A Happy Easter

Happy Easter to all! We enjoyed the holiday at home with good food, visits from neighbors and family time.
Yesterday I had booked the big machine for a studio day at Ellen Peters' Cat's Whiskers Quilting Studio.
I've been antsy to get Midnight Blues quilted for Matthew and Bella in their new little apartment in Alton. Here's Ellen loading the quilt for me.

The backing is that very dark blue flannel that is almost purple. I had ordered it from Thousands Of Bolts (Link) and prewashed it to allow for any shrinkage.

My quilt top measured 88" x 88" before quilting.

The piecing is my adaptation of Kim Brackett's lovely design from her book, Scrap Basket Surprises.

We chose a variegated blue thread in the medium value range and I used another 3 yards of my Warm & White 100% Cotton batting.

I haven't quilted on Ellen's big Handi Quilter Fusion machine in at least a couple of months and my muscles sure did get tired!

But I'm glad that I persevered. My quilting pattern was this simple freehand hearts and loops across the quilt.

You may click on any picture to enlarge it.

After a couple of  "York Peppermint Patties breaks" while Ellen changed out the spent bobbins, the quilt was really coming along.

Ellen trimmed off some excess batting and we were done in 1½ hours! For me, that's very fast.

I think it was Midnight the cat who was completely nonchalant about my finish, or maybe he was not amused by my having quite forgotten to bring any supplies of my catnip mice. How dare I?

The finished quilting looks wonderful, in spite of studio cat opinions, and I'm very pleased with it.

Fellow quilter, Linda, was there and was working on an Easter quilt for her granddaughter.

Linda's quilt had been quilted by Ellen in a large spiral pattern. Nice work, Ellen!

Ellen had also recently finished a shared batik Fat Quarter friendship quilt that she had quilted for herself.

The quilting pattern is stunning!

The fans are so graceful!

We were all curious as to just what the #12 handwritten notation was for on Ellen's label. She explained that it is the twelveth quilt for this year. And March isn't even over yet!!

May you  all be as prolific as you want to be!

As for this post, it will be linked to Oh Scrap! Link.
And linked to Love Laugh Quilt. Link.

Happy quilting!

Sunshine Club News

The bright sun was so welcome today at the Sunshine Club over at the Alton, New Hampshire Senior Center.
Diane was hand sewing binding on her Black and White quilt. Here she held it up to show it, good job, Diane!!!

Here's the backing to it.

These pictures were from last week, where we chatted and chomped some chocolate, as always!

In the meantime, we had a brief visit from Ole Man Winter that cancelled out the Monday afternoon Chair Yoga class that Felix and I like to attend.

Mister Tipper seemed very unimpressed with the arrival of new snow!

Today, Sue was proud to show her hand quilted black and white diamonds quilt with the red plush backing. Good work, Sue!

Sue did a great job of sewing her binding onto the quilt, too.

Diane also brought in a small top that she received from participating in a Round Robin. She did only the center block and all the successive borders were added on by all the other quilters, one at a time. It really came out nicely!

As for me, I managed to do a couple of string blocks, sewn, pressed, and trimmed for our raffle quilt to benefit the Center. We now have ten, yippee!

Many thanks to the Heartstrings Project for sharing their free instructions! Link.
The triangle and ivory fabric foundations in the above picture are my cut-up old sheets.

Hope you enjoyed a good day today, too!

Happy quilting!

Happy National Quilting Day!

Today I celebrated National Quilting Day by visiting the "Mothership", also known as Keepsake Quilting's retail store.

Yippee! There was bright blue weather on the way to Center Harbor, New Hampshire where Keepsake is headquartered.

There are aisles of colors to roam!

There are thousands of all quilt-shop-quality bolts of quilting cottons.

Yummy neutrals that called my name!

The store was actually fairly teeming with happy shoppers who were looking forward to the 20% off sale prices just for today.

I had a ball and here's what I picked out for myself.

The rolls are all a pre-cut of one yard, tied with a raffia ribbon, and I looked for choices that seemed to be Civil War era reproductions.
There were 10 FQ's that came home with me and they all look so great together!

The Moda "Mille Coloures" by Three Sisters jumped into my basket.

I couldn't help it. It HAD to come home with me. It's the mottled tan with the red floral toss in the above photo.

There were a couple of the richly saturated colors of Kansas Troubles selections in the group, too.

Equally important to celebrate is the most recent weather forecast that says that the big Nor'easter 12 inch snowstorm is pulling away to go out to sea and it will miss us! Yeay!! Welcome Spring!

And on Friday, I was able to get some borders measured and pinned onto my little lap quilt. This quilt's center was done with all fabrics from the "Collections For A Cause; Community" line by Howard Marcus for Moda.

For the outer border, I chose a Marcus Brothers Judie Rothermel stripe taken from The New England Quilt Museum.

Now to get those borders stitched up!

Linking up to Oh Scrap!Link.
And linking to Love Laugh Quilt. Link.

Happy quilting!

Around and About

Tuesday, Sue was pressing a big stack of her piecework for her granddaughter's foray into the business world selling the velcro short-sleeve pin-ups.

Bev was trying her wide backing onto her tee shirt quilt and just had it pinned to get an idea.

Diane was hand hemming the binding on her red/white/black quilt.

I was enjoying myself immensely just playing with a couple of fresh new charm packs from Moda in the Collections For A Cause; "Community" designed by Howard Marcus.

Then on Friday, at The Golden Gese quilt shop on 22 Liberty Street in Concord, New Hampshire, there was lots going on to photograph!

There was a gorgeous strip quilt top in fiery reds and oranges with hot pinks.

It might make a nice dress, too! Just look at that smile!

Check out Claire's cute dinosaur blocks done with fusible applique.

We all laughed that none of us could name exactly which dinosaurs each one was. That's boy stuff!

Maureen was doing a big pile of HST's.

These will become Quarter Square Triangles for her Block Of the Month sew along for "Storytellers."

Love those Civil War reproduction fabrics!

Beverly had a nice start on some black and white blocks that are very dramatic.

Heidi thrilled us all again with her bright beautiful tropical colors.

By the way, behind Heidi in the above photograph is the shop sample for "Storytellers" by Denice Lipscomb for Windham. It finishes at 102" by 102".

Lil' Claire was doing a smashingly good job of sashing her purple pinwheels with yellow sashes.

Check out how nice and even they all are!

Later, she had the borders on, too. Nice work!!

As for me, I  pressed all those random giant four patches from the charm  packs and then laid them out for best color placement.

Soon, I was asking Maureen to snap this for you when I got the rows sewn together.

This should be perfect for a small lap throw. Thanks, Maureen for being the photographer for me!

Thanks to all the happy quilters who let me share the fun here and special thanks to the Alton Senior Center and the Golden Gese Quilt Shop!

Happy quilting!