Summer in the hallway

No quilting today. We got sent home from work at noon because of the snowstorm so I wallpapered the hallway. Strawberries and vines=Summer in the Hallway!


My brother has been doing some work for us. He sheetrocked two walls and put in a new threshold for the front door. Last weekend I painted the ceiling and painted all the trim and doors. I went to Tate's in Bath on Saturday morning (with a stop at Halcyon for sock yarn and Mariner's Compass for three spools of thread) and bought wallpaper. They have $8 rolls of paper, just my budget!


I started tearing apart the hall many years ago and I have the pictures to prove it. My son was only a toddler and he helped. Now he is off at college and I finished it up today! Well, let's ignore the floor for now. Hubby made supper including a pudding pie. Now I am going to collapse!

the dog ate my homework

Okay, so it is the cats, not the dog. I don't even have a dog! I put this quilt sample on the table and by the time I looked through the viewfinder it was covered with cats!


I have been busy planning a wall hanging that I am very enthused about. I was inspired by a line of poetry and designed something simple with a pine tree at the center. The machine quilting will be a strong element in the design.

Here is a mock up of the design so that I could practise machine quilting. The blue rectangle and blue shapes represent the tree. I really wanted to be sure I could machine quilt around the "tree" in a flame pattern before committing to the real quilt.

I have been looking at Leah Day's 365 Days of Free Motion Quilting Designs. If you haven't seen it take a look! She has short You Tube videos every day showing her design of the day. She inspired me for this quilt.

The middle photo (orange thread) is the back side of another practice piece for this wall hanging. On the "front" I fused several layers of fabric so that I could tell what the stitching would be like on my final piece. I started with a wavy line of leaves then just tried all sorts of stitching. Can you tell I was having fun? I really like some open space in machine quilting like this piece has. However, my tree quilt will not have any open spaces, just different types of quilting. I hope you can click on the images and really see my quilting.

I used Misty Fuse for this project. I used it once before at a workshop and was less than thrilled with the result. I have heard so much praise for this product that I decided to try again. Now I am a big fan, too! I thought you needed a teflon sheet to put between the iron and the fusible, but I found using parchment paper works just fine.

Got to make a trip to the store to buy thread, then I will get to work on the real quilt. Stay tuned.

Happy Thanksgiving! Here is a picture from the quilt retreat I went to recently. I sure am thankful for all the good friends I have met through quilting.

While you are counting your blessings today, take a look at the Kiva link in the sidebar. Make someone happy today!

Love and Blessings to all!

November

November comes
And November goes,
With the last red berries
And the first white snows.

With night coming early,
And dawn coming late,
And ice in the bucket
And frost by the gate.

The fires burn
And the kettles sing,
And earth sinks to rest
Until next spring."
- Elizabeth Coatsworth