What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Rain every day this past week has brought out the flowers in the garden and on the veranda. Almost every early morning, the valley and mountain ridge was heavy with clouds. The morning air was cool and almost fall-like, but more humid. Rain brings out the lush green, and everything is growing.

My garden has made progress, strong tomato plants and lots of basil mean freshness yet to come for the table. Squash came up that I didn’t expect, and the parsley is showing promise as well. I have a good number of flowers, and even some tiny green ...

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If there is one place and time you could go right now, where and when would you pick? I would say Floret flower Farm during the summer. I was given the chance to review celebrated farmer-florist and New York Times bestselling author Erin Benzakein's new book Discovering Dahlias and it was such a pleasure from the very first page. As you can tell from the title, this book all about Dahlias (her previous books were Cut Flower Garden and A Year in Flowers) and gives excellent advice for growing, harvesting and arranging Dahlias.

I think one of the reasons ...

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Late September brings a few last flowers before the garden heads into sleep for the winter.  The geraniums don’t seem to know that it is fall, and continue to produce long-lasting pink flowers in abundance.

They are such an intense hue, lovely color on the veranda.

My purple dahlia has put up another flower stalk, and is slowly opening.  It may take a few more days to fully open.

Autumn is the prime blooming time for dahlias, and I have several more buds developing.  These will open in October sometime.

While we are on the subject of dahlias, the ...

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The second Dahlia panel is finished, and the colors on this one are so vibrant!  The colorway is called Sunset.  I didn’t have any threads to match the intense colors on this panel, so I went to Beginnings and purchased four Floriani embroidery threads in precisely matched colors.

It was easy to find a good match with the display of over 300 shades and gradations to choose from.  These threads are strong enough for high speed embroidery machines, so I thought they would be fine for the longarm, and they were.  The threads stitched beautifully without breaking.

I reviewed ...

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The Dahlia panel quilt is finished, and now hanging up.  I did the back differently than usual as this wall hanging is too large for the quilt clips I have in the den.  I have a curtain rod with ring clips for hanging quilts in my sewing space, but for this one, I wanted to show you another method that works anywhere.

Start with a large strip of doubled fabric.  This one is 2-1/2-inches wide, with two sewn together so I could use the last bits of the fabric from the backing and binding.  You could use a five-inch ...

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It is hard to believe it is August, this year is going by in a blur of days that mostly look the same.  But there have been a few happenings here, and the flower show keeps going.  Time for a long and picture heavy post!!  Vibrant pink geraniums bloom profusely in just one pot.

In the front flowerbed, the penstemmon phlox is putting on a show.

A fleeting glimpse of the hummingbird in the shadows, lower right.  They are usually gone by the time I can get the camera on and focused.

The hydrangeas are blooming so much that I ...

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Languid and hot days alternate with rainy afternoons now that summer is in full swing here.  July is our hottest month of the year and it has been days of above average temperatures for us.  I do not like summer heat, especially when it is humid too, so it is indoor activities for me most of the time.  But in the early morning, or at dusk, we can spend a bit of time on the veranda to enjoy birdsong and fresh air, and the fireflies after sundown.  Taking a short stroll to the flowerbed, there is much to enjoy in ...

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Last week I began quilting the dahlia panel, putting different motifs in each petal.  I had hoped to be done with this by now, but the longarm machine had other plans.  Here is where we left off, with the top section nicely under way.

On this petal, I planned a curved cross hatch with double lines.  To mark the quilting lines, I used a Clover White Chaco Liner, a chalk lining tool that makes a nice thin line, and my curved ruler.

Then, I used the curved ruler as a guide for the hopping foot, following the lines.

Horizontal lines ...

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Since my block design motivation is taking a hiatus, I got out my dahlia panel in soft pastels, the Hoffman Dream Big Opal that I promised to show you.  I want to do this one for me.  It will be a practice piece for another one in the Sunset colorway to quilt for a Silent Auction.  Is it just as daunting to you to face one of these panels?  I’ve done one other, the Leaves panel in a previous post (Fear of Free Motion), and it seemed easier to follow the vein lines already in the printed panel.  This ...

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There has been a lot of this and that in the sewing room lately.  Small projects quickly finished, secret sewing done, and no big project on the horizon.  Seems like it is just kind of quiet.  So, I took a look around this past weekend, and tried to decide on some projects to begin.  First up, this little wall hanging quilt of just nine blocks was a gift to me. It was made by a friend who recently passed away. Her small quilts were offered to those who knew her, and I chose this Origami Flower Quilt in purple and ...

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