Quilts

I'm pretty sure I haven't already written about this, but forgive me if I am repeating myself! :) I've been working on hand-quilting a wall quilt for my new apartment... I actually bought the pieced top at an Amish auction last spring, and then have been sporadically quilting it this winter. It is getting closer to being finished!!

It's a Lone Star pattern in shades of purple, lavender, white, and black. (Of course those colors appealed to me!) I am almost done quilting the star part, which is awesome! Yesterday I ordered the stencil to do the blocks in the corner. It's going to be a Mariner's Compass in the blank blocks, which might not be the most traditional pattern for a Lone Star quilt, but hey, it's MY quilt and I can do what I want!! :)

This one I'm currently working on is a wall quilt, but at the same Amish auction I also bought another pieced top. It, too, is a Lone Star, only it is king size and in black and white. My mom's quilt group basted it for me, and then she brought it to Nashville in November so I could bring it back to Seattle. It is huge and weighs a ton (at least as far as these things go)!! It is a daunting task to even look at it and consider how long I will be hand-quilting it. But it is a beautiful quilt, and I got it for a great deal... I think that someday it will look amazing on my bed, but I just have a lot of work to do before it will be ready! I ordered the stencil for that one, too (to save on shipping), so I am getting excited for that project as well. The wall quilt is definitely a "trial-run" before I start on the big quilt, because I wanted to make sure my hand-quilting skills got tweaked before I invested so much time in one that will be on the bed!

At the moment I am sewing machine-less, but I did get a Bernina gift certificate for Christmas, and combined with part of my tax refund, I am planning on getting one of their Activa machines. I might even go this weekend and get it! We'll see. :) I will need it to put the binding on the wall quilt, so I am almost to the point where it is necessary.

Smokey, like most cats, seems to LOVE quilts. Yesterday I spread out the big one on the floor to measure something, and immediately she appeared out of nowhere to plop down right in the middle and go to sleep! Crazy cat. And every time I am hand-quilting, she is of course on my lap and trying to eat the thread. Then sleeps on the quilt when I am not working on it! Here she is, enjoying herself:




Well, time to go do some other fun things on my day off. Like go running. Yuck. Do I have to go if it is 38 degrees outside and kind of rainy?