Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Freezing to Flipflops and a Finish

My April goal is quilted, binding on and finished with a label.... for A Lovely Year of Finishes.
(Goal post # 83 and Finish post # 74)
  2014 MidWinter Blues QAL with Lori/Humble Quilts... 
Happy with the fabric choice added to the blocks and setting corner triangles
 I also used it for the binding.
Quilted with a feather and scroll b2b design and a border/corner set.
 And the label... with a Daf added for a Spring finish...
I had to work fast to take a few pix outside this evening, the mosquitoes are terrible already! After a weekend of thunderstorms and hail we are now in the 90's today and I'm wearing flipflops!!! This morning I tipped everything with standing water from the storm. Sadly there were a few flower casualties...

The first of my all time favorite... my China Red Poppy
The first 2 blooms are a little worse for wear from the rain and hail
Not to worry, there are many more buds ready to open soon :0)

Follow this link to see more April finishes at a Lovely Year of Finishes with Shanna and Melissa



Jo


Friday, April 25, 2014

Good day for Quilting

A thunderstorm come thru the Chico area last night and it's a bit chilly and cloudy this morning. Good day to stay indoors and quilt! Made good progress this week, both with my goals and my longarm. Binding is sewn on my April goal MidWinter's Blues quilt but not sewn down by hand yet plus I started a new quilt! A kit I picked up last summer at the Sew So Shop in Yuba City while I was deciding on the Innova. Sometimes a girl just needs some instant gratification! 
This is Cactus Flower with the addition of a few of my fabrics to brighten it up! The kit came with all Stonehenge fabrics from Northcott and the pattern is by Kate Mitchell Quilts. The centers of the SIC blocks were supposed to be a rust color but I plugged in that fuchsia, a fabric I knew I had when I bought the kit! The gold fabrics in the star blocks are from the same line. It's been up on my design wall since last weekend while I play around with the layout. Distractions can be helpful on a frustrating day :0) and I've had plenty of those! 

Hal, Harley and I are on back on the road to quilting! This week parts were installed and Wednesday I attended an all day training for Hal and the AP software. Yesterday, after some practice I started this log cabin quilt for Tina. Here is a sneak peak of the work in progress...
The loose threads are tie ends that will be buried in the quilt layers. We were going along just fine and then the tension devil hit again! Shut it down, picked out threads and called it a night. Since I could hear the thunder storm coming our way, it was a good time to unplug anyway. 

Well, last night the 'light bulb' went off and I know exactly why it happened. Breaking in a new machine is allot of work! Speaking of... time to get to it. 

I took one last picture of Shelly...
Shelly and Michael left for Texas on Monday morning and arrived safely for Michael's dad's 90th birthday on Wednesday. Happy Birthday Dan! Wish I was there with you all! Georgine, I love you! I'll be out to visit soon :0) You all have a wonderful evening tonight!

 Thank you for stopping by, enjoy your weekend!
 Jo

Update: So much for quilting all day today. Mom fell, EMT's were called out. She is fine, they checked her out and determined that nothing was broken and did not take her to a hospital. By 1:00 we had another thunderstorm right on top of Chico, not just yellow, it was red to magenta on the radar. Hail, hard rain and lots of lightning. Had to shut down all electronics including the longarm. Our home is old and the wiring needs updating big time. Most of the house doesn't even have grounded outlets, so I have no battery backup. It's the old fashioned unplugging until the storm moves out of the area! Radar is still showing yellow and it raining but I haven't heard any thunder for about an hour. Thank goodness for wireless :0) The storm that passed over us was small compared to what went over Sacramento about the same time today. It's headed East and according to Micheal will be in Texas by Sunday. Hope everyone has a safe weekend. Bear hugs, Jo

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Spring is Blooming :0)

Our Iris and Azaleas out front
 Purple Iris are the first to open, coming soon are the Antique Yellow Iris
So pretty set against the Azaleas
 Columbine and Sweet William out back


This is the best bloom on our little Dogwood, set here at sunset last evening with the new leaves and flowers from one of the giant Black Walnut trees

Something quilty...
progress on Amaretto Cottage medallion

Enjoy your weekend
Jo

Friday, April 4, 2014

April Goal

Considering how hopelessly behind I am in my longarm quilting duties I am setting another easy goal for April for A lovely Year of Finishes. My goal is to quilt, bind and label a flimsy. This is MidWinter Blues, a QAL with Lori ~ Humble Quilts blog. The link will take you to her post and the linky with everyone's finished tops. I am the only crazy person that made the original inspiration quilt. I do wish I had taken the time to add sashing like Lori did in her version for the QAL, it would have been way more forgiving with these blocks set on point and all of those little triangles!
I plan to do a b2b (border to border) in the center field and a border with corner design for the outer border. I have a feather and scroll design in mind. Found some tea stained muslin in my stash for the backing and am good to go! It will also be good practice to do on my Innova. I love my Innova... and the Auto Pilot, well lets say we are beginning to get along a little better! 

This week as I was chatting with Nancy and Marna at Cathy's Honeyrun quilt store, Nancy was asking about my Innova. We started brainstorming ideas for names and I mentioned it had chrome handlebars, which I have yet to see on another Innova! With the names Innova and Auto Pilot she thought it sounded more like a spaceship or fancy motorcycle! So we thought of Harley! I like it!!! and the Auto Pilot, I'm thinking it needs it's own name... Hal because that computer has a mind of it's own!!! 

Harley and Hal. What do you think?

Quite happy that it's Friday altho I will be working this weekend to try and catch up. Had a wonderfully evening last night. Met for dinner with Donna, Esther, Brandie and Gail at the newest TBar on Forest/FlyingV in Chico that opened last week. Food was great! After we all went to our Annie's Star Quilt guild meeting with a trunk show with Rob Appell. Very entertaining!

Enjoy your weekend! 

Jo, who is looking forward to some Spring soon!