Glorious sunrises

I almost always see the sun come up since I am an early riser.  Winter sunrises are pretty spectacular around here.  I know, it's not technically winter yet, but close enough.

 Our sun room has been performing better than our expectations.  Dale is frequently working out there in shorts, as on sunny days the temperature tops out close to 90, and that's with the door open to the house.  We've certainly used less heat already.  Even on a couple of overcast days the temperature climbs to comfortable 70s!

 I finished the last of quilts from the tops Yetta sent me.  I backed this one with pieced flannel.  It's a soft, cozy quilt.

 Now I'm working on Pat's crane quilt interspersed with cooking foods to take for Thanksgiving.  So much to be thankful for!

Three on one back...

Pat picked up some shot cottons on sale.  They are beautiful, but rather thin.  It took ironing with a lot of starch to be able to load on the longarm, but provided backing for three quilts.

The color achieved from the threads makes the fabric shimmer.  This top Pat put together from blocks we acquired at the retreat in Phoenix in February.  There is already a lot of buzz for next year's 10th anniversary retreat on the About.com quilting forum.

 

The next two are from Yetta.  I've already got four quilts for my next delivery, and a fifth ready to load and quilt.  Thanks to all my friends whose extra blocks, tops, etc. help make these quilts.

 The sky was ablaze yesterday morning with color.  The day in comparison was gray and cloudy with the ever present breeze.  The sun room is already performing even on such a cloudy day, and was able to keep the temperature at 70 throughout the day. 

Plugging along

I got this top finished that Pat put together while she was here.  The center medallion was from Judy H., and I think it made a wonderful, bright top.

I finally used up the last of this yellow batik, except for a few scraps.  I bought it for a couple of dollars a yard at a store closing in Minnesota. 

It's beginning to look a lot like...Halloween??

They were predicting snow, but I really didn't expect to see this when I looked out my back door up this morning.  I'm hoping the sun will come out and do a lot of melting before I head up to Colorado.  Driving in snowy, slick roads is not my idea of a good time!

It is beautiful to look at, and we certainly need the moisture.  Hope some of it is making it over to Texas, where they need it even more.

Thanks Yetta!

Yetta sent me a bunch of tops besides the guitar quilt to quilt for her grandson.  This is the first one I finished, and there are several more that just need borders to grow them a little.  Thanks Yetta!

 I finished this one to deliver 11 quilts to Dr. Kaufman today.  It was a great day, all our errands fell into place in a timely fashion.  I found convenient parking spaces everywhere I went.  Some days are just like that...the stars align and everything works well.  It didn't end perfectly--we brought home our repaired TV and there was no power cord in the box!  Oh well, all in all everything else went without a hitch. 

...with a little help from my friends

Having quilty friends makes it much easier to get a lot of quilts finished.  Especially when one of those friends comes for a week and is a production quilter.  Thanks Pat for putting together these quilt tops!

Judy A. gave us the center Corvettes and Ellen (if memory serves, which it frequently doesn't anymore) gave us the backing.  Pat had made yards of bias binding from a diagonal print featuring signal lights some time ago.  This was a most appropriate use of it!

It's a great quilt for a boy.  It seems harder to put together "boy" quilts from our stash.


Cathy gave us some blocks, and Pat magically transformed them into this top using a Savers fabric from my stash that picked up the colors for a border.

I also had a perfect backing fabric, a woven plaid also from Savers that was wide enough not to have to be pieced.  Yay!

 Thanks again friends!  A lot of children are going to get some comforting quilts!

Space for a girl

Pat put one more top together from the space blocks she had along with some of my stash fabrics.  We thought this one would be more of a girl's quilt, since it had purple binding and a flowered backing.

 I'm hoping to finish a few more so I can deliver an even dozen to Dr. Kaufman on Wednesday. 

Cranking them out...

Pat picked up the space blocks as part of a kit--for a wall hanging.  She combined them to make three tops.  I had some space fabric as well to add to it.  

 We used a sheet from Savers that must be really high thread count, although we didn't discover a few holes in it until we were rolling it up on the longarm.  

Pat added a little applique of space fabric to cover the holes on the backing, but not without bleeding on it in the process.  In washing it out I noticed that the backing is such a tight weave that it holds water!  

Our stack of quilts is growing, and I'm going to deliver them next Wednesday so I'll be able to finish some more.  

I also quilted Pat's beautiful zen quilt.  It came together wonderfully, and the binding fabric was a batik that was a dream to use besides being beautiful.  It's waiting for something else to run a load in the washer.  The week is going by much too quickly.  Back to the sweatshop...the third space quilt is waiting for binding.

Another finish

Another quilt from Kathy E.'s blocks.  I don't have 30s in my stash except for one small piece of vintage blue with little white characters--a small piece and only 36" wide, so after I put together these blocks I was having a hard time adding anything to it to make it a little bigger and more rectangular.

Pat has a good eye for putting things together.  Works for me, and another top done for one of Dr. Kaufman's patients.  Thanks Kathy E!  I have a quilt to bind...back to the sweatshop.

A friend's quilt

A friend from AZ, Yetta, made this wonderful quilt for her grandson.  When I saw the picture of it on the quilting forum we frequent, I thought it would be a fun quilt to do.  She entrusted me to do the quilting.

 
 

 

  I'll be mailing it out to her today.  I hope she's happy with the results!