A Little Me Time

So this weekend, and for the past at least two weeks, every day has been 98 to 100 degrees or more.  Did I go outside?  Are you nuts!?  Of course not.  Not even with the lake beckoning me.  No, I stayed indoors and took a little "me" time to do some quilting of my own projects.  This little number above is for a not-yet-born baby girl, due September 1, daughter of some young friends in our tiny town.   If you click on the picture, you can see it in a much larger size.

This one is for Kelsey.  Kelsey is the youngest daughter of my former secretary, Maria, and she graduated from high school this month.  When her older sister, Jesyka, graduated, I made her a quilt, too, but it took me years to quilt it since I had to wait to be able to buy my professional quilting machine.  I had quilted Jesyka's quilt freehand, and soon realized that I do not have alot of creativity in me as far as coming up with interesting patterns for the quilting part.  Neither do I have the gross motor control that it takes to move that heavy longarm up and down and across the quilt and have it look like I know what I'm doing.  So now I use mainly robotics (Intelliquilter) to make the patterns look consistent.  Here's a closeup of the kind of thing I can do with the Intelliquilter that I could never do freehand:

Now I have a large customer quilt to work on this week.  It's called "Creation", and I'm waiting for some special thread and two special patterns before I get started on it.  The thread didn't come in today's mail, so maybe I can squeeze in one more of my own quilts before I can put the customer's on the frame.  Hmmmm..

Last, but not least, we have a rapidly ripening tomato! Another few days, and it will grace a master chef salad at our house.  I can almost taste the sun warmed flavor....