Cranking out the quilts

Thanks to Pat, I've been cranking out the quilts.  She still has more ballerina quilt tops that she's finishing and I'm sure we'll be in high production when she comes out towards the end of October.

We had enough leftover backing from Pat's niece's quilt for this one.  

  

 I had this plaid in my stash which worked well with the border on this one.  

This one was a cute train panel.  I added the outer yellow and blue borders to make it a little bigger.  

This wide Scotty fabric had been in the stash for a while, and there was enough red and black striped binding from these doggie quilts to just get this one bound.  I love using stuff up to the last little bit.

I've got a stack of five quilts to deliver to Dr. Kaufman, and am piecing one from leftovers.  We'll need to go deliver soon.

A couple of finishes...

Every once in a while the discussion surfaces on About.com quilting forum...  Which do you prefer, piecing or quilting?  I definitely prefer quilting.  I quickly tire of the tedium of making blocks, but quilting on the other hand doesn't ever seem so tedious, even when I'm usually doing pantographs and there is a lot of repetition involved.  I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's easy to keep going.

  I can also say the same of binding.  I guess I just really like finishing.  Fortunately for me, Pat prefers piecing, and is rather productive.  I don't have a bounty of pieced tops that I haven't gotten around to quilting.  I do have some blocks from swaps and other "abandoned" blocks, but not nearly enough to finish into so many quilts.  Pat got these tops done, I added borders.

I also grew the backing fabric a bit, since it wasn't long enough to do both quilts after the addition of borders.  The black and white strip came from friends on the forum.  I'm also fortunate to get pieces parts from friends that I can use.  Yay for symbiotic quilting relationships!!  I also finished my nephew's wedding quilt, way ahead of schedule.  I'm taking it up to Colorado and will photograph it on Jackie's king size bed--the 120-square-inch behemoth dwarfed my queen beds and dragged on the floor. 

Back to production...

Taking a break from quilting helped me want to be productive after returning home.  My nephew's wedding quilt has a deadline, since the wedding is in early October, and it's on the longarm now.

My daughter, Jackie, asked if I had any comfort quilts...one of her coworkers was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.  I combed my stash for something I could put together and found some log cabin blocks.  The blocks and coordinating fabrics came from Chris' stash who lost her battle with pancreatic cancer.  It would have made her happy that they are going to a good cause in this quilt.

 Pat has also been busy, and she put together these two twin nine-patch pizzazz tops with doggie themed fabrics.  I used my newly purchased Moda black and white stripe, and had just enough of the perfect red for growing them with borders. 

I also have a great doggie print wide fabric for a backing that Pat got for the stash some time ago.  Everything falling into place, and I need to start getting another batch of quilts for Dr. Kaufman.  It's coming up on "high season" for newly diagnosed kids with diabetes.

Thrift shopping, etc.

On the way home, the last 30 miles, Dale discovered he had a leak of some sort in the truck.  It was kind of hard to figure out since none of the fluids were low, oil, transmission, coolant, and we were getting too good a gas mileage for it to be fuel.

It took a while to pinpoint it to one of two lines that go to the high pressure oil pump.  Dale is no slouch when it comes to troubleshooting.  Armed with that information we made an appointment and took it to the Ford dealer, Rich Ford in Edgewood.  After a week, and claims that the coolant flush maintenance had already been done, we went to pick up the truck, only to find out nothing had been done at all.  At least we didn't owe them any money.  

Second attempt took us to 2nd to None in Moriarty.  We picked up the truck when it was ready, only to discover it had blown one of the replaced O rings, and was still leaking when we got it home.  Back to Moriarty in two vehicles.  They apologized profusely and "made it right," fixing it again at no charge, and all is well now.  

I did get something out of all the trips back and forth.  I hit the jackpot at the thrift store.  I got over 35 yards of quality fabrics all for $1/yd.  There were some large eight plus yard cuts which will be great for backings.

Someone was de-stashing, and luckily I was able to score it!  I love a bargain. 

Good to be home!

Vacation is nice, but it's always good to be home.  I was glad to see "our" kitties.  Little Gray which I'd just begun to tame was receptive to my attention.

 

Our yard is overrun with "goatheads."  If you click the picture above you can see the innocent looking little yellow flowering weeds.  It's a good thing I don't go barefoot much, because the tacks come in on the soles of our shoes.

 

After a lot of laundry and putting stuff away, I'm starting to work on my nephew's quilt, auditioning borders.