Quilt Tops and Backings

That is what I'm thinking about this week. I am getting some quilts ready to send out to my Dear Friend Mary at Quilt Hollow. Mary and I met when we were stationed at Ramstein AFB in Germany years ago. She has been sharing some of her quilts that she has quilted on her Long Arm and has done some gorgeous things. The first quilt is a civil war quilt that I made to fit a Queen bed. I've been trying to figure out how to go about quilting it for a long time. I just didn't want to try to fight that much fabric on my little machine. I was so excited when Mary got her machine, as now I can pass them to her to do her magic on them.The next quilt is an applique quilt by Pat Sloan called 'Mama's Garden'. I did hand applique on this quilt while we were stationed at Ramstein. I put in alot of hours at our quilds 'Stitch N Gab'. Man, how I miss those Friday Night Stitch n Gabs.Another quilt that I'm sending to her is 'Sunshine on my Shoulders', which was a Jan Patek Girl Gang quilt designed by Cheri Ralston. I love Cheri's designs and have her book waiting for me to make some more of her designs.
I am also sending her my Millineum Garden that was featured in my last post. I can't wait to see what Mary comes up with for quilting these quilts. Since I now don't feel like I have a stack of quilts sitting there waiting for me to do something else with them, it's making me want to start some more quilts! Yippee!! I have some in mind and will post about them in a future post.

Now for backings for these quilts. I had some backing fabric that I bought years ago and it's a perfect it for my civil war quilt. So it is trimmed up and ironed, waiting to be packed up to send. The other quilts will need a backing made for them. So I've gone into my stash and pulled out any leftovers of fabrics used in the tops. I will just put them all together to make an interesting background, while using up some stash in the process. Another Yippee!

Millenium Garden

Millenium Garden
Originally uploaded by WoolieChelle

It's been a week since I've posted, so I thought I'd share a pic of a quilt top waiting to be quilted. This is Millenium Garden BOM by Jan Patek. When I first learned to hand applique, the lady who taught me was working on this quilt. She had ordered it when it first came out as a BOM. I fell in love with it and had always wanted to make it. Years later, an online friend was done with her patterns and passed them on to me. So I jumped in and started my own. I used IMA (invisible machine applique) on my Millenium Garden and I love it. It's in my pile of tops waiting to be quilted at the moment.

Knitting in the Sun

I haven't been around the computer too much lately. I was taking in all of the nice sun we were having. Well, it didn't last. We are down to the 50s now and rain again. :( It's suppose to be this way this whole weekend. So maybe I can get back to cleaning up my sewing room while we are stuck inside. I have a lot of organizing to do in there, before I can get back to my quilting projects. I'm one of those that if it's a mess, I can't really work on something. But I have some new fabrics waiting to be cut and sewn into a beautiful quilt. Not to mention, the many UFO's waiting to be worked on again. There are just too many wonderful patterns out there.


For now, I have been taking some knitting outside with me. I started a summer sweater recently. Here is my progress so far. It's called Slinky Ribs and the pattern in the book Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard. I found knitting is great to work on while sitting outside letting the kids play. I'm using the yarn called for in the pattern, which is Silky Wool by Elsebeth Lavold. This is a wonderful yarn and I am really enjoying using it. I hope to have more progress soon.

Nice Weather Outside

Gee, it seems like it's been a bit since I've posted. That comes from having Spring weather and sitting outside with the kids. All of our neighbors come out and we let the kids play together while we socialize. Friday, I taught one of them to crochet while we were sitting out there. I'm going to have to get my hand work together and take out to work on. The kids are out of school for Spring Break this week, so I'll be out more than in.

The past couple of weeks, I've been playing in the dye pots. I was trying to over dye my red wools for the background of the rug from the previous post. I have worked on it and have some more progress to share. This is a Blackbird Design rug and I just found out that Alma of Blackbird Designs has started a blog! I'm so excited to see them join in blog land. I just love their designs, whether it be quilting, rug hooking, cross stitching or whatever they do. I think I could have my house be decorated in Blackbird Style.