Sunday, July 27, 2014

Another Day on Dorothy's Quilt

I did a bit more work on Dorothy's quilt.  It took me a bit of thinking and research time to decide what to put in the cross design blocks.  I need something fairly dense to match the border quilting and to pick up a lot of excess fabric.  This is what I came up with.  I like it!
 



Saturday, July 26, 2014

Saturday and it's Dorothy's Quilt

Dorothy has been working for ages on a quilt for her cousin who got married about three years ago.  It was to be a wedding present, but, well - good things take time!  She finally got the piecing done and I helped her put the back together and then loaded it on to Max.  It's a fabulous quilt to start with and I'm having a lot of fun quilting it! 




 
More will be revealed later!
 
AsI mentioned in my last post, I am officially out of storage space so now that I have a bit more time, I want to make a focused effort to make a dent in the stash!  I started off  with putting together a quilt for a 12 pack of fat quarters that Joan very kindly gave me as a cheer-up while I was recovering from my surgery.  I have such great friends!!!  So I made the blocks on Wed/Thurs then went over for a "play date" at Joan's and put the top together - here it is.
 
 
I used a pattern that I found here.  The blocks finished up at 9.5 inches, which is an unusual size I think.  This configuration is 6 * 7 blocks so 57 * 66.5 inches - a good size.
 
As usual, the pix don't show the colours very well..  One of these days I need to figure out how to fix that....
 
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

"Retirement is Great!"

When Dorothy retired, every time she sent out an email she would end it with "retirement is great" - for almost a year!  Not that I ever doubted her, but she is absolutely correct - retirement IS great! 

My last day of work was June 26 and immediately, on June 17, the Divas took off for a quilting retreat at the Bloomin' Inn near Pincher Creek, Alberta.  We had a great time and we're all lined up to do it again in the fall.   I started a new Divas blog so to see the pix and read more about it click here.

One of the things I want to do now that I have more time is to "get physical" for at least an hour a day.   My bike needed new tires - well the bike was 20 years old and on original tires so no wonder!  But instead of getting new tires, I just got a whole new bike.  This one is a lot more comfortable for a "retired person"!

 
We also got a new Mazda 3 (our "retirement car") - that's it in the background.  We got a bike rack for the car so we can take our bikes to different locations and enjoy different scenery.
 
Anyway - we actually have been getting out every day - usually for a bike ride, but sometimes just a walk. 
 
On the quilting front, I've quilted a few customer quilts in the past couple of months.  One of them was entered into the Calgary Stampede's Creative Arts & Crafts exhibit.  It's a judged event and the quilt won a second place ribbon in it's category.  So I am pretty pleased about that!  I've got some pictures posted on my other No Rules Quilting blog - here.
 
Which brings me to the blog issue.  Clearly I have at least one too many so I will have to consolidate at some point.  I wanted to keep the business separate, but I don't think that's going to work.  So I have to figure that out! 
 
I have purchased so much fabric since May that I really need to glue myself to my chair and get sewing!!!  I have no more storage space for it! 
 
I hope everyone is enjoying the great summer weather now that it has finally arrived!  If you're "down under" - cheer up - summer is coming!  :)