Organic Line Quilting

I have been working hard finding time to at least do a few of my organic lines in the background of my goose quilt. This morning I got all the way to the top of the reeds.
It is not hard....just time consuming and you go through a lot of thread. I am happy with the results and think it suits this piece perfectly.

Today is our (Bob and I) 28th wedding anniversary. We were both married before and he had two girls (Robin and Christy) and I had two boys (Jason and Jon). Then we had Molly together.
We are very lucky to have been able to blend our two families perfectly together and
we love them all as our own children. Tonight we are going out for dinner to celebrate.

The Goose Once Again

I finished the work on the second wing....added some water to the background and now will begin quilting. There is one piece missing on the goose body but I had to find the right
fabric before adding it. So that will be added tonight since I found it this morning when I went to buy gray thread at "The Sewing Basket".
When quilting is complete I plan on just binding this piece and keeping the wing going off the body of the quilt. Hopefully I can work that out.

The Culprit and The Goose

Here is a photo of the Culprit, aka Bella! She is just keeping me busy and has bonded to me like glue. This is much to the dismay of my two dogs who have to adjust to her demands for my attention.
Only two more days and she will be going home. I think I will miss her!

Progress continues on The Goose. I have to work with Bella leaning on my leg or lying on my feet . So moving back and forth between my cutting table and my design wall is difficult but doable. I am fusing to black stabilizer so that I can quilt the entire background first and then the goose will go ontop.

The Goose - Progress

Work is progressing on my quilting and in between I am working on The Goose.
I have added reeds in the bottom swamp land.
Then some clouds to the top sky.

Here is the beginning of one wing.

Some added highlights.

I am addicted to working on this piece. This weekend being father's day I will not have time to make much progress. The boys, Jason, Jon and Max are coming home to spend the day with their Dad and Grandpa. We plan on going to the Sheboygan County Airport for the "Wings and Wheels" Father's Day Plane and Car Show. They have other things there and "all you can eat pancakes!"
Then My daughter is leaving on her weeks vacation and is dropping off her French Bulldog, Bella, tonight, for us to babysit.

It is going to be an interesting week around our house.
I wonder how patient Bella will be while I am up in my studio????

The Goose

Now that I have my two entries in the mail and that is off my mind, I am back to quilting my "Mulberry Bush" . This may be the quilt that takes forever to finish as I keep getting distracted by other ideas. For instance the above "goose". I am still unhappy with the background so when I need a moment to stretch from being at the machine, I have been working on this.

Last night my husband and I went to the Tuesday night car show here in town. It is held at the local McD's every Tuesday during the summer. It was looking cloudy and the temperature went from the warm 70's down to the low 60's just when I was leaving work. We have a 1955 t-bird convertible we take and the top was down! Needless to say we did not stay longer then 2 hours and called it a night.

Finished!

I added the binding and finished "The Intruder" yesterday. So plenty of time to send in the application for the Quilt Expo Show.

Last night I was graciously invited by Pat Bishop (http://patbishop.blogspot.com/2009/06/she-1-in-series.html) to attend a lecture at the Appleton "Darting Needles" guild.
The guest speaker was Trish Williams from Chicago Illinois (http://trishwilliamshandworks.blogspot.com/).

The lecture was wonderful and Trish was a great speaker full of life and funny as well as
so creative. Totally self taught she just goes for it in her quilts and they are fabulous. It was an evening well spent.

Going to this lecture also gave me the opportunity to meet Pat Bishop, a fantastic quilter as well.
I have met her as a blogger but now have met her in person. It was a pleasure and
so nice that she is taking the time to inform me of opportunities offered by her guild that I might enjoy. Thank you Pat.

Almost there!

Quilted for two hours last night and two more hours this morning before going to work.

Began adding the couched yarn before I ran out of time. Once I finish that embellishment I plan on adding french knots to the "intruder" dandelion and quilt one petal that for some reason I missed. Then it is on to binding, sleeve and label and I am finished.
I believe I am going to enter this in the art quilt "other" category and enter either "Turtle Soup" or "Who's There" in the pictorial category. Have to fill out the entry form and get it and pics in the mail by next Saturday.

Back to Work

I am back in my studio quilting my poppy quilt. A while back someone commented on
this piece and called the dandelion coming between the fence "the intruder". I liked the comment so much I am renaming this quilt "The Intruder".

