LAST DAY OF 2017

I made the label for the quilt top I finished yesterday.  I didn't know what year to put on it, so I put both.  

Also, I looked up Brassica - it's a genus of plants in the mustard family and includes cabbage, which are what the flowers in the Snowball blocks look like.  

The back is all done - it's ready to be quilted.  Next year!

  Good bye 2017 - Hello 2018.  Let's hope it's a Happy New Year!

A WHOLE BOBBIN - A WHOLE QUILT

I've been working on getting the center panel of Snowball blocks sewn together.  I think I finished that up the other day.  

Today I started adding the borders and got it all put together.  A quilt in a day!

Center panel of Snowball blocks with first border.

With two borders - the second being a fussy cut flower border.

Then the third border - a wide 8" of flowers.

The next border is purple polka dots.

You know how when you're sewing the border on you run out of bobbin just before the end?  I hate that, you've got it all pinned and are removing the pins as you sew that long seam and then you realize you're out of bobbin thread and haven't really been sewing it together for a while and you have to repin it and wind a new bobbin and start all over?

Well, I kept thinking that was going to happen on every one of these borders as I put them on.  I kept checking and checking, but no.  The bobbin thread just kept going!  And then I started thinking I'd make it to the end of the quilt without running out and it would be a red letter day, but no.  I ran out of thread about 8-1/2" shy of finishing the last seam.  Wouldn't you know it!  

The finished top with the last border of more fussy cut flowers.

This pattern is straight out of Kaffe Fassett's book "Quilts in Ireland".  He calls it "Contrast Brassica Snowballs" - or Brass Balls for short.  (kidding!)

I don't know what I'm going to name it.   Any ideas?

FANCY FOREST FINISHED

I got the quilting finished in the morning.  After our morning walk and lunch, I got it binded.

Just in time.

CHRISTMAS DAY 2017

We had a great breakfast of hashbrowns, scrambled eggs and some of the ground pork that we just got from Steve.  It was fantastic.

Then out to the studio to quilt some more on the Fancy Forest quilt using the "Kindling" pantograph.  Almost done!

We woke this morning to a white Christmas, first one in 10 years they say.  There's at least 2 inches.  We took the dogs for a walk in Lincoln Park.  It was beautiful.

View of Puget Sound from the ridge trail.

The dogs even enjoyed it!

Next up, instead of going out to the movies, we are staying home and watching "Rogue One".  We haven't yet seen last year's Star Wars chapter and we need to catch up so we can go see "The Last Jedi" next Thursday at the Cinerama with Hailey.

HERE WE GO

Last weekend, as I was about to give up, I found the perfect pantograph for the Fancy Forest quilt.  Someone posted on FB the name of the design that Elizabeth Hartman used on the original - which was what I had wanted from the beginning.  Yea!  I immediately went to UrbanElementz.com and ordered it.  I paid extra for expedited shipping.  We'll see how that goes during this holiday shipping frenzy.

The package arrived on Thursday.  I got it all set up and on my day off Friday, I started quilting on it.  I got about 4 rows done before we left for the day to take grandson Jeffery downtown.  [He had been spending a few days with us so that he can make a little table with his Grandfather].  

Jeffery with the table he made with Grandpa.

We went to Seattle Center, had lunch, then spent a few hours watching Jeffery climb around on the play structure next to MoPop and run around the ledge of the fountain.  

SNOWBALLS

Not that kind - this kind!

I've been busy making Snowball blocks for the center of my next project.

These blocks are made using the sew and flip method on the corners - so you end up with a bunch of leftover half-square triangles.  What do I do with them all?!

MEMORIES

I have been cleaning out the garage lately.  There were boxes that were put there when we moved into this house in 2007 (ten years ago!).  Most of the stuff we obviously didn't need so it went to the Goodwill.

In the bottom of the last box today, I found quite a few canvas bags that I had collected when I had a Quilt shop.  They were from fabric manufacturers and Quilt Markets mostly.  But, there was also two bags from my friend Terri's retreats that she would have annually.  I went to a few and sewed all weekend.  They were fun.  I'm keeping this bag, it's a good size and I'll use it.   It reminds me of the good ole' days.

