Mom's hand surgery went really well and didn't take nearly as long as we expected. We think that they tell everyone to arrive at the same time and then just call people in on a first come, first served basis. The procedure on her knuckle took all of 5 minutes but she had 30 minutes of prep time including making her totally undress! Bizarre.
While I waited I worked on my EQ lesson book and learned a few new things. I'll share after I finish teh second lesson that I was working on.

Back at home I have the Groovy quilt loaded. I forgot to take a photo of the spiral tie dyed back so you'll have to wait until it's done to see that.

The recipient of this quilt is my friend's husband, Jamie. He loves tie dye and he really, really loves green. The backing is shades of green so I also picked green threads.

This panto might be a tad feminine but I like the swirl effect with the spiral of the back so I'm going with it. The quilt is loaded and ready for quilting. Tomorrow and Saturday are sewing days with my quilt club but I might be able to get some quilting done in the evenings. During the day I'll be working on the Hunter's Star veterans quilt. There's a possibility that I can get the top together in 2 days of sewing.

One I finished all of the marbles on my quilt I was doubly inspired to get it finished so I jumped right in to work out background quilting.

of course my nature is to quilt something really dense but I ultimately want this to be a bed quilt and I had to take that in consideration. The quilting also had to be simple and fast because I really want to get it done. I'm tired of looking at it.
​I decided in a mix of pebbles (to continue the circle theme) and wavy lines.

The quilt is a diagonal gradient of light to dark browns. I picked 3 shades of brown Wonderfil Deco-Bob thread for the quilting. It will completely blend into the background so the quilting will just show as texture.

This is the best photo that I was able to get to show off the texture. I"m really happy with it and am excited to get it finished. I got through about half if it this weekend and am about ready to start with the darkest thread. I can't believe that this quilt is going to be wrapped up soon!

Well, except for blocking, binding and a label. There's still all of that left to do.

I should have a lot of time to devote to this quilt this week. I only have a dentist appointment tomorrow and shooting practice Thursday. At some point I need to go shopping for a suitable tile to finish off the dye sink backsplash. I don't think I'll find the exact blue penny glass but I should be able to find something reasonably close.

Yesterday was dyeing day but I saved some time to get the last 5 marbles quilted on this quilt.

I had the idea for this last one for a while but I saved it because I thought it was the most appropriate last design since it uses the most rulers.

Now it's time to start quilting the background and that means it's time to start agonizing about the background designs. I think I'll pick a few filler designs and just start quilting and start mixing them up in the background.

I got one more truckload of mulch spread yesterday (only 3 left to do) and even got some clay shooting practice in. My shooting skills have really struggled the past year but I recently invested in getting my gun fitted (shortened stock) and I switched from using both eyes to just my left and now I am finally seeing some good results. I have a lesson tomorrow that I'm really looking forward to.

I had to switch to one-eyed shooting because we discovered that my eyes were switching dominance in the middle of my shot. I've learned a lot about my vision with shooting practice which was my main goal. We quilters spend all of our time looking up close and I noticed that distance vision kind of fatigues me. That's why I started shooting practice and it's really helping. Like many women, I don't have a dominant eye at a distance and by distance I mean 2 feet! Apparently it also explains why I sometimes get a little vertigo walking down stairs.

Growing up I probably should have spent a little more time outdoors and a little less with my nose stuck in books! Do you find that because your hobbies are close up that your distance vision is more difficult? Or are my eyes just naturally messed up?

But of course after some long distance vision practice I went right back to my happy place and started quilting more large marbles! Here are 5 that I did yesterday and I only have 5 left to do. These large circles are such a challenge. Less than half my rulers cover the diameter of a circle this big.

Doing these is mentally exhausting so 5 is about my limit but I'm going to chain myself to the machine a get the last 5 done today.

More progress on the big marbles this week. The end is in sight! I'm starting to get the hang of the big marbles. I can use 2 or 3 thread colors to make them more interesting. The circles that visually fall behind other circles are the most challenging. I tie off every place where the design ends against the next circle and that takes a bit of time. Trust me that the thread shows up much better in real life!

