An Almost-Perfect Weekend

Beatiful weather, riding horses and quilting in the yurt...does it get any better??  Okay, after April 29, it will definitely be better, but for now, this was a terrific weekend.

First:  This is another Victory Quilt that I'm working on.  This is Lyn's quilt and she did a phenomenal job of piecing and applying her borders, which makes my job so easy!  She's going to enter this quilt in a local show here, so I'm really trying to make it special.  Her plan is to hang it in her living room, too, so I've asked for permission to double-up on the batting.  The bottom batting is a cotton (she provided it, so I'm not certain of the brand) and the top is my Quilters Dream Puff.  I wanted this quilt to hang nicely and have great definition.  In addition, I love the colors she chose.  I know it won't show up well in these photos, but I'd buy bolts of her background fabric if I could find it!

This is it, loaded and ready to go. 

The pictures of this block and the one following have already been sent to Lyn; she wanted a preview.  I'm using Carla Barret's "whispers" for my main design ideas.  I'll post a full picture of Carla's ideas as well as what the quilt looks like when its finished.  I tried some new things in this block:  feathers in the middle of the brown/cream blocks and little feathers around the star in the middle. (If you click on the picture, you'll be able to see it better)

This block was one I had to think about for awhile before doing *read, give myself a pep talk!*  Notice that the feathers come out from the middle of the block--that means that the two coming towards me had to be quilted at an angle and upside down...YIKES!   I like how they turned out and was thrilled I didn't spend 10 minutes quilting them and hours frogging!

I'll turn the quilt this weekend and finish the borders and sashings. I also have to decide on the background quilting.  I'd like to do something other than stippling and may fill a few with some pebbling...we'll see.

Second: On Friday and Saturday, we got Kate and Bailey and Andy out for rides.  The mud ball below is Bailey--we only went four miles the first day and I think it took longer to brush the mud off than it did to ride the four miles!  He was a wreck.  So was Kate on both days and Andy on the second day.  What is it about rolling in the mud that makes a horse so happy??

Here are Dennis and Bailey ready to head out.

I'm so proud of Kate; she's still very green (she maybe has a total of 20 miles with me), but she's doing so well.  Chloe scared her half to death when she came running up behind Kate.  Kate scooted out about 6' and then stopped, took a big deep breath and was fine.  If this is as bad as her spooks get, I'll be thrilled.  She's so sensible and solid already, I just think she's going to be perfect!

Riding and quilting...Life doesn't get any better!