SpoolSpinner Retreat

I was on retreat with my quilting bee, the SpoolSpinners, from last Thursday through Sunday.  One of the quilts I worked on, and FINISHED was the Soccer Boy quilt.

It is simply a "strippy" quilt with soccer fabrics alternating with non-soccer fabrics.  But it has no flowers and no pinks, so maybe some father with a boy in the neo-natal unit will like it for his child.

Here's the back.

I also worked on the Liberated Round Robin's "curves" borders.

I used double wide, packaged seam binding in  black and red rickrack.  I am still in the process of sewing these down and doing the quilting.

We also were shown and then made a cloth wrapper for a small gift.  Our teacher gave us each two 8.5" square flowered fabrics and instructions which we could complete in about 20 minutes. Example on the right.

Later I tried my own fabrics and cut the squares 9.5" to see how much larger the package would end up.  The different is this: the original could hold six Hershey's nuggets, and the larger version could hold eight. [We had the nuggets available on our snack table.]

Sara

Gratitudes:
Another retreat earlier in the week with my spiritual accountability group
Dinner tonight with our DDIL Lynne
Singing "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" at Grand Rapids Women's Chorus rehearsal tonight

Quilting "King of the Ranch"

I spent longer than anticipated today sandwiching the front, batting, and backing fabric for the "King of the Ranch" boy quilt.  The fusible batting did not stick very well to then two fabrics, but I went ahead and carried the sandwich to the sewing machine and got started.

Not really even on the first pass down the tan strips.  I hope I improve with practice!

And I got a little clean-up done in the sewing room.  Not really noticeable, but I know that some things were put "away".

Sara

Gratitudes:

Footcare nurses trimmed my toenails
U.S. Open tennis continues
Didn't have to do any cooking today

Started another "boy" quilt

I purchased two Charm Packs of "King of the Ranch" on-line, thinking they would include lots of horses, like the one pictured.  Well, there are only two prints of horses in each colorway, and the charms are cut so that the larger print only has a portion of a single horse.  Silly me, I thought they would cut the fabric the way I would cut it, to show the best of the figures/horses. 

So I go on to use them anyway.  I will have two strips of each of the four colors, and I constructed a 9th strip to act as the center.  I will quilt this portion tomorrow, and then add the other strips QAYG.  At least the colors should appeal to a boy.

Charlie is going on a five day baseball trip, so I will have lots of "free" time to quilt, but also to work on organizing the sewing room.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Beautiful days here, sunny and in the 70's

More fresh tomatoes, cucumber, and corn

Increased exercise makes for better sleeping  

On to Soccer Boy

I know it looks very "busy", but what was I to do with all those soccer balls on the fabrics?

This is the center part of the front of the quilt-to-be.  Now I am going to layer and quilt this section before adding some borders by the Quilt-As-You-Go method.

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Charlie and I drove off to visit the beach of Lake Michigan at Meinert Park this AM and arrived just as the rain started.  So we re-grouped and went in to the farmers' market in Montegue for corn, tomatoes, blueberries and peaches.  The rain started there just as we were paying up.  Drove home through pelting rain, lessening as we went east.  Got home and had lunch set up on the porch just in time for the rain to blow in THERE!  OK, OK, I'm staying inside for a while listening to the opera on WBLU.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Another "save" for Papa Grande and our Tigers last night

Chatting with my sweetie about his trip to the game

Temperature so warm, it doesn't really matter if we get wet

Baseball Boy done

I finished the red border and the striped binding today so this is ready to show at our Bee meeting tonight.

The QAYG method makes for a nicely centered border on the back of the quilt.

Another photo of the back showing a lot of the binding.

I have the other fabrics on hand to make a Soccer Boy Quilt, but I think I want a change of pace.  Maybe I had better go back an do the "curved" border on the Liberated Round Robin..



Sara

Gratitudes:

Finished mowing the labyrinth
Fourth mystery by Louise Penny
Cool breezes on the porch

Baseball boy quilt

I found a couple of "boy" fabrics at Joann's last week-- two baseball fabrics and two soccer fabrics.  Currently I am making an easy strip quilt using the baseball fabrics and a few others from the stash.  I am planning to use up the theme fabrics by making it more of a rectangle, using the QAYG method, and this is going quickly.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Sunny day, temperature not too high....SUMMERTIME!
Managed to get half of the labyrinth mowed
Juicy steak and corn on the cob for dinner, thanks Charlie!

Second "boy baby" quilt finished

Out of the dryer just after dinner, this strip quilt is going to the young son of a friend from Holy Cross Church.  Here's a close-up of the vehicles and the "Beep Beep" fabric:

The backing is numerical flannel with the "triangle corner" label method.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Lengthy breakfast with Peter on his 43rd birthday

Two more Louise Penny mysteries from the library

BLTs and fresh corn for dinner, Hooray for summer!

Not" baby" cucumbers

We forgot about the cucumbers, under all their leaves.  Yesterday I found three, only one the regular size.  And then Charlie found five more of the huge ones, growing on the outside of the garden fence.  Luckily they taste okay, we just have to cut out all the seeds in the middle.

Then we remembered to look at the beans.  They were pretty large too.  We are going to try cooking them tonight to see if they are edible.  

And we are going to try this one Serrano pepper to see how hot it is.  We are not familiar with these, and there are several more.  This is the one pepper plant that is doing well.

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The first Boy Baby quilt is done; bordered, quilted, and bound.

Somehow I got the back on straight enough to include the whole map.  Next time I'm going to add some borders on the backing so that I don't have to finagle around with it so much!

Sara

Gratitudes:

Lots of cucumber for my lunch salads

Several people who will take two huge cucumbers off my hands!

Leftover gaspacho for supper tonight

Back to Boy Baby quilts

Found this cute fabric for a baby quilt backing, at JoAnn's, so I bought two.

And here's the front it is now quilted onto:

This was made from a couple charm packs.
I have the binding made, and may even get it applied tonight.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Finally got some plants in the ground that had been waiting for cooler weather
May have a place to stay in Florida next March, near the Cardinals spring training
Color in the sky at sunset, when it looked like none was coming