A little practice

A little practice to catch up on skills & start moving forward again.  This is practice for a Christmas stocking I'm going to make.

Looking for Mr Mojo

I've been looking for my mojo this past week.  This year has had alot of quilting roadblocks & I need a jump start.  My longarm was down for 6 months due to stupid human error & then health delays.  I did a few tops in the winter but all I've done since summer is try to put together a paper pieced star for a Quilt of Valor.  Every piece was touched 5 or 6 times.  I finished it last Saturday with at least 15-20 hours struggling with it.  & it sure was not the quality I worked so hard to get.  So I went back to watch the Carol Doak  craftsy class on foundation paper piecing & found I was doing 1 step totally wrong.  I could not line up 1 single piece the way I was doing it.  So decided to make a second block to get the process embedded in my brain & it took only 6 hrs.  This will get faster as I practice but Im grateful to learn how to do it right.

Here's a link to the first block
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204902320854931&set=gm.472339859613063&type=3&relevant_count=1

Starry Nights for Josh Quilt Top

Sorry for the poor pictures of the quilt top that I finished a couple weeks ago for the Starry Night for Josh QAL that Alycia Carmin had.  Between  naturally poor light in my condo & limited mobility for me as I am putting up with a back muscle spasm for the last 4 weeks, I just couldn't get a good picture.  Perhaps when it's quilted, I can get good shot.

 

 

Starrry Night For Josh

This was a short Quilt Along offered by Alycia Carmin  http://alyciaquilts.blogspot.com/2015_06_01_archive.html.  I like her designs so set apart the 2.5 weeks (I thought) to for once keep up with everyone doing the project.  Some unexpected & potentially serious medical stuff came up & I was at doctor offices & labs 7 times in 2 weeks. So I'm a bit behind but for my track record on doing projects after everyone is finished, I'm calling this on time relatively lol.  Here's the blocks ready to be assembled into the quilt top this weekend, hopefully.

 

I was trying to get some better pictures from the last post on my thank you quilt to my company.  You can see a little better the quilting 

Thank You!

In April my company awarded 100 grants between $1500-$2000 to recognize the volunteer efforts of the employees selected for the grant.  I was selected!  I'm still amazed!  So my volunteering is with Quilts of Valor & they received the grant money.  I made this table topper/small wall hanging to thank United Airlines for the grant,

Unfortunately, there's never enough light to get good pictures.

Wow, it's been almost 6 months...

since my last posting.  It's been a challenging few months between the winter & stress aggravating the chronic migraine syndrome.  The migraines  & severe headaches were almost continuous.  I think it must be like people who get past a bad allergy season.  It feels like new life to be freer!  My delight in developing my longarming got curtailed  too as I needed my timing fixed since February.  If I wasn't at work or in bed with a headache, I was trying to figure out how to fix my machine.  I don't know why I couldn't get it but finally humbly brought it to the dealer in May when the weather got better for driving.  I don't have it back on the frame yet but as soon as I have help, I'm hoping to be back sewing soon.   Anyway these pictures are some Quilts of Valor I quilted for other volunteers when the longarm  was happy.