WIP Wednesday

It has been a while since I last wrote. School has been out for 3 weeks and ball season is in full swing with tournaments almost every weekend and games that are lasting over 2 hours so alot of long days and late nights sitting in the bleachers.  My big news is that I finally broke down and bought myself a new sewing machine!!! I had been using a very inexpensive Kenmore that my husband had bought me 10 years ago. I now have a Janome Memory Craft 6300. This machine has soooo many more features than my old one and I am constantly looking in the manual for instructions. I have done a lot of straight piecing with the Janome and love it! On my Kenmore I had issues with the start of the fabric getting caught in the beginnning stitches leaving me with a big knotted mess - no more of that :) I also have almost 4 more inches in the throat area versus my Kenmore - I do all my own quilting so I am very excited about this!

I did just start to machine quilt my churn dash quilt on it Sunday night. The Janome does not fit in my sewing table as nicely as my old machine, so last night my husband helped me create a little ledge around the machine so the quilt sandwich does not droop before going under the needle. I have quilted one block each night - at this rate it will take me three weeks to get this completed!

 My king sized Swoon quilt has been my sewing project for the last few months. It measures 112" square. I am debating on what to use for backing fabric right now. I don't want to spend a fortune on material and need to investigate the 108" fabrics to see if any match.

I also just finished this flannel quilt for my friend's nephew who is 3 years old. A month ago he was diagnosed with luekemia and has been at the University hospital for testing and chemo treatments. Things have been going well and he is producing his own white blood cells so he might be able to come home today for a few days.

I resurrected this project that I started in 2010. I have 1-1/2 flowers stitched together. This will be my summer project while at ball games, watching the kids swim, etc.


WIP
1. Finish quilting churn dash
2. Decide how to quilt granny's squares quilt
3. Find fabric and quilt swoon
4. Paper piecing flowers

Farmer's Wife and WIP Wednesday

I broke down and bought the Farmer's Wife Quilt book on Monday night. The reason??

Laurie Aaron Hird spoke at our quilt guild meeting! She touched on how she came about to do the Farmer's Wife book but mainly talked about the Pony Club book. It was so interesting to hear how the Farmer's Wife magazine gave ponies away to little kids and to read their letters that they wrote thanking the magazine for the ponies. This will be my next book purchase. I also got her to sign my book! Unfortunately this is the only photo that I took of her Pony Club quilt :(

With the warm beautiful weather we have spent alot of time outside working in the flower beds getting them ready for spring. My first tulips bloomed today. I need to take a photo - they are only 2 inches tall and the blooms about half-an-inch. So cute!

Friday I did start to work on a churn dash quilt using my Aunt Edna fabrics. I have four blocks done and just spent an hour chain-piecing some more. I can't wait to see them laid out together.

WIP

1. Finish binding on larger wirly gig

2. Need to quilt my plus quilt - still undecided on the design

3. Figure out what to use for backing of my granny squares - I plan on hand quilting this so then I will have to learn how to hand quilt and pick my threads.