Customer Quilt

The other night I woke up at 3 am and just couldn't get back to sleep...don't you hate it when that happens??  Well, I didn't just want to lay in bed waiting and hoping to go back to sleep so I got up and started working on this quilt for Betty. I believe that this pattern is called Bento Box and she made it in very warm and toasty brown shades. We are finally getting some cooler temps here and I know that someone is going to love snuggling under this quilt this winter.

I quilted it with medium brown thread on top and I used a dark brown for the back. Whenever possible I have been using magna glide bobbins and I love them! I have found that when I use them I don't have to fuss with the bottom tension very much at all and I like that - a lot!

I used a pantograph called Denise's Spirals for the quilting design. I think Betty is going to be very happy with her quilt.

Slow Sunday Stitching - Blue Cheese

Blue Cheese

Do you remember this quilt? I just love it but it has been sorely neglected. :(

I honestly thought that I had already blogged about quilting it and getting it to the binding stage but it appears that I didn't. Well, I did get the quilting done way back when and I love the way it turned out. I had started working on the binding and after getting several inches done it just sat in a lonely pile and stared at me waiting to be finished.



Well perfect timing - yesterday was Slow Sunday Stitching over at Kathy's Quilts and I got 50 inches of binding stitched down while I watched Outlander last night. It feels really good to be moving this quilt along!

During the day I worked on En Provence and I finished making the rest of the magenta/neutral triangle-in-a-square units. I also sewed all of the purple 4 patches together and even got some pressed open.

This morning I had planned on going to my exercise class but wouldn't you know it...when I rolled out of bed I hurt my knee!!! It's quite ridiculous that it happened but I think I need to put a platform on the floor beside my bed. We replaced our mattress and box spring a couple weeks ago and it is so high that I feel like the princess and the pea trying to climb up and down from my bed. I am quite short, only 5' tall, and the top of the mattress is 28" off the floor. Anyway, the end result is that my knee hurts when I go up or down the stairs. :(

Old Tobacco Road and En Provence

Autumn has arrived and I guess it is a good time to 'fall' back into blogging. I have really been quite neglectful in documenting my quilting journey over the past few months but that is because I really haven't been doing a lot of quilting. Like many others, one of the main reasons that I started blogging was to keep a diary of my quilting but this summer I have spent more time on other projects so I haven't really had a lot to write about!

This past week I spent a few days on retreat at Killbear Provincial Park with a great bunch of quilting friends. It is a beautiful park near Parry Sound, Ontario and it is about a 2.5 hour drive north from where I live. We stayed in the staff house and we had such a great time together and I actually got some sewing done. I didn't get anything finished but I did get a good start on Bonnie Hunter's Old Tobacco Road and En Provence. Both quilts are 4 patch heavy and I spent quite a lot of time making 4 patches and pinwheels. There was a lot of socializing and chatting and carrying on and, well, there was some wine involved too. :) Really, the perfect setting to do a bunch of mindless sewing and it worked out quite well for me!

I got at least 403 four patches made for both quilts and I think I am just about all four patched out! I also got all of the pinwheels made for Old Tobacco Road and I got a good start on the magenta/neutral triangle-in-a-square blocks for En Provence. I feel pretty good about my progress!

One thing I have discovered since my last post is that Pic Monkey is no longer a free program for photo editing. I was able to use a substitute program that was preloaded on my laptop when I replaced it last year but it seems to be more complicated for me to figure out. Oh well, I am sure with time and practice I will get better at it so that it doesn't take me so long to get two photos cropped!