We had our quilt club meeting Tuesday night and I sped through Tuesday to get 2 more veterans quilts done so I could deliver them back to the quilt maker, Sharon, at the meeting. This pattern has a couple of names but I know it as chandelier. 
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She actually made 4 quilts in this pattern and they are all beautiful. The other 2 are next up on the longarm, hopefully today.
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This is the Dwirling pattern that I learned from The Pajama Quilter. When I first got my longarm years ago I found her beginner quilting videos and learned lots of fun easy quilting patterns. I'm sure someone else had a tutorial for this type of quilting. It's fun and fast.
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I brought home a lot of new tops to quilt and have 14 more ready for quilting! I better get busy!

I had a little backlog of veterans quilts while I was quilting Red Sunset. I decided to focus on them and get as many done as I could before our meeting last night. Here are the first 4 for 2024.
This one was pieced by Clara. She's been a top-making machine lately! There's such a huge need and we will never keep up with the need at the VA hospital. But every quilt helps!
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This looks like a "Betsy quilt" so I'm assuming that she made it.
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This one and the next one, both, came from Estelle. I believe that one of these was an unquilted top that was in a donation bag and I think she made one.
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This one is super soft flannel. Someone is going to love it.
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All of these are quilted with this fan motif. I needed to quilt them fast and this is one of my fastest pantographs.

There are still more left to do!

After a couple of weeks off I have new fabric for you! This week it's all about the Stars. Stars are one yard cuts that are dyed in single colors but the method of dyeing gives them a lot of visual texture. I'm showing nine here but there are 14 new ones all together. These are great for large elements in art quilts, borders and bindings. They are one of a kind and I can't dye more of any of them but if you need a larger cut of any color (say one of the colors in a gradient or from a Shades Pack) I can always custom dye any amount over a half yard for you and there's no extra charge for it.

You can see all of the new Stars in the shop.
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The fabric of the week this week is the Watershed Gradient.  Gradients are sold by the half yard and the pattern runs selvage to selvage. This image approximates a half yard cut. Multiple quantities come as one piece. Purchase 3 and you receive 1.5 yards.
Watershed is on sale through Sunday.
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This is going to be a very short post because I'm writing it right after the Super Bowl. The big news is that the quilting on Red Sunset is DONE! 

I'm really happy with the motif I settled on for the background filler. It ties to one of the interior motifs and, once it's washed it will kind of disappear.
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I love how the feathers turned out.
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Here's the back.
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I'll have lots more (and better) photos after I get the binding on.

Now I'm on to veterans quilts. I have finished 2 of them but I haven't trimmed or photographed them yet.

Patricia Caldwell is back with our inspiration for this week. Coastal Beaches uses a custom diagonally dyed version of the Beach Walk Gradient. She used photo's printed onto fabric, tulle, thread ends, driftwood, agates, shells, red jasper all gathered on the coast of Oregon.
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We are fortunate that she shared 2 detail photos so we can see details of her quilting and embellishments.
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One of the things I love about blogging is that, sometimes, it makes me do something just so I can post a journal for the day. Yesterday was almost a no-accomplishment day but the blog motivated me to do a little quilting.

I didn't get much done because I needed to shop for clothes and that's something that I detest. We have an event coming up soon and I need one of those universal wedding/funeral outfits. I haven't bought clothes like that in at least 10 years and it shows. I mentioned it to my friend and she agreed to guide me through a shopping day. It was somewhat painful, especially for her, but we found a lot of good bargains and I now have some nice enough clothes for events. I'm grateful for her help and guidance. I will say that there was one casual dress on sale at Free People that I loved and she hated and I can't get it out of my head.....I might go back and get it. I'd wear it the next time I see her. 
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After shopping I stopped by Mom's to do her monthly extermination treatment. I bet you didn't know that I do extermination services! I got home around 6 and after dinner I realized that I didn't have anything to blog about so I decided that I'd go downstairs and, at least, quilt around the gold triangles. I mimicked the spikey motif from around the flower spikes on the inside.  That didn't even take 30 minutes.
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After finishing that section I realized that I could use the same motif as the background and I got started on the last part of the quilting. I got it about 25% done and I WILL finish this quilt today!

Then we are going to cut down some trees on the property. I love chainsaw day because our property has turned into a jungle in the 20 years we've been here. After that I can spent the weekend on veterans quilts until Super Bowl kickoff. 

