Thursday, April 15, 2010

Over the Tops - Another Finish

I've been quilting like crazy lately and enjoying every minute. I really didn't think this quilt would go so quickly, but am glad to be able to cross another project off of my challenge list. This quilt is 85 x 85, even our 16 year old with his long wingspan couldn't hold it out all of the way. Here is a close up picture of the center motif. Each of the plain triangles has half of this motif in red and all of the quilting is in red except for the crosshatching, which is ecru.

Here is a picture of the back of the quilt. It sometimes a toss up which I like better, the front or the back!
With the Oriental Railroads quilt done, I don't have any of my challenge projects ready for the hoop. I found an old project to pull out and put in the hoop until I can finish the posies and celtic, which will be my next project to be quilted. It will take a long time to quilt as each posy block has 3/4 inch crosshatching in it in addition to outlining all the applique pieces.

I have 6 more posy sets and 30 more leaves to sew onto the border vine, then the same braid as in the sashing (in the picture below) will be appliqued all around the outside of the posy and vine border. Still quite a bit of applique to go, but the celtic bias tape is made and a few of the pieces are sewn on as I took it to a friend's house one day to sew on. I'm hoping to be quilting on it in 2 to 3 weeks, but have no idea if that's realistic or not.
Ruthie has gone from hating her bath to not minding it much, even sometimes enjoying it. She gets her hair washed at the sink a lot of the time, which used to be accompanied by "top it!" (stop it) but is now at least tolerated most of the time. This time she wanted her head wrapped in a towel like the big girls do it.
We are enjoying our foray into the 21st century, the new cellphones are working great, as is the new wireless broadband connection. It's all in the timing, I guess, we now have better services for less money...a win win!

The last couple of days have been warm, reminding me what I don't like about summer. It's going to cool off again for the next few, which I'll enjoy.
I used to get less quilting done in the summer, but that hasn't been the case the last few years and for that I'm glad. I feel the need to finish up as many old projects as possible so I'm not left with a pile of UFOs when my eyes and hands are too old to finish them!

The next few days should bring a lot of sewing time and I hope to get a lot done on the celtic and posies, with a bit of hand quilting when I need a break. Happy Spring to you and yours!
Happy Quilting!
Sue