Sneak Peak: Diamond Chain

Quilting on Diamond Chain is actually done but I'm only showing a bit of it until it's bound and ready for its glamour shots.  The pattern is also called Jewel Box, Northern Lights, Jacob's and World's Fair from what I can tell.  I've got an old booklet (1988) called Templates for 171 Four-Patch Quilt Blocks that I use to find interesting blocks to make.  Most of the names for the block came from that booklet.  (And, don't worry, I don't use templates unless I absolutely have to but it's pretty easy to figure out the block pieces without templates.) The name Diamond Chain came from a video by Jenny at Missouri Star.  I liked the block, found a big hunk of backing fabric and a bunch of scraps and kept making blocks until I figured I'd done enough.(You can see it here and here.) 

That's all the quilting I'm showing today.  I spent most of yesterday watching a couple of Accuquilt Zoom sessions.  I've been to a few educational sessions from AccuQuilt since we started staying home.  I consider a class/session a rousing success if I learn one new thing.  And, yep I did and right after the class I tried it and it worked like a charm.  It has to do with trimming the ends of binding strips to make it easier to sew the strips together.  (I think I'm going to be trying it again fairly soon!) 

I'm including this pic of a butterfly mainly because we've seen so few of them this year.  Wasn't he nice to pose so well for me?  Last year the Yellow Tail was a female because of some blue on the bottom of the wings. I "think" this one is a he. 

 

I believe I mentioned several posts back that I was giving up on my hummingbird feeder as I had seen no hummers visiting.  Well, within a week or so of taking the feeder down, cleaning it, and putting it away we saw one looking for it.  So, I made some more nectar, poured it in the feeder, and hung it outside.  We've seen a lot of single birds there.  I've never seen 2 birds flitting around the feeder but Pat says he has from time to time.  I'll keep supplying the nectar until we don't see any more birds. 

I've already completed a couple of my goals this week.  I'll be sharing how I'm doing on that sometime on Tuesday.  For now, I'm linking with Needle and Thread Thursday, Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?, Beauties Pageant #94, and Finished or Not Friday. I hope you can do a little blog surfing to see what folks are up to. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 9 - 2 - 2019

Yep, I skipped another blog post.  Not much to say then except I came through my surgery with flying colors. (Whatever does that really mean?)  Don't worry -- it was a fairly simple surgery to get rid of unused parts. (GAH doesn't that sound weird...!) Now, one and a half weeks out I'm doing pretty well.  Biggest issue is I don't have much stamina.  So, I can work in the studio but I'm worn out for the rest of the day.  Sigh.  I miss my energy. 

My big goal post-surgery was to hand sew the binding on "With a Little Help from My Friends."  I had finished quilting it and had sewn the binding on the front side of the quilt pre-surgery.  What I failed to realize was it was batik front and back.  Needless to say sewing down the binding went really slowly.  I usually tried to do two lengths of thread each day - I wanted it completely done on August 31.  And, yes, I succeeded!  

As some may realize, I am terrible at naming my quilts.  This time the name popped into my head before I'd even finished it. I participated in batik strip swap many years ago at a FCQ retreat.  (So long ago that we've had the retreat in two different locations which tells me at least 8 years, maybe 10 years ago.) 

This was quilted with "Pipeline" a great design to add texture.  Click on most pictures and they will enlarge.  I used So Fine thread in purple. (Sorry don't know the number off hand.) 

In the top picture, the bush at the bottom right is our butterfly bush.  Unfortunately it is an invasive species so we make sure it doesn't spread too much.  But I really enjoy watching all the butterflies who flitter around it.  Here's another picture of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.  I'm amazed I was able to get such a good photo of it.  This is a female -- see the blue at the bottom of her wings?  You can see the other pic of a female here. Either I've gotten a lot better at taking pictures, or, more likely, the butterfly is so busy she doesn't realize she's doing such a great job of posing. If you look closely you can see her wings are tattered and torn a bit.  Look at the right one -- follow from the two yellow spots near the leaf.  There's a bit missing -- it probably was another yellow dot.  

Once again, I'm not posting goals.  I'm slowly getting things done but the key word is slowly.  I did succeed in putting another kit together for the October retreat.  Still need to finish the other one I'm working on. Beyond that I think I've got two other quilts in progress I can work on which should be enough for a 3 night retreat.  

I'm linking up with the following parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Makings, Moving It Forward and What I Made Monday. Take a few minutes to see what folks are up to now. 

That's it for me today.  I'm off to a hand stitching group where we do all sorts of handwork.  I'll be knitting on a sweater that I haven't worked on for weeks.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 6 - 24 - 2019

Yea for a successful week!  We were out and about this week with a couple of meals out and going to see Men in Black 3. (I'm not sure that's the official title but basically the movie was the third of the Men in Black.)  And it did not disappoint. I get such a kick out of all the aliens that someone thinks up and the weird things they do.  We both enjoyed it a lot.  I think it is the first movie we've seen since The Post in 2017.  Nope, we don't go to a lot of movies nor do we watch them at home.   

Instead of doing movies I quilt and read.  Here's what I've been working on this week. First up is the parrot quilt on Ruthie. I've already applied one side of the binding.  Later this week I'll get the final side down.  I'll share more when I get a picture of the full quilt. 

I rescued a piece of vintage cotton showing a cowboy in action.  As I made this pillowcase I was wondering whether kids today have much of a clue about cowboys.  Well, there's always Woody in Toy Story!  I can never figure out which way to run a directional fabric on a pillowcase.  I thought I had the cowboy going the opposite way.  Sigh. 

On to a successful goal week.  Yep, I got all my goals checked off this week.  In fact I'm just about done with my One Monthly Goal.  I need to figure out what is going to be my July goal.   Must look at my collection of UFOs and current projects to make a decision. 

June 17, 2019

Hand quilt on old Christmas quilt√

Quilt Butterfly quilt√

Work on Rainbow Scrap Challenge√

Prep backing of Parrot Quilt√ and quilted it! 

Make 1 pillowcase√

And this week I'll be working on: 

June 24, 2019

Hand quilt on old Christmas quilt

Bind butterfly quilt

Finish binding parrot quilt

Work on Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Make a few blocks for Taps quilt

Make two more blocks for QOV

I'm linking up to my regular linky parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Moving It Forward, and Main Crush Monday. (MCM hasn't posted yet so I'll check back later and see if it's been published. )

That's it for me today.  Hope you have a beautiful summer day! And if not, there's always quilting.  Here's a pretty butterfly visiting our butterfly bush.  I read recently that the butterfly bush is an invasive species in Virginia.  I can really believe it because one our bushes has been growing like crazy and branches that hit the ground started rooting.  We may be removing that one. Here's what I found on the other bush.  Isn't this a pretty butterfly.  I like the blue on it.  It took me quite a bit of time to actually catch a picture of the whole butterfly in a position you can actually see her. This is actually a female Tiger Swallowtail butterfly, the state butterfly of Virginia.  The males are yellow with distinct tiger stripes.  It's time to get back to quilting (or probably reading blogs this morning!) 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie