Card Tricks Two Ways

First of all, the flowers are blooming like crazy so picking a bunch for a friend was quite delightful.  I had them sitting on the counter ready to go as a hostess gift and Husband was searching all over for what was making the stink in the kitchen.  MEN!  I pointed out that I had picked flowers.  They did not stink.  They smelled like wonderful, perfumed flowers.  MEN!  I was playing whist with my card ladies this afternoon.  I adore playing whist.  We have been getting together now for about a year and are self taught whist players.  It involves an incredible amount of laughter but most importantly good fun while visiting and being silly and eating good food!

Card tricks also factored into the picture today another way, with me breaking out the gardening gloves and stippling my card tricks quilt.  I think this one will end up living at Mum's house.  She is quite taken with the colours.   I am quite happy with my stippling on this one.  It seems the more I do this, the more I am satisfied with what I feel it should look like.  Just like with whist, I am a self taught.  I did check out many free motion quilting tutorials on line, especially Crazy Mom and Oh Fransson's tutorials, but it really just involves a whole lot of practice.  I quilt all my quilts myself.  It is just what I do.

Quilting the blue beast on a snowy day

We woke up this morning to a whack of snow.  It was just last weekend when Husband and I were raking flower beds and now we are right back into full bore winter.  Crazy!  Webster thought it was too much fun.  And then I got down to quilting the blue beast for Mum.  I am calling it that because it is just so darn big.  I know it is at least 75" x 75" and is the biggest quilt I have made to date.

Me quilting the blue beast.  Too bad you cannot see my whacky gardening gloved hands!

I used spray baste for the first time.  That was interesting.  Let's just say I learned a lot with this first attempt.   And let's just say that after I had the batting connected to the quilt top
and having hollered for Husband to come and help
and after having a mild panic attack
and after crawling all over the kitchen floor with the dog looking at me strangely
and after Husband made many supportive comments...

I did a much better and calmer job of attaching the batting and top to the quilt back.  I now know this.  Only spray a small bit at a time.  Start with the batting on the floor and the quilt back rolled up smoothly. Spray the width of the batting, about a foot at a time.  Unroll the quilt bottom onto the sprayed section and work your way spraying and unrolling until all is smooth and attached.  Do the same for the top.  My LQS lady also advised me to leave the quilt with the spray baste for about an hour before beginning to quilt.  So I did that.  And what can I say.  I have finished quilting the beast.  I have NO wrinkles on the front or back.  I used NO pins in the entire process.  I am a convert to spray baste.  I LOVE IT!

This evening while watching the Oscars, I will complete the binding and a work in progress will magically transform into a completed quilt!  Woohoo!

It was meant to be...

Craigslist is my friend.  Back in September, I found a listing for a Janome 6260 QC for $300.  Be still my beating heart.  I fired off an email to the lister but there was already someone interested.  The lady promised to let me know if the deal fell through!  Short story.  She is mine.  Husband and I drove for hours in blasted rush hour traffic, construction zones and rain.  The lady had bought the machine on a whim and had used it to hem pants a few times over the past few years.  The quilting table and all the quilting feet, walking foot etc.  were still in the original sealed packaging!!!!  Let me tell you, it was gleeful.  Husband says it was meant to be and the machine was destined to be mine.  He is such a sweetie!

Having this lovely new to me machine has made a huge difference to my machine quilting.  And I quickly finished up nursey student daughter's scrappy purple quilt and used sulky variegated thread in lovely purple/violet tones to squiggle away in free motion loveliness.  She received it for Christmas.  She is happily snuggled under it at university.  It will keep her warm for her last semester!

I used this recipe from the Moda Bakeshop, "Blissful Confection." And I used the same pattern to make up a quilt for son and girlfriend for Christmas.  I used a layer cake-Moda's Urban Couture by Basic Grey. Son had given it to me for my birthday!  Clever boy.  This was a perfect colour for their apartment.  And I had more practice with free motion quilting... They received this quilt for Christmas too.  Happiness.  All of a sudden I had 4 quilts completed!  Wahoo!