Some of the quilting at the bottom of the quilt.
I used a variegated thread in the flowers, but in the variegation was one color I had not expected to show up as much as it did. This is the hazzard of using variegated threads. So I am going to finish all the quilting and then relook at that quilting and may end up ripping part of it out. We will see.

The Birthday Bash

My Mother (on the right) with my sisters, Vicki in green (who flew in from Washington State to surprise mom), Susie in pink and Diane in blue, on party day at Mom's.

My Mom and my brother Dave flying a birthday gift. My Mom has always loved Kites!

My Grandson, Max, Playing the Piano with my Mom in her living room.

The guys plus Molly, my daughter, huddling around a camp fire trying to stay warm.

Three of my nieces, Katie, Emma and Liz.

Mom seeing her Birthday Cake for the first time! She loved it and it tasted delicious!

Mom has always put the bows of the gifts she gets in her hair since I was little. She has not changed!

On Tuesday (her actual birthday) we girls took her out for the day. We started at the Kohler Art Center. Outside was this bronze birdbath that was just fantastic.

Inside the bowl were carrots and other vegetation!
We were not allowed to take photos in the gallery, however the mens and womens bathroooms were voted the top bathrooms in the country in 2004. Here is the Womens.

Each stall had ladies undies from all eras.

My sister Vicki standing against the tiled wall.

The mens Egypto bathroom! (Don't worry, a man stood guard while we checked it out.)

The Urinal. I do believe this is my first ever photograph of a urinal???!!!!

After the gallery we went to lunch at "Black Wolf Run" in Kohler Wisconsin. My brother, Dave is a chef there and he came out to make sure we were happy with our lunch. Then he sent out a special birthday dessert for Mom.

Having dessert.

Left the restaurant and toured a beautiful Austrian house built by the Kohler Family. Then we went to a beautiful nursery to buy Mom a birdbath. Hers had cracked.
After that it was out to Whistling Straits, the newest golf course in the area, to have a drink in the club house overlooking the course. It is right on Lake Michigan so you have a spectacular view of the course and lake.

Vicki and my sister Lori at Whistling Straits. It was a great celebration and I do believe my Mother was happy with it.

Mom's 85th Birthday Cake!

My daughter, Molly, picked up the cake for me this morning. Here it is. Do you think
it looks festive enough????!!!!!
What fun!
Just found out our cake lady, Tamara, has a blog -
http://thecakeguru.blogspot.com/

Bathing Beauties From the Past

Some of you will remember the more modest days at the beach from the past. This vintage postcard is a wee bit before me, but I do remember rarely seeing two piece suits much less bikinis. ( Until the song "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" came out!) In some ways I think it was a good thing even for the men. Left more to the imagination.

Enjoy the weekend!

Heading in Too Many Directions?

Do you ever feel like you are heading in too many dire

Publish Post

ctions at one time and you just need someone to tell you to go that-a-way?
(This guy sits on my window sill heading down to our lower level family room. He is an old old door closer used in a general store enticing people to come in. You gotta love him!)

While doing all this quilting I am auditioning fabrics for my next project. Here are some I am considering.

Quilting the Poppy Quilt now since I hope to finish it on time to enter into the Madison Wisconsin Quilt Expo. Deadline for entry to be postmarked with photos included, June 20th!

Publish Post

A bud......

This weekend is my mother's 85th Birthday Party. My entire family is coming which means about 50 people. My parents had 9 children. There are 30 some grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren so far. So it will be a big crowd. I have ordered a fabulous cake and we are keeping our fingers crossed for great weather. It still is chilly here but now today it is a bit warmer. Hope it is like this on Sunday. Everyone is bringing a dish and we want it to be outside at my Mom's. We will see how that goes.

Posted a new picture of me without my reading glasses on. Thought I should do that once a year since my hair is a bit longer and my mother did not like the one I had on here. You have to listen to your mother even when you are 61!

No Music Here

Recently I added music to my blog. I thought it would make the site more interesting and also
while I am working on it I could enjoy it. Then I read someone's blog who mentioned that she is on dial up still and gets irritated at blogs that have music as it makes the site take so much longer to load. She got over 40 replies from people irritated at music on blogs.

Well....music being on my blog does not mean that much to me so.....it is gone. Hopefully all people will be able to access my blog faster and enjoy it while here.

The Real Deal and The Pretenders