Slow Stitching Quickly

Its Canada Day here in our beautiful country. We finally have some rain. I am home for 3 whole days with no responsibilities and of course, this means quilting time!! The July 1857 blocks were posted an hour ago and I have all three prepped and ready to go! Yea me. And since I have at least 10 blocks with the corner leaves stitched on, these should not take too long.

I have been sick with a dreadful head cold throat thing this past week. I hope it is gone soon and I have my voice back, since the little girls are tired of me whispering at them. Four year old Elly is coming over for the week and she will be going to Vacation Bible School for the first time. I start leading a small group for the summer once again. This time we will be working our way through a booklet our pastor wrote called "Hearing God". So, for the next nine Tuesday nights, we will be on a journey to learn to quiet ourselves, and listen for the still, quiet voice of God and journal. This is not always easy for someone who operates out of a slightly ADHD mindset. Learning to still my thoughts and lean into God is a challenge for me, but I am the group leader, so I have to do all the homework first. Its going to be good. No. Its going to be amazing.
I bought tickets for our ministry trip to India in October. At the VBS they will be collecting school supplies for us to take along for one of the children's homes.

 I got two of the blocks done. Just need to do some embroidery.  More perfect circles.


Blessings,
Chris

June OMG Finish

I set out to learn how to do the Karen K Buckely's Perfect Circles 

and complete these 4 blocks for the 1857 Album quilt-a-long.

 These ones weren't too hard once I found the missing circle. 

For some strange reason it ended up in the middle of the Dear Jane 2 box. 

Good thing I pulled out the completed blocks to put up on to the empty design all. 

 These circles are small and smaller. 

Since there were only 4 of one and 3 of the other sizes,
I made 7 circles at a time using 7 needles and waiting for them to dry before stitching them down. 

Then I made more until I had enough. Then unstitched them and re positioned and re stitched.

 The circle looks more round now. The bird will need some feet.

Between little boy grand children visiting and babysitting little girls, driving tractors, breaking a tooth and having it pulled and catching a throat thing from one of those little girls, I did not get too much stitching done this month. AND, my publisher finally sent the proofs for my book Denine: One mother's journey with a profoundly handicapped child and now I am in the first revision round. I have no less than 5 areas to address, including a larger font and the dedication. AND, did I mention my daughter and her family are moving back to Ontario in September???? Those little boy grand children will be a mere 3 hour drive away instead of a 3 hour flight. Bring on the summer!!

Blessings,
Chris

Drum Roll Please . . . A Completed Quilt!

This is what I have been working on for the past few weeks. GORF 2

I could not post or boast about it . . . 

. . .  until it was gifted to our friends for their farm wedding

The bride and her posse showed up in grand style

The guys wore green

 The girls wore purple

  The bride's tractor is red and the groom's is green.

 I got to drive the team . . . Penny and Tammy were very cooperative for this first timer.

  My husband insisted that I could and should put the invitation photos on the quilt.

Steep learning curve but I got it now.

 He designed the layout.

I did an edge to edge on the longarm that I rented time on last month 

and had this whole thing quilted and bound 2 weeks in advance. 

Blessings,
Chris

View From My Green Tractor

Here on the Farm I do other things besides quilting. This is a real working dairy farm and even though I am retired, I still get to drive tractors once in a while. I was tedding hay last week and as I was driving round in circles and back and forth, I was flooded with memories and mentally wrote a couple of books as I reflected on my 45 years living and working on this farm. Now I was born and raised on a dairy farm and married a dairy farmer and officially milked cows full time for 18 years, but I had to retire from doing all that because of osteoarthritis and lower back issues. Driving tractor is something that I can still do.

View from my Green Tractor

 My Sweet Husband cutting hay with the other Green Tractor

The Other Green Tractor

 The darker green is the fresh cut hay. 

The lighter green is the hay cut the day before that I was tedding. 

What is tedding? Basically turning over and fluffing up the hay so it will dry faster.

One of the Hay Fields

 Getting instructions about speed and technique before I start.

My Sweetie

 He called the local John Deere dealership and told them 

that his wife broke 2 teeth.

Our Mechanics

 I got to quilt the rest of the day.

