a finished quilt and an autumn adventure

The quilt just needs a label and a temporary sleeve.  That’s it.  Then I can concentrate on a few other things leading up to the quilt show.

Howdy made this quilt as part of a 10 & 10 challenge with a small group of friends.  We each sent 10 fat quarters to DM, then we received someone elses fat quarters in the mail.  We added 10 fat quarters of our own (each one different) and had to make a 60 x 60″ quilt.  Howdy made this one for me.  I love that the visual center is not the center of the quilt.  This justs adds to the beauty.  I made the visual center the place where the quilting would start from.

This puppy is feathered all over the place.  Free motion feathers, here there and everywhere in different shapes and sizes. (I just realized I didn’t turn this image correctly so if you tilt your head to the left, you’ll get the full view.  I’ll fix that soon!)

It’s really heavily quilted, warm & white batting and the back looks like it’s ready for a picnic.  I want to borrow my husbands tripod and stand and get a good full on view of both sides of the quilt.  That’ll be in a few days.

I think this is my favorite feather, it curves and curves starting from the center and working out here and there to the edge of the quilt.  I made a left hand turn as I was making the spine for the feather and decided to make the feathers rather tight as I quilted.  This was fun.

Because Howdy chose to make the border curvy I took advantage of the curve to make feathers in the outer border of the quilt.  (Thanks Howdy!)  It’s really great because I had to keep thinking throughout the whole border.

Some of the feathers were small and branched off from other feathers depending on the space that needed to be quilted.  I was able to pack a lot of feathers into the overall space of this quilt.

The beauty of making so many feathers is that I had a chance to practice, practice, practice freemotion feathers over on a large scale quilt.  This is certainly a technique I’d use again.  Some feathers are long and thin, some aren’t.  Just depends on the available space.

Last year dh and I bought quite a few mums.  Over the summer I trimmed and clipped them until mid-August when the time came to let them get ready to bloom in autumn.  All in all it’s worth the effort, particularly for someone who finds gardening quite the chore.  This is one flower.  We couldn’t quite believe how this flower bloomed but orange and yellow it is!  I got as close as I could to show off this beauty!

The sweet william is blooming as well, this blooms on and off quite frequently.  I’m just amazed with the intensity of the color (used the macro setting on the camera for this shot).

The rose bush is blooming as well.

I’m counting down the days to the Village Squares Quilters Quilt Celebration X. It’s getting exciting in so many ways as the details are coming together for the show.  In a way there’s a little bit of a lull on my end of things, however I know our program guy is working day & night, night & day getting everything together for a great program.

Happy Quilting!

Teri