Lori and Randy's Medallion SAL

 

Top is a finish and ready for quilting!

Using a wool batting I can't wait to get started on the quilting this weekend. 

Thank you to Lori and Randy for a great quilt-along. 

Here is a link to Humble Quilts with a linky to see how other quilters did their medallion quilt and check out how Lori quilted her top!

My plan worked great! 

Basted on blank borders. Then laid out and glue basted all the pieces. 

The small leaves are fused and the stems are 'tubes'.

Removed the borders...

Did all the machine applique

 and then the borders were sewn back on. Stem ends went into the seams...

Lots of thread colors as well as four different buttonhole stitches and settings

 and of course a little fussy cutting 

Medallion SAL progress

progress for this weekend...
Stems sewn, turned and pressed. Here is the first layout this morning using the applique pieces that were ready...

Downloaded the numbers for the date from Lori's blog ~ Humble Quilts. Made and added a few more flowers and lots more leaves :0) I made the flowers using a revised method and used a heavy duty starch instead of gluing the seam allowances over the freezer paper. That part worked great,  best is that all of the paper is removed before sewing down the applique. So far so good as I haven't started stitching yet. Here is the final layout before everything was glue basted in place... 

 Tried to get an overhead shot but missed one edge. Right now it's still on my table while all the glue sets up before I take the borders off (they are temporarily basted on) I am going to do all the stitching with the borders off and then sew them on again for good. Stems will start and end in the seams. 

My layout is a little different plus I added my initials at the top. Loving this project, (thank you Lori and Randy!) enough that I decided to quilt this right away and include it with my quilts for Annie's Star Quilt Guild's quilt show in September! Initially I wanted to enter my Civil War Sampler and have it judged, but reality is that it's not going to happen for this show and I don't want to end up in a rush with the quilting. Since this quilt is made from the scraps of my CW quilt, it can represent!

Hope you all are having a great weekend. Thanks for stopping by!

Heating up again

A picture I took yesterday of our Crepe Myrtle in our back yard. 

The closest part of the house pictured is my workroom with my longarm. There is a second window that looks out under the tree. I have humming bird feeders in the tree and enjoy watching the hummers and a family of bright yellow Orioles that visit often.We have Black Chinned and Anna hummers. Usually we get a few Rufus as they migrate thru but haven't seen them this year.

Our weather is heating up again, triple digits predicted for this weekend. I am getting allot of machine quilting done, only it's not on any of my projects. :0(  Last weekend we took advantage of nice temps, spent the time gardening and hosted a barbeque with a corn on the cob fiesta with neighbors. I didn't get very far on my applique for my Medallion quilt.

Altho I missed out on going to Sisters, it was wonderful to follow along with Lori ~ Humble Quilts. She made allot of progress at retreat and is still posting wonderful pics from Sisters. I did get a post card sent from Sisters from my friend Pam B! Hi Pam, thank you!!!

I did get lots accomplished this week with customer quilts and am feeling much better than I did a week ago. Mom is doing OK. She sleeps allot, not eating much and it shows with the weight she has lost. It's difficult to watch her slipping away, much more now physically as well as mentally.

Looking forward to spending time indoors this weekend with the air and my sewing machine humming! Enjoy the day and take time to make a few stitches!

Garden time & a few stitches

With a bit cooler weather in the mid 90s we were able to spend time in the garden this weekend. Lawn was mowed, some weeding and veggies harvested... I made a baked eggplant, zucchini and tomato dish for dinner with rice. Earlier today we had green beans with our lunch, it's so nice to pick from the garden and make a meal. Corn will be ready soon!

... and some time to put in a few stitches on the Medallion quilt. Auditioned fabric for the stems.

It's nice that some of the tools I use for making home dec products also come in handy for quilting. A long narrow cutting mat used for cutting welt comes in handy for cutting bias strips for the stems. It's also wonderful for trimming quilts after they have been quilted.

Tubes for making stuffed welting work great for turning stems. Here are the flowers and birds, ready to be appliqued... something for the evenings as tomorrow it's back to working on jobs.

Following are pics of the veggie garden, hope you all had a nice long weekend...

Eggplant

Early Girl Tomatoes

Strawberries

Beans

Corn is almost ready!

Beets

A baby melon, so cute when they start out all fuzzy

Bee in a Squash flower

Baby Artichoke

Thanks for stopping by for a visit
Wishing for a wonderful week and time to take a few stitches

New blog

Starting a new blog! I've been thinking about this for awhile, mostly to come up with an original blog name. Tried a few others and going with Ramblin' Rows. A play off Ramblin' Rose, a song by Nat King Cole. Rows in place of Rose for rows of blocks, veggies or flowers. That covers my love of quilting and gardening ;0)

One of the challenges of having a home based business is defining the line between personal and business. With my home dec business that line is easy. Fabricating window treatments and home decorating fabrics are very different from quilting! Now that I added longarm quilting to my business that line is a little harder to distinguish. Plus my first blog was getting really crowded. I will be changing that blog to make it easier for my customers to find information about my longarm services.

This blog will become my 'personal' quilting blog since my first blog is my business name. It may take me a little while to get all the changes ironed out. Sew I hope you all don't mind! This blogging community has become an important part of my life and I appreciate all of you... family, friends, quilting buddies, fellow bloggers and customers. There will be a link from one blog to the other. Thank you!

Anyway, here goes...

Ramblin' rose, ramblin' rose
Why you ramble, no one knows
Wild and wind-blown, that's how you've grown
Who can cling to a ramblin' rose?