Finally Done!

It's hard to believe

that it's been almost 2 years 

since I was able to travel to the

Netherlands with new friends

and, of course, meet more new friends.

One of our goals was to attend this show.

and see the beautiful quilts of both

Di Ford and Petra Prins.

It's there that I saw

Di's quilt called "Sutton Grange".

(Can you believe in all of my excitement I 

didn't even take a full photo of the quilt!)

But fast forward to April, 2018.

I knew I had waited long enough to begin 

working on this wonderful quilt

that included applique, broderie perse, curved piecing,

and lots of patience.

the center section

I actually had many of the same fabrics Di had used in my stash.

No sense reinventing the wheel right?

But did use one of her wonderful printed borders 

over and over again,

as the repeating border.

A couple of weeks ago I began the machine quilting process.

Lots of quilting in the ditch,

lots of feathers,

diagonal quilting

Again, I didn't really 

get too original in the quilting.

I pretty much followed what

the original machine quilter had done,

but modified to fit my limited machine quilting ability.

I used some leftover garage sale stickers

to quilt circles.

No, the quilt isn't for sale for $.50!

Here it is.

All done.

"Plymouth Grange"

70" x 70"

I changed the name to 

honor my grandmother,

Edith Luella Gale Elkington

(1896-1983)

who was always a member of the

local grange in Michigan.

Di's pattern are beautiful and

a labor of love.

Not a project to be quickly completed,

but it was well worth the time.

The question is...

Time to start another one?

Until Next Time-

Kyle

A String Fling

For the past couple of days

Running Man and I have been off

to our favorite mountain retreat.

The YMCA of the Rockies

It's nothing fancy, but

the scenery is beautiful,

it's totally relaxing,

and the perfect place to get

a natural  "Rocky Mountain High."

It's also a great place for a quilt photo shoot.

String Fling

80" x 96"

I'm loving how all those

strips and strings from a multitude of

different fabrics came together.

I started this project only in January.

You can see the beginning HERE.

I was determined not to let this one

get bogged down.

Sewing 6 blocks at a time,

and keeping it random,

it didn't take long to make

120 blocks and get them sewn together.

The blocks were sewn with a muslin foundation

which kept the blocks square

after they were trimmed
and no paper removal.

You might have noticed that the

middle white strip varies in width.

Well, that was not done initially, on purpose,

but I liked how it worked out.

I didn't have to worry about matching up seams

and it added to the randomness, 

part of the whole charm.

My friend and machine quilter, Kathy,

kept the quilting simple for 2 reasons.

1. You're not really going to see it on the top

except for a little texture.

2.  The top is pretty heavy just with the fabric,

muslin foundation, backing and batting.  I didn't 

want any extra weight from being heavily quilted.

When trying to decide on a binding

I discovered a bunch of hidden leftover binding remnants.

Perfect.

Use 'em up!

Having this quilt with us

up in the mountains in March

kept us warm and snuggly while we stayed at the .....

 Y                 M                 C                  A

Until Next Time-

Kyle

Good Intentions

This has been a week

filled with "good intentions".

The actual execution of

those "good intentions"

has been less than desirable.

Some days are like that, 

some weeks are like that,

some ....

I won't go further than that.

My intentions

included getting started

on machine quilting my

version of Di Ford's Suttton Grange.

I had acquisitioned the dining room table

for space and good lighting,

Running Man has been off

on a business trip all week,

no meals to prepare, etc,

nothing to stop the flow of sewing.

Well, I'm not sure what totally

got in the way, other than 

cold cloudy wintery Colorado days or

a dead car battery at 7 a.m.

Maybe, 

my heart just wasn't in it this week.

So instead,

I went to Trader Joe's 

and bought a couple of bunches of daffodils

and then decided to bake.

Lemon Snowball Cookies

Oh, if you remember these

as Russian Tea Cakes or Mexican Wedding Cookies,

think again. 

Melt in your mouth lemony goodness.

The recipe is from a local business,

Poeme Macarons.

Check out her website and also her

delicious enticing macarons.  

I haven't tried those yet,

but it's definitely on my list of things to do.

Maybe now I can focus on the quilt.

Until Next Time-

Kyle