every-single-day

Quilting and The Beast

Over the weekend I got half of this beast quilted. I must say, this is no small feat! The thing weighs a LOT, is ungainly and defies my tabletop.
On the other hand, five fingers. No! I mean to say- it sure is pretty and and feels really good to be completing this ambitious work of love.
I have it in mind to make some shams to go with the quilt.
On weekend mornings during the winter we often read and drink coffee in bed. I think pillows with matching shams would do a lot in proping us up comfortably, don't you?
And here is a photo of the backyard with the illustrious Bird House...

Thank you Gene.

Has anyone noticed I completed a list of One Hundred Things About Me? Look for the link to the right.
I am also in the process of cleaning up my web site. I will update you when this occurs.

Living in the Land of Little Houses

Once upon the time there was a tree, loved by the people who owned it, hanging over the pool of a neighbor. This tree presented a challenge to the neighbors, it blocked the sun, muddied the pool and would not allow the neighbors' grass to grow.
So one day, the neighbor asked if we would allow him to cut the tree down. He had spoken with two tree people and both had said that cutting just the offending limb would endanger the tree. Our neighbor offered to pay for the entire removal. We agreed, not wanting to pay for the removal ourselves after watching the slow and painful death of the severely altered tree.
It hurt like hell to experience the loss of this tree. The lighting changed in the house, our privacy was taken away-two neighbors could see straight into our yard, and this doesn't even attend to the fact that I side with the Trees, Animals and Earth itself. I think our impact as humans is far too great for the Earth as a living entity.
So we had a landscaper over...

The new babies will need a heck of a lot of water each day, and some coaxing too. I have been asking them to send their roots downtown, to drink as much water as possible and to take care of their leaves.
We have gotten into the habit of sitting on a bench on our back porch and drinking wine while reading a book together. Monday was our first night in our newly revamped surroundings.
It was superb.
This, (go ahead and click it!), is a very exciting aspect of our new yard.
When we first bought our house a friend of my folks made a fabulous birdhouse for us as a housewarming gift. It has been a decoration in the house for close to three years and because of the landscaping work we decided it was time to make a support to hold the birdhouse. This pole is cemented into a bucket. Another pole fits securely inside the bucket pole and will screw into the bottom of the birdhouse. Photos coming soon!

Progress Not Perfection

I completed the needed width on The King, basted it and began quilting it.
I had so much fun this weekend that this is the only photo that I took all weekend long. Not a good blog mom!
On the other hand, I am totally happy with the progress I made and am well on my way to finishing this fabulous quilt.
Elizabeth has been doing some fantastic work, although I will wait to talk about this piece until she posts it to her web page. I think she should be the one to talk about her newest work.
The unabashedly beautiful weather on Sunday totally made up for the rain on Saturday (the rain was pretty damned amazing, even still). Maryland is so pretty, and the retreat center is right on the Chesapeake Bay.

Small Update

Because Carolyn couldn't access the Repo Depot web site to see my new backing fabric I am posting this image.
I will be bringing my camera, so I hope to have another retreat post when I get back.

Gathering Energy

I started making this more than a year ago. It is a king sized bed quilt for my Man and I. Did I mention that it is KING size?
It needs twelve more inches on two different sides, it needs to be basted and it needs to be quilted.
I am intimidated to quilt this big mama. This is a LOT of quilt sandwich to maneuver!
BUT, and here is the big ol' butt...
I am going away on retreat this weekend. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. My favorite quilting bitch will be there. I am sure that she will nudge and cajole me.
I will need to bring my sewing table.
I just went downstairs and dyed an extra couple yards of black fabric.

Can you tell I am obsessing?

The backing fabric came today...
I am not affiliated with these folks in the least... but the folks at Repro Depot are fast, helpful and well worth buying from! I ordered this fabric on Thursday (and paid for two day shipping), the stuff got here the following Monday!! I paid and got what I asked for.
They have a clause in their shipping policy that says it could take from 1 to 3 days to "handle" the goods before shipping. I asked if they would please ship this quickly and they did!
WooHoo! Yeah for Repo Depot!
Wait till you see the fabric I made for this quilt... I may not use it but who knows!
I started this so long ago that I forgot how bold the color is! I did make a good deal of the fabrics that are used in this quilt.
This is also inspired by the Gee's Bend exhibit I saw at the Whitney. There is a whole lot of Gee's Bend goin' around.

Two Baby Gee's to go, Please.

This is the first of the two, first to be quilted and second to be finished. I finished sewing the binding early this morning.
Click Here to see a detail of the quilting. I have no real way of showing that I quilted the word love into the face of this quilt (you can see the top of the "L" in the lower right part of the hand fabric in the pop-up image).
I mentioned in an earlier post that both quilts are "quillows", which means you can fold them into themselves to create a pillow (quilt+pillow=quillow).
My two nephews have made it infinately clear that there is no other quilt than a quillow.
So this is the red quilts' quillow patch...

=^..^= =^..^= =^..^= =^..^= =^..^= =^..^= =^..^= =^..^=

This is the green quilt, I am in love with the quilting on this one.
I decided not to make the edges of these quilts square, in the spirit of the true Gee's Bend quilts. I have never done this before, and was hesitant to try it, but I like it!
And here is the quillow patch for this quilt...

So it took just about a month of free time to complete two baby quilts, YEAH!!! And no, I did not work on them every weekend, or even each week, luckily they are small.
I am going to work on completing a bed quilt for our KING sized bed this coming weekend! Wish me luck!

P.S. I wish I could spell.

Baby Gee Update

I really like the straight line quilting on this little quilt. I prefer it to the meandering stitches of the other quilt.
Both have thier fun aspects though. In the meandering stitch, I quillted around the word "love", so that the child would be wrapped in love. I think the straight line stitching is quite stylish! So both are good in thier own way.
I am planning to get these two quilts done over the weekend.