Great Outdoors

Disign wall Monday, again. And this week I have something new.

I was picking up "stuff" and came across the leftovers of The City of Roses. When I looked at the pices of strata I began to see the makings of a new purse.

And this is how far I have gotten. On the left is the body of the purse including a front pocket. The next picture is the lining. The front, lining, and batting are all put together and quilted.

Check

Judy's blog for other projects.

This is a close up of the quilting. And now I really want a computerized quilting system. This was done by machine embroidery, four hoopings. This are the best feathers I will ever do. ;-)

I once again tried quilting Purple Rail and this is the panto I am using.

I really like how it looks but I am having problems with tension, thread breaking and so this is all I have gotten done, so far. I have cleaned the bobbin case, under the throat plate, changed the needle, and tried everything I can think of. It has gotten a little better but for some reason it is not working as well as usual.

So Sunday afternoon DH and I put this gazebo together and spent the rest of the day reading in the shade.

Abby, Design Wall and Done

I decided to share what I wake up to each morning. Isn’t she the cutest?

I don’t think Abby realizes that she is a dog. She sleeps under the covers, note the beautiful quilt she is under, and likes her head on the pillow. I have wanted to get a picture of this but until this morning, I had forgotten that I can take pictures with my cell.

On my design wall are the blocks from last year’s BOM at my LQS using Eleanor Burns’ Egg Money Quilts Book. These are definitely not my style but it has been fun both to try new things and getting together with other quilters to talk (complain) about some of the challenges. There is one more block to make and then one will be chosen to use as the label and it will be time to rearrange the layout. I spent part of Sunday, while a major thunder storm worked its way through our area, working on a layout design which I hope won’t look anything like any of the quilts in the book. This, of course, means lots more sewing but I am really excited about how this will turn out. I must say that this 30’s fabric is so far out of my comfort zone that that in itself has been quite a challenge for me. Every time I work with it I want to run to my batiks and dive into it. Be sure to stop by Judy’s blog to see what others are up to.

And, the great accomplishment of last week is that Sunday morning I finished the Not Quite Traditional quilt, now called City of Roses.

Saturday I kind of locked myself in the studio and sewed the binding strips together, pressed and then sewed the binding on. While doing that I embroidered the label so it got sewed into the binding. I really like the label to be permanently sewed in and this time I got it done in time. Sometimes it takes me almost as long to designing the label as the quilt but this one came together very quickly. Then Saturday night and Sunday morning was spent hand sewing the other side of the biding and throwing it all in the washing machine. And it only took me 24 days to do this one day project: remember it was a New Year’s Day class: for me it was a New Year’s Month class.

Have a great week!