Wow...I am on a roll

I am just moving right along here. I set a goal at the beginning of the year and I have almost reached that goal.  Of course having a quilt show scheduled in less than a month certainly helps with finishing these tops.  I am going on vacation in a week, so that kind of pushes me along as well.

I finished two more quilts this past week. One of them was my "under the sea" quilt. These blocks were made from members of a program called Friendship blocks within my guild. There were 14 members and we each chose something that we wanted to have blocks made of. These 14 members would work on each other's blocks. I chose to have the members make me a block from something under the sea. I asked each member to use embellishments, whether it be beads, yarns, buttons, anything they felt would work for an under the sea theme.  I also requested they use batik fabrics.  This quilt will go into my bathroom where I have a fake aquarium above my shower.

 

After finishing my fish quilt I decided to quilt my quilt that is called Shadow Play.  I made this quilt back in 2008.  Wow, how time flies between making quilts.  I put this to the side not knowing how I was going to quilt it.  I put it on my frame know that I wanted to quilt it with a feather meandering design.  I got this quilt quilted in almost a day.  I loaded this quilt the long way on the frame and because the panto design was so big I only had to advance this quilt 4 full times and a fifth with about 6 inches to do.  I like it and I think it came out pretty good.

I guess I have to load my mystery quilt from 2009-2010 guild year.  I had this quilt loaded once but had to take it off and remove the quilting because the tension was horrible.  Hopefully I can get this quilted nicely and looking good for the show.  

Finished...the mystery

I finished the mystery quilt.  I ended up taking out all the stitches from that quilt, I skinned it, as they call it.  I couldn't just let it go.  The stitches looked terrible.  I posted a picture of the backing in the previous post. Once I got the stitches removed, I changed my bobbin thread, tested it on the side of the quilt and VOILA, the stitches look great, the backing looks so much better.  I am back in business.  I used the new thread from Superior Thread, called Omni, and I was impressed by it.  I used it on the top and bottom.  I used the Warm and White batting.

I decided to do a pantograph on this quilt.  I wanted to do more of a custom job, but time is really short.  I have to get 2 more quilts quilted before vacation.  So I went the easy way with this quilt.  I decided to give this quilt to my friend Kathy for her birthday.  She does have a quilt from me, but that quilt is a memory quilt and she really can't use it like a quilt should be used.  From the beginning, Kathy has liked the fabric that I used, so I decided this was her quilt.  Today is Kathy's birthday.  I gave it to her, but took it back as I have to still need to put the binding on and I am putting it in my guild quilt show in June.  What an indian giver, I giveth and I taketh away.  Geez, what kind of friend am I?

Mother's Day was a good day until around 5:00, when I discovered that my washer broke on me.  I am glad that it broke at the end of the wash cycle.  I ended up getting a new front loading washer.  I hope I like it.  I read several reviews and hopefully they aren't true.  I don't like the reviews I read.  Errr!!  I guess I can't believe everything I read.

Back to quilting, that is much more fun.  I have 2 quilt tops to finish before going on vacation:  my fish quilt and last year's mystery quilt.  I am going to put last years mystery next on the frame.  Hopefully I will have a better beginning with that one than I did with the one I just finished. 

Oh, last Thursday I was on the phone with the insurance company discussing my minor fender bender, I got rear-ended again.  Anyways, we had a some sun, we had some rain, then we had some sun again and then we had this.  This was a great way to end a bad day.

I am not sure if you can see the double rainbow, but the second one is to the right of the one you can see.  This rainbow was practically in my back yard.  Wish the pot of gold was there too.   :)

12 Days of Christmas......

Well, this is the quilt that got peed on and is now finished and smelling good.  There is no foul smell, no dirty stains and it is looking good. 

I used Superior MonoPoly thread on the top and So Fine on the bottom.  I outlined the machine appliques with the invisible thread and quilted two straight lines all the way around in the last border.  Simple, but effective. 

I am elated that this quilt came out ok. 

Now I am working on my mystery quilt and I am a tad bit frustrated.  I have Warm and White as batting.  This is the first time I am getting pokies.  Well at least I think they are pokies.  I can't tell if the tension is bad, if it is pokies or if the backing is just bad fabric.  I've changed my needle 3 times.  I've changed the top thread.  I am using Masterpiece on the top and So Fine on the bottom.   I've never had this problem and I'm not sure how to fix it. 

Any ideas?