Machine Quilting Doodles

I had a busy weekend and last few days so didn't get a chance to update my blog until now. The group of hunters that always come from Cincinnati were here for the opening of pheasant season from Friday through Tuesday. They don't stay at our house but we did go out to eat with them all the nights they were here except the last night and that night they cooked for the whole gang at our house. I had to get the tables set up but they did all the cooking of the steak dinner and all the clean up too. They do that every year and is always a treat!

Our local guild had one of our members that does a lot of machine quilting give a workshop on machine quilting Saturday. It was a fun day and I learned a few things too. The swatches are what I did in class and after I got home when ever I have had a few minutes. I really like to doodle quality of doing this.

I just got two new machine quilting books this week from Amazon.com and tried some of the techniques and quilting patterns from them on my swatches too. I just purchased Machine Quilting Solutions by Christine Maraccini and Mastering the Art of McTavishing by Karen McTavish and are both good books. The McTavishing one has a DVD included and that is nice as I can watch Karen actually quilt her designs instead of just reading about them. It is very helpful for me as I can see exactly what she is doing and how she stitches.

My most recent quilting goal is to get comfortable with machine quilting and improve my skills as well. I love the look of machine quilting that is well done and I just don't have those skills yet but I am determined!

I did try different threads on Saturday so marked the type of thread near each type. As you can see I need lots of practice.

John is back to harvesting corn but I have not been needed the last few days to run the grain cart since we have an extra guy helping now. John is so pleased with the bu/acre he is getting this year. Much better than any recent years harvest. It is good that there are more bu. to sell but it also means more bu. to store. We will be having to haul more into the local elevator this year as our bins won't hold it all and I am guessing everyone else will be too. This means long lines and long waits for the trucks to unload and that is never fun.

We did get a hard freeze several days in a row so all the flowers are gone now as are the tomato plants, etc. I always hate to have the flowers die for the year as the colorful flowers are always so pretty.

Need to get back to practicing.......

Lynn