In Memory Of Sharon

The past few days have brought more than their share of sadness and loss.

Sharon left this life on the weekend, a dear and special friend, a lovely lady who will be sorely missed from our Colorado quilt group. I am shocked and grieved, the photo was taken at Spring retreat, Sharon was always so full of life.

Claudia, another live- wire and dear CO. quilt friend. Claudia is in intensive care in Grand Junction with a hole in her aorta. If you are praying person she can use every prayer, the next week will be critical. I understand that her chances of recovery are not high, but I also know that prayer can result in a miracle.

It's odd that I would have a quilt from each of these ladies here with me-not the one above that I quilted and blogged about recently, it was for Claudia's granddaughter, but she had also asked me to quilt the one below.

It's hand embroidered with nursery rhyme characters, Claudia has worked on it for several years. She told me "no rush" on the quilting.

Sharon's last QOV

Sharon had made this quilt for a wounded warrior, even quilted it on her DSM. I made the label and she sewed it on and gave it to me a couple of weeks ago. I was waiting until I had finished a couple more QOV's to mail them all off together.

I will include a note with this one to let the recipient know it was Sharon's last quilt for QOV.

Another quilter friend Andee over at "A modern Diary" Blogspot, lost her well loved Grandma over the weekend- the world is a poorer place for us this week.

Back To The Basics

I have been distracted by babies[well just one] & sunsets & purses & VTT & I need to get back to blogging about what I do nearly every day, quilting !
I have quilted 6 tops on the LA the past week since I came down from the mountains. However, none of them is bound as yet, my Guild here in Montrose, CO. will help me out with binding the QOV's.

The only one of these that I actually pieced was the baby quilt below, the others were all put together by my generous friends in the Huggy Bunch quilt group.

They never lay or hang totally flat it seems until the binding is attached so I will show you a photo of the whole of this quilt once I get the binding on in a few days.
This is the pink D9P baby girl quilt, I have cut the bright pink fabric for the binding. The baby is due this coming week so I need to get this bound & labeled pronto! The fabrics all came from my stash.

These next two are freehand quilted with square spirals to fill each block- Nancy pieced these & I think they are scrap quilts.

They are two of the latest four QOV's for wounded warriors

These next two QOV quilts were made by Meredith from a "twofer" pattern where you sew the blocks for both quilts at the same time & end up with two very different looking quilts
I think this is a very clever idea so I am looking forward to trying this method myself-it's on my list!
These last two did give me bit of a fit-they are beautiful batiks & after all my bragging about how I have no trouble quilting batiks it came back & bit me you know where!
I had constant struggles with thread breaks, skipped stitches & so on & I had to go painfully slowly & anyone who knows me will tell you that's not my speed. I spent a lot of time trying to solve my problems, umpteen different needles, speeds, re-threadings, bobbin & thread changes, checking timing[ugh], adjusting the needle bar height, ad nauseum until I was pretty cranky! Even ordered a new bobbin, ouch, $$$$-wise that hurt. The batik quilts are done, PTL, & I hope not to have these issues again. The only thing I didn't try [only because I didn't have a can of it] was to spray the fabric with silicon, some of the LA quilters on one of my groups say this helps, guess I need to get a can. I did however use "Sewer's Aid" [a liquid silicon] on the spool of thread & the thread path but I'm not sure it helped, I just struggled on through the process until they were finished.

This last one is a donation for a charitable group's auction, quilted with meandering flowers & leaves.

So it's now Saturday but the date on the post still shows Thursday & although there has to be a way to change that I don't know how!

I drove the 500 plus miles to the CO. mountains today, 9 hours across a lot of desert. It was 60 degrees when I arrived at 9,000 ft. this evening, Phx. hasn't seen 60 degrees since January I think!

QOV#2, done!

As promised, QOV#2 is posted. Tomorrow they go in the mail back to my QOV partner in CA. so she can bind & label them for the wounded warriors at LA veteran's hospital.

From the back you can see that this one is quilted with a freehand square spiral design.

QOV #3

Here is the final QOV for the week. I actually had it off the LA Thursday afternoon but didn't get around to taking a photo until Friday. I struggled with the thread breaking even though it was the exact same stuff I had used on the previous quilt just a different color. I changed the needle & fussed with the thread path & finally got it to run better but I had to slow down quite a bit from my usual "pedal to the metal"!
The A-1 machine adapts to most threads if you make a few adjustments for the difference in weight & viscosity, I haven't found one I cannot use though I have to slow waaaay down if I use BL in the top.
I was playing around with a freehand variation I had in mind for a change of pace-I am not wild about how it came out but perhaps I need to play around with it some more & tweak it before I reject it absolutely! I think this quilt would have done well with the geometric design I quilted on the last two but I was burned out after two in a row, going through the same motions- I get bored very easily!

Then I quilted a border for a darling little UFO wall hanging that I am planning to give away here on the blog, but more about that in the next day or so. I have finished said wall hanging & it is ready for display.

QOV #2 for the week

Here is the second QOV for the week, I start the third today.
Like the first one I quilted a freehand geometric design again, it just seemed to ask for it & the piecing pattern was the perfect template so it went fast & easy- Meredith's tops are always so nicely pieced.I have no idea what I will do with the third one, probably not until it is pinned on & ready to go this afternoon!

An orange QOV

Here's the first of three QOV's from my QOV partner in CA. who loves batiks, I quilted it today with my new favorite free hand overall design, the Greek key sort of motif.

I have quite a few spools of Valdani variegated thread & one looked just right on this fabric so I decided to use it but I had a bit of a struggle getting the tension right. The thread doesn't come off the spool very smoothly so I tried a couple of different thread paths, a thread sock, liquid silicon & several bobbin tension adjustments before I found an acceptable combination. Valdani threads are very nice & I would like to put these to use but they seem to be a challenge for me to use on the longarm & I spent a long time today trial & error until I got it right. I find it very frustrating to be making thread adjustments when I could be quilting. I used the solid orange in the bobbin.
The backing was already pieced but it was just short of the needed size so I pulled out a yard from my stash that blended really well & sewed it on one side of the backing, that's another yard out of my stash!
I loaded a second QOV on the longarm tonight, hoping to get that quilted tomorrow.