Sunrise Quilt Studio

This week it was Hannah's turn at the quilting machine. She loves to use it but it is hard to bump me off in order for her to get in some quilting time-ha! Hannah is making a quilt for a friend for Christmas. This is an oriental fabric center with 2 borders around it. Hannah started out designing the quilt around the center oriental fabric. She chose 2 contrasting colors for the borders. I helped her cut out the fabric and she stitched the first border on - I finished it up with the outer border. Now the quilt is on the machine and Hannah has quilted the outer border after I basted the quilt for her on the machine. We needed a way to stabilize the quilt in order for her to quilt the borders first without getting a lot of excess fabric in the center of the quilt. My way to do this is to baste it on the quilting machine. If I have a quilt with blocks, I quilt around the blocks in order to stabilize the quilt. When I have a quilt with a large center such as a panel, I baste horizontal

I've been keeping busy this week getting quilts done before deadline. I have 4 ready to deliver this weekend. In all my spare time ;) I've been working on a layout for a Snail Trail quilt. I chose the design and directions from the web. I laid out all the pieces on the floor in our bedroom and took several photos of it to help me remember exactly where each piece goes. Since every block is different, I would never remember how to piece it correctly without some kind of guide. This is a scrap quilt using up some of my stash. It amazes me that every project that I make to "use up my stash" hardly makes a dent in the stash! I am finding however, that I have less "useable pieces" in my stash now. Time to go shopping :D I am down to 2 basic colors of fabric - blues and greens. I really need to purchase more neutrals, yellows, purples, oranges, reds, etc. In my basement studio, there are a couple of pieces of plywood nailed up on the outside wall. I plan to cover

We went to the Runge Nature Center again today and here is what Sarah caught! This frog is on display inside the nature center for the kids to play on. We took a short walk around on the nature trails again today. I think we were a few days too late to get the fall colors at their peak, but here is a photo of one large oak tree that still had some pretty leaves on it. The weather has been very nice here. It's getting down into the 30's at night, but up into the 60's during the day. Perfect weather for nature hikes. We even saw a box turtle in the woods today. Sighting turtles is always a big hit with the girls! Here is another photo of nature we saw today. This little - uh, big guy - is actually living on a plant in our yard at the side of the house. He has been there for several weeks. Sarah checks on him every couple of days to make certain he is still there. In this photo, he seems to be enjoying his dinner!