And we now return to normally scheduled programming

A wise man I once worked for always use to say "If you have something important to say - please start at the end".  So more about this quilt as you read through today....

Quilting was temporarily put on hold for a couple of weeks for some home updates.  The fruits of my labor:

The Before of these two rooms

The After!!

Actually, the doors and jambs are still in the stain color.  I have to have a special "door painting" day to finish those.  I'm TERRIBLE at remembering to take a good "before" photo.  The room with the cabinets is my laundry room.  The walls were a stark white and I painted them the pale turquoise the week before.  Again...should have remembered to take the before photo....

And I did this...  Transformed these two Goodwill treasures into....

They were $15 each!!!

Lots of spray paint and some cushions from Target and WHAM!!!    Gorgeous sliders for my screened in porch.  

After all that great home updating...I got down to some quilting.  You may remember my Tulip Fields:

One of the many inspiration photos.

Work in progress


And then it became....

But it still wasn't right....

So I made a few more changes....

I like this.... so then it was quilting time....

Quilting didn't go too fast as I got harassed by Ping, a lot...

Who can resist this furry beast!!

Lots and lots of quilting

And then face binding (Thank you Mary Menzer Designs for the excellent  tutorial on Face Binding   Face Binding Tutorial   )

And then finally here it is.  It makes me smile.  I hope to see the fields in person one day.

What have you made lately that makes you smile?

I'll be linking up to some GREAT links parties - check out the bar to the right for the links each day.

Some of the other quilts I've finished....

Thanks for all the great suggestions of flower trails (see my post about tulips ).  A Maidenhair Fern asked me about the quilt in the header of my blog.   I thought I'd share some of the quilts I've made over the last couple of years.  (and check out her blog...she has some beautiful quilts and posts).

I made this one back in 2011

This quilt was my entry (and winner!!) to the 2015 Pantone Color of the Year - Marsala 

So many quilts....

This was made for a dear friend who had a crazy accident...but healed up perfectly (it was probably the gift of the quilt that magically healed her...)

And then babies were born...

This was for my niece who loves giraffes - and her gorgeous new daughter.

This was for a friend who is battling a terrible disease...but she's a warrior!

This was my Riley Blake fabric challenge entry in 2015.

But wait ...there were more...

This was for my daughter - I give her a pillow each year.  Can't you just hear the Christmas carols...

And still more............

This was another challenge.  It has writing on the bright green sashing that is a quote from Salvador Dali'.  "Never fear perfection, you'll never reach it."  What it meant to me was don't sweat the small stuff - enjoy the process and you'll get better at it as you practice.  So I quilt a lot....

This is a really snuggly quilt I made on which I finally attempted matchstick quilting.  I love that type of design for quilting - but it takes f o r e v e r to finish...

 

And I liked the style of applying the fabric to the quilt blocks so much - I made another one.

The blocks are made by appliquéing the tiny fabric bits down WHEN YOU QUILT IT!!!   That's like skipping a whole step!!!

I baste (just barely) the tiny pieces on and then while matchstick quilting - they magically get sewn on permanently.  I love the texture of the quilting and the raw edge of the fabric pieces.

What have you worked on that you haven't shown us?

*******HUGE NERD Alert.....This is a Quilting Public Service Announcement

Why have I not done this before?  I HIGHLY recommend that you take a few moments and go through the exercise of sewing test strips of the thread that you use regularly ( and even some not so regularly).  I realize now how I was cheating my quilting by using thinner weight thread.  I kind of ignored the many times I'd heard how the weights made such a difference.  I LOVE the heavier threads and it wasn't until I did this that I really could see the difference (see also : the stove is hot - don't touch experiment).

My favorite thread of choice is Aurifil.  I was lucky enough to meet Alex Veronelli in person.  He's Mr. Aurifil - and if you've been at any big quilt show - you've probably seen him.  He gave a wonderful presentation about how Aurifil is made.  (I love those shows on TV about how things are made....  so this presentation was RIGHT up my alley)   The quality is evident if you've ever had a chance to sew with it ...and seeing how it's made - I understand why.

Here I am - mugging for the camera and showing off my quilt top to Alex.  

So do yourself a favor.  Make one of these handy little tools and get educate yourself about thread weight.  And change your needles frequently....  but that's another PSA for a later date....

I'm going to start this like you know what I'm talking about...

This is something that drives my dear husband crazy. I finish telling a story I started the day before...another chapter comes to mind and I start rattling it off. After 37 years of marriage - he should be used to this by now. I think I make perfect sense and he should be able to catch the drift quickly and go with it... So that's how I'm starting with you... Don't worry, I have FULL confidence that you'll go with the flow and understand. completely.

I'll be posting to the blog about once a week but you'll find more frequent posting on IG or Flickr.  I love Flickr...and while I love IG, too, Flickr is where I made so many new friends in such far away places.  IG is a little more fast paced and I think the friendship part is just a tad harder to maintain.

My blog roll is the list of quilters that have made an impact on my quilt evolution.  If I'm not obsessively pinning on Pinterest....I'm stalking IG, Flickr, or these blogs.  Check them out - they are spectacular artists.

So I start this little beauty back in June - kind of thinking about how nice it would be to have a patriotic themed quilt for the living room. I used a very cheerful Kona cotton background (Bahama Blue) and a very tangy red (Pomegranate) for the sashing. The colorful bits were tons of scraps I obsessively collect (seriously - I've had to show strenuous restraint from keeping scraps smaller than 1" x 1"...). I chose bright colors, mostly in the blue family.

This is just the cool bucket.  The warm color bucket was on my table...

I cut 16 inch blocks, laid scraps in a pleasing order, then basted them on to the block.  And by basting...I just barely caught the edge of some of these.  I just wanted them on there well enough not be knocked off by my devilish cat or blown off when the ceiling fan was in airplane mode.  Once I was happy with the order, I put together the top.  I could NOT wait to start quilting it.

And then...I saw the ad for the Handi Quilter feet.  Well....let's just scream SOLD on that!  I've been using a Handi Quilter Sweet 16 for a few years and can't say enough good things about it (my other car is a Bernina 440 - which you can't rip from my cold, dead, kung fu grip).  The addition of their new Echo feet and the Glide foot was a huge thrill for me and I couldn't WAIT till they arrived.  In fact, I halted production on this quilt until I had that Glide foot in my hot little hands...  I just knew it would make a difference in the ease of sewing this particular quilt.

Ohhh - I was so right.  Got the foot at the beginning of October and finished this quilt up in about 3 hours.  The Glide foot allowed me to smoothly fly right over all the edges of the scraps with such ease.  I machine bind my quilts for the most part so onto binding I went.

Finished it last week and tossed it into the washer and dryer.  The detail of this quilt is in my blog photo above.  I LOVE the crinkle and am always waiting anxiously for it to come out of the dryer....   And Waaa -la.... here it is.  It's VERY snuggly.