?"..................................... It's unreal. and when I tried brushing them off, the dog and cat fur already on the brush adds itself to the wall........ so I take a dry cloth. and it spreads the moth wings across the wall.. so I wet the cloth.. and it takes off all the glaze.. and then I see that every bit of ceiling space near the light also is covered with dead bugs... Told ya.. never a dull moment..

Aquamarine quilt sampler

Here is the sampler that I call the Quilt from H*ll. It was nearly impossible to create the block in the software and split it back up again, which was what the plan was to be..... I created a 15 inch hoop in the software so I could plan out the block the way it was supposed to be, then split it for the megahoop. My megahoops lined up fine, but then putting it all back together was not so fun. Next time I will use those basting lines for sure!

Been working on cleaning up files in the computer today and tonite I plan to go visit DH at the cottage where he stays when he's "on call".. it's a bit primitive there and the water spits and gurgles for ages before it comes on, but that's how it is sometimes. The place in New York had no hot water at all when the beauty shop downstairs was open.. nor did it have heat, on the coldest day of the year.. brrrr. I sat stitching beside the oven and wished we had one of those old black woodstoves to sit by instead!!

That sampler I am making for the shop is nearly done but I had to rip out a lot of stitching where the fancy stitch decided to stay in one place and stitch over and over again.. grr. Same thing happened in a different direction with a different stitch but it was in the same spot on the fabric.. so I think perhaps something happened with the two fusibles overlapping on the batik. I will post a picture of that when it's done... hopefully in a couple of days. I'm trying to get back into the sewing groove and spend less time on the computer but am failing miserably.

Wow. Here I am, blogging!

Reading the blogs of a couple of friends convinced me that this would be a fun thing to do. I thoroughly enjoyed theirs. Hopefully mine will be an interesting read.

Spent the evening yesterday working on my sampler wallhanging for the Bernina shop. It was a pattern I got at a training seminar last week and is a bit out of my "comfort zone" but I am enjoying the process. I'm using some batiks I had purchased a few years ago, and one bit of fabric from Val (dyeing2sew). I've decided to make two, one for me and one for the shop, so when the other one fades from the fluorescent lights, I'll still have the bright one to remind me of the lovely purple grapey fabric.. pictures later, when it's done.

After fighting with the Aquamarine Ambience designs and directions and not getting all my designs lined up the way I'd like, I decided to try using Faith Reynolds' suggestions to baste the block, and did horizontal, vertical, and diagonal bastes, using the long stitch and pattern extend function on my 200/730. Success !! I had no trouble at all making the pattern line up, and it was easy (with a template printed on vellum) to position the corner embroideries. The quilting went really easily with the walking foot and the BSR.. I do love my Bernina!