June UFO Progress

There hasn't been too much time this month for a quilting project -- and it looks like July will be just as busy.

But - I have managed to find a few hours here and there to make some progress on my "Ice Cream Quilt"

It's all basted -- with a wonderful soft wool batting that's a dream to quilt.  I wanted to play around with the quilting on this one.  I thought I'd do some machine quilting and some hand quilting, using different colors and different threads, some perl cotton and some embroidery floss. 

The hand work has turned out to be much more fun than the machine quilting, so I don't think I'll be adding too many more machine quilted lines.  The closer I get to the outer edges, the bigger the chance is that I may change my mind on that.  We'll see. 

I didn't set a goal to finish this one in June -- only to get it basted and start the quilting.  I feel like I've met that goal and anything else that gets done on it in June is a bonus. 

The big news is that I've gone 37 days without buying any fabric.  Amazing!  I have had to empty a few online shopping carts during that time.

Flag Day at the Cemetery

Barb and I went for a walk in the cemetery tonight -- so peaceful, and just enough breeze to chase away the bugs. Barb got some better shots of the many flags in the cemetery but this one at the memorial for veterans caught my eye.

I had left my camera downstate last weekend, so I asked Barb to bring hers. I wanted to get some pictures of the quilt I completed for May. I tried hanging it on the clothes line, but it was dragging the ground, so I brought it along on our trip to the cemetery and shot some pics there.

WARNING: If you find pictures of quilts on gravestones to be disrespectful, scroll no further.




I love the statues in the cemetery. I'm always a bit tempted to take a wire brush with me to clean up some of them -- but then I think the aging process adds some interest and maybe I really better just leave them alone.



But the ones that have been cared for do look nice.



And don't they look like they really enjoyed the chance to see my latest quilt? I think they may want me to come back.



Click on the picture a couple of times to get a much better look!

May UFO Challenge

I pushed pretty hard, but didn't manage to finish my May UFO Challenge in time. Give me another week and I should have it done.

The pattern I used for this quilt is called Yellow Brick Road -- not really appropriate for a pink and green quilt. I'm not one to name my quilts, but if I did, maybe Peppermint Pathway would be better.

I might have reached my goal if I had placed the crosshatching a little further apart, but this was something I've been wanting to try and this quilt needed a little extra effort to make me love it -- it's working!

Just a dozen more rows of quilting and it'll be ready for binding. I hope to finish the job before I head downstate next Thursday.

In other news -- I bought myself an early retirement gift. Still five months to go, but I didn't want to car shop in November, and this one looked like a pretty good deal.

The quilt that I'll be working on in June is this Ice Cream Quilt. My goal is simple for this one -- get it basted and begin the quilting process. I want to combine some hand quilting with machine quilting on this one so I'm not even hoping to have it complete by the end of the month. June looks to be a busy month and I want to sit back and enjoy with no pressure.

I do have a backing all ready for this one, but I'll have to order a batting and plan to get it basted after I return from downstate.

Check with Judy over at Patchwork Times for links to other May finishes.