P.S.  I loaded the Fancy Forest onto the machine and basted down the batting and the top of the top.  I'm still conflicted about how to quilt it.

READY TO GO

I got the label made and the back for Fancy Forest all put together today.

In progress

all done!

FANCY BACK

I've been working on the back for Fancy Forest.  There were a lot of leftover pieces of fabric from making the front.  I've been piecing them together all along.  But there are a lot of pieces!

I thought I'd try a VFW type of panel - I had to learn a few things the hard way.

This is how it looked at the end of the day.

FINISHED THE ZOLAS

Quiltworks NW called me on Wednesday and said my machine was done!  I ran over there after work and picked it up, so I was all set for my day off to finish the binding on Zola II.

BINDING ZOLA II

I finished the quilting on Zola II and started to put the binding on.  

I got a little sewn on when something went wrong and I had to take the bobbin case out to clear a nest of threads.  Oh, no!  The plastic keeper part I've been nursing for a while finally came apart.  I couldn't put it back together.  It's going to have to go to the shop to be fixed.  How will I survive without my sewing machine!?

 Here are both Zolas, the one on the left has binding only on the left side.

I talked to several Bernina repair places.  The one with the quickest turn around was Quiltworks NW in Bellevue.  I hate going to Bellevue, but they said they'd been only one week or so.  I have to work next week anyway, so we took it to Bellevue.

ON TO ZOLA II

I loaded Zola II onto the machine and started in on it.  Last night I had gone to a ruler class at Quality Sew & Vacuum in Tukwila.  I've been going to these ruler classes monthly for the last several months.  They introduce us to a new ruler and show us the things that can be done with it, and how to use it.  You have the option to buy or not.  I bought this little oval ruler last night and thought I should use it on this quilt, in the sashing.  The sashings are 1-1/2" by 6", the oval is 1-1/2" by 2-1/2", so I put a little free motion circle in the middle of the two ovals.  I used the circle ruler I bought two months ago for the corner stones.  It's going pretty quickly and I'm mostly pleased with the design.

I put the binding on Zola I - it looks great!

I sewed the binding on by machine, front and back.

ZOLA I

I finished quilting Zola I.  It was an easy one, I got it everything ready on Monday afternoon, had it on the machine and mostly done yesterday, and finished it up early today.

I used King Tut thread, a variegated blue and green that I thought would work for both quilts.  I'm not too sure I'm liking it in those pink sashings.  The back looks pretty cool though.  I used a Kona solid, Cypress,  that I had a lot of because they made me buy a minimum of three yards (it was on sale) and the quilting shows up very nicely.

QUICK WALK IN PT

We went with Darrell to Port Townsend.  We dropped him off at Edensaw, so he could pick out hardwoods for upcoming projects.  The dogs and I headed to Fort Worden for a quick walk around.  It was a beautiful morning, seems like it's been a while since I've seen the sun.

I put them up on this concrete wall to take a picture of us three - its impossible to get everyone looking the same direction at the same time.  I gave up.

BACK FOR AUTUMN LEAVES

I didn't work today, the day after Thanksgiving.  I promised myself I'd never work on this day again.  It has always been the most miserable day of the year because no one wants to work and we end up being extremely short-handed and we get way behind.  I know -- my not being there just exacerbates the problem.  But, I've put in my time - and I don't care anymore.

I took the dogs for a walk in the park in the morning, did some housework and then went up to the studio to wait for the phone call from the guys delivering our new washing machine (we are completely out of towels).

They called with my 30 minute warning just as I was finishing up the back for the Autumn Leaves quilt.  Perfect timing.

I used up a lot of the leftover pieces.

DANDY FLOWERS DONE

I finished the quilting, got it off the machine, made the binding and got that sewn down, all before dinner time.  Yea!

Now I have to get ready for work tomorrow.  I'll be taking it with me to sew the binding down by hand during my spare time.