Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Trip North cont'd

As I type this, I'm listening to shovels at the sidewalk, clearing snow. I guess there were about 2" of snow yesterday but it's cold, well below freezing and will be for several days so, unlike us, they're clearing snow! It sounds like there's ice under that snow. My sister and I are about to go out to a quilt store to pick up a few more pieces of fabric for her second quilt. The car is covered in snow and there's probably a layer of ice under there as well, so we have to clear that before we can leave! If notohing else, the world here is beautiful with the new snow covering the dirty snow that's been here all winter!

This week I sewed 2 quilt tops. They're both just under 80 x 100. My sister will quilt them for me on a friend's long arm machine. She's going to learn how to use it! I'm impressed!! I ended up with 21 of these dresden plates one the 8 repeats of fabric. Since I'd bought enough for 2 sets, I fussy cut 3 more on the side of the remaining fabric so was able to do the 2 quilts.
This is actually my second, fun quilt. I'm not a pink person but thought this hot pink would be a bit different. The center of each circle has a 1 1/2 inch circle and I cut a rose out for each of them. It isn't as bright pink as I'd been afraid it would be. My sister says I'm to put one quilt on the bed and fold the other at the foot of the bed. This one will be the folded one!  

 I'm glad I bought as much fabric as I did because this way I could sash the whole thing with the print as well.
 Here's the first quilt top I did and it's elegant I think. I got 2 different greens to make it work and I think it's a nice calm quilt.
 I hadn't sewn a quilt top in several years so doing something this big was kind of different for me.
 Figuring it all out was something. We got out graph paper and fiddled and fiddled til we got something that would work. Doing 2 of them made it good. Reinforced what I'd done with the first one. I cut out the whole second one before I began to sew it and got it done in a day and a half! I wanted to get off her machine so my sister could get back onto her good machine!

This is my sister's quilt. I spent forever trying to download a picture of her whole quilt and it just wouldn't do so I'm going to try to put it on next week. This is the close up of hers. She was using her very old machine to sew it. It's a bernina but not with the features of her 1130 which I was using since I have one at home and hadn't sewn on her older machine.
She only had 18 circles so 12 went into this quilt and we spent alot more time trying to figure out what to do with the other 6. She likes to make full size quilts and we finally figured out what to do with the other 6 squares that we had to design.
We're about to brave that snow and go back to the quilt shop to pick up just a few more pieces of fabric so that she can finish her other top. I hope to cut it out for her this afternoon.
Tomorrow.....I'm scheduled to fly back down to spring.  It looks like the snow is gone. It was so funny yesterday afternoon. All morning they'd talked about the blizzard that was hitting southern Saskatchewan and how much snow they'd get. We'd woken to about an inch yesterday morning and then nothing til the evening when another inch came. Anyway, yesterday afternoon their weather channel talked about the storm that wasn't, at least in this area. It reminded me so much of east Tennessee where they often predict major storms and we get bypassed!
Carol

5 comments:

Tina J said...

Beautiful Quilts Carol! We can't wait to see you, but I am glad you had a good time.

Bonnie said...

I am glad we are in spring. The quilts are beautiful. I like the green one best. Hope that you don't get any more snow there. Have a safe trip home.

LA said...

It was a lot easier staying inside and sewing since the weather was a little crazy!!!! You two got a lot done, and they are beautiful!

Maggie said...

Those quilts are beautiful, and I know Stack-n-Whacks are fun to do. Safe journeys!

Linda said...

They are so beautiful! See you soon!