Well, I have been gone awhile from a regular blog post – but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working.  I’m still trying to adjust to having two school age kids with homework and bedtime/morning routines that are honestly kicking my a@@.  We’re taking it one day at a time, but at this rate – I will be a white haired mental patient by the time they reach high school.  Why does everything have to be a struggle?  Get dressed… struggle.  Eat something … ANYTHING … struggle.  Brush your teeth – forget about it.

Well, I have managed to steal away some precious moments to complete THREE of my quilts and give them away.

#1 – Swoon quilt completed and given to my friend at work.  She loved it!  I am waiting for a picture of her and the new husband with the quilt, but hopefully G rated!

#2 – I free motion quilted my Boho AYOS quilt made with the Lincoln pattern.  It was actually really fun to do the quilting myself.  I just had to temporarily relocate the machine to the cleared dining table so I would have plenty of room to move it around.  I look forward to the next one I can try myself.  I did find that my shoulders kept creeping up to my ears as I stitched away.  Why is that?

Don’t you love my label?  I cut into some of my adorable Briar Rose fat quarter for this snipit:

I mostly just did a made up version of a swirly wave shape or something around the border … and in a couple of spots, I made up a dahlia shaped flower.  Other than the border, I just did a stitch in the ditch concentric squares starting with the very center 2″ square and working out from there.

I had browsed ideas in my copy of the book Free-Motion Quilting by Angela Walters … but whatever I could manage to do consistently was what I ended up doing.

I was running out of time for this quilt, because we were taking it to a reception for the baby on that Saturday.  Therefore I did a machine binding on the front and the back.  You can see the machine stitching on the front in the picture below.  Should hold up well though and it turned out so great after it was washed.

And finally – #3 Quilt – Rally for UCLA

I gave this to my boss today for him to pass along to his son who starts at UCLA this week.  I got Abby from Latimer Lane quilts to do the longarm quilting on it and she turned it around so fast for me!

I got her to do a spiral square shape pantograph, which complemented the straight lines and squares on the quilt front.  Here’s a reminder of what the front of the quilt looked like (before quilting) and a picture of the back which shows the quilt motif.

The recipient is pursuing an acting career, so I added the drama masks to the quilt label to emphasize his ambitions.  Just used those Micron pens and some word art that I found online to create the label text and pictures in WORD and then printed it off and traced it with a small light box onto the fabric.

So … that should be enough … but I have also completed Block 3 of the FQS Mystery Designer BOM.  I’m starting Block 4 tonight (perhaps).  So, later this week, a show and tell on those blocks!

Enjoy and thanks for waiting around for me!

Jennifer