A few weeks ago I took a break from Lost My Marbles to quilt some veterans quilts and this quilt for Mom.

Mom thought she was going to use up her stash of 2.5" squares.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Seriously, she should know better by now. We know that scraps procreate while we are away. This might have made a dent but I don't think it came close to using up what she had. Still, it's a pretty stunning quilt.

The color in the first photo is way off. This one is a more accurate representation of the color.

The first original quilting plan was a pantograph but I've used pantgraphs a lot and wanted a change. I decided on a mix of ruler work in the narrow sashing and continuous curves in the blocks. But while I was quilting the first block I thought that the outside border needed to be feathers. I wanted feathers somewhere else too so I changed the plan a bit and decided to do alternating blocks in feathered wreaths.

I can quilt small feathers pretty good but I am totally horrible at feathered wreaths simply because I've not done them often. I really, really bad at the centers of the wreaths. I got a little more practice on this quilt!

I dyed a pale green backing for this quilt and you can see the texture of the quilting really well here. There's a 4" feathered border and feathered medallions to go with it. I probably should have feathered every block but I wasn't going to rip out any stitches to start over.

This quilt is going to my cousin who will really appreciate having something made by her Aunt but she will not care about, and probably not notice, the quilting. Our policy is that we give people blankets to cuddle with so we don't stress the construction details.

To show you how big this quilt is, here it is draped over the queen guest bed. I think this could also serve on a king size bed.

I'm glad I don't have to bind it.

There isn't much actually happening in the studios this week because we are on the last few days of kitchen work! Today should finish everything up so I'll be spending the afternoon and evening putting things back in place. We are very happy with how everything turned out. There have been a couple of bumps but it's all worked out really well.

I am taking a little break from Lost My Marbles to work on some veterans quilts but I found some photos of new marbles that I hadn't shared yet. Since there's nothing else to share I was really pleased to find these!

Quilting Lost My Marbles is a slow process. With each new circle I stare for a while to figure out what to do then I have to mark the segments and I'm slow quilting because the ruler angles get awkward moving around the circle. I often make mistakes and have to rip out stitching and start over. It probably takes me close to 20  minutes for each one. That's why I love having zippered leaders. I can work on this one slowly and take breaks to do veterans or other quilts in between. 

​But here are 5 more marbles that I finished this week. I'm coming to the end of the small marbles and then will have 18 big ones to do.

You will notice that the contrast is not good in some of them. That is on purpose although they show up a lot more in real life because the thread is shiny. I picked 3 colors of thread (light, medium and dark) for the marbles. I have 3 more light, medium and dark thread for the background quilting. I'm using this quilt as am experiment in value to help me with future quilts. This one isn't meant for show or anything. It's just for me so I've made it into a laboratory for several things.

I'm on a roll and ready to get the small marbles done. I will have 18 large marbles after that. But I'm going to get the small ones done and then take it off to catch up on veterans quilts and then get back to the big marbles. Here are the newest ones.
If you want to see all of the marbles so far you can find them here. Thank you for your kind comments on last week's post!

Does anyone even remember this quilt? I made it as part of the Crossing The Drunkard's Path quilt along that I did a long time ago. I pulled every brown or brownish hand dyed fabric that I had top make this quilt. I started quilting it last March and am using this quilt to practice Spirograph motifs in quilting. I have a category link on the sidebar so you can see all of the motifs that have been quilted so far. I paused working on it when I injured my arm in May. I couldn't do ruler work for a few months and then other things happened and the next thing you know it's January and the quilt has been languishing for 7 months. 

I got caught up on veterans quilts so I decided it was time to get back to one of my quilts. Here are the 5 newest marbles that I completed this weekend.

This will be a good time to note that I use the brilliant marking tools from Sue Heinz to get the even divisions on my circles. That doesn't mean that the circles are ABSOLUTELY perfect. After all, I pieced them. But the are close enough if you don't stick your nose right up to the quilt.

I'm actually well over halfway done with all of the small circles but they take a bit of time to think about and then quilt. I am seriously running out of unique ideas! But I'm really happy to be working on it again.