A Prairie Home Quilts

It’s been a while since I’ve posted because I’ve been having trouble with our ISP. So instead of wrestling with “server timed-out” messages and having to hit the “refresh” button multiple times, I’ve just been quilting. Yesterday, mom finished sewing the binding down on her quilt for me… I’m not sure if she volunteered because I’ve got a stack of them to do or she just wanted to be sure to get her (overdue) birthday present some time this year. :) I need to sew down the binding on the one just like it for resale.

I ended up doing an E2E allover loose feather design. The flange was not a good mix with an edge-to-edge design as it kept getting caught up in the presser foot and folded over the wrong way in spots. I ended up having to fix nine such spots. [sigh]

I finished up a baby quilt that the director of our local crisis pregnancy center asked me to quilt for a woman who decided to keep her baby after coming into the center. (Both my daughters volunteer there.) It’s nothing special, just two pieces of fabric sandwiched together–otherwise I’d post a picture. :) I quilted it allover with little hearts and hands. I’m still working on Josh’s quilt. I have all the log cabin squares finished and am working on the flying geese units. I bought the border material and backing today. Tomorrow I’m going to concentrate on getting Josh’s quilt done so I can get that sent to him.

I’ve settled the border dilemma on the houses wallhanging from yesterday’s post. It’ll look nothing like the most of the pictures/ideas I’ve posted, I think. It will require another trip to the LQS but I won’t be able to get there until the 26th. It’s probably just as well because I should be focusing more on all the machine quilting I have to do! (Personal note to self – LOL) I did get the fabrics for Josh’s quilt cut today and hope to start some sewing on his quilt later this evening or tomorrow morning.

This is my percolating project that I’ve been playing around with and I still can’t make a definite decision. So it will continue to percolate.

The sashing between the blocks didn’t work for me. The houses need to make a statement about being “a crowd” and the sashing separates them too much. I also decided late last night to make a subtle change to one other house which means ripping out some stitching. Thankfully I haven’t sewn the blocks together yet. Next, some decisions about borders…

I keep leaning toward the reds, but I think it’s because I *like* red, *a lot.* I want to fuse words in the border so I’ve settled on a yellow (not the one in the pic) and I’m going to use red for some of the words because I *like* red, *a lot.*

Then I was playing around with this for the inner border… I’ll need more if I’m going to use it. I’m undecided.

Late last night I also came up with the words for the border. I was planning on something about “standing out from the crowd,” but decided instead of a phrase to use words with opposite meanings about blending in vs. standing out–lead/follow, comply/rebel, etc.

Okay, I’m off to watch “Bones” and then finish loading a quilt on the frame…

I found a magnetic bowl to use for my pins at the machine quilting frame. I’ve wanted to purchase one for a while now and read in the latest issue of Love of Quilting magazine where they were available at auto supply stores. I went and checked at one here locally… the guy behind the counter had no clue what I was talking about or why you’d want such an item. LOL Just on a whim, I thought I’d check at Wal-Mart back in the automotive department and I found this one for less than $5. You’ll notice that it’s sitting sideways on the bar and all the pins are holding nicely to the magnetic bowl. :) Another recent purchase was a few items for what I have in mind for April’s 12×12 Portfolio Challenge. The Angelina fibers aren’t quite the color I was looking for–I wanted gray–but sometimes you just have to compromise when you live in a small town and there’s only one place to shop…

And finally, one of my children’s friends was involved in a bad car accident about 6 weeks ago and has been in a coma. He’s recently been moved into a rehab center. The “mom” in me feels that a quilt is in order. Several quilty friends and I have made quilts with scriptures on them and given them anonymously with a “Quilt of Comfort” label attached to the back. So I think that’s what I’m going to do for Josh.

I found a pattern in Evelyn Sloppy’s 40 Fabulous Quick-cut Quilts called “Homeward Bound.” When I saw the title, I knew that was the quilt I had to make. :)

The blues and golds go together to make log cabin squares that are surrounded by red and cream flying geese. You can click the pictures below to get a better look at my fabric choices.

I’ve been busy organizing other areas of my life and haven’t really done much on the quilting home front. [sadly] This week’s goals are a repeat of last week’s as I didn’t do anything quilty. I *did* make good progress on getting organized so that I can tell at a glance what needs to be done next for each project in other areas of my life. In other words, I made lots of lists. LOL If you’ve spent any time browsing around this blog, you can tell I like to make lists…

I haven’t found the CD of an OOP book that I was revising that started this whole “mission organization” process but I now have an “action board” that lists each step of my projects (quilty or otherwise) and a new notebook for keeping notes and outlines for each non-quilty project. (Call me obsessed.)

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s the name of a program on TV… but it is my mission today to get some things organized in the sewing studio and the room where I have my machine quilting frame. I am sooo tired of wasting time hunting for things that I thought I knew where they were only to discover I have *no clue* where they really are. [sigh] I also want to be able to unpack some boxes that have been sitting in the garage since we moved in 18 months ago. First up… closets in both rooms. I might even vacuum! (In case you were wondering, I don’t do housework… LOL)

I finished up the house blocks and will post a picture later today. I’m debating about whether or not to use sashing between the blocks, and of course, border options! The wallhanging may just have to percolate for a while on the design wall until I have a chance to get to the LQS to find something suitable. I was playing around with purple & red because of the colors of the doors, but I’m afraid it might look too “red hat.”

This week’s goals look surprisingly like last week’s goals… I only finished one thing I had written down. LOL I did, however, finish things that weren’t on the list and got one thing on March’s list done. :)

Oh my! In my organizing efforts I found a set of borders… LOL Seems I forgot to attach the last 2 borders to Jessica’s Montana Hugs & Kisses. It’s a good thing I hadn’t quite gotten around to putting the sewing machine back on the machine quilting frame. Oh, and Mark called about my sick Bernina. It should be ready on Monday. He needed to get some parts from the Bernina dealer… a wiring harness and a bobbin spindle. He said it’s running like new after he tuned it up and replaced the parts. Yippee! I was afraid it was going to be worse since it was only sewing in reverse.