Just Babbling...

I had my crochet thread out working on some gifts, so I thought I'd whip up some pin spool doilies for my vintage sewing machines...

I caught Ginger waking up from a nap and stretching...

She wasn't thrilled that she had been awakened...

That is all, Folks.  Keeping it short and sweet today...

Loretta

Happy Weekend to Everyone...

Quote for the Day:

"A word to the wise ain't necessary - -

it's the stupid ones that need the advice."

~Bill Cosby

I feel like my life spun out of control when I went back to work last week!  I zigged when I should have zagged and re-injured my back, so I've been making frequent visits to my chiropractor again.  Just when I had "graduated" to only going once a month, I made it two weeks into that first month and BAM...I feel like I'm back to square one.  I know that technically I'm not, but it still feels that way.  **sad face here**

In between the chiropractor visits, I have been working, hand quilting on the "Sherbet" quilt, and making baby gifts for our grandson that is due to make his appearance the end of June!  I can't show you the baby gifts until after they have been delivered to and opened by Erin, but I can show you the progress on the "Sherbet" quilt!  

I am only able to reach about 1/2 way through the block before turning it to the next area, so these blocks were 1/2 way done when I took these pictures last week.  However, I have now finished the second half of the blocks and have cranked the quilt again since these pictures were taken!!!  I am moving right along on this quilt!!

I am using pastel pink thread for the hand-quilting, but as you can tell by the picture, you can barely tell there is any color to it.  One of these days, I will get brave and use a darker color, but that will definitely show up uneven stitches more.  The lighter thread "hides" the imperfections!

I have never entered a quilt into a quilt show before, but if I can get this one done by June I'd like to enter it into the quilt show in Bridgeport.  I am under no illusions that I would win any awards because my stitches are far from "perfect", but I would still like to enter it....just for the fun of it.

I have finally made my blocks for "Kevin the Quilter's" Quilt of Valor challenge...

Kevin... I will be mailing them out to you this week!!  :)  Thank you for doing this challenge!  Your quilts will be a blessing to so many veterans!!

Loretta

Gifts Received...

Quote for the Day:

"We create our own world with the ingredients we put into it, 

so take care with your recipe."

~Greg Phillips

The swelling and bruising in my right arm have decreased quite a bit, so I have been cleared to return to work this coming Monday!!!   yay????   

Some new items came into my sewing room recently and I thought I'd show them to you...

Dale, my son-in-law, was at a thrift store, found something, took a picture of it and sent it to me asking me if I was interested in it for $7.00.  I immediately sent him back a text that said "YES"!!!   

That's right...a zigzag attachment for Beyonce, my Singer 301!!!

I've not actually had a chance to try out the zigzagger, but I hope to soon!  

The anniversary of my 29th birthday is coming up next week, so my daughter gifted me with a vintage Singer Sewing Machine trash can!!!

How cool is that???  It matches my stained-glass advertising sign that Andy gave me a couple of months ago!!!

She also gave me two car decals for the back windows of the cars...

I also thought I'd show you how the hand-quilting on the "Sherbet" quilt is coming along...
Here's the quilting on the border/corner.  

This picture was taken last week, and I have cranked the quilt once since then, so will take another picture soon to share the progress.

Loretta

A New Quilt...

Last evening, I was able to load my "Sherbet" quilt top into the hand-quilting frame.  This quilt started out as a Craftsy Block of the Month, but quickly morphed into a sampler quilt of my own design, partly because I didn't like all of the blocks that they were doing on the Craftsy BOM and partly because I needed 25 blocks to make it the size I wanted and the Craftsy quilt only had 20.  About 12 or so of the blocks are original to the Craftsy quilt, the rest are 12" blocks that I found online and put in the quilt.

Pre-quilting, the top is about 96" X 96".  The backing is pieced from my stash...all florals!

I'm using YLI 100% glazed cotton hand-quilting thread in light pink!  I'm almost thinking that I should have gotten the dark pink because this one isn't showing up in the printed fabric, but I'm hoping it will show up better in the neutral spaces.  It took too long to get this spool in, so I don't want to have to wait to get in a spool of darker thread.  I wanted to get quilting as soon as possible, so I went ahead and started putting in the first stitches last night!

I love YLI hand quilting thread because it doesn't knot or twist making hand-quilting so much more enjoyable!!

Usually, I mark the whole quilt before putting it into the frame, but I decided to try something different with this one.  I only marked the design in the outer borders and then will use blue painters tape to add in straight lines leading from the swag design out to the edge of the quilt.  Then I'm going to mark the sashings and cornerstones as I go.  We'll see how this works out...

Loretta