Colorado and Pike's Peak

Yesterday evening right when the final member of the five came in we had three unexpected visitors, this is one of them on Linda's front steps! Much sweeter than on my last visit when I encountered a marauding Black bear rampaging down the street knocking over trash cans!

This was one of a set of twins along with mumma deer grazing in the yard.

It was a charming introduction to our visit.

We immediately left for the "Golden Bee" for dinner,came home and chatted for quite a while then rose early to be out the door by 8:30 this morning to ride the Cog Railroad to the top of 14,115ft. Pike's Peak.

The trip up takes about an hour 20 minutes with lovely scenery and some wildlife along the way. Often some intrepid adventurers will bike or hike down but biking was not possible today due to non arrival of the bikes. The annual auto race up the mountain is this weekend, the record to beat is eight minutes and a few seconds! All those hairpin bends  mean that speeds not around them are around 90 MPH, no guardrail either! Though I doubt that would help..........

That is a lake in the background.

A wonderful lunch experience at the Cliff House rounded out the day! The food was outstanding and most reasonably priced. The special was  "For Two" salad, entree and dessert for $50!

The salad a light offering just right for lunch.

Entree offered  a choice of Chateaubriand or a filet, but two of us requested substitution of salmon and the Chef obliged. The beef was pronounced perfectly tender and flavorsome and the salmon was exactly cooked and seasoned. Nancy chose fish and chips which also earned high praise.

But wait- there is more, the piece de resistance -

A trio of creme brûlée, right to left, vanilla, hazelnut, and white chocolate oh my, shut the front door we were in heaven!

All of this for $25 per. person, so if you live around or visit Colorado Springs do not fail to stop at the Cliff House for lunch! Or dinner which must be just as excellent though a little more pricey no doubt.

We rolled down the steps and stopped for a Kodak moment in front of the fountain, such a beautiful and gracious old hotel and lovely surrounds.

The Magic Pincushion

Thirty years ago when we were leaving central Texas after DH had retired from the military, a dear friend the pastor's wife gave me this pincushion she had cross stitched.

It has journeyed around the world and the country with me ever since, I used it mainly for needles especially those tiny quilting needles. Next week we are having a mini reunion of five women who were friends then, although two of them I have not seen since we left central Texas, and one probably for twenty years. We have somehow managed to keep in touch mostly due to one of the five who lives in Colorado Springs. Thinking to bring along the pincushion I began to remove the needles and found that even when I had removed all visible needles I could still feel some there.

They continued to pop up as I gently squeezed the pincushion and by the time they were all out I counted 37 needles!

I would never have guessed that it could contain so many, it is a very small thing only three inches square and one inch tall.  I did take a photo of them all but of course now that I have the latest Photo software I cannot find it! I have hand laundered the pincushion and now free of it's spiny contents I will take it along to show my friend.

A Very Modern Baby Quilt

This was a Texas power sewing project all finished......and I am so pleased with it. The design is called Urban Chained from Sew Kind Of Wonderful. I am really enjoying the process of these modern quilts, the simple piecing and limited color combinations and opportunities for innovative quilting.

 The backing is wide Kona muslin and thread is white 50 wt. 

 Batting is Quilter's Dream Angel, one of my absolute favorite battings. It is genetically engineered to be non flammable, absolutely no toxic chemicals, is soft, light and drapey, and comes in two weights with lovely definition. What's not to like?!

 I had two extra blocks so one became the label. I like to incorporate the label with the backing so that it is quilted right in and impossible to remove.

The colors do not show so well here, but the quilting shows up nicely.

BJ's Baby Quilt For Kayla

A sweet little girl quilt with a Hawaiian look.

 Quilted with So Fine off white top and bobbin, with E-E freehand floral design. Batting is Hobbs I think, BJ brought it so I am not sure

 Heather at Needlework Tuesday has asked us to show a Granny square quilt we have made and I have one to display, I made it for my oldest son over 40 years ago! It was my first and last major crochet project it is wool so I have to keep it in the cedar chest away from gnawing insects!

 This I called the Joseph Coat [of Many Colors!], made by my Mum for my youngest son when he was 3 or 4, I must search out a photo of him wearing it. I had planned to give it to his little boy but somehow it slipped my mind and now that boy is a very tall six year old and I am very sure it will not fit. Perhaps he will have a little brother or sister who can wear it, my Mum would have loved that.

Friday Finish for Orange Crush

I knew Angela would be anxious to see her OJ Crush quilted so here it is!

