Under the Needle: April

 Last month ended on a sad note. My friend, Jackie passed away. She was 85 and has been my longarm quilter since I began quilting, 18 years ago. The first 2 years I only made a few and I hand quilted or quilted a simple cross-hatch on those. This is the first quilt she quilted for me in 2010.

It is well loved these days, but still a favorite. I probably wouldn't even still be a quilter if it wasn't for her.

Jackie was always so encouraging and kind to me when I began making quilts. She was a retired teacher, working in the fabric department at Walmart when I met her. I was always delighted when I was there and found her working. We struck up a friendship and soon after, I asked her if she knew anyone who quilted for the public. She said that she was considering it, but wasn't sure if she would be able to stay busy enough. I vividly recall that conversation and telling her, "Oh, I will keep you busy!" LOL. At the time, I only knew one friend who was a quilter, but word spread and she was always swamped. 

To this day I have finished 183 quilts. I quilted 14 of those, and she did the rest. At 85, she still pieced every day but had stopped long arming last year.

Her daughter, who teaches school, now does the quilting. When I stopped by after Jackie's passing, she told me that she was moving to Texas to be closer to her daughter and SIL and 5 grandchildren. I am tickled for her, but sad for me. But her son still lives here and she'll be back often so we're going to continue as before. 

I'm not even sure if there are other folks who quilt for the public in the area, but after all these years, they have become friends and they have spoiled me. I will miss this dear friend.

DH was away for 6 days at the first part of the month moving cows and I feel like I spent more time in my sewing room than I usually do, but I don't feel like I accomplished much more. If I wasn't in the sewing room, I had my hands in the dirt outside and the weather was so nice that I was out there a lot...behind a shovel. Grin.

I picked up 3 more quilts from Sandy at the beginning of the month and stitched the bindings onto the fronts so those are close to a finish

I finished piecing the blocks for Old Dirt Road.

I cut everything for the 6 little flannel quilts I posted about here and I pieced 3 of them. Pandas

                         

And frogs

And the squirrels (only have a photo of the 1 block)

And just 2 days ago, I picked up 3 more quilts

I am chipping away at that list I made back in January. Next up in the binding queue is my Love You S'more x2 camping quilt

And I have 2 finishes this month - Land of Enchantment

And Pink is Perfect for a birthday girl

With the longer daylight hours, I'm pretty bushed by the time the sun sets so my evening binding time has slowed down, but I don't mind. I love getting my hands in the dirt as much as I love making quilts and I feel blessed to be able to do both.

Land of Enchantment

As much as I will always be a Texas girl, I have to admit that New Mexico has a special place in my heart. It's where DH and I began our journey as a married couple. It's where our son was born. It's where the good Lord has set us for the second time. It's home.

The sunsets and sunrises are spectacular on a regular basis. 

The food is addictive and don't even get me started on how much I love fresh green chile! 

New Mexico has its own unique southwestern culture. There is a rich history here and it is reflected in the jewelry, fashion, architecture, fabrics, people, and landscape.

I'd been on the lookout for a quilt pattern that represented the Land of Enchantment and in 2014 I stumbled upon exactly what I was looking for while browsing through Flickr:

I contacted the lady who posted it and she was kind enough to  direct me to the designer who is from Switzerland, of all places!

Desert Winds

I planned to use a lot of Michele Watts' prints. She's is a local designer who had a few lines with Moda and I just happened to have some yardage in my stash.

I finally started this one in May of last year. Yes, I'd had this project planned for 12 years. It took a while since it's made of 2 1/2" squares and 80 x 98.

Once I started,  I was determined to stay the course. I didn't have quite enough of all the original prints so I scattered some Grunge fabrics throughout which appeals to my scrappy heart.

I ended up extending the patchwork border one more row

Once I had it pieced, I went in search of a backing. I didn't have anything in my stash that I thought would work. The minute I saw this print, I couldn't hit buy fast enough - it's perfect!

Then Sandy worked her magic

And I spent 4 weeks binding it. 

But it's now complete!

And apparently I need to pay more attention when I'm piecing! Good gravy!! I didn't even notice I had turned a block! I think I need to take a photo of every quilt top before it's quilted and double check for errors. I think those oopsies are charming in vintage quilts, but it's very obvious in this design. I keep wondering if I could take the quilting out of that one block and fix it. Have any of ya'll done that before? 

The wind DOES blow a lot here in the spring and those blocks could be construed as tumbleweeds and that one just tumbled in a different direction.

Sigh. Maybe I can just leave it displayed like this and call it art. 🙃

Phase 1 of the Big Fence Project

 DH requested my assistance last Friday.

We've been planning to re-fence our property since we first moved here 18 months ago and we're finally getting started. The existing fence is a little shoddy and not on the property line and DH needs gates that can be opened when he's horseback.

Fencing 164 acres in the mountains is not a project for the weak of heart...or for old folks, and we figured we weren't getting any younger so we had better get crackin.

We haven't done much thumb twiddling since we moved here and I keep having to remind DH of all the projects we've already tackled because he thinks we haven't done much. 😂

Phase one was for DH to cut and set H braces and hang a gate and that's what we worked on Friday.

I mostly handed DH tools and supported and moved pipe and manned and filled the watering can to extinguish sparks while DH worked.

It was such a pretty day, but we were plumb tuckered out by the time we finished and came in for dinner at 3. I just threw burgers and corn on the cob on the grill and it was all I could do to feed myself. I was so tired that it was an effort to lift my corn. 😂 But H braces and gate #1 are complete

DH tweaked his back earlier in the week shoeing a horse, but it hasn't slowed him down much although he has trouble unlacing his shoes in the evening...good thing he's got an in-house shoe taker off-er. 😉

Pink is Perfect Quilt

 This is a pretty special quilt because little miss E was a very important part of making it.

I don't know if she'll grow up to be a quilter, but she'll be able to say that she made her 1st quilt at 4 years old. 

She had requested a pink quilt. I asked her if she was sure she wanted a pink one, she replied, "Yes, please, because pink is perfect!" - thus the quilt name. 😉  I let her go through my bin of pink fabrics and select which ones she wanted to include and we ended up with "all the pinks!" 

We looked at a few patterns and she chose this one...Plan C

 from this book

I made all the flying geese ahead of time in order to simplify our day when she came back

We also chose to make it a little bigger since the original was just 32 x 32. I showed her how to lay everything out and let the designer choose where each fabric went. During our time together she piped up, " It's like a puzzle, Gram!" 

It is indeed, sweet girl.

I let her sit on my lap and showed her how to feed the fabric through the machine while I worked the foot pedal. 

Her first 4-patches

Piano key border for the win!

She chose a pink Minky (the only choice according to her. 😆) for the backing

Jackie and Sandy used this fun design called Timeless Hearts for the quilting

And this pink print was selected for the binding

Once I got it bound, and created a label that has both of our names on it, it was wrapped and will soon be gifted to the newest little quilter in the family. It finishes at 45"x45". Not a great shot of the quilt, but I couldn't bring myself to delete the mountains. 😉

This is a more accurate dipiction of the colors

She's already asking about making the next one so there's hope...

At least until Pap came in and asked if she wanted to help him feed horses. 😂