The Real Reveal

 

 

Hello Everyone,

 

The day for the whole reveal has arrived for Harvest of Hope.  The pumpkins in the four corners are finished along with the rest of the quilt.

 



The barn.....oh the barn.  I'd love to have this barn on my property.  I can just picture the rain and snow on this roof.  Each pattern will include the pumpkin canning label.

The whole quilt in it's entirety.

I had to have this one finished by next Thursday and I did it.  You'll have to wait for the pattern a bit longer.  I just ordered the pumpkin labels for the barn, and they will arrive by the end of the month.

We have a cabin full of pre-teen granddaughters spending some of their last free time with us before school starts.  We've been busy swimming, playing Monopoly, card games, ping pong, watching outdoor movies at Snow Flake Lodge, eating and having a good time they will remember and tell their kids about when they are my age.  They were still playing cards and listening to music when we hit the sack at 11:30pm. I think I need a nap!

Soon,
Lynn

Quilting Marathon

Hello Everyone,

 

Just a few more pictures to show this morning.  The sun comes in at a good angle in the late afternoon by my quilting machine, so that's the best time to get pictures.  

 

I'm pleased with the cornucopia.  This is the only block where I stuck with my original machine quilting thoughts.  I use wool batting to get the extra "poofiness" that I like for my applique and pieced quilts.

I'm down to the bottom border and the corner pumpkins.  I'll turn the quilt and do the feathered border this morning.  I'll work on the binding during the 49er's preseason football game tonight.  The start of football season and the start of school means only one thing......Fall is just around the corner and I'm ready!

Soon,
Lynn

Machine Quilting Harvest of Hope

Hello Everyone,

Start up your machine quilting engines and let the quilting begin!  While I'm making a quilt, I'm always planning and thinking about how I'm going to quilt it.  This looks absolutely nothing liked I'd planned.

I get started on the machine quilting and a little gremlin in my brain takes over and says, "Try this." So I did.  The tight stipple, and straight line quilting created an additional little open area between the corner-square triangles. 

I echo quilt around everything.....which takes forever.  My echo quilting is about as rapid as a snail. When I change thread colors, I'll go back and quilt some veins in the leaves all at the same time.....if I don't forget!  I've done that before.  I've taken the quilt off the machine and realized I'd forgotten to quilt something.  That's when I start to growl and blue words drift out of my machine quilting room! 

I wasn't going to quilt feathers, but the area wanted them, and they show up so nicely on the polka dot maroon border.

I use this little tool to create the perfect semi-circles around the triangles.

Here's the method that I use to make the lines for cross-hatching.  No, that is not a roll of toilet paper, it's a roll of adding machine tape.  I started by cutting off a section of adding machine tape the exact length of the area that I want to cross-hatch.  I do this before I load the quilt on the machine.

I fold the tape over and over until it looks like an accordion.  First fold it in half, then in half again and so on and so on. This evenly distributes the length into even sections.

I mark a little line on each of the folds, and then transfer that mark to the fabric.  See my tiny little black marks?

I marked both the top and bottom of the 2" strip, then I used a ruler and stitched from mark to mark and back again to create the cross-hatch.  It gives me the look of an old, padded, satin jewelry box. 

I still have to quilt the pumpkins in the top corners.  I'm directionally challenged when it comes to quilting loop-de-loops upside down, so I'll be turning the quilt to work on the top pumpkins.  I can quilt the bottom pumpkins when I get to them without any problems.....but those top pumpkins are going to have to turn, and I'll quilt them when I quilt the feathers in the side borders.

I'll keep working on this today.  I'd like to get it finished and off the machine so I can start the binding and put this one in the finished column by the end of the week. Now about those directions I was going to write by the light of the moon......it's not happening folks. 

 

Soon,

Lynn