 The center is Edge to Edge echoed peacock feathers and the three borders have separate treatments. That does take longer but it sets the borders apart nicely and Bonnie Hunter designs have a lot of work in them so they deserve a little special treatment!

 Hard to see with the rust colored thread but the inner border  has a triangular design, the middle a figure of eight and the outer a continuous echoed peacock feather that ties in with the body of the quilt.

 I think that pieced backings are more interesting than just one fabric.

The label embroidered onto the backing before quilting.

A modern Quilt

 I have a quilt on the LA but I am awaiting a new shipment of batting with some full size batts that I ran out of, they are due in tomorrow.
Meantime I just returned from the gym and after a shower I am filling in today making some embroidered labels for a friend - you know the old saying "idle hands are the devil's playground". Show me a quilter with idle hands and you will find that she is likely losing her mind with boredom, LOL!
The quilt I had half finished before I went to TX is now ready for the LA. After trying a few options for the corners I decided to use that beautiful large print.

These fabrics were a set  won from an online blog contest a couple of years ago, half yard each of eight coordinated fabrics called "Rose Parade Half Yard Bundle" from Fort Worth Fabric Studio.
I have sufficient left of most of the fabrics in the set to make binding, perhaps I will scrap it, I love scrappy bindings!

Friday Progress Report

This week has shown some progress on a couple of projects. Blooming Snowball from my Texas power sewing is ready to quilt, I just don't know how yet!

  It measures 60"x70".

The modern quilt I pieced before the TX trip was lacking a border so I added a 2" white strip to float the center design then made about 80 HST's to finish it.

 Now I have a corner dilemma, and after a trial of a pink triangle

I think I prefer a plain white corner.

What do you think?

In addition I finished up the iPad stand and have been using it in bed and it works nicely.

 The little decoration on the top includes a loop to make it easy to move the bag around when not in use.

 It even works with the little green iPad cover Leslie passed on to me for my iPad Air 1, it did not fit her Air 2

If you know me at all you know I love to use up scraps especially when it saves me money!

Looking at the cute paper gift bags in the stores I choked on the prices for small bags and decided to make my own. The scraps I chose are approximately 8"x10", if they were smaller than that I added a contrast trim to enlarge them then sewed a one inch hem at the top and threaded a length of narrow ribbon through. I sewed the little triangles across the bottom to make them three dimensional like a paper grocery bag and much more useful.

And they cost me exactly zero outlay, I already had all the supplies, I love that!

Blogger's Quilt Festival/Grey Bear

It is that time of year again when Amy's Creative Side hosts the very popular Blogger's Quilt Festival.
This year I chose this wall quilt pieced by Angela's daughter Hannah- I had previously posted about it here after the quilting was completed.

I still love how the "Grey Bear" quilt turned out, it measures 36" square.

Voting begins tomorrow, 22nd. May, so please click here and vote for Hannah's quilt!

My New/Old Machine!

Linking with Heather at  Needlework Tuesday

While in Texas I sewed on my friend's Bernina machines and decided to look for a used Activa to replace my Pfaff 2042, it is much lighter, only 17lbs. and has the knee lift the Pfaff 2042 does not.  It also has the very convenient Bernina feature of rear pedal foot tap to change the needle position, I like that. My friend did some sleuthing for me and tracked down an Activa 240 at a reasonable price on Sew it's For Sale and I coordinated with the owner to purchase it and have her ship it to me from Florida.

It has the large free standing extra table and the tool box as well as a couple of other interesting accessories like the decorative needle punch tool and needle plate, lots of extra bobbins and the bendable LED light. 

I needed to order a new insert for my Quilter's Cabinet to accommodate Activa 240 and it came a few days ago, now I am enjoying using my new/old machine, it will be a perfect travel companion. Eventually I may invest in a walking foot and SID foot for binding, but meantime I will default to the Pfaff 2056 with Integrated Dual Feed for binding, it does a very nice job but it's awfully noisy with the IDF I can't hear the TV very well!

 Over the weekend I made a few things to take to my retreat next month, selvedge pot holders and more funky chicken pincushions. We are five friends from more than three decades ago, can you believe we have kept in touch? Some of us were military families and have moved-and moved- and moved some more but managed to keep in touch mostly due to one valiant soul who lives in Colorado Springs. We will all gather at her home for a few days to catch up and find out all the things you don't write in a Christmas card! I can't remember if everyone sews, I know for sure two do other than myself but everyone needs pot holders!

