Noah's Cargo

 Dear Readers,

Apparently this is the year of finishes.  A couple of weeks ago I finished Noah's Cargo.  

I made this quilt for Ryan and Alaina Parkerson.  I taught Ryan my first two years at Winona High and I taught Alaina two years too,  When I moved here my principal, Charlie Parkerson, said Ryan (his son) was available to do odd jobs if I needed help.  He painted the interior of my shed, helped remove wallpaper, and some other tasks at my house.  He was a wonderful worker and student.   More importantly I was so impressed with how willing he was to invite people to church and tell about the programs that they were running.  He would also tell me whenever there was a home ball game, so if I didn't have duty I could plan to come.  Even tho we are given a calendar, I often just get into the academic calendar that I needed the reminder and I was glad he did that.  Alaina was a student that had to work at it to do well in math, but I was impressed about how hard she worked and ended up pulling one of the top grades.  Anyway I texted Charlie when I heard they were expecting.  Charlie texted me that they were doing a zoo animal theme and light blue for the nursery.  So when I was in San Diego celebrating my retirement, Celeste and I decided to ride out to El Cajon and go to a quilt shop there.  We picked up a few more cute fabrics and found a perfect blue for the border and triangles and a great blue piece for the back and even tho it was dinosaurs it was so cute we picked it.   I had a lot of fun curating the different animal prints on this quilt and I put a row at the bottom to represent the things the parents and grands were interested in.  

 Hope they love giving little Jaxon Cole tummy time on the quilt.  

Sew on,

Terry

Tea and Cakes

 Dear Readers, 

Last year when I went to Quiltville Inn on a quilter's retreat with some of my favorite quilters, Patti and I took an afternoon and drove to a neighboring town and went fabric shopping.  Patti and I both bought Tula Pink bundles and a pattern called Lucky Stars by Atkinson.  I had wanted to use that pattern to make a quilt using her Curiouser and curiouser line of fabrics.  This line of fabrics is based on the story of Alice and Wonderland.  I decided to make the quilt in the Lap size which is 60 x 75.   Meanwhile sometime during the school year, Celeste was home and her dear friend came over and she picked some fabrics for a quilt.  I did not show her the curiouser and curiouser line as it was sitting on the washing machine as I am an avid pre washer.  Any way I realized a lot of the fabrics she picked were very similar colors to the line.  

So I made Lafadra's quilt using the curiouser fabric, taking out the queen of hearts fabric and the Alice fabric and subbing in some of the tiny beast line, that I also loved.  I used the fabrics Lafadra picked for the back and I think both came out cute.  Hope she loves it.  

I had a lot of fun practicing my freemotion on the long-arm.  It is certainly a different skill than on my sit down machine.  I was using books by Angela Walters and Leah Day for most of the inspiration but I used a few others too.  

I thought I would post close ups of the individual blocks, so you could see what I was doing.  On each block I did something different on each white section, a different pattern on the strips surrounding it and then something on the center block.

I learned a lot, and definitely need more practice on several of the patterns but overall, I am so happy with how it came out.  

UPDATE:  

She seemed pleased!!  

Sew on,

Terry