I had a nice walk today with the dogs and then grabbed my finished quilt for a little photo session with natural lighting. I love how the light blue in the quilt matches the blue sky.
This is the pattern, "Eldorado Canyon," by Whirligig Designs. This was a kit I bought in 2015 at Hancock's of Paducah, the one and only time, I made it to the spring AQS quilt show in Paducah, Kentucky.
I am giving this quilt to one of my sons who just had a birthday. I tried so hard to have it done on time (March 25th) but I quilt at the pace of running turtle so it just didn't happen.
The quilt went straight from the photo shoot to the laundry room sink for a nice hot soaking to deal with any possible bleeding dyes. The blocks were made with precut strips so I wasn't able to prewash all the fabrics. I expect all non-art quilts to get lots of use and be thrown in a washing machine.
Despite really focusing on machine quilting, "Eldorado Canyon," I was also on task to complete the borders for three quilts I had pieced at Sew-Ins and retreats.
Last summer on a rainy day I went through my notebooks of saved internet and magazine patterns and pulled three to prep for retreats.
The quilt below is a pattern from the December 1997, American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine.
I only used three fabrics for this quilt....just as it was designed. It is "Snow Stars," designed by Joy Hoffman. Tri-Recs templates were suggested for the design but I had a bloc-loc ruler for the triangle shapes in my stash of rulers...and it finally got used in making this design! My triangle units were perfect and this quilt top came together so sweetly
My second border finish was, "Autumn Elegance." Hmmm....this quilt also has a connection to my trip to Paducah. I bought the border fabric from a vendor at the show.
This pattern is a freebie on the internet, "Winter Elegance," by Jason Yenter of In The Beginning Fabrics. All the fabrics came from my stash. This photo is so washed out compared to the actual colors. When it is quilted it will get an outdoor photo shoot.
I really like fancy or interesting borders...in case you didn't notice that after looking a the first three quilts.
My third border finish, "Ice Castles," is also from a magazine, the February 2009 McCall's Quilting. I had many of the actual fabrics used in the magazine's version of the quilt in my stash. My first visit to a quilt shop after all the initial Covid shutdowns was to look for the white background fabric. Found the perfect piece of fabric...very surprising as batik backgrounds are so difficult to source sometimes. It has little gold to brownish colored irregular dots. There are some gold to brown tones in the blue batik fabrics, too.
Again...the colors in the photo look so washed out. This border required a template that came with the magazine...which of course I did not have...so I bought the issue on eBay just to avoid using my high school sophomore year of geometry. I still had to do a little extra math as I added a row...it needed a star in all four corners. After I made it bigger...I realized I could have made if one row smaller. Ha! Of course I didn't make it smaller but it is encouraging that I thought about it.
I have also been on task to work on cross stitching patterns I've collected over the years. The patten below came with the linen fabric, beads and some cute tiny buttons. I found a piece of Nancy Halvorsen Christmas fabric in my stash that looks really nice with the floss colors.
The pattern is, "Christmas Means More," from Heart in Hand Needleart, published in 2014. The stitching covers roughly a 4 x 6-inch area. Not sure how I will finish it...but I want it to stand next to a Jim Shore statue of the Grinch with Cindy Lou Who.
I really got hooked on cross stitch patterns by Pat Thode of Heartstings in the early 2000s. I made a darling series, "The 12 Days of Santa." That led me to buy several of her series and many of them came with fabric, cute embellishments, buttons and sometimes floss.
Haven't touched them in at least 10 years.
So...I started the 12 Days of Christmas, released in 2000.
I finished Day 1 on my Kauai vacation.
I have this little nagging thought that I should try and finish one "Day," every month. So I became obsessed last week to finish Day 2.
My Bucilla felt kit stitching time in the evenings is getting squeezed by all these cross stitch projects so no finishes in that area but...
I could not resist purchasing a few felt kits from Merry Stockings with my birthday discount in the month of March.
The Easter kits really got me and I had to add a few Christmas ones.
It is rare to get any photos of myself. There must have been a break in the college basketball game my husband was watching because he saw me on the back deck trying to get a good photo of my quilt and actually came outside to get one of me!
When I showed my husband the finished quilt last night (binding was finally done) he said it was the best quilt I have ever made. He loved the colors! I was so surprised.
I'm still giving it to our son.
