Tenth Anniversary

This is what I'll be doing next weekend:

There have been a lot of ups and downs along the way. And a lot of LEARNING.  But, oh, the wonderful friends I have made.  Two of the best, plus my dear daughter, will be helping me out on the two special days.

Not My Idea of Fun

Here's what I gave you a glimpse of the other day:

After working (struggling) all weekend, using two different sewing machines, here's what I've got:

This is the smaller of the two purses in the Bailey Island Hobo Bag pattern. It is finished except for adding a magnetic closure.  It was not fun to make.

THIS is my idea of fun:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the lost orange blocks have been found.  I'll settle on the final layout and get them stitched together today.  Fun - fun - fun!

And the latest birds have been hanging on the wall too long.  They will get a border SOON, so I can finish them also.

Growth Rings

My first strata style quilt, "Growth Rings", is finished.  Four and a half bobbins later!

I'm very happy with the results and already started on my next strata project. Here's a close up so you can see how I used up so much thread.  

From there, I went on to work on those tubes that will become the Bailey Island Hobo Bag.  Unfortunately, I ran into all sorts of trouble.  All of the tubes have to be zig-zagged together and the thread kept breaking, then I was skipping stitches.  I changed to a denim needle as the pattern recommended, but that didn't help either.  My Babylock is a wonderful machine, but sometimes it does miss stitches when sewing through several thicknesses.  Today I may get out my OLD Singer and see what she can do.

Around and Around and Around

I'm still quilting the strata quilt shown in the last post.  Here is what it looks like on the back.  See why it's taking me so long?  The walking foot and my quilting gloves are a great help, but it is still very time consuming.  I've thought of a great name:  Growth Rings.

Never wanting to run out of unfinished projects, I cut more squares over the weekend.

These fabrics came from my batik stash.  I had two piles going while I sorted, the other one was blues, greens, aquas.  This pile won.

What in the world is this?

I'm making a "Bailey Island Hobo Bag".  I had a few strips left over from the jewel box quilt top, so just added to them.  It's kind of funny to have three projects in a row the same color scheme.

Strata Blocks

Here's where I started with the brown squares:

And here's what they look like today.  Forty strata blocks a la Scott Murkin. They are so BROWN because they are part of a "paint chip challenge" and I drew brown.  I've already made some other brown elements that may or may not work with these blocks.  There might be two paint chip projects. 

I decided that it was definitely time to quilt the first strata project.  The last time you saw it, the top was pinned to the wall.

Yesterday I basted and started the machine quilting.

In between times, I also managed to make some new store samples.  These cute pincushions from a new pattern called "Pincushion Panache".

Now, back to the machine quilting .......