Sunday, October 30, 2022

BASKETS, NEUTRALS, & A DOGS LIFE

This coming month is stacking up to be really busy.  Beginning on the 7th of November I will be teaching Beginning Quilting at our local quilt store.  A total of four classes, on Mondays, with a final results of a sampler quilt with 30 blocks and two borders.  Nice and easy blocks, like Rail Fence, Nine Patch, Square Dance and several varieties of Log Cabins.  Depending on how the ladies do we may substitute Hour Glass and Friendship Star in place of some of the Log Cabins.  

I am finally getting these baskets completed.  At the beginning of the week I had just these six done, with 30 more to go.  I have found that if I increased the cutting direction by just 1/8th of an inch I get a better quarter inch on the 4 points areas when I sew these blocks to their other coordinating blocks.  So this first set of 6 were a bit of nail bitting to get done. 
As the week ended I managed to get all 36 done, I developed a bit of an assembly line process and it went well.  I have decided on this layout rather than all four with the basket bottoms in the center.  Lazy actually as then I do not have to match the seams when joining them.  I guess I had enough fun with them.
The neutral quilt came back from the quilter this week.  I got what seemed like yards and yards of bias binding cut and sewn on and the handwork is done.  I am really pleased with this quilt. 
In particular the rounded corners are perfect.  The original pattern has the bias vines continuously around the corners.  I just did not like how they seemed to be so crowded so decided to wing it and stop it before the corners of the quilt.  However, leaving the corners squared off just did not look right either, so I decided to round them off.  I really like how that worked out.
Once again my quilter did a wonderful job.  Tracey the owner and quilter at Blossom Quilting in Oakdale, California is a true artist. 
This is our oldest daughter's English Mastiff Loki.  He is 9 months old and right around 160 pounds now, he will as an adult be in the 200 to 220 pound range.  For some reason he prefers to nap with his head in the closet, in fact insists that is his preferred position.  Not sure if it is her scent, or the laundry soap smell.  Doesn't look all that comfortable, but seems to be just exactly where he wants to be. 





   

 






23 comments:

  1. Beautiful quilt finish, I like the rounded corners too!

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  2. LOVE those basket blocks and your gorgeous neutral quilt!!

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  3. Oh Loki, sleeping with his head in the closet, what a sweetie. Your neutral quilt is beautiful, and until you mentioned it, I didn't realise the vines didn't go right around the corners. The rounded corners work very well, I've never thought of doing that.

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  4. Gorgeous neutral quilt. The rounded corners are perfect !!

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  5. Love the fabric choices for your baskets. Congrats on the finish! The neutral quilt looks great, your modifications really worked out well.

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  6. I wish you had been my teacher when I learned in 2010. Not being unkind here, but my teacher was a member of the Points Police, and it took me a long time to get past that in my sewing. :D I like your placement on the baskets. The rounded corners on your beautiful neutral quilt are genius! Lol on Loki - so cute.

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  7. I love your neutral quilt. I have enjoyed taking quilt classes in the past, but all of the nearby quilt stores have closed. I pretty much teach myself now. Thankfully I am good at following the directions in books. Loki has quite an unusual sleeping position. How can that be comfortable?

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  8. I love how you trimmed the corners... it looks wonderful! I haven't made bias binding in a long time, but you really need it on this binding!

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  9. Lovely basket blocks, they look great in this layout. I love the rounded corners too, very pretty. Such a beautiful quilt!
    Cute and fun young dog ;)
    Thank you for sharing, and linking up !

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  10. paragraph describing Loki (and his sleeping habits) made me laugh

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  11. Beautiful work. Oakdale is just a few miles from me. A small world.

    Aw on the pup. Adorable.

    Thank you for joining the Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop.

    Have a fabulous Wordless Wednesday. ♥

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  12. Love, love your Neutral quilt! Great decision to round those corners off. What a beauty! Those basket blocks are lovely, with the Kaffe fabrics. Simply gorgeous. Loki is hilarious! Can't imagine why he prefers sleeping that way, it did give me a giggle. Thanks for sharing on Wednesday Wait Loss.

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  13. love those pretty baskets and the rounded corners perfect!

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  14. Your neutral quilt is beautiful!

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  15. Hi Donnalee, your neutral quilt is gorgeous. I think that you were inspired when you ended the flowers and put a curve in the "corners". Thanks for linking up to Free Motion Mavericks. Take care.

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  16. The rounded corners on the neutral quilt are divine. Always fun how the quilt design evolves as we go on.

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  17. Love the neutral quilt. The corners are perfect for it! ~~Kathy S.

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  18. Your basket blocks are so sweet. The neutral quilt is amazing! And Loki is adorable.

    Michelle
    https://mybijoulifeonline.com

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  19. Have fun teaching your class! The baskets are such fun, lively prints. The quilt will be a perfect mix of traditional and modern. I love how the spotted fabric in your neutral quilt echoes the flower centers. Really lovely.

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  20. The neutral quilt is gorgeous! The modifications you made are perfect.

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  21. Thank you for linking to To Do Tuesday!

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  22. I really like the arrangement of the baskets that way. And your neutrals quilt is absolutely gorgeous. You made some excellent decisions with the rounded corners, the way you changed up the vines, and the smattering of pale blues. It's perfect!

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