Studio Time

I made a couple of new blocks for the Jacob's Ladder.  I seem to be channeling some Victorian persona who loved these chintz like florals.  Each time I make a block, I am reminded of oak furniture, antimacassars, chintz covered couches, and tchotchkes.  I think I would love to have a parlor like that, with lovely quilts everywhere.  I also think I would have to be a better housekeeper to pull that off.  Oh well.  A woman can dream.

Yes, it really is this pale.  I have been working with so many bright colors, this one looks pretty strange on my design board.  These are four little blocks for my guild.  They are for a presentation quilt.  It is hard to believe I used to prefer these pastel colors.

On a completely different note, I received 12 blocks in the mail from an exchange I am in on Mary Lou Weidman's yahoo group.  Here they are in no particular order.

Aren't they fun?  They will have to wait for a little while before I have time to figure out how I want to put them together.  We all purchased the same background fabric and used bright fabrics to make our fish.  They were each supposed to be at least 14" long with no height restrictions.  Whacky and wonky is good in this group.  We are currently doing a Christmas ornament block exchange.  These blocks will be much simpler in construction.

I spent the rest of the day quilting on the BASICs quilt and cutting purple and pink polka dot fabric for Bella's quilt.  Tomorrow, I will finish up one BASICs quilt and load up another one.  I will also start sewing Bella's quilt, as well as working on my BOM blocks and another JL block.

Until then,

Joyful quilting, everyone.

Oh Goodie! New fabric!

Isn't she absolutely adorable?  I fussy cut 15 little fairies from a piece I had of Timeless Treasures for Bella's quilt.  I thought I had enough polka dots to go with to make a nine patch quilt for her big girl bed, but I didn't so I had to go to the LQS this morning.  She has another beautiful one that her Grandma Edwards made, but I just had to make something with these little fairies.  These are all the goodies I have to make this quilt now, including a bright pink Minke backing.

Pinks and purples.  Purples and pinks.  Polka dots galore.  This is going to be fun.

I also had a wonderful time shopping in my friend's incredible stash for the rest of the florals I need for the Jacob's Ladder Quiltalong.  I am pretty excited about finding  such a wonderful group of these old fashioned style florals for this project.  

I have no idea how big this quilt will be when I sew all these into blocks.  I suspect it will be the biggest quilt I have made.  I just have to make sure it doesn't get too big for Priscilla.  She doesn't like anything over 80 inches wide.  She can be so picky.  (For those of you who are new to the blog, Priscilla is my Juki and frame.)  Anyway, tomorrow, I will make another two blocks for the JL.

Until then, have a great evening, everyone.

Joyful quilting.

Studio time

I added two more blocks to the JL QAL.  this time, I used a really nice pink floral.  There are several shades of pink in it.  These will probably not end up near each other in the final quilt.  I just put them together on the design wall so I could see the pattern.  I liked it so much, I decided to make a small one for this months AAQI quilt.

This will finish out as a 9" square with the binding.  I am going to quilt it with red thread with diagonal lines.  I have wanted to make a red and white quilt all year, so here it is.

I also made two more blocks for the BOM sampler.  I am amazed at how different the jade fabric looks in both photos.  It is really about half way between both.

 The other big thing I did today was to load a quilt for BASICs on the frame.  This top and back were pieced by Irene Armok.  You can see her work at her blog.  She does many wonderful things.

This one is going to get an all over stipple.  I really like this quilt.  Someone is going to be very lucky to get it.

Tomorrow, I will be with Bella, so not much studio time I think.  I think I will do a bit of quilting on the BASICs quilt before I pick her up at pre-school.

Have a joy filled day.

Something different - Northwest Trek in photos

Today, Tom and I went on a special photo safari at Northwest Trek in Eatonville, WA.  What follows are some of the photos I took while we road in an open sided tram through the free-roaming area of the park.  The tour lasted nearly three hours.  It was chilly, misty, and even raining at times, but it was quite wonderful to be sharing this tram with 12 other serious photographers with giant lenses.  I developed lens envy for the monster in the seat in front of me.  Here is my meager offering.

Looking down at the first meadow from the ridge.

The current leader of the elk herd.  Several others had been vying for the title, but are now hanging out on the fringes.

Rutting is serious business.

Maybe next year, I will be king.

We also saw the bison herd.  The baby was born in September.  The nearest big boy is the proud papa and head of this herd.

Baby bison.

It is rutting time for the deer as well.  There are black tail, shown here, and white tail in the park.

This guy was begging for me to take his photo.

I guess the highlight for me was seeing two female moose.  I haven't seen one in person before, so this was very cool.  There is one male in the park, but he stays in hiding most of the time. 

We had a very wonderful time on the safari.  After the tram ride, we walked around to see the grizzlies and the gray wolves.  They are in natural habitats with very low electric fences, it seemed to me.  If you are ever up this way, Northwest trek is worth the visit.

Now, back to the studio.