Yesterday, the bike gang went out again!

We left at 9 am and got home at 9 pm.  We were some tired puppies!

Paul, Scott, sil Mary, bil Ed 

Scott behind us on Rt 59 a few miles from the dam

 Our destination was Kinzua Dam.  I'd never been there before and it was so cool.

 I even saw an eagle!! so excited about that!

Kinzua Dam

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Today I needed to really give the house a good cleaning but I still spent some time sewing.

I took a picture of the Modern stack n slash that I finally got the binding done on.

50 x 53

After this picture I washed it and it crinkled up wonderfully.  I just straight line quilted it but I didn't use channel locks just 'eyed' it. So it's not perfectly straight and I just estimated the distance between the lines too. I quilted it one way then reloaded it the other way and quilted it that way.  I really like how it turned out.  

I got another row of feathers quilted on Aster Manor.  I'm using wool batting on this one. It's the first time I've ever tried wool.  It really shows the quilting.  I'm quilting it very close, doing all-over hooked feathers and hope that is OK with wool to quilt it so densely.   

I've been working on piecing the diamond (triangles on the corners) of the Medallion blocks.  I was having trouble seeing the cutting line I drew because the overhead lighting casts a shadow on my cutting table.  I was getting a bit frustrated when it hit me that my Ott Light is sitting in the corner unused.  

So I dragged it out, plugged it in and 'wah-lah' no more shadow.

Here are my medallion blocks.  

just 6 more to add the triangles too

As I'm piecing these, I started a new Leader/Ender project.  I stopped using the L/E method a while back, it just sorta happened.  But I've been saving my binding triangles and even cut some from 2.5 inch squares to make this quilt.  I don't have near enough triangles yet but what the heck it's a start.

in no time at all I have over 20 made. only need a couple hundred more. This will take some time. :)

Hooked Feathers

Last week while blog surfing I happened upon a new to me blog. Jennys Doodling Needle.

I was scrolling through the beautiful pictures of her quilting and lo and behold she had a tutorial on  all- over hooked feathers.  Now I have the book by Sally Terry "Hooked on Feathers" and have quilted them, in fact they were the first feathers I tried.  So I took a good look her pictures and instructions and started practicing on paper.  I had already loaded a quilt for Libby but it was just sitting there since I hurt my back digging in my flowers...

I finally decided it was time to try the feathers 'for real'. 

My last practice page I pinned up on the wall across from HQ.

I always find it a little scary stitching out an all-over and only being able to see the area that I'm working on. It's not until I finish and unroll it that I can say whew!  That's good. For me a lot of my concern is keeping the feathers (or whatever the motif is) a consistent size. 

I was pretty excited when I finished this one.

So I loaded my Schnibbles Lincoln top and quilted it too. 

oh doo-doo, now I have to bind it!

gag.

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The weather here is beautiful. 

Paul and I are going out on the bike for a nice long ride and dinner somewhere.

We went out last night too-just for a ride tho', we had dinner at home on the deck w/ Meghan;
Grilled Cajun chicken salad and baked potatoes.
Delish.