At a standstill....

This is going to be Lorelei's new quilt. I have worked on it it fits and starts. I don't remember who I have heard use that term, I was thinking my mom, but not real sure. But it sure describes the process for this quilt. It should have been done long ago, but here it is unfinished. I did decide to get serious about it a bit back. I had 8 or 10 squares left to make, got those made. I got the blocks sewn together without mishap...I figured I would get at least one turned wrong.

I have enough fabric in my basement to start a small quilt shop, but did not have anything I wanted to use for the backing of the quilt. So there was a pause to search for fabric for it. I looked at some of my favorite quilt shops on line with no luck. Ended up stopping at Joann Fabrics on the way home from a doctors appointment and found something I liked.

Actually, I chose three fabrics and got the backing sewn together this past weekend, got the batting cut down to size, got everything stretched and it all pin-basted together. Now to decide how to quilt it. I am going to free-motion machine quilt it. At least that is the plans so far. When you free-motion quilt, the feed-dogs are lowered, the pressure on the pressure foot lowered to zero as well as the stitch length is set to zero.

The ball is in your court then, or the quilting in this case. You can stitch forwards, backwards, sideways, any direction you want...everything is controlled by you, the quilter. I am not horrible at it, but I do have a lot room for improvement. It takes lots and lots of practice to get your stitches somewhat even.

I have been thinking and thinking on what design to attempt. The few times I have machine quilted, I have winged it....you can click here to see other quilts I have posted that are machine quilted. Be sure to enlarge the pictures to see the actual quilting. Though maybe I shouldn't suggest it. My favorite I have done so far is the one posted on December 10, 2007.

I would really like to plan this quilting, and have looked and looked at other's photos of quilts trying to get inspiration and nothing really strikes my fancy. So, I may have to just wing-it again and hope for the best.

From a short drive....

To get my mind off things, Roger ask if I wanted to do anything like go for a drive. I needed something to distract me, so first we ran to Walmart to pick up something he needed. We were at the Walmart in Paris, Illinois. Having never driven south on the road where it is located, we decided to see where the road led.
I didn't take many pictures at all...a few over 20. Not at all like I normally would take. And half the ones I took are so blurred it isn't even funny.
But I did manage these captures. The one of the hawk is cropped, and I had to use fill flash to get even this view. Not at all sure how it will look to your eyes.

Look whats growing in my back yard!

I planted gourds, knowing that the vines would take up room, but not remembering how much room! My little garden spot looks like a jungle...and if all the gourds mature I am going to have enough to supply the whole neighborhood. I want some for birdhouses....and I just like to look at them.

Roger is gone to get a final tune-up on the hearing aids he recently got. After that, I think we will head to Terre Haute to pick up a new DVD player/recorder. It is a combo; it will play vhs tapes, also dub tapes to dvds, as well as record tv for me. I don't know if I am making a mistake or not...I think I am going with the brand that is the same as my old one. It was not that old, and for sure not used that much.

But I have looked for forums about problems with it and did not find any with major issues....there is one other that I am going to look at also.
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I got this ready to publish this morn and got sidetracked and forgot to publish it. We picked up a new DVD/video combo and as I speak it is setting doing its thing. It is taking quite a while. We spent the entire afternoon at Sarah's...I am going tomorrow to pick Lorelei up and bring her here if nothing else changes.