I love to share my Quilting projects with other Quilters. My goal is to share my progress on projects that I am working on. I would love for you to follow along with me during my endeavors. I hope you enjoy watching me tackle new techniques and projects. Hopefully you can learn from my "hiccups" and mistakes and make your journey easier.
I will welcome in October and hoping for a wet and cold winter here in South Texas. The mornings are becoming cooler and I am enjoying the morning walk, more and more. BUT I believe that when one is 31 days from turning 78 I had better put the pedal to the metal so that by the time I get to Halloween I am back to my 20 minute mile! I wonder what I will be able to do when I hit 80! Hum, I just want to continue with my daily walk and have fun quilting, knitting, embroidery, and cross stitching.
I have been working on My Surprise Quilt and In The Garden Bunny Rabbit blocks (there are 4 of them). To read the background story of My Surprise Quilt click here.
Here are the Rabbit Blocks completed this month. One more light brown bunny to applique!
I still have more borders to make for My Surprise Quilt, but I have made more progress on it this month. I will have some 1″ border strips and then 2 more block borders and one plain border to end the quilt. It will top out at 80″ x 80″ or 84″ x 84″. – It will be a surprise to all of us! LOL
For October my goals will be:
Finish My Surprise Quilt
Prepare the remaining 5 blocks for In My Garden
Start a hand quilting project (have a few tops that are waiting in line patiently)
Do more hand work, less piecing as it is time to catch up on those UFOs.
It has been awhile since I did a post! First may we all think of the people in Florida at this time. They choose to live in Florida on the waterfront, but Hurricane damage from this one will take them years to recover, and for that I feel for them. To lose everything would be a horrible experience, especially loss of life! I am praying that the loss of life is low. Governor DeSantis is a wonderful leader and his people will be assisted ASAP.
I am thrilled that our morning temperatures are in the mid-60’s now and I am walking every day. It will take me a month to get to my goal of doing my 20 minute mile, but close at a 22 minute mile and walking for 30 minutes! Keeps me sane in an insane world.
In case you are unaware, Bloglovin is belly up! I missed so may post in September and wanted to go back are read them all after I signed up with Feedly and Follow.It, but I was not willing to spend 8 hours on the computer to do so. In fact I have a new Computer rule, I will allow myself 1 hour (if needed) to go through my email each day! That is it. When the weather is cooler, I am going to add about 1 hour for reading on the Studio porch!
Here is what is going on with my quilting life. I have decided to send 10 quilts to Rebecca to quilt and send Stars in the Garden and My Surprise Quilt (when finished) later in October. I have been following her for years and she is a fantastic quilter. I know that when she quilts my quilts they will be perfect! Just look what she did with Janes Murmuration quilt! So now I will be doing a little clean up on my tops (making sure that I have stayed stitched around the entire tops on all quilts). I may have 5 that need that stay stitching, then I will document the sizes and provide pictures to Rebecca! I can hardly wait to get them boxed and mailed to her. She will be working on them in January 2023 which is fine with me, I am just elated that she will quilt them for me, as they are all my special quilts.
If you have been following me since I started designing a quilt I have called My Surprise Quilt (soon to have a final name) I only have a couple of borders left. I have never designed a quilt (I did design a table runner and wrote the instructions for a class I taught), even though I have all of the EQ Software of which I will use downsize block, or redraw a block in order to have the rotary cutting done for me! But in August I decided I would design a Medallion quilt. I did use EQ8 to do the Center Block for color placement, rotary cutting, and to print out the block for visual reminders for me!
I designed this quilt as I went along. There is no paper piecing in this quilt – all hand cut pieces – no Go machine! Math was critical when making this quilt, especially since I did not have a pattern, or a design in mind, I just knew it would be a Medallion quilt with different borders. I am enjoying the process of making a quilt without a pattern because I have not had ONE problem with my quilt. But it takes time, patience, and math when doing it the way I am making the quilt. I could call it Design a Quilt as You Go! LOL
This is what I started with in August. I had the Center and knew what I wanted for the last border. I started making the Double Hour Glass blocks and worked on the Medallion. I started on the last border first! I am sure that Quilt Designers no longer do it this way! LOL
So today – here is where I am on My Surprise Quilt, almost 2 months since I started this project. There will be more 1″ separating borders and then 2 full borders before adding a plain fabric (I think) at the end. The quilt will measure 80″ x 80″ or might grow to 84″ x 84″ by the time it is finished. It will depend on what the quilt requires.
My Surprise QuiltMy Surprise Quilt
Status on In The Garden Rabbit blocks. I now have 3 Rabbit blocks completed and will start on the last Rabbit block tonight. Clay wants me to hurry up and add the eyes.
In My Garden
After I have completed My Surprise Quilt, I am going to take a break from piecing and do some applique and cross stitch to unwind and relax. The greatest relaxation will come when Rebecca receives the quilts to quilt! Then I will have to get with the program and do some hand quilting and long arm quilting and maybe by 2023 I will have all done! What will I do? Of course, make more quilts. LOL
My Complaining Section: This is a new section of my Blog and I have some complaining to do because it took some time from my peaceful retirement life the last 2 weeks, so here goes! On 19 and 21 September 2022, the Biden Inflation World came to us (forget the fuel and food costs). First was the $300.00 a year increase in our vehicle insurance! How can a company justify slapping this type of increase on a customer with no claims for 30 years? They cannot and when the first words were INFLATION from our Agent, I went off on the Gentleman! Not acceptable! Then on the 21st I had 4 SMALL cavities filled, and when I ask Melody, ‘how much do I owe you today’? It was $1,200!!! Now my guy is great Prosthodontist, I was still in shock when I arrived home only to have other issues hit me (they were evidently forgettable)! The only good news that week of BIDEN INFLATION WORLD was the fact that I confirmed that our Dental Insurance will pay 60% of the $1,200. Of course we pay a lot of money for our Dental and our Full Secondary health insurance, (along with lovely Medicare) but it has kept us from going broke all these years.
Americans need a Gigantic Red Wave in November, Biden needs to retire as he was looking for a deceased Representative while speaking on National TV, and Harris will need to be impeached since she doesn’t know that the USA does not have a RELATIONSHIP with North Korea -IT IS SOUTH KOREA!!! OK, I have now vocalized what keeps people concerned as to where the Democrats are leading this Nation! I say it is into an Abyss. I apologize to no one for stating the truth!
My goals for the rest of the week will be to finish (if possible) to finish My Surprise Quilt, complete the Bunny Rabbit Block 4, and pack and ship my quilts to Rebecca! OOPS – forgot, I need to finish my 80 Churn Dash SAL – need to decide on a setting and get that one done! We shall see what happens.
Have a wonderful weekend, stay active, enjoy life, and enjoy stitching!
Chopin - A Passionate Quilter From Texas 