When I finish Red Sunset, hopefully on Friday, I will need to get busy on a bunch of veterans quilts. I have 9 here ready for quilting and I know I'll get mre Tuesday at the meeting. Yesterday I didn't have time between some schedule chores and meetings to do my regular dyeing but I could do some things to get ready for starting quilting veterans quilts this weekend.
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I cut a roll of batting and we are not stocked to quilt 30 more quilts. After we get through these I will need to order more. I get out batting and backing fabric from Marshall Dry Goods. They have great deals on bulk purchases.
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I cut the last bolt of blue fabric to add to the existing small stash of quilt backs. As you would expect, we use a lot of blue and tan so I buy about have of the backing fabric in tan and blue. I buy the rest in white so I can dye other colors to match up with quilts. I use quite a lot of dyed gray and gold and some grayer blues.
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I needed some orange backs for some of the current quilts so I dyed the whole last bolt of white. This is enough for 15 more quilts.

Today my friend is taking me shopping to help me find a new funeral/wedding outfit. What I have now is over 10 years old. She pre-shopped Tuesday so I'm hoping it won't be too painful. I hate shopping more than anything. Hopefully, I'll have time to do some quilting on Red Sunset to recover from shopping.

I was very happy to get back to quilting yesterday and tackled all of the gold quilting. There were only 3 areas and I really struggled with quilting plans. My friend, Brenda, visited Monday and she helped me devise this simple motif for the center. I'm really struggling to keep the quilting from being too dense because this is definitely a bed quilt. 

I did some simple quilting in the star points and repeated a circle motif in the diamonds. It's just enough quilting.
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Something similar in the triangles on the outside border.
Now I just have to do 2 background areas with some sort of filler. One of the areas is the top edge of these triangles all the way to the edge of the quilt. My nature is to do a really dense filler and I've got to talk myself away from that.
I think I will have this done by Friday and can them tackle some fun and fast veterans quilts.
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Here are the cactus fabrics that I bought to make some placemats as a remembrance of our trip. I also have 2 other sets of gift placemats that I need to make. I think that while I'm quilting veterans quilts I'm going to try to make some placemat "tops" and get them ready for quilting in a week or so.
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I also got a really cool postcards in the mail from Nancy S. Isn't it cute?

​Today is dyeing day and I might have some quilting time in the evening.

We have friends who spend every winter in Tucson and they have been raving about the place for years. I'm not a huge desert landscape fan but this year we were ready to escape the Virginia winter and go anywhere warm. 
It was time to give Tucson a try and boy was it worth it! The Sonoran Desert is spectacular and it's particularly spectacular in this region where they actually get some regular rain. I am now totally fascinated by the saguaro cactus and I really love that we don't know a lot about them. Supposedly, if they have arms they are over 100 years old, but they don't know for sure. There are no tree rings to count.

Before I get into the vacation week I want to tell you about my two celebrity sightings! The first was when we left Richmond on a 6am flight. We were standing in the Delta check in line and we saw a man and woman get in the Sky Priority line. The man looked like an aging rapper and I didn't recognize him at first but as soon as I heard his voice I knew it was David Bromstad from HGTVs My Lottery Dream Home. No one bothered him and he seemed as nice as he is on TV. I assume he was in Richmond filming.

The next one was at Tanque Verde Ranch. We went horseback riding one evening and our friends were showing us around the ranch before our ride. I was surprised to see that there was some sort of quilting event going on there. As we walked through one area there were 2 men sitting at table talking with some of the quilters. It was Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably! I had not paid to be at the conference so I didn't feel it was appropriate to speak to them but I thought it was funny since I had just finished the blue quilt top that was from one of his books. In case you are interested, the retreat was sponsored my Madeline Island School or the Arts. They have retreats in Arizona, Minnesota and Maine.

