Weekend Update

Most of my weekend was spent far away from my sewing machine, but I did make a little progress on the blue and green quilt for Eli's birthday. I basted it.
Then I began quilting it with variegated thread and nice wavy lines. (When I get to the quilting stage, I move my machine out of my home office/sewing room and up to the dining room table.)

La, la, la, oh sewing is so much fun ... until the above happened. Grrrr. And I will admit I've done that before too. I ran out of basting pins before I got out to the edge of the quilt, so when I was quilting away I didn't know that the backing fabric was folded underneath. Oh well, I have yet to make a quilt without using my seam ripper numerous times.

-

I set it aside and will get back to quilting it again soon. Eli's birthday is this coming Saturday so that is my deadline.

The kids had fun doing a little spool bowling.

Other people have been showing some snow photos on their blog so I thought I'd join in. That is the stop sign at the school bus stop.

And here's our two-storey house. Hee, hee, so I may have angled the camera a bit, but you get the idea.

-

Happy Quilting!

Starting Something New

My son's birthday is coming up in early March. He'll be 6(!) As is quickly becoming a tradition at our house, he's requested a quilt. After seeing me make the purple and pink patchwork square quilts for his sister, his request is for the same thing, but using blues and greens. His will also be a bit larger, twin-sized, for his bed.

-

Step one was to go through the fabric I already have. My son sorted it with me and I was happy to find that I had a nice selection of blues and greens to start. After quilting for a year, I finally have a workable "stash."

The next step was to look through the scraps and the pile of squares I've been cutting from my scraps. Above are some of the green.

And the blue.

And then it's always fun to buy just a wee bit of something new. I got the two fat quarters above at my LQS. They are Clothworks fabrics. I love the wilderness print with the moose and deer! And of course some owls. I think the fabric designers have finally moved beyond owls, since the last year has seemed to be an owl-a-thon, but I couldn't resist this owl fabric since it had a cute green background.
-
Since my son is turning six, it is getting to be a fine line between things that are too cutesy for a "big boy" and things that are still just cute-yet-cool. Know what I mean? This is probably my last chance to put owls (especially owls wearing aprons) in a quilt for him.

I also bought this free-motion quilting foot at my LQS. I haven't tried it yet, but I'll be sure to take photos of my very first attempts at free-motion quilting when I get around to it. And I'll show them here for some comic relief.
Finally, for those who noticed I went a bit longer between my blog posts than I usually do, it's because my laptop crashed last week and I had to buy a new one. I loved my good old laptop, with my nice old Windows XP and Word 2003 (for my writing) but I guess I'll get used to this new one.
-
On another note, I am definitely the slowest binder in the East. I am putting the binding on my Selvage Snowman quilt and it is taking forever. It could be because it has three miles of binding, but I think I'm also just plain slow. But hopefully, within a week or so, I can post him here, 100% done.
-
Happy Quilting!

My New Toy

For anyone thinking that I must be going into Halloween withdrawal now that the 31st has passed -- don't worry! I have a new toy to play with!

-

I finally bought my new sewing machine yesterday. It is a Husqvarna Emerald 183. It is definitely a nice step up from my department store Singer which basically had the working attitude of a defiant, hungry, sleep-deprived two-year-old toddler. Completely uncooperative no matter what I tried. I think you Moms out there will get the picture. :-)

-

Anyway, my new machine is in the box for now until I get my work for the day done. But late this afternoon, here I come! I looked through the instruction book last night and it looks so fun!

-

On another note, THANKS SO MUCH for all the nice comments I've been getting lately. I try to respond to each one by email, but some people's profiles are set to "no-reply" so I'll just respond here and say that it brightens my day to hear such kind words. The quilting community is so great!