Spring Refresh Underway

One of my intentions for this month is to get the house freshened up, aka Spring Cleaning!

After getting the house power washed I ordered fabric from Fabric.com to recover the cushions on the wicker sofa. Here are both fabrics. I bet you can guess which one is over 10 years old!

We try to have our screen porch be an inviting 'room' for ourselves, as well as guests. I spent quite a bit of agonizing time while these cushions got new covers.

 I'm very pleased with all of them.

So, the Spring Refresh is well underway!

Daily creative time included getting the bindings completed on my two Desert Sky pieces. They each will have different names, but that's the name of the pattern I used to produce the 'spikey' units. 

#1

And #2

My bindings are usually sewn to the back, wrapped over the seam allowance to the front, and machine stitched down. I have a couple of decorative stitches on my machine that I especially like to use. However, this time, for both of these, I machine stitched them to the front and hand stitched the wrapped binding to the back. Thought I'd document this, as my hands are rather sore and I'm not interested in getting carpal tunnel syndrome in them. This will only be done on possible show entries!

I enjoyed Thursday evening's Cobblestone Quilters Guild meeting. Our guest speaker shared her journey as a quilter. If you don't belong to a guild, check one out in your community. They can be a place to connect with others that enjoy similar pursuits. 

Friday evening was spent listening to The Summerville Orchestra. The tickets are so affordable, something like $70 for the two of us, for all four performances! Yep, you heard that right. Season tickets are $50 for you younger folks. That's only $12.50 per performance, 2 hours of great music. 

Yesterday we attended church in Orangeburg.  Went to lunch with a couple we know from OLC. We then dropped in on Mom for a few minutes. She was asleep, as is her usual now. But she did say, "Hello" when I put my hand on her arm, and said we'd come to visit. She then promptly went back to sleeping. It was such a blessing to see her so peaceful. God has been good to all of us. 

We stopped by The Edisto Rose Gardens before leaving Orangeburg. They have suffered some damage from last fall's flooding, but they are still spectacular. 

We walked every day, and have been paying closer attention to our eating habits. 

I viewed two different Craftsy classes this week also!

So for this update, I can say I've made progress on all 5 of my May intentions. 

How are you doing on your projects? 

WHEN A BACK BECOMES A FRONT

A short time ago I was still agonizing over making these two pieces into a single quilt, or two individual quilts. These were the units from Desert Sky, a Judy Niemeyer quilt design. I used my own layout. 

The decision was made. Borders were added. Backing was chosen and loaded onto the longarm machine and away I went. 

This one got a multicolored Batik for it's border, and a dragonfly in flight edge to edge design used for the 'quilting of the sandwich'. 

Here I added borders of fabric used in the central area. I used an all over gentle meander for the quilting. Both of these quilts are trimmed and ready for binding. 

My client asked for meandering, even across the appliqués. It was her first appliqué quilt, finished it 10 years ago. She didn't feel it was some of her best work so didn't want the expense of custom. She gave me the ok to do whatever I wanted to, within her price range. I was a bit concerned with the appliqués. Some where relatively stiff from the type of fusible web. However, I was very pleased with few thread breaks, and how the quilting didn't detract from the appliqués. Neither picture shows the stitching, except on the very top corner in the golden square. 

 Wednesday's trip to the beach produced some interesting shell pieces and this picture. 

This came home with us in picture only. I love how red they are while they are in water. I believe they feed on the oyster beds close by. This little starfish will go back out with the next wave. 

I finally got my Dragonfly Book together! I've had this on my 'to do' list for over a year. These fabric book pages came from people around the world that I swapped with. It was great fun. Each person had chosen a theme. Monthly,  we had an assigned person to make an 8x8 inch page for.

The 8 pages all had interesting backs as well. I included one of them below, with the front, back, and a top view. I may still add pockets to the front and back inside covers. The dragonfly fabric I used was sent along with someone's page.  I received several embellishments also. 

Glad to have this off my list. 

I still have a group of ATCs and Fabric Postcards that I received during that same time period. Not sure what I will do with them, maybe fabric boxes. I could make by using fabric I received thru our Surface Design group on Stitchinfingers.ning 

Stitched a pair of pillowcases up to coordinate with the Tumbler quilt. This fabric was a gift from a client with a stipulation, I had to use it, not stash it. I started cutting it up that same month. And once the pieces were cut, I stayed focused with getting it off the design wall and into quilt form. I wish I was always so focused! 

Yesterday, we went to see my dear Mother-in-law. Here's the two of us from October 2014, a better time in her life. Alzeheimers has taken her away from us. We now wait on God's timing, to take her home. 

Mothers Day is about love. Love from them, and love of them. I have had wonderful "Mothers" in my life, Thank You, God. - Luann

Paper Piecing Workshop and Nomination #2

Today is the second post for the blog challenge that Terry nominated me for. You can catch all of her interesting project news over at www.terryknott.blogspot.com

The rules:

1) Thank the person that nominated you. Thanks Terry!

2) Post a quote each day.  "Fall in love with the process, and the results will come." Eric Thomas, smokewithmirrors.tumblr

3) Nominate a different blogger each day to participate. 

I'm nominating Diane, an online friend. She can be found at www.yarngoddess.wordpress.com

We both participated in a surface design group for a few years. I've been very interested in so many of her adventures, especially when she has done eco dyeing. Do check her site out, it is so interesting. 

Back to my quote. Falling in love with the process isn't always so easy. Recently I took a paper piecing class with Carol Ann Jaynes, a Judy Niemeyer Certified Instructor. I struggled a bit in the first steps, but her patience and thoroughness got me through two intense days. We all worked on the Desert Sky pattern, each with our own fabric choices. Here's a picture of the pattern and my stack of fabrics. 

Here are units on my design wall in the first layout that I tried. 

I liked it, but,, something just didn't click for me. Ahhhh, it's those gold and royal blue units! They are just hogging the camera's eye. So out they came, and I started to play with the remaining units. This is the final layout I came up with. I want a border on it, just haven't made my final decisions yet. 

I'm pondering on the name for this quilt, but that needs to wait until the binding is done. 

My next post will be my third quote and nomination day. It will also tell you about this quilt's backing and how it is taking on a life of its own! 

Until then, let's create today! -Luann