Our 1840's Farm House

Blessings,
Chris

OMG June Quilting Goals

I have been debating which of the 9 big quilts I am working on right now on which to commit to completing something. And the winner is . . . . . . . . The 1857 Quilt!
I plan to make the circles for the 1857 blocks. This is no easy feat. I finally located my missing Karen K Buckley perfect circles and now need to take some time to sit with them and complete four blocks. I cut out some circles with my GO cutter a long time ago. The June blocks will be released tomorrow and I can hardly contain myself!

1857 Blocks

I also plan to complete the quilting on my GORF quilt.  I have had the 16 machine appliqued blocks all machine quilted for more than a year. So now the goal is to complete the borders and quilt them. Next month I will plan to assemble it all using connecting strips. Still debating whether to use red or green. I guess it depends if I have enough of one colour or the other.

GORF in Progress

I almost started a new quilt last night. Almost. I gave in and bought the pattern for the Caswell Quilt from Sentimental Stitches. I have lots of shirting material and a couple of yards of suitable background already prewashed and ready to cut into background squares. And I got a new project box labeled with the pattern in it and am beginning to add some interesting fabrics. But alas, my daughter is arriving this week with those two little boy grand babies and I had to move  some  lots of fabric clutter from the white room to make room for them and I may forget where I moved all that fabric to. So, I just looked through the pattern packet to get an idea of what is involved. It will be a challenge to do simple back basting because the full sized patterns are black and white photos of the original blocks. There are pattern sheets for all the shapes. But I do not have to worry about any of that since I did not actually start it. Yet.

Blessings,
Chris

OMG May Quilt Completion

I chose to commit to completing one simple block for the 1857 Album Quilt. 
It was supposed to be simple. I had the corner leaves already stitched on. Then, I traced the pattern on to the back of the background to do my best back basting technique. Well, I stitched the first green piece on. It was crooked and the points did not line up with the leaves in the corners. I thought I should get it done on one of the four nights I babysat last week. So, I un-stitched it. Another day, I pressed the block and started again. This time, the points were straight and the corners lined up. Good so far.  Wrong. I pulled out my kit and found that I did not have the extra fabrics with me to continue. Okay. So the next time, I put in the extra fabrics, thread, scissors, pins and packed my my sleeping bag and pillow as I volunteered to drive a group of junior highs to a weekend camp clean-up. Great. I had two whole days to myself in my private little cabin. Sigh. I did not pack a fat tapestry needle to do the back basting. Grr. So . . .

1857 Block  18

 I continued to stitch corner leaves on the blocks I did put in my kit. I am well ahead now for the new blocks to be released June 1. 

1857 backgrounds

Blessings,
Chris

Another UFO - Biblical Blocks

 This quilt took me about 3 years to make. I took a class that met once a month for 2 hours. Not the best time line for learning totally new techniques and I lost momentum somewhere between the fussy cutting border print, the half square triangles in the tree of life, counseling theories and a nightmare menopausal journey. But I did complete it and machine quilted it using my Bernina and monofilament thread. Now I remember why I have not completed and quilted more of my quilts. Berninas hate monofilament thread.  Here is where I discovered border prints and fussy cutting. It was love at first sight. Problem is, I bought fabric to make 3 more. Story of my life.

Biblical Blocks started 2002 and completed 2005

I recall meeting my daughter-in-law for the first time late winter 2006 when I had just returned home from my first ministry trip to India. I had the pictures on a loop in the DVD player when they causally walked in. Our son left the room and I asked her where she found him? At work she replied. He came back in and beckoned her to follow him into my quilt room to show her this quilt in these same pieces on the table. He made a comment about the bugger green in it and I put it in a box. I was somewhere in the middle of my undergrad program, internship and milking cows every day. 
There are only six 9 inch blocks left to make and maybe a few more blue roses for the border, which is already machine appliqued on. Then all that is left to do, is assemble the thing and then maybe quilt it. It looks like it should finish at 100 inches square.





Biblical Bocks 2 started 2005

It looks like there will be a bit of freezer paper to remove from behind all that applique. It might stay in the box for another 10 years. I won't hold my breath on this one. At least not until I complete the one I am working on this month. Got the longarm booked for the 24th so better get working.

 

Blessings,

Chris