Quilting Again!!

Life has been really crazy lately. With the holidays and then a family vacation to Florida, and now trying to help Kid 1 get all her college applications filled out…well I haven’t had much time to quilt.

Things are slowing down a bit. ( And daughter has been admitted to 8 of the 9 colleges she applied to. The last one we are still waiting to hear from. ) The weather had been crazy with super cold temps and the most snow ever recorded for a January. This all means that I have had a little more quiet time with needle and thread.

I finally finished my practice 1600″ quilt!! Yay. And we even have more winter to go so I will be able to use it. 😀

Before I get to that though, let me show you my favorite Christmas gift. Remember me telling you about using the TV as my quilt rack in my last quilty post? Well, the best Hubby ever decided to take matters into his own hands. Wanna see my best gift?

Isn’t that just the coolest ever? Did I tell you he had no pattern? No siree bob. He just thought it all up and created it! I LOVE that man!! The bars come off so I can hang bunches of different quilts in all stages of creation. Here is a picture of the side. See the hidden Mickey Mouse?

I love having all my projects close by. Hubby loves having his TV back. Win – win!!!

So the quilt that I just finished is the blue, white and grey one. I forgot to take a picture of it all spread out. Sheesh! Anyhow, this is the quilt I really struggled with while learning to free motion quilting it. Here is a picture of my beginning stitches. See how big the stitches are? And how rough and jerky the pattern is. Ugh.

Like I mentioned before, the thread made a huge difference. I also probably got a little better with practice. Lol. Here is a photo of some stitches near the end. Hopefully you can see they are smaller and smoother.

My husband says I shouldn’t point out the flaws. But I think it is good to see where I have been and how much I improved. 🙂

I was reading a post yesterday from a new quilter who was asking for tips on storage of sewing supplies. I replied back that I use a band aid box from Costco (That translates into a really big band aid box!) to transport my small scissors, thimble, thread and needles whenever I travel. I also posted this picture that shows how I store my embroidery floss and other little things. And a cute jelly jar for buttons.

I have another glass jar that holds loose tea bags in my kitchen. It says “tongue depressors” on it. Makes me smile every morning. 😀

It has been a very snowy 2014. The most snowiest in recorded history actually. As you can tell by how high the snow is on our 3 ft candy canes. (That Hubby made for me out of conduit pipe! Love ’em!) This is just a small portion of our approx 800 ft driveway!

See that tight turn to the right? Well, last night our plow guys got stuck in that area for a couple of hours. They dug and dug to try to get themselves out. Finally they had to call some other guys with another big truck to pull them out. A couple of trees didn’t make it, but we were just glad we didn’t have to host them until the Spring thaw! 😉

And last, but not least…our dogs Honey (the Lab) and Mojo (the Havanese) took a walk to the mailbox with me today. Honey took the easy path that Hubby dug out. Mr. Mojo is looking on wishing he would have taken the easy way too!!

Thanks for popping by!