Quilt Labels Finished

I am finally getting labels on the last two quilts I finished last spring.  Had the label on the first one all stitched down then looked at it, really looked at it – can you spot the huge error? 

I am not sure how I overlooked that year number as I checked for balance, fonts and making the print bold to get more ink on it but obviously didn’t really look at the wording very well.  Thank goodness I didn’t delete the original on the computer so I could go back to the computer and printer to make another copy with the right year on it.  I am making these labels using Bubble Jet Set 2000, a solution to make ink jet printer ink permanent.  Just click on the link to read about it if you need more information.

The flower designs were cropped photos of the quilt “Sweet Remembrance” in Photoshop Elements.  The cropped photos were pasted into a Word document where I typed up the label information – kind of a cool way to bring the design from the front of the quilt to the label on the back.  Here is the new and improved label now stitched to the back of the quilt.
The two quilts I labeled today are going to be taken to the Nebraska State Fair on Wed. for the State Fair competition and I needed to put my own label on them plus the state fair requires that I cover my name on the label with another piece of fabric that has my name and address written on it then cover that up too.  That is an added level of security in case the fair tag gets lost.  I just baste on the state fair label so it can be removed easily after the fair.

I never plan on getting a ribbon on my quilts as I know all too well the problems that each quilt I enter has but love having something on display at the State Fair each year.  The competition is pretty stiff too so any ribbon is exciting.  Last year there were over 700 quilts entered….I wonder if there will be that many this year.  Last year was the first year the Nebraska State Fair was in a new venue in a new city so lots more quilts were entered from the western and central part of the state.  

The second quilt I am entering is the small challenge quilt I made for our guild last spring.  It is nothing special but I just like the colors and want to put it in the Nebraska State Fair quilt competition so it can also be on display.

Hey – got the job done with one day to spare!
Lynn

Summer Time…

I’m not sure what to title this blog post.  It could be “Summer Time is Busy Time” or maybe “Summer Time is No Sewing Time”.  How about “Summer Time is for Nature”?  What ever title I choose it all means I just have not been sewing lately. 

The yard and garden take a lot of time plus it seems like we have more company in the summers and spend time seeing family and attending grand children’s activities.too.  I enjoy it all but do miss my machine and spending hours stitching.

Besides sewing I also love photography and take my camera with me when I can.  I especially love taking photos of flowers and flower details on the macro settings to bring out shapes and patterns that I never knew existed before.  Take a look at this detail shot …can you guess what flower has all these tiny stars packed together?  Very pretty detail and the stars are so perfect.

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A little larger crop of the same photo.  Any ideas now?

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OK, here is the full photo…yes, it is one of my beautiful sunflowers.  Isn’t the center with the star shapes so interesting?  I love taking close photos then enlarging them on the computer as you never know what you will see.  Nature and all it’s wonders can be fascinating.

Until Later,
Lynn

QuiltNebraska Class Projects

QuiltNebraska has been over for a week now and I did get to sit down to finish one of the class projects a few days ago.  This is from the Hawaiian Applique by Machine class taught by Sarah Smith.  The satin stitching is a little rough but the more I stitched the better I did get though.  One thing I tried to do that ended up to be a royal pain was to narrow the stitching down gradually at each point and then to widen it gradually going the other direction. 

What made this so difficult is the width adjustment knob on my Bernina 730 has no stops so it was hard to increase and not go too large.  It got very tedious to say the least.  I am not sure what would have worked better but with the number of points on this piece it was sure not fun.

Here are photos sized from my other two classes.  Not sure I will do much more with them but did love learning what the teachers could teach and will hopefully be able to use the techniques on other quilt projects.  The cheery Sun is from Mickey Depre’s Animate Your Applique class and the partialiy finished tree is from the bobbin drawing class by Marjan Kluepfel. 

    

Today was cooler so it was a nice change from the near hundred degree days.  I am not getting much sewing done but eventually I will have time again.  It seems like every summer is like this though.

Until later,

Lynn

Let The Sunflowers Bloom!

My sunflowers are so pretty right now so I am sharing a few photos of them.  I planted a mixed color package and some are the traditional bright yellow and others are this shaded burnt orange color – beautiful.  The bumble bee just happened to be gathering pollen when I snapped these photos.  It is hard to take photos of most of the flowers as the plants are about 8" tall but this one had blown over and then curved up again to bloom so the flower was only about 3" off the ground.

 

Lynn