Trying Out the New Blogger with a New Finish

June has been a month of contrasts this year, bright starry nights with hundreds of fireflies flickering in rhythmic harmony over the hayfield, nearly 90 degree days followed by a killing frost last weekend, followed almost immediately by more sunny 80+ degree temps.  Apropos for the year I suppose.

And this morning dawned bright and clear, the neighboring subsistence farmer who cuts, bales and takes our hay for his small farm finished baling a couple days ago.  The bales were still in the field this morning, and how could I not take advantage of that for a photoshoot of the newest finish!  Last stitch put in the binding at 10:30 last night.

Accompanied by my trusty friend of course!

And now I can't figure out how to left align the text after inserting photos.  Oh well, onward!

This is Joseph's Coat II, the third of the tops pieced during Lori's Humble Quilts 2019 Stringalong Challenge.  Hand quilted with my version of big stitch quilting with Aurifil 12 wt. thread in a variety of bright colors.  Such fun, and to think there's another one, Joseph's Coat I, still awaiting a similar "organic line, nothing marked" quilting.   

Gibbs and I walked around after these were taken, looking for other things to photograph. There was the quilt, in various poses, of course.

Interesting to see how the camera interprets the colors in sun vs. shady areas of the yard.

OK, now suddenly I'm left-aligned for text again.  Wondering how that happened.  There's not much blooming at the moment.  The poppies are just about gone, and the peonies will be in just a few days.

The area in the photo above will be filled with black-eyed Susans and hopefully zinnias before too long.

Peonies are just about my favorite flower after daffodils, and this one outdid itself this year.  

After our walkabout, the quilt went inside for its beauty bath, and emerged all soft and crinkly after a short session in the dryer.   The top before quilting measured 55x72, the finished quilt is 51x68-1/2 inches.  I'm hoping to finish the other similar quilt later this summer.  I think the grandkids will love snuggling under these bright cheerful quilts when they visit next.

As for the new blogger, I much prefer the old version, so much easier to navigate, but I'm very grateful to my blogging friends who have posted tips on how to navigate this new quagmire.  Some have found uploading photos to be cumbersome and excruciatingly slow.  Out here in the country we only have access to HughesNet, the speed of which is sporadic at best, so that part hasn't been much different than in the past.  

We're supposed to enter Phase III next week, depending on the whim of our state dictator.  Wondering if life will ever reach some semblance of the real normal again, or if this is the never-ending year of the oxymoron.  Nuf said about that!

Quilt on dear friends!  Faith over fear!

One Monthly Goal - January Link-up

Here we are at day three of the new decade and my quilting plans for the next week are already derailed, but in a good way.  A quick comfort quilt is in the works for a  friend who is making a good recovery from recent surgery.  I'll post more about that when there is something substantial to show.

Meanwhile, I'm planning to participate in  Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal again this year.  It's such a great motivator and Patty does a fabulous job coordinating everything each month.  Kudos to her!!

For January, I'm hoping to complete the hand quilting of the remaining blocks of my Westering Women quilt, and to at least begin quilting the edges of the borders.  I think there's a good chance of achieving this as it is big stitch quilting.  I'm really looking forward to completing this quilt soon as it's the first time I've used wool batting and it would be nice to give it a good test run before spring!

A couple photos of yesterday's progress.  This first one is under the daylight lamp I use while hand quilting in the evening.

The colors are a little more true, only slightly darker than actual, in the ambient room lighting of this second photo.

You can check out everyone's January goals here.   Thanks for coordinating the One Monthly Goal again this year Patty!

January Finish

A first finish for the new year,  completed on the young recipient's birthday, though we won't be seeing them for another couple weeks.  Made up of giant hexies - a first (and last) for this quilter as hexies have always been my least favorite quilt pattern.  This pattern looked doable and fairly quick, as it was made up of 2 1/2 inch strips and I had a jelly roll with some coordinating fabrics languishing in the stash.

In retrospect, the jelly roll was made up of many colors and mostly tiny prints that read almost as a solid from a distance while the pattern quilt used only two colorways and large prints which would probably have been a better choice.  Still, this quilt is bright and cheerful, as well as soft and cuddly, and I hope will make the young recipient happy.  The pattern is from Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting, March-April 2015.

I used my largest Baptist fan stencil to mark the big-stitch quilting design, and used DMC #8 Pearl Cotton for most of the quilting.   This was a first attempt at big stitch quilting, so a lot of discoveries there - like stabbing my fingers a LOT more than has ever happened with traditional quilting!  The work does go faster though, which in this case worked out well since I wanted to have it completed in time to give it to her as part of her birthday gift.  And it just wasn't a quilt I would have wanted to spend months-on-end doing traditional hand quilting, nor did I want to machine quilt it.  The big-stitch quilting left the quilt soft and cuddly, and sweetly old-fashioned looking.   After washing the quilt finished at 58x68 inches.

A couple weeks ago I was the lucky winner of a giveaway on Country Lady Quilts blog, and received this sweet packet of fabrics from Terry.  Thanks so much Terry, I'm thinking these will soon find their way into a baby quilt on the soon-to-be-started list.

Our short January thaw is apparently over as it's snowing again this morning, however we have much to be thankful for as last weekend's nor'easter missed us entirely!   But much as I don't care for the cold and snow anymore, these days do afford more time in the sewing room and that, my friends, makes me VERY thankful!