Snowmen A to Zzzz.... Letters R

R is for Reindeer.  Another one of my daughter's blocks from her Snowmen A to Zzzz quilt.  She has done such a good job.  They are so pretty.

Myself........well, still no time of my own.  I just keep looking at my work in progress list.

**Progress on my top 12 list (which turned out to be 18 instead)**

Work in progress:  

3. Quilting - Lise's hexagon quilt (family)..........finished quilt, now hand stitching the label

4. Quilting - Navy blue & cream quilt (my own)

7. Main work - Spools quilt (my own)..........first row done, on hold to work on quilting

8. Main work - Mel's romance & roses quilt (family)
9. Leader/Ender - 16-patch pinwheel quilt (my own)..........on hold to work on quilting
10. Handwork - Reconstructed Dresden plate quilt (my own)...........9 full blocks left to do

11. Quilting - Lise's Dresden plate quilt (family)..........top is done, waiting to be quilted

12. Handwork - Machine wall hanging (my own)

13. Paper piece - Pineapple quilt (my own)..........these are put on hold again for a bit

Total number of quilts completed - 9
Total number of quilts left to be completed - 9

Completed quilts:
1. Quilted Flo's hexagon quilt (commissioned).  

14. Sabryna's 16-patch pinwheel quilt (family)

16. Reversable crazy quilt & matching doll quilt (charity)

15. Log cabin quilt (my own)
18. Small wonders quilt (charity)
17. Scrappy stripes quilt (charity)

2. Michelle's midnight flight quilt (family)

6. Jean material quilt (charity)

5. Midnight flight runway quilt (charity).    

Snowmen A to Zzzz.... Letters Q

Q is for Quilt.  Isn't this such a cute block.  My daughter has been working on her handwork, on and off, during the summer while watching reruns.  

I like the colours of the stitched quilt.  A cozy scene.  A mother snowman wrapping herself and her snow child in a quilt.

As for me, I have been working on my handwork too, when ever time allows.  For me, it has been working on the hexagon quilt, that I am finishing for my cousin.  The edges of the quilt are now all hand stitched close.  For the quilt itself, I have the quilting of the last row all the way around the perimeter to do.  

I am also working on the hand stitched label for this quilt.  I have just a little over half way completed.  No new pictures of this.  I will take the pictures when it is completely done and washed.

We just moved my mom out of her home yesturday.  It's closing soon and this next week is going to be very busy trying to get her new home in order.  I may not get too much time to do much these upcoming days, but this is life.  Once things settle down I will go to town on finishing things that have been lingering around and get to my own quilts.

I look forward to some quiet time in my quilt room.

I am quilting, quilting and more quilting

For the past few days I have been quilting away.  I am working on my friends hexagon lap quilt.  As I haven't  had much time these days, I have been using my 15 minute breaks to dwindle away at this quilt. It is amazing what one can actually do in 15 minutes.

I won't show any pictures yet of the quilt.  Once the quilt is done I will though.

When I am not working on the quilting of this hexagon quilt, I am working on the handwork of my cousin's hexagon quilt.  In handwork I have another side completed and half of the third side done.  

It is getting there.  Slowly, but surely.  These things take time.  Especially when there is little time available. I just have to somehow make the time, because quilting is something that I really enjoy doing.

I don't have any quilt pictures to show you right now, so I thought I would insert a picture of a sunflower in my garden.

The funny thing about this sunflower is that I didn't plant it.  At first I thought it was a weed and was going to pull it.  For some reason, I just didn't.  I guess mother nature had her own plans for my garden.  I find things like these, moments to reflect upon.  You know,,,,,,like a higher power.

It was a pleasant surprise. A simple wonder.  It makes me smile, every time I look at this picture with the pretty yellow petals.  A bit of sunshine.  After I took this picture, about three days later, three other flowers bloomed.  It was quite pretty and I got to watch the show.  These flowers were like my "stop and smell the roses".

Take time to smell your roses.......the moments are out there, but you're the only one that can find them.

Finished the nine patch quilt

Yay!!!  I did it!  I finished the nine patch quilt.  The evening lighting may not be the greatest for taking whole quilt pictures, so I took some more close ups too.  I have to deliver this quilt today, so will not have the time to take better pictures.

After lunch yesturday, I helped my mother with more moving stuff, and got back to quilting.  I didn't have to do puppy duty until 4:00 pm, so I wanted to take advantage of the available time.  By 4:00 pm I had only three blocks left to do and the small border.  It was still going well.

At 4:00 pm I took a break from quilting to look after puppy.  We went outside to play and I got some time out there to finish planting a small garden.  Above is a picture of the centre, showing all three different block designs.  Each design goes up on a diagonal across the quilt.

Come 6:00 pm my doggy duty shift is done.  I have the rest of the night off and I am revving to go!  I finished the last three blocks with only a little set back, when I forgot to take out a pin, but quickly remedied the situation, fix the quilting, and off and running I went again.

I proceeded to mark the small border and wasted no time trying to quilt this before the night is through.  Above is a close up of the heart border I did.  Lastly, I trim all the threads in the back and square off the quilt ready to receive the binding.  The quilt looks great!

I hope the maker will be as pleased as I am.  This is the first quilt I quilted for this person.  I am always a tad nervous when doing it for the first time for someone new.

Working on the nine patch quilt

I am working at finishing the quilting of the nine patch quilt.  I finished all the swirly design blocks and all the loop design blocks shown on my last post.

Now I am working on the last block design.  The maker of the quilt requested this particular design.  It is four overlapping hearts that result with loops where the hearts overlap.  From there loops are added to the first loops forming a chain.

It's all coming together well, when I get a chance to work on it.  Today I actually got to sleep in. I don't remember the last time I slept in.  Getting up at 7:30 am did me some good.  I feel really good.  I had breakfast, sat down with my tea, caught up on some email, and jumped right in to the quilting.  I did quite a bit before time to make lunch.  

As I was quilting away, I came up with the last design I needed for a little space.  All the blocks are the same size along the border except where the corners meet.  A spacer was needed to make it all work.  

At first, in this space I quilted a few hearts with a sewn link between them almost like stippling, but I didn't like it, so I tried another version of a few hearts connected by a sewn line.  I didn't like that one either, so I tried a chain of hearts connected to each other, as seen below.  I like this one better of all the designs I tried.  I took the first two sections out and quilted all the little sections in these chained hearts.  It turned out nice.  They are all completed too.

As I said earlier in the post, now I have to finish the overlapping hearts blocks, and all I will have left to do is the small border.  I already know what I want to do there, so that will make it go easier.  I also have one of the sides marked and ready to be quilted.

I am hoping to have this quilt completely done today.  I will let you know how that goes.