Shannon asked for an "S"

January is birthday month around here and for several of my friends. One in particular, is Shannon, who is not only my friend, but someone whose blog I read regularly and whose quilting I admire.

Her birthday was on the 23d, the day after Dennis, and she asked that her blog readers send her an "S" in bright colors.  So I did...

More Chickens

Just finished this one...isn't it cute? I love Buggy Barn patterns. I did an allover loop meander with a variegated thread--the chicks didn't ask for anything more.

Underground Railroad

I have always been fascinated with the Civil War and the stories and history surrounding it. When Jennifer Chiaverini came out with her book, The Runaway Quilt, I couldn't wait to read it. In fact, I read it aloud to Dennis as we drove across the lower 48 to Texas to pick up our horse trailer a few years ago. He even liked it.

In keeping with the book, Eleanor Burns came out with her Underground Railroad quilt pattern, which I immediately bought and then allowed to languish on the shelf with the zillion other quilt books I own.  *shrug* However, this year, my Wednesday night class is doing the UGRR quilt; I quilted this one for our instructor.

Carolyn chose traditional colors, as did most everyone in class...except me. I'm doing mine in super bright batiks. I have no idea how it will turn out....

A few close-ups:

Impossible to tell without clicking on the photo to make it bigger, but I did a wishbone in the sashing with a gold thread. I really liked the simplicity.

Are you ready for my colors????

I love how each batik color carries into the next. Originally, I had planned to use the black for the sashing, but I'm thinking that its way too much contrast now. Oh well...guess that means I'll have to find something different and add this to my stash...darn!

This is the first block...I'm not loving the brights yet, but I hope that after the next few blocks, that will change. Otherwise, this is going to be a long semester.

One of Mine

I finally finished something...can you believe it??? Do you remember when I was asking if anyone had or knew where I could find this fabric? It was finally located and this is what I did with it. Nothing major, but it will hang in my kitchen and look great with my terracotta wall color.

Have a look:

Did you notice the prairie points? They're both easier and harder than they look, IMO.

A close-up:

And the best for last...the back. Since this was for me and going to hang, I used a good quality muslin on the back. However, even though it was pre-washed, it still puffed out where I didn't quilt the pinwheels. Oh well...live an learn.

Quincy Crazy Quilters Opportunity Quilt 2011

This year, I once again had the privilege of quilting my Guild's Opportunity Quilt. I love the colors in this quilt and the way it turned out...have a look:

I piano-keyed the borders, outlined the applique and did an allover leaf meander in the body with a light green thread. Its hard to see here, but if you get out the magnifying glass and look at the bottom left corner, you can see how I allowed the corners to become a crosshatch to finish each row.

Some close-ups:

If you're interested in tickets, let me know.  The drawing will be in September; tickets are $1 each or six for $5.

Yesterday was my Birthday

And my wonderful husband bought me this:

I know, on the surface, it doesn't look like much. But...dig a little deeper. This watch (with all its accompanying stuff) can not only tell time, it has a GPS feature that can tell me where I am (important when riding and I get lost), it can tell me how fast I'm going, how far I've gone, my heart rate, and it can upload my path to the computer and overlay it onto Google Earth. And that's just the beginning!!!  I've wanted one of these forever...now I just have to figure out how to use it.

But, the best gift of all were the phone calls. Both of my step-daughters called to wish me a Happy Birthday, as did my sister in Oklahoma.  Made my heart warm *sigh*

On the quilting front, I have two new quilts to show you. I'll be posting them in the next couple of days, but here's a teaser to keep your interest.

BOM Update

Just a quick post to show off my recent BOM completions.

First, the one from my guild...

And this is from Shannon's blog, I think I'm becoming a "brights" convert!

In just a couple of weeks, I'll have another BOM to show you! Tonga Rhapsody starts on January 15.

Notice the Similarities?

Last October, my Guild put on a Retreat at Grizzly Creek Ranch, just outside of Portola. It is a great location, not far at all of the highway, yet totally secluded. The weird thing is that I used to ride horses in those hills; now the horses are gone and this facility is there instead. Progress??? I'm not so sure.

Anyway, we had these two amazing ladies from The Sewing Room in Redding that taught the retreat and brought almost their entire store with them. It was fun to sew and shop and never have to drive anywhere!  The quilt was a mystery and could be made a double mystery by telling them what fabric combinations or line of fabric you liked and they would then bring the appropriate yardage for the quilt. Almost everyone opted to let them pick the fabrics...double mystery.

This week, I quilted two of them.  This is the first one; it belongs to Mona. I love the colors and although she wasn't sure about the outside border, I do think it pulled everything together. I did an allover swirl on it.

Here are a couple of close-ups so you can see the quilting.

And the back..

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This is the second one and belongs to Katherine. Katherine is a hand quilter and hadn't pieced a quilt on a machine, nor had one quilted, in a long time. She loves oriental fabrics and also participated in the double mystery aspect.

Here are a few closeups...

Down one side...

Here's a pick of the middle of the back. The fabric was actually a nice peach to match the front--not sure why it looks so white.








And this is mine.

Notice the size difference?  Unfortunately, when I called and we talked about color, the employee of the shop that put mine together just tried to pick all the colors I mentioned. When I received the fabrics, I wasn't too sure about them, but hoped they would work. Luckily, the first round came together nicely; the second round of fabrics did not work at all, so I have a wall hanging instead of a quilt. I do think the end product turned out well... I think it will look great hanging on my wall, when its quilted of course!