A Couple of Finishes and a Visit

After my big basting spree (I actually added one more since my last post) I was able to quilt and bind two of the quilts and I am working on two more.  It feels so good to have some finishes!

A fellow teacher is undergoing cancer treatment right now and she has been so complimentary of my quilts and likes purple so I quilted this up from my basted pile and it was delivered to her last week.  She loves it and said the colors are perfect.  I have so many quilts it feels great to be able to gift them.  This is not paper pieced, it's one of the stack and slash style quilts.

quilting closeup, I had fun doodling

I pieced this top 4 years ago and 30's are not my style of fabrics!  My oldest daughter likes them so her room here at home is decorated with 30's quilts that I have accumulated over the years.  I had assumed I would put this there eventually, but I found out about a quilt shop owner that has never received the gift of a quilt and I enjoy her quilt retreats and I finished this quilt (Thursday night!) and dropped it off to her Friday on our way to visit our daughters.  She loves it.  I had a ruler and made 21 dresdens.  9 of them were made into a wallhanging and I sold it to my wedding singer.  I came up with this setting for the rest of the blocks.

quilting closeup

As I mentioned we made a weekend trip to visit our daughters and grandkids.  My husband finished the fall farm work and we hadn't gotten to see the twins since the end of July and the other two kids since the first week of August.

oldest daughter's kids 

My four grand-kids - two sets of cousins!

younger daughter's twins, almost a year old!

 We went for a family hike.

 Salmon River Canyon on the drive home.   My husband did a river search here with our dog for an accident victim.  This is actually on the straighter part of the drive home up through central Idaho!

linking up with Design Wall Monday

Basting, Basting, Basting

As I have mentioned previously, I have a LOT of unfinished projects.  A LOT!  I do all my machine quilting on a Pfaff Grand Quilter, no long arm, no mid arm, just stuffing the quilts through and moving them around. Because of that, my quilts need to be layered and basted together with some method before quilting.  I was on a roll this weekend.  I started pulling tops out of my cupboard and picking backings (and in most cases piecing them) and started basting them together with pins.  The two smallest ones are spray basted, not a method I use on bigger quilts or quilts that will be sitting before they are quilted.  I apparently had a LOT of safety pins!  I know I have acquired them from various sources, including my mother-in-law's sewing room when she passed away.

I ended up getting 11 quilts ready for quilting in 3 days (and that was taking time out for being gone parts of two days).  Most of them are smaller and most will end up being donated or gifted.  One of them is from at least 10 years ago.  The top has been sitting unquilted and I have some older than that!

I absolutely LOVE my Kwik Klip!  It is one of my favorite tools.  I am also fortunate I buy backing by the roll!

Now I need to start quilting!!!  Yes, two of the quilts are the same!  The quilt top on the wall is auditioning borders.

 My mom found this fabric in a box in her house and had no clue what it was for so I put it together with some "doggie" backing and quilted it and gave it back to her!  She can use it for some of the donation causes for the senior center she is active in.  I also made her two pillows out of a different dog print.

Linking up with Design Wall Monday.