Check This Out

A group of my quilting friends and I have started a group blog where we hope to share photos of our projects, ask advice, and share info on stitching-related topics. Feel free to comment on our posts. We'd love to hear from other fabricoholics out in cyberspace.

The new blog is called Random Acts of Stitching. You can get to it by clicking here.

And if you are a member of the Mountain Laurel Quilt Guild and would like to join our blog group so that you can post your photos and other info, just contact me or my friend Susan. We'd be happy to help you get started on blogging with us.

Seeing Double

I made these two Double Pinwheel quilts for my husband's twin grandchildren in June 2006 and quilted them on my HQ16. At that time the machine was still new and I was having some issues with it, so the quilting was so-so. I soon discovered that the problem wasn't the machine, but the operator!

The pattern is from Eleanor Burns. I used 3 fabrics -- a pink, a blue, and a white -- and made both sets of blocks at once. Can you see that they spin in opposite directions? It's a very simple technique, and looks a lot harder than it really is. And it works beautifully for twin boy/girl quilts.

NQR

Today's post is for all the students who unfortunately live in school districts like mine where they will not be seeing this live. Our school district administration could learn a thing or two from it. So could the parents.

My Cup Overfloweth

I think I've finally caught up with all the thank yous that I needed to send out this summer. This first selvage postcard is for Anina of Twiddletails to thank her for organizing the nine-patch swap that I participated in. Since a lot of the selvages on the card had circles, I secured the diagonal one using a small circle/large circle fancy stitch on my Bernina.

The second selvage postcard is to thank Megan for the adorable 30s fat quarters I won in the giveaway on her Will Work for Fabric blog. The selvages in this postcard came from the FQs she sent me.

Here's a shot of the box of goodies that arrived from her. In addition to the FQs, she sent a nice pattern and an adorable golf tee pin cushion. How cute is that?

And of course, I had to fold the FQs using the method I blogged about here.

The last postcard is for Kheli of Remember Your Karma who sent me a box containing various pieces of lovely fabric, some embroidery floss, and a few other little goodies. Some of the selvages in the postcard came from the fabric she sent.

Kheli's postcard is the one that I used in my fabric selvage postcard tutorial here.

Thank you again to all these wonderful bloggers!

Group Effort

This is a Project Linus quilt recently made by several of my guild members out of fabric and batting that had been donated to our stash. One member pieced the strips, I quilted it, and another brave member attached the binding. I took this picture before the binding was attached.

Sometimes we have to work with what we have. There wasn't much of the light blue fabric that was used for the narrow border (and we're not sure that it's 100 % cotton) and the batting was a real poufy poly batting. I hated quilting with it, but in some ways, I like the final effect. It made the quilting stand out nicely on the front -- it almost makes the strips of fabric look like they were curved pieces.

The problem with having such a narrow border and such a poufy batting was that it made the narrow border quite ruffly. I was glad when a guild member volunteered to deal with the binding. The final result worked out just fine and I'm sure some child somewhere will love it no matter what. That makes us all feel good.

NQR -- Glorious Weather

There hasn't been too much quilting/sewing going on for a few days in my house because the weather we've been having has been perfect. The early morning temps are cool (mid-40s), but the daytime highs get into the 70s with no humidity! We had so little sunshine this summer that I am trying to spend as much time as I can outdoors. The forecast calls for dry sunny weather for the next week! That's been unheard of these last several months.

One of my favorite places to be on beautiful days is the Pine Creek Rail Trail, just outside of Wellsboro, PA, and just a short drive from my home. This morning, I joined my husband and several of his birding friends from the Tiadaghton Audubon Society on a seven-mile bike/birding ride. I'm not a birder, so instead of binoculars, I looked at things through my camera lens.

Toward the end of the ride, this magnificent creature treated us to a great view. My camera is not the best, so the shot is a bit grainy, but I think you should be able to figure out what it is. There are a number of places along the rail trail to see them, even a couple of nests where babies are raised in the spring.

If you're ever in the area of north-central Pennsylvania, you must certainly take some time to walk or bike along this trail. No traffic, no crowds...we saw a lot more birds than people. Over the three-hour ride, (it takes birders a long time to cover 7 miles...) we probably saw fewer than ten other people.

I suppose I'll get back to quilting soon...maybe in the late evenings...

Keeping Me Busy

When I wasn't working on the postcard tutorial (see previous post), I spent most of last week quilting a couple of quilts for others on my HQ16.

The first is Amber's bright quilt -- my friend Susan helped her make this and I think they both did a great job. No wavy borders for a machine quilter to deal with -- Susan taught her well! You can read about it on Susan's blog here.

The second quilt was made by my friend Moddy who can't seem to go 2 weeks without making a quilt top. This one is for her daughter -- I just meandered with mostly loops and a few leaves in places where I thought they might be visible on the very busy fabrics. You can see more of Moddy's quilts by clicking on the "Moddy's quilts" label on my blog sidebar.