New beginnings

Fern and Rosy of the Woods.

 

 

Hi There!  Happy New Year!  Where have I been?  What have I been doing?  Funny, but I had to lead with this photo of our grand Golden Doodles posing during a romp in the woods on Christmas Day.

 

 

The Zillmers and Fahdens on a snowshoe trek.

 

The rest of us snowshoed behind the doodles and they seemed to know just where the trails led, though we did get a bit lost at one point.  It was a wonderful vacation with family spent right here on beautiful Echo Lake.

 

As great as it was, it was also great to get back to quilt world.  I had seriously neglected all of my projects, except for hand stitiching "Crimson Tweed"- pattern by Sue Spargo.  Yes, I did finish it, but it needs to be quilted.  No problem:  I'm doing well with my machine quilting if I do say so myself.

 

 

 

"Crimson Tweed" (pattern by Sue Spargo)

 

 

 

Before getting back to other projects such as designing 3 new quilts I have in mind, I simply had to finish machine quilting Etude.  I set a goal to have it finished by New Year's Day and I did actually complete the stitiching yesterday.  I'm ready to add the binding, hanging sleeve and label.

 

 

 

Etude pinned and ready to quilt

 

 

 

 

 Etude quilting complete.

 

 

To quilt the last couple of blocks, the sashings and the borders, I didn't use my Bernina Basic Stitch Regulator.  I used my #24 free motion foot, with stitch length and width set at 0 and I did not lower the feed dogs.  This is a trick I picked up from Leah Day's blog.  I have to admit, I like the feel of this method better than using the BSR.  Stitch quality and tension seem about equal. 

 

 

Regardless, I'm really happy to have this done.  Now it's on to new beginnings.  I won't be hibernating the winter away like some furry family members seem to be:

 

 

Leo and Lily sleep the day away.