Groovy!

I figured out a way to get my photos loaded - even while here at Gram's.

Yup, I found one of my memory sticks (thumb drives, for you techno geeks) at the bottom of my purse. I figured out I can transfer the photos from the SD card in the camera to the memory drive, then use the thumb drive to get the pictures loaded onto this ol' Mac (which doesn't like my card reader...but will recognize the memory drive).

At any rate, here are some current progress photos of the latest projects.

Dog 1 (as seen above), was something I began last year (I think it was last year) and then, for some reason, I lost interest and began another quilt project (or two) and picked up work on other projects I had long since put away. Well, I am back at work on ALL of those beautiful creatures, and happily fulfilling a promise I made to myself to finish things before taking off on another tangent.

That doesn't mean I am not still planning other colorful quilts to come, it simply means I am trying to clear my decks before creating more work and piles to move from here to there, taking up space and gumming up the works.

The safety pins are my basting tools - simply because I am too lazy to baste the entire quilt with needle and thread, only to apply more stitches to actually quilt it; the pins come out quickly enough as I work through an area. I draw the stippling lines onto the black pieced borders surrounding each dog motif, then quilt them before they can rub off. The stippling adds a great deal of texture and visual dimension to the squares.

Here is how it looks once quilted. The differences between the feathered quilt application on the white, and the tight meandering line of the stippling, makes the little dog patches 'pop!' As you can tell, I machine quilt, BUT I do so free-handed. The imperfections and unevenness gives it a charming look - I think.

Here's a shot at the back - you really get to see the stippling from this side.

I plan to keep working on this one and get as far as I can while I am away from home. At this time, I have three more black borders to stipple (draw out then quilt). From there I will move out to the small white squares and then onto the borders. That should all go very quickly. Once I am through quilting, I will make a sleeve for hanging and apply it just before binding. Hopefully, Dog 1 will be completed before the end of next week!