Aren't they these the cutest funky chickens?

This is one of the projects from the power sewing week in TX, I have decided that I do not want to border it and the 5x6 block format is too small for a lap quilt even with ten inch blocks so I prepped fabric for another eleven blocks to make it 6x7, about 60"x70" bound. The blocks go together fast these curves are very easy to sew, just keep the convex curve on top and lift the fabric up as you sew.

It is definitely another feminine quilt, it seems that unless I use Fall colors, Red White and Black or CW replicas my creations are predominantly girly!

Finally Finished Friday!

The fights I have had with my long arm are [hopefully] over and "she" will behave nicely now! A tech from out of town came Wednesday and spent a couple of hours with the machine then after the tech left and I returned to the ruler work on the little quilt I experienced the same problem of thread breakage. I tinkered around a bit more with the single stitch speed and managed to get the baby quilt done and bound last night.

 Simply quilted and not too much, it needs to be cuddly 

 and with Quilter's Dream Angel batting it is soft and "drapey".

 It is backed and bound with the very cute "I love puppies" fabric by Heather Mulder Peterson for Henry Glass & Co. The thread is Superior So Fine on top and Bottom line in the bobbin.

Now just have to launder the quilt and it's ready to go for the baby shower next weekend, it feels good to be ready early!

Revamping My Design wall!

After visiting my TX friend and her wonderful, larger than mine sewing studio, I came home inspired to make a few changes. My design wall had been a sheet of 4x8ft. foam board propped against the wall in an unstable state, liable to move around and often overbalanced and "interacting" with the ceiling fan, not at all satisfactory! On occasion it would topple over and hit me on the head, no pain but great aggravation, why ever did I wait so long to change it?!
First I trimmed about a foot off the length so it would clear the outlet then had DH screw it to the wall with large washers to prevent the screws stripping out of the foamboard.

While we were at it I flipped the batting to the clean side and secured it all around with T pins-result? my old, revamped, newly efficient design wall!
Lined up there upon the wall are some of the extra triangles from the baby quilt, I saw a design on the 'net using a row of triangle hexies on a solid background and thought it would be a good way to use them up but there are still quite a few left- maybe for the border?

I also had DH make another improvement for me, my ruler storage board was on the work table taking up valuable space. I had admired my friend's ruler storage up on the wall, so DH attached some simple brackets to my board and now it is in a very handy place on the wall clear of my working surface. I might paint the brackets to match the wall if I still have any of the paint.

I think I am procrastinating the quilting on the baby quilt while I make a decision on design!

Post Scriptum
As you can see I am also experimenting with font changes, I looked around and this is the closest to  my own handwriting-but neater!  Let me know if you think it's harder to read than a regular printer font.

The Triangle Baby Quilt Progress

Linking up with Heather at "Needlework Tuesday"

This has been an experiment, a first for me of this kind of triangle quilt.  I began with all these fabrics and cut a lot of equilateral 4.5" triangles. I have a lot left so there may be another triangle design in my future!

After sewing about three rows I hated it, way too crazy busy, simply awful! Eliminating the two black and white fabrics made a big difference then introducing a WOW helped tone down the design.
It's now ready to quilt and I haven't decided how to do that, I want something modern but not too much quilting it needs to stay soft and cuddly for a baby quilt.

It measures 42"x55" just about right for a baby.

Grandmother's Fan Quilt

After a bit of a hiatus from the LA I am back in the groove. The issue I had with timing seems to be ok now after countless re-timing, cleaning encoders, adjusting single stitch etc etc. It's really hard when the timing looks so perfect but the machine is still not sewing properly, the adjustments are so minor as to be difficult to even see, very frustrating! There is a perfect sweet spot, then a tiny bit either side of it that works and I am hoping I have found it again!
Once the new hook was installed then I had a tension issue, so it's been a rather unproductive week but today finally the GM Fan quilt is done, and I can move on.

It measures 62"x86" probably good for a girl's single bed.

The fans are individually quilted the balance an E-E floral, this is the fourth for my ALS friend. To add to the problem my machine did not really like some of the fabrics principally that floral border which is very thin fabric and probably a poly blend.
 Backing is a light pink solid, there's enough for binding and along with the other large quilt I need to get both bound and shipped back to MA. I hope by the end of the month.
For now it's back to the modern baby boy quilt with all the triangles, lovely, a new project a fun start to the week!