When it is good that it is broken

     For a whole week, I had a fever. My days and nights were a blur. My husband brought home a gift from his Grand Canyon rafting trip- a flu or respiratory bug. He came home June 21st. He was sick the next day. I held out until the 24th when I went from incredibly healthy to a feverball complete with wheezing, hacking cough. How fast it turns. This was my view until this past Monday.

When my temp finally came down to close to normal.
The thermometer was my constant companion,

     Went to the doctor, swabbed for the normal flu bugs, negative, chest x-ray, negative. Given steroid dose pack, face blew up red and swollen, stopped them and dealt with steroid withdrawal and fever. Yikes. All in summer. I lost a whole week of June.
     I kept moving around the OBW for distraction, and decided on this.

     I had to audition what colors would look good on the sides. I did not want to lop off the ends of the rows. I had put too much work into sewing and arranging them to throw parts out.

     Then I decided to be smart and sew the ending triangles on before I sewed the rows. Unlike last OBW when I had to sew sewt in trianles on the sides. When I cut the triangle as normal and sewed it, I found that I would have no seam allowance on the outside edge and the outside points of the hexagons would get cut off. I drew a pattern with the template adding a 1/2" line bigger parallel to the side of the triangle to give some seam allowance. 

First triangle (ripped out) not enough seam allowance. Second triangle has it added.

See how I have a good seam allowance so the outside  point of the hexagon is not cut off?

     I sewed all the end triangles on before I started sewing the rows. I sewed two rows at a time as leader and enders so I could keep chain sewing. Due to the fever, this went slowly.

Rows all sewn

More Quilt Canada Show

     I got the rest of the photos off my phone. There were many, many great quilts. The phone is limited in what it can take. I am a camera person. The lighting limited taking photos clearly making the phone unable to focus well.

Very big quilt. Hard to see all the values as they are dark. Pieced, not fused or raw edge.

Typical panel quilt, but rhinestone spider in corner. I have a friend who collects rhinestone pins,
so I thought it was funny.

Beautiful colorwheel with lots of neutrals, crummy photo

Read the description below. I cried.

Millions of nine patches, detail below. The quilter found all the color fabric cut in an estate sale box.

This quilt is incredibly small. Maybe 12 x 18. Detail below, about 1/4" strips.

Quilting detail of a quilt that did not photo well enough.

Just plain fun

Quilt Canada Show

     A group of quilt guilds in NYS got together for a road trip to Ottawa, Canada for Quilt Canada. We had 90 quilters on 2 buses for a 3 day trip. The show was at the EY Center next to the Ottawa Airport as was our hotel. The center is big and modern, but the lighting for quilts was horrible. I could only see some of the quilts' colors if I took a photo on my phone which lit up the quilt a bit. There were lots of vendors, not a lot of bolted fabrics. 
     At the Wonderfil thread booth, I met a quilter who was their educational rep named Teri Cherne. When I got home, I realized she is quite well known and did an episode on The Quilt Show in 2017. She is a three time cancer survivor and has quite a story. She has to be one of the most helpful and genuine people I have ever met. Everytime I thought of a question, I went back to the booth for an answer or explanation. I bought a lot of Wonderfil threads. I learned so much.
    First, my purchases. How can this little bit be close to two hundred dollars?

      This quilt was at the entrance to the show. My show photos are not great because I had to use my phone. I did not want to carry my big camera the whole time.

This wonderful bargello was in the Elna booth, so I couldn't get the whole shot.

2 strip landscape quilts, both lovely

These two tree quilts were so dark at the show, that my phone camera filled in light so they could be seen well.

     Having a hard time getting my photos off the phone, so I will post this for now, more to come.
  

Teeny star blocks at 2

     My leader/ender teeny stars have a layout and I was able to complete two complete blocks. I have to leader/ender sew lots of 3 and 4 square strips to sew the rest of the blocks together. I probably need to make another 20 teeny stars also. 
     I am thinking of putting narrow strips between the big blocks.

The boomerang quilt

     I admitted defeat. After hanging onto the paper pieced nightmare, Sea Urchin, having tormented me for over 4 years, I gave it away to the twins at Chasen Dreams. They are very experienced Niemeyer paper piecers. I figured I would never see it again as they give away a copious amounts of quilts to all kinds of causes.
     When I went to deliver the Gold Star quilts, I was shocked to find they had pieced all the blocks and gave them back to me all numbered. They said it was the hardest quilt of hers they had ever done. Yikes. How do I repay them?
     I sewed the whole thing together and have mixed emotions. I love the fabric that I chose. I love the colors. I don't love that I was a failure at completing it. I paper pieced about half of it. I know I can quilt it, but if I keep it will it always taunt me?

 

June's bustin' out!

     Even though it has been rainy and cool, the tree Peonies don't care. My pink one starts out dark and gets paler. I have had it for a number of years and it is getting much bigger. The new one in the back was planted last year because the garage addition pulverized the magenta one. It had loads of blooms for such a little plant.
     I woild love to make a quilt with these large blooms, but I have an extreme dislike for raw edge. Not sure I could pull off the piecing or turned edge applique to accomplish this.

Just going to open

Here they come

 

Red White Blue Tree of Life wrapped up

     Over a year ago, a friend of mine gave me a RWB top with the Tree of Life hand pieced that had sat in her mom's trunk until she passed away. Anne asked me if I could get it quilted. I hemmed and hawed and stalled for a long time. It needed repair to the red because someone had tried quilting it and pulled out the thread leaving holes. The borders were not even or reaching the corners, Some hand piecing had come undone. 
      I found some Kona red that sort of matched, washed it, and hand stitched it on.  I sort of fixed some of the undone spots and added red to the borders to even it out. From being hand pieced and handled, it was a bit wonky. I bought wide back cream for the backing so there would be no additional seams and it would not take away from the front of the quilt. I used all cotton batting which I usually use 80/20. I thought the time period needed it. I quilted it with Glide cream and red thread. I used a sort of modern print dark blue for the binding and sewed on a cream sleeve for hanging. It is about 72" x 86".
     Today I delivered it to her hair salon and now it is done and I can breather easier. It was a cute quilt that had lots of wonkiness. It is done. 
     Kevin the Quilter has done an exquisite job on a new Tree of Life as an anniversary present if you check out his post.

Back, hard to see

Detail