Nice Quiet Sunday

Nice quiet Sunday here - Kasey decided that JD made an excellent pillow. That's one thing she absolutely loves is to sleep with her 'brothers and sister' - but awake she is a terror on 4 paws.

We ventured out today and drove down to Tanger Outlet to make a return and do a little shopping, not much though. I picked up probably a half year supply of body wash at Bath and Body Works - love their after Christmas sale and Jody found a pair of shoes at the Rack Room. Not much for us but the puppies made a haul at PetSmart.

One of my favorite quilting websites is Quiltville.com and Bonnie Hunter has started a new Mystery Quilt the day after Thanksgiving. I pulled all my fabrics together but I needed to finish a few quilts before I started it. This past week I finally got to start and I am almost finished with Step #2. I am doing it in Christmas fabric/colors so I will have plenty of time to complete it before next Christmas (hopefully). I'm not too far behind - I think she just posted Step #6.

Well, laundry is done and tomorrow back to work.

Mary

Meet Kasey Cay

.....and Herbert her giraffe. Kasey is our newest addition and now there are 4 (again). We adopted Kasey on Thanksgiving day and has been running the house ever since. She is real small and 15 weeks old now, our Vet said that she probably won't weigh much more that 15 lbs grown. She's been my quilting partner of late, easier to keep an eye on her and now since she has been in with me so often I can't go quilt without her coming to the gate of the room wanting in.


I have the last of my customer quilts ready to send out tomorrow - that is the last of the ones to do before Christmas. Thought I would sneak one of mine in before I load the next one. This is a bargello that I had done from a on line class I took. Was always interested in the way these quilts were designed and thought I would give it a try. I made this quite awhile ago and thought I would finish for a wall hanging, but I also wanted to try out a new panto I had purchased. I like the way it looks on this quilt and it stitched out rather quickly.

Well tomorrow is another work day and unfortunately it comes early - all for now hopefully more soon.

Mary

Tomato Soup Quilt

Well at least the color reminds me of it. Mom had ask me for a lap quilt, she said something soft and not too big. I found the fabrics at Hobby Lobby, I was looking for and collection that had a stripe since I wanted that for the sashing stripes. I was able to assemble it pretty quickly and get it ready to be quilted - which may happen next week when I get in between customer quilts.

Last month I did complete my challenge of quilting 3 of my quilts over the long weekend, 2 still need binding attached - but yet closer to be completed.

Mary

Another One Done

I finished quilting this one this afternoon. The pattern is called My Blue Heaven - great scrappy blue and beige quilt. I used a polyester batting and the edge to edge pattern is called Billowy - next thing to do is bind it (next week). I have the backing for #3 ready to load and will probably start quilting later tonite or tomorrow morning.

JD has been my quilting buddy today - which he usually is when he is allowed in, if not he is laying outside of the gate. He has become quite vocal, a noisy little guy, not a barker but makes some of the oddest noises I have ever heard a dog make. He has definitely grown up to be a good boy.

Ok - break over.

Mary

A Long Time Since My Last Post

Once again I have taken a long break from any type of posting - not sure if this posting will start anything.

Since my original plans changed for this weekend, husband sick and storms are coming in I have decided to finish up some unfinished quilts and catch up on other things. I started with this lap quilt I just finished sewing together this week and did the quilting today - plans for this one are to be sent to the shop in Wisconsin that sells my quilts along with another that I am binding now. I just finished loading quilt #2 on the frame and will quilt that one tomorrow and then on to #3 to be quilted. And then in between these I need to pull fabrics to make my mom a lap quilt, I have the pattern but I still need to figure out the fabrics. I love that I added the computer to my machine, it frees up so much time that I can get others things together while its doing all the work.

Obviously Sophie has found the comfort of sleeping with her head on a pillow. I was busy working on a customer quilt yesterday and thought things were a little quiet in the house. Looked down the hall and there she was sound asleep, not sure where she found the pillow but certainly looks comfortable. I did get quite the look from her when I took her picture - the flash disturbed her. The other day she grabbed a pair of shorts from the laundry basket and was caught trying to put them in her toy basket - now I thought she only knew how to take things out of the toy basket not put things in it - I wonder if I could get her to pick up after herself and her brothers - humm.

Maybe tomorrow I will post again - humm!

