Fun with Jana

I  had the best weekend with my granddaughter Jana. She spent the night Friday and early Saturday morning we made our way to Loveland Quilt Studio where she had her first experience quilting on a long-arm machine. I had my camera ready to document the occasion, but we got so involved in the process that I completely forgot to take a picture. What a dummy I am!

She was back a few days later to do the binding, so her quilt is complete. Once again she was on her way home before I realized I had not taken a picture of her and her quilt. Bad grandma! Here is a picture before the quilting and binding. I'll see if her dad will send me a picture of her with the quilt to share. I am so proud of her because this is the first quilt she did from beginning to end. She designed her layout, cut out the quilt pieces, pieced it, quilted it and did the binding.  She is something else. She used a butterfly pantos and it really worked well as the fabrics have lots of flowers, it's as if the butterflies are fluttering over the garden. She named it Fluttering Flowers.

Jana peeking over top of her quilt.

I was able to quilt my Hearth Quilt.  I used a polyester batting. This quilt will gets lots of use (and washing). Since it is a big quilt (88x88) I was hoping it would be lighter with the polyester. I'm not sure that part of the plan worked as it still is rather heavy. I was able to use a larger design for the quilting. It's quite functional, which is  most important to me. I love this quilt, but it has problems. First my backing shrunk (more than expected). I had to add a three inch strip to fit the top. That frustrated me to no end.  Secondly, my hands have been bothering me and I decided to put the binding on by machine. I am not happy with the results, but I am at the point where I just can't  do it. Actually I can, but I can only hand sew for so long and I pay the price with pain and numbness. For now my plan is hand sew the binding on smaller project and special projects, but machine sew utility quilts.


Overall I am feeling good and staying busy. I have two charity quilt tops done. Since these are smaller I am thinking about doing them on my home machine.  Luckily I recently meet a lady at the Clermont Senior Center who will quilt charity quilts for a very reasonable amount. I may have her do them, so I can concentrate on piecing, which is what I like to do best.

On the hot days I'm in my basement sewing. Early mornings I'm in the garden. My garden is mostly shade, but I do have a sunny clearing where I grow herbs and some annuals.

Basil, Parsley, Thyme, Sage and Annuals

Garden bed near patio where I drink Iced Tea.