Another Quilt Top!

I know I SHOULD be working on UFO's, but a couple months ago when the May/June Quiltmaker magazine came out I found a quilt in there that hit me hard, very hard!  So much so that I ordered the fabrics used in the sample quilt.  That is not something I do very often, but I loved the Composition backgrounds and the Grunge fabrics.  I cut out the quilt immediately, and it was still kitted up and I threw in my retreat bag.  I manged to get all the pinwheels made at retreat and now I have a finished top.  I LOVE this top.  It's so not me!  I will bind it with one of the bright Grunge fabrics after quilting.  I bought 1/2 yard cuts and cut 4 3" squares out of each one, so they will be showing up in more quilts!  I am basiclaly out of the backgrounds though since it was just a FQ pack.

Grunge and Conposotion fabrics - Tutti Frutti quilt from Quiltmaker

closeup

The quilt finishes at 60 X 72 and will go into my never ending collection of tops to be quilted!  

Wedding Gift and Retreat

In mid June we had a lot of family here for my niece's wedding.  We had a great time and it was a busy several days.  I had wanted to make my niece and husband a quilt but struggled and struggled with what to make.  I had a couple of false starts with fabric pulls.  I looked in my cupboard of unquilted tops (about 45 of them now!) and found this block robin from.... oh dear .....  2003!!!!  Yes, it has been languishing in my stash unquilted for 14 years!  It wasn't quite big enough so I found fabrics in the same colors in my stash and added a piano key border and quilted it.  It was done with a few days to spare!  She LOVES it and so does her mother.  It was also fun to see her dad, my brother, all dressed up! I added a few closeups.  A lot of the blocks were hand appliqued.  The friend who made the center Santa on yellow background passed away many years ago and I lost contact with everyone else.

Santa block robin from 2003, finally finished!

This past weekend I went to a quilt retreat in Leavenworth, WA, a Bavarian inspired tourist town.  It's about a 5 1/2 hour drive and I left a day early and took a scenic tour through central Washington collecting rows for the Row by Row Experience.  I have done it the last two years and wasn't going to this year, but I caved and I found some wonderful shops in the middle of nowhere in very small towns.  I had booked a hotel in a neighboring town for the first night as the retreat started Thursday.

The retreat was held at Mrs. Anderson's Boarding House/Dee's Country Accents quilt shop. We rented the whole building and they take all the beds out of the largest room that is separate for our sewing area.  There were 13 of us from various places in Washington and then me, the only Idaho person!  My friends and I went to Leavenworth Quilt Company to pick up their row.  Thankfully we worked on them together as one of the kits had a larger chunk of background and two of us needed more.  Others didn't work on theirs yet.  It needs a few buttons for embellishment.  My friend Mary also blogged about it.

I took two machines with me, my Pfaff Grand quilter and my regular machine.  I machine quilted two throws and took pics on the deck outside my room with the gorgeous mountains in the background.  I still need to bind them both.

This quilt was made from leftovers from two twin size quilts I made (and still don't have quilted!).  I didn't have space to do large quilts but this size worked out.  This one is quilted with mostly allover swirls.

 This one is also made from leftovers from a larger quilt (that is also not quilted, are we seeing a theme yet?).  My friend Melissa helped me figure out just to do "pseudo" straight lines.  They look a while but I could go edge to edge easily!

closeup

I also made this new Barbados Bag by Pink Sand Designs.  I made one two years ago and it's worn out!  I had a hard time selecting fabrics from my stash, but I am a purple fanatic and this is what I chose.  I have had the prints for several years.  I love all the pockets on the bag and it is a cross body bag, which I love.  The hardware is really silver.  The photo was taken at retreat on someone's cutting mat!  I bought two fobs from the quilt shop for the zippers.

 I also worked on blocks for another quilt, but they aren't together yet.

Linking up with Small Quilts and Doll Quilts for Design Wall Monday.

Field Trip, Quilting, Walking

School is out!  Last week was super busy.  Monday we took a field trip to Elk Creek Falls and the largest Western Red Cedar tree east of the Cascade Mountains.  It's a long bus ride and the falls are about a 4 mile round trip walk to see all 3 of the falls, but our class made it! It is a series of 3 waterfalls, the middle one being 70 feet high.  

Upper Falls

Middle Falls - 70 ft

Lower Falls - 50 ft.

giant cedar - hard to get the perspective of size.

We also had field trips Tuesday and Wednesday digging for garnets (Idaho's gem) and a museum for Idaho history.  Thursday was our end of school BBQ and awards. 

I finished quilting my Ultra Violets quilt and gifted it to our music teacher.  This wonderful woman has been volunteering for 15 years in our school teaching music, art, organizing our monthly hot lunches (yes our students normally bring their own lunch) and putting on amazing winter programs.  Her youngest child of four kids was leaving our school this year, moving on to junior high. She will continue to volunteer for music but is cutting down on other activities. She loves purple and has been so generous over the years to myself and the other aides and teachers, giving us gifts for every occasion.  I have an incredible number of quilts and didn't need this one.  I took a couple pictures in my pasture.  She was thrilled to receive the quilt and overwhelmed.  She received some other gifts as well and is so giving as a pastor's wife, it was hard for her to be on the receiving end!

Saturday I participated in the Maniac Dam Race.  I am a walker, not a runner. I took the first picture at the viewpoint where the race started.  This is the highest straight axis dam in North America and third highest dam in the country.  The reservoir is 53 miles long and this dam is just 8 miles from my house.  

 Looking down from the top.

Another view.  For a year in the late 90's we had to drive up and over this dam to get to town while the bridge in the distance was being replaced.  It made the trip MUCH longer!

 Beginning of the lake.

My high school mascot is the Maniac.  I had my picture taken with him after the race!  Normally the top of the dam is closed and has been since 9/11 but for this occasion with ID you can cross the dam and back.

Linking up to Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.