Mary

Meet Sophie

Sophie is hard to get a picture of - she never sits still. Jody took this picture while she was eating today - not really happy about being interrupted. Sophie is now 14 weeks old and growing so fast. Had her to the Vet on Friday for her third round of shots and she weighs in at 13.8lbs. When we first got her we were a little worried about her eating - no a problem now. Not afraid of anything not even the pool, when we are in the pool she will get down on the first step - hopefully she wouldn't get in without us. She has twice now cut JD off when they are running around it and JD has ended up in the water - Jody has at least been close by when he went in to grab him out.

I completed the quilting on this quilt yesterday and its ready for the binding to go on. The pattern is Christian Cross and the panto I used to quilt it is Bountiful Feathers. So one UFO almost complete - yippee! Next quilt is a customers quilt to be done - its loaded on the frame just waiting on the final decision on which panto to use.


Unfortunately back to work tomorrow - had a nice little 3 day weekend, wish it were 4!

Mary

It's Been A Long Time

Allot has gone on for me in the past couple of months.

1st - Quilted Comfort has moved all the way to the other bedroom. Should have done that
when we first moved here 3 years ago. This room is 11 x 15 with double closets - prefect for storage - plus in the other room I was crawling thru the closet to get around my quilting frame, if I were a young thing it would be ok but I'm not.

2nd - Quilted Comfort has gone computerized. I have added the ProStitcher to my HQ16 machine - it sure has freed up some of my time. As I take on more quilting jobs I also am able to work on other things while it is doing the quilting - like blogging! Its kind of like multitasking made easy.

Here are my newest quilting buddies, Sophie and JD - not sure if quilting is that tiring or that boring of a process. Usually they bring me toys, chews, food bowls and anything else they can drag in here. They're not too happy when they get banned from the room when I'm working on a quilt that is not mine.

The past couple of days I have been playing with new blog layouts and a new header for my blog - probably more changes are ahead - seems like I'm into changing things lately.

With the move I have discovered some unfinished projects like this one - Christian Cross. I made this several years ago - not sure why I never finished it but I have a feeling I ran out of fabric for the binding.
I has lucky to find a fabric at Hobby Lobby that matched the green so this will become a finished UFO. I also found another top where I had the center put together and the blocks for the border and I do remember I needed more fabric for the inner border but never remembered to pick it up. That one is a double pinwheel quilt - pictures on another day - but playing around in EQ6 with the quilt I decided on a totally different color and in the program it made the quilt come alive but we'll see what real life does for it.

Wow this post has gotten lengthy - more later.

Mary

What I Have Been Up To

Just a few pictures on the slideshow of the quilts I have completed so far this year. I have another top ready to put on the frame plus blocks completed for another quilt.

Along with a few other quilting jobs I have been fairly busy.

More to come.......

Mary

JD the Movie

I've been real lax about posting on this blog since the March Storm. Well the tree survived and is nice and green now. The pool now was a new liner but Jody found that the pipes above ground are busted, hopefully that will all be corrected soon.

We very sadly lost our beloved Sadie Sue on May 7th, even tho her illness know to us was short it obviously had been developing over time - she will be forever missed.

Like 2 years ago when we lost Joe, we decided to adopt a new puppy to keep our Cocker count at 4. Seems like the best number for us and the joy of having a new puppy helps to heal our loss - big job for a little guy.

Meet JD - 8 week old Chocolate Cocker Spaniel - our little chocolate drop. An absolute loving little puppy.

Hopefully coming soon more quilting that I have finished.

Mary

After the Storm

I thought for sure being this far into the season that we would not see any snow - WRONG! It had been raining and storming all weekend and then Sunday afternoon it changed to snow. I was working and left work at 4pm and by the time I got 4 miles from home the ground was white and slush and snow on the road. I turned off on my 2 lane road to our subdivision I had to dodge tree limbs. First picture is the cherry tree that was half way to full bloom and the second picture is what shape I found it in this morning. Got home and the pool cover collapsed and tore holes in the liner, could hear tree limbs breaking in the area, lights going off and on - not pleasant for an evening in the 'Sunny South.'



I will be updating my Webshots page with more pictures later. It is rather serene and beautiful today - right now until I try to go out in it.

And its suppose to be 72 on Saturday!

Mary

Great Ride Today.

