I have been working the last few days on several different projects. One is my first string quilt. I have suggested this as the next project for the Senior Center quilters, so I am working on an example. No surprise - mine is yellows and blues with a few teals and golds thrown in. 
My guild had a work day Saturday where most of us worked on string quilt blocks that were more scrappy than this, but like mine they did have the same color thru the center of each block. I only have enough of the dark blue fabric to make 3 more 4-block units, then I will use a different fabric or 2 and mix them up, but I do plan to have all blues in the corners so that the centers of the big diamonds will be blue. The blocks could certainly be different sizes, but I am squaring mine up to 10". I am trying to make my stripes varying widths so I don't have anything to match up except the center dark blue stripes.
I've been working on a secret quilted wall hanging over the last week - not ready to show it, but here is a fabric basket I made yesterday to go with it. 
I'd been seeing these on Vera's blog and thought they were really cute, so I went to Pink Penguin and printed the directions. I'm sure I will be making more of these! It is about 4" x 6" and 4" tall, not counting the handles. Thank you Vera for posting your pictures!
Recently Carol Doak started a new BOM on her Yahoo Group - here is my October one. 
Each block will be a 7" square. I already have plans for whipping up another one with a different kind of tree and a creek instead of a road. She has already given us the November one, but I am not looking at it, or the pictures that others have already posted, until Nov 1.Friday I used a friend's long-arm machine to quilt the Senior Center's first Turning Twenty quilt. I had practiced on it a couple of times and selected the stars and loops pantograph to do on this quilt. I got there about 1:00, chatted for awhile and then we began loading the quilt. When I got down to the actual quilting it took about 15 minutes to do a pass across the quilt, then about 10 minutes to reposition, etc. We were taking it off the machine by 8:30, and we had taken several breaks. It is just my first attempt, but not too bad. I thought this pantograph allowed a bit of freedom about exactly where you put the loops, as long as they don't run into the stars! 
Here is the back of the same quilt 
Last week I finally finished my Fallen Leaves wallhanging. 
It is a tissue foundation pattern from Cindi Edgerton that was fun to do. I bought mine as a kit at Cottonwood in Charlottesville, VA - primarily because I couldn't resist the fabric that was in the kit for the border and backing. I searched online until I found more of it to save for another project. This is a project that I started last September when I bought the kit, then it languished while I worked on and completed other more pressing projects, mostlly for other people. I had even finished most of the quilting on it - just had to finish up some of the borders and bind it. Now I am looking for a special spot in our house for it to hang. I am pleased with the way the quilting turned out. I just used a regular foot and left the feed dogs up - I'm not ready to cut loose with free motion yet - and found that I was able to move the quilt around enough to to make the wavy lines thru the leaves. There was a lot of starting, stopping, and turning in the border but it is a good example of where I am now in my quilting odyssey.The Senior Center group that I quilt with has finished the top of the Turning Twenty quilt 
that we have been working on. We are planning to make the backing by using a lighthouse fabric in the center and a light taupe fabric surrounding it, since the recipient really likes lighthouses. I should have that pieced by our meeting next Wednesday, then we can begin sewing together the blocks we have for a 2nd one. These will be gifts for the director and assistant director at the Center - one of them knows who this one is for, but neither of them yet know about the other one, which is a pretty neat trick when both of them are usually there when we are meeting and working on them. Both of them are being made from fabric donated to the Senior Center, either by us or by other quilters in our area.I am also continuing to work on my Grandmother's Flower Garden. This picture shows the progress to date - 4 rows of the 9 I expect to do will be done when I finish attaching the last flower on the left in the bottom row. 
I have laid out some of the fabrics I think I will use for the next row - the pink and green one is finished and the pink and blue one is partially finished. We went to the Atlanta area again last weekend for a family wedding, a Braves game and to check in on some of the grandkids. I had time to make a quick stop at Tiny Stitches in Marietta where I met Melinda in person. I will definitely go back to that shop!
with a large lighthouse panel on the back - 
because the assoc. director likes blue, and reminds us of that every day we are there, and he likes lighthouses. We made this one for the director - 
I used some large pieces of sunflower print on the back - 
At the time we were making this one the director was involved in getting a raised garden going behind the building, so we thought lots of floral prints would be appropriate. These were both made out of fabrics donated to the Center. One of the members of our group has a long-arm, and though she didn't want to volunteer to quilt them both she was willing to show me how to use a pantograph so I quilted both of them. The quality of the quilting does not stand up to hers, but we got them done - and the recipients seemed to like them. If they suspected anything during those months we were working on them they were kind enough not to say so. I am hoping that the woman who took some pictures will send them to me so I can add them to my collection. Here are the labels -the is Ray's 
and this is Jeri's 
I was finishing up the labels about 2 hours before their monthly musical program at the Center! I had quilted Jeri's the previous Friday, and though the other ladies said they would help me bind it at our meeting on Wednesday, I decided I didn't want to ruin the surprise by having one of them ask who it was for at that late date, so I just did the binding - and the labels - myself.
