Sunday update

I am a winner!!!! I simply love all the blogs there are on quilting. And I also feel as if these women are my friends although we are miles apart. I made a suggestion on Scraps and Threadtales blog and I won! There were two other winners too. We are all so very lucky this week! http://scrapsandthreadtales.blogspot.com/ Here is the link to the blog.

I have the Masonic quilt finished. I just need to call Marg and tell her to come get it.

I visited my oldest daughter at a new dining place she is working at on Thursday when I was doing my running around town. She is a workhorse....2 jobs, 4 daughters and a host of running for Grandma Iole. Anyway...I noticed that her apron was kinda threadworn. I checked my records and yep! it has been 2 years since I made some for her. SO that is what I worked on this last Friday and Saturday. I made 8 aprons. Five for Lisa and three for Laura (she does not work as much).
Today I am back making more batik Virginia Bound blocks for my bed quilt. Yes....I am finally sewing for myself again. I have 144 quarter blocks done. But I want the quilt to have a lot of overhang. I can always make a smaller one for the chair if I make too many. I want it 120" wide and 144" long. I plan on quilting it in sections. Guess I will worry about that when the time comes for assembly.

Masonic Quilt progress

The hard part is done. Well it was not that hard but agonizing. No mistakes allowed (my rule). I was terrified to quilt this. I had to force myself into the quilt room. I loaded it and then had to walk away. Happened all day long. I had to keep stepping out of the room...shutting the door and paced! But I did get it quilted and it looks great if I do say so myself!

Here is the quilt drapped over the bar after I removed it from the frame. There are no ripples in the quilt. It looks as if there may be a ripple but that is only cause I must not have had it even when I threw it over the bar.

Someone wanted to see my machine and frame. Not a real good picture of either but I think you get the idea.

Masonic Quilt progress Wednesday

The top is all assembled. I added small squares of the star fabrics around the perimeter. They fit perfectly. I sure am surprising myself. Guess it is good to stretch one's wings.

Masonic Quilt progress Monday

I have 24 star blocks finished. The center block with the cardinal is finished. I also made a block to be signed by all her district members that will be added to the backing to make this a special gift.

I hate pinning. But do love the fact that it makes everything fit cleanly with no ripples.

Masonic Quilt progress

Here is a sample sewing of the embroidery. Still need to get it onto the block fabric. One thing at a time. I am sewing today.

Here are some block pieces waiting for assembly. We are having a snowstorm today. Perfect weather for sewing. I am so totally intimidated by the curved piecing in this block. Yet somehow everything has come through really nice. I am so glad I found and bought the template for this block. The cost was terrible ($26). Yet the ease of rotary cutting and the sewing assembly sure makes it worth the price. I truly believe this block is for hand piecing yet I am using my machine. Who woulda thunk?

I made one block before doing some chain piecing. And I am in "old movie" heaven. Raintree County and Gone With the Wind have been on TV back to back on the TCM channel. That is why I am getting so much done. I have both movies on DVD but still watch them on the commercial free channels when the come on. Hubby wonders about that. I cannot explain it to him.

Isn't the block beautiful?

The requestor of the Masonic quilt wants embroidery on the quilt too. So I had to get the embroidery machine out of the closet. It took me 4 hours to get the software on my computer. I think the XP was not too compatible with my embroidery program. But then it has been 10 years since I played with the program. Once I had it loaded it took me another 2 hours trying to get the design onto the embroidery card. But once I had all the computer stuff done the embroidering only took 20 minutes or so.