Today we decided to take off to the mountains and see how the Mustang handles the curves. We headed to the Blue Ridge Parkway to see how spring was coming along. As you can see by the pictures there is still some ice on the sides of the mountains. It was a little too cool to ride with the top down but it was still a great ride on the parkway.

Thank goodness our phones have cameras, so some

reason neither one of us can remember our digital cameras.

Even thou it looked like rain most of the day and it was in the low 50's it was just great to get away.

Mary

WOW It's 70!

Can't believe the warm weather the past few days, ever since Saturday the days have been getting warmer. Now that being said, I had to work last weekend with the balmy weather happening. I'm off this coming weekend and the weather is suppose to be back to normal - 40's with possibility of rain - it figures!

Mary

Star Struck Quilt

I thought I would share the making of a quilt. This quilt is called Star Struck and the pattern came from Quiltville. I used an 80/20 blend batting and the quilting pattern is called Happy Times.

Mary

My New Ride!

After a month of off and on looking last Friday I came home with my new car. Sad to say good by to the Mini, what a great car she was.
This nice candy apple red convertible will see many of miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway just a cruising.

So needless to say between looking at cars and work I have not accomplished too much on the sewing front. Although I did finish the bindings on 2 quilts and today I start the binding on the Double Wedding Ring Quilt. I have only done a curve binding once before and on a much smaller quilt so it will take me alittle bit to get it done. Thanks to the help of some helpful info videos on You Tube by some professional quilters I found a great way to cut the binding.

Well, break time is over back to the machine.

Mary

Busy Sunday

I didn't start quilting this top until this evening but I also finished it. The quilt is from a kit from Connecting Threads, looked simple to assemble and it did go together rather quickly. I used a thread color called baguette and the quilting pattern I followed is called Happy Times. That pattern quilted out pretty quickly and I like the movement it gives the quilt.

Here it is the making of the next quilt, I decided to dig into my scraps and do something useful with them. I found a pattern on Quiltville and started slicing up the the fabric for a scrappy quilt....more on this at a later date.

Today we went to the car show in Greenville, I am starting to look for a new car but cannot decide what I want. Not sure if I'm going to order another Mini. I like the Saturn Sky, a cute little roadster with some power behind it but no place for my purse if 2 people are in it. Or maybe a Mustang or a Pontiac G6.....but one thing I know for sure the top needs to go down.

Ah decisions, decisions....

Mary

Baby It's Cold Outside

Actually not too bad at this time - its now warmed up to 30. shed This morning it was barely out of the single digit numbers. Luckily I am using the last remaining vacation days so there was no need to leave the house although I did venture out in the afternoon.

I started and finished the first of three quilt tops I have ready for the frame. Later I'll get the next one loaded on the frame and ready for tomorrow morning.

Well for now I think its time of tea before I start dinner.

Later.

Mary

Two Productive Days

As far as sewing goes -it has been a productive 2 days. I finished assembling a top yesterday and was going to put another one on the frame to quilt. I had some cotton batting left so I started to soak it so I could shrink it before quilting I started search for the backing for the first top I had finished - didn't search too far, hadn't bought it yet. So that being discovered I started on this scrappy quilt, pattern called Tossed 9-Patch and finished it this morning. Now I have 3 tops to quilt so off to the store to purchase the fabric for at least one quilt back, which was on sale so I purchased enough for all three. So last one done first on the frame - but now I won't get back to it before Friday, work is going to get in the way again.

The weather so far this week has been mild - highs in the 50's. Unfortunately that cold Canadian air is to reach down here to really chill things up. I know to my northern family the high of 30 is springtime but to the people of the South its a whole different story. And yes I am getting soft, I still can vividly remember 30 below with a wind chill of 55 below and at this time in my life I choose not to revisit it.

Warm wishes and thoughts of you my Northern Family and Friends - Cheers!

Mary

It's Been Along Time...Again

Wow, it's been a long time since I have done any posting once again. Between the Holidays and work and life there has been little time for anything. Now that its January when things get slower its time to get moving and motivated again.

Here are a few pictures of a quilt I just finished this past weekend with the exception of the binding. I took me a couple of weeks to finish but I'm quite pleased with it and I hope Kim is too.

For some reason the pictures are showing lighter. I did allot of outline stitching and feather fills. Not sure yet what color binding to use, possibly blue or a light purple.