Back to the trip. We had 4 absolutely fabulous sunny days with temperatures in the upper 70's and we took full advantage hiking every day. There are so many hiking opportunities in that area. We hiked in the Ventana Canyon, Sabino Canyon and East and West Saguaro National Park. This photo was in Ventana Canyon. That was out longest hike of about 6 miles, straight up and straight down. It was a great workout.
The last 2 days were cooler but still lovely and a nice break from gray Virginia. Today, though, Virginia is bright and sunny and almost 60.
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We went to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum and got to see the raptor show. There's a hummingbird exhibit there too but we saw more hummingbirds at our friend's condo than we saw in the Museum enclosure. I expect that we were there at the wrong time of day. 
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At the Tanque Verde Ranch we went horseback riding. I haven't been on a horse since I was about 9 at 4H camp so I was a little unsure. I had a chat with Cimarron beforehand to explain that the ride was all on him and that I was just going to focus on not falling off. Laurie had Elvis and he was a little more of a handful so I was grateful for Cimarron. He's very comfortable leading ignormat riders around. It was a beautiful ride and I got over my apprehension very quickly. By the end I was hardly paying attention to the horse and just enjoying the great views. That was the day we saw Kaffe Fassett.
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During the down times we played a lot of tug with our new friend, Jammer. Jammer is an incredibly well-behaved dog. She doesn't beg or counter surf but we learned that she apparently has a jones for ear plugs. I sleep with earplugs and I put them on a little tray by the bed in the mornings. One night I noticed one missing but didn't think anything of it. I assumed it got accidentally thrown out, but just in case, I tried to keep the bedroom door closed. I opened a new pack and then I had 3 earplugs on the tray until the day we came home and all three were gone. I had accidentally left the door open. Then we were pretty sure that Jammer had developed an addiction. I was worried that it would cause her trouble. Bill and Laurie were not. Sure enough, over the next 2 days were were relieved by reports of fluorescent orange poo pellets. 

While we were there we also visited Biosphere 2. I didn't get any photos, the weather was awful and, frankly, I didn't think about it. The whole Biosphere 2 experiment fascinated me when it was going on and when it all collapsed so I was excited to actually see the place. If you are interested, the Wikipedia article on it is pretty darned entertaining. Today it's owned and managed by the University of Arizona and there's one significant experiment going on there, Landscape Evolution Observatory (LEO) where they are studying how volcanic rock evolves into fertile soil. All of other experiments referenced in the tour seemed to be halted. You can actually download the Biosphere app and take the tour virtually. What struck me the most about it was the size. It's not nearly as big as I expected and the idea of putting something like a dozen different plant and natural ecosystems inside, in essence, 3 buildings seems ill-advised in hindsight. Of course, we know it didn't really work but I'm sure there were good lessons learned for science anyway. The tour really glosses over the Biosphere experience for the residents and doesn't actually reference any real research that they were doing while living there. I think they were having enough trouble surviving and producing food.  It was worth the trip though. I've always wanted to see it. The drive around Oracle was beautiful and we stopped by Catalina State Park. We would like to hike that area someday too.
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I did get to visit a local quilt shop and a yarn shop. I bought some cactus-themed fabric to make some memento placemats. I forgot to photograph the fabric but I'll get it later this week. During the flights and little down time, I worked on chemo hats. Hats are the perfect travel project and I finished the 4 chemo hats on the front. The dark blue one is a hat I finished a couple of weeks ago when I was at a doctor visit with Mom. All of these are made with a really soft polyester yarn, Feels Like Butta by Lion Brand and whatever the Hobby Lobby equivalent is.

It's good to be back home and to have humidity again! I've never been so constantly thirsty and dry but we really enjoyed it and are looking forward to going back.
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2024 got off to a great start for me with the completion and donation of 102 surgery drain bags. I didn't really intend to make that many but I started cutting fabric and had a hard time stopping!
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I also made 7 pet beds for donation, finished my purple cardigan (that I wear often) and finished a blanket for a friend. 
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The two biggest projects that I worked on this month are the Red Sunset quilt and the blue quilt top. The blue quilt top is done and read for quilting. Red Sunset needs to be off the longarm in the next week, there are a lot of veterans quilts that need quilting!

I've got 3 crochet projects underway, not including my travel hat bag. In January I finished off 7 balls of yarn and donated 4, for a total of 11. My yarn stash is starting to get under some semblance of control.

Here are the current stats:

Quilts - 
Veterans quilts made - 
​​Donation lap quilts - 
Veterans quilts quilted - 
Fabric Postcards - 
Pet Beds - 6
​​Quilted for others - 
​Crochet blankets - 1
​​Crochet shawls - 
​​Crochet/loom knit hats and scarves - 
Placemats and Table Runners - 
​Dyed shirts and towels - 
​Other Donated items - 102
​Garments (sewn and cochet) - 1
​Balls of yarn used or gifted - 11
​Other items - 

My goals for February are:
- finish Red Sunset
- quilt 8 veterans quilts
- make placemats for my nephew