A Personal Record

This is surely a record for me - finishing the binding on two full sized quilts in one week.

Of course there are more waiting to be finished.

From the other end

I finished taking the lights off the tree today - and the Santas are all back in the bedroom waiting to be packed away.  The tree will have to wait for  someone stronger than I to dismantle it and tote it out to the workshop. 

On my way home from sewing with friends yesterday, I stopped at a little country supermarket.  They always seem to have great looking meats and fresh vegetables.  I'm having a vegetable plate for dinner tonight.  Cabbage cooked with country ham and red pepper, boiled rutabaga and green peas.

But for now - I think I need a small reward - a little on line shopping will suffice.

Barb's Barn Quilt 2 Quilted

I forgot to post this.  I started it right after Thanksgiving.

The backing

Maybe when I get the binding sewn on (I'll use the same blue as the inner border) I can get a picture of the whole quilt! As slow as I am with binding that will be some time from now - I actually don't know how many quilts that are waiting to be bound.

 I'm just glad to have the quilting done.

Cookie Business and Quilting

This Friday is our town's Christmas lighting celebration.  In addition our church is having their annual cookie walk and live nativity.  And the Woman's Club is having a fund raiser too. So I have 12 dozen pinwheel cookies for the cookie walk, trays, cake stands etc. to take to church.  Hot chocolate mix, tablecloths and a quilted Christmas wall hanging to take to the Woman's Club Building.

After I delivered these and had my hair cut I came home and made two batches of sand tart cookies.  While the dough was chilling  - I went down to the little house to work on the quilt I had loaded on Saturday afternoon.

I was having trouble with skipping stitches and thread fraying so I decided to leave it and see if I could determine what was going on.  I read up on it and today I did three things.  I loosened the the top thread tension, loosened the tension of the quilt top and also slowed down my speed.  I only had one thread break today.  I seem to have more problems with thread fraying when quilting batiks.

Started to bake the Sand Tarts about 5 PM.  I scorched the very first ones.

Thar's more like it!

8 PM - cookies in oven, only  two more trays to bake and 

a mess to clean up!

I can tidy up while the last two sheets are baking.

About 16 dozen cookies! I think I'll eat corn flakes for dinner!

Another Quilt Bordered

This is the second Barb's Barn Quilt.   It is bigger than the first one and the background colors are darker.  I also used one less fabric per block.  I made the center the same as the other solid patches.

The good news is that I used fabric I already had for the borders.  I also made the binding from the same blue fabric.  And  I sewed the backing - I used some blocks that I won in a holiday block party at Capital Quilters in Raleigh in 2005  to increase the width. ( I remember using some of the same blocks in another quilt somewhere along the way).  Neglected to get a picture of them. 

  I think the final measurement will be about 84" square. (A little too large for my design floor space.)  Another top for the Quilting Queue!