Barely November Anymore

My goal was to post a blog again at least once a month, and here I come sliding in just before the November 2013 door closes.  Whew.  Life has been full of fun, company, a road trip and work.  Never a dull moment.  I was to my biannual quilting retreat the first weekend in November.  It truly is a sweet retreat.  I finished 2 quilt tops and 4 scarves as well as some R & R and.  I have one of the quilt tops loaded on the long arm and have been meandering away over the last week.  Really pleased with how it is coming along.  Using a variegated  thread that I was able to get the tension nicely balanced and it has not broken even once.  I truly promote the two tension gauges for the longarm you can buy from superior threads.  It is a bit pricey at 150 dollars, but for me it was money well spent.

This quilt top was constructed from a jelly roll pkg.  I did not follow a pattern but started making some blocks and the quilt grew from there.  There are 4 big blocks that are off centred and once it is done I will post a picture of the complete quilt with the binding on.  The colour is bright, happy and luscious.

One of my fibre friends I met with in mid November brought some necklaces she had made after being at one of the craft shows in town.  They are made from ladder yarn which is chain crocheted and super easy.    Depending on the colour of the yarn it almost appears like beads on a chain.  Sooo I had to try one for myself.  There are several patterns on the web as well as hundreds of pictures of different styles.

As you know I am not one for instructions so away I went and just made one how I envisioned them.  After I had completed one I had a peruse of a pattern and it was pretty much the same as I created only I did not measure anything.  Sent one off today in a gift, and I plan to make some more to tuck in a couple pkgs for the holidays.

I belong to an online Yahoo group that got together in October of 2006 after we all took a landscape quilting class on Quilt University.  Since then we have shared our lives as well as our works.  We have met a few times in the  USA and here in Canada.  This Christmas we chose to do a mug rug exchange. We were given one person to make one for and it was to me mailed out today - Black Friday

My mug rug was created by a machine embroidered celtic symbol on had dyed cotton.  I then used hand trapunto to  quilt the symbol, followed by machine quilting with felt as the base to complete the mug rug.  Away it went in the mail this afternoon.

taramail@telus.net