Progress...............

What a great day!!!!   OK - by some people's standards, I pushed it a bit, but I was on a roll and having loads of fun.   

After my short nap - sorry - that's all my body wanted, and my Tim's tea, I was ready to take on the world.   

I started the day out by working on a quilt that is due for Spring Market on May 20.  Yes, May 20 of this year!

I'm not going to show you the front of the quilt - nope, that will get revealed when I do my School House presentation to the shop owners.   

The back of the quilt

I will show you part of the front.  It's made with a panel from a new collection that was just released by Northcott in late April.

Naturescapes - Kotiya

I made a quilt using the panel and in the essence of time, the entire quilt was digitally printed.  I don't call that cheating, I call it a productive use of time!


The quilt turned out amazing and I'm pretty happy with the results.  It's trimmed and now awaiting binding once the fabric arrives (hopefully this afternoon).


Since I was still up and ready to go, I loaded the next quilt on the long arm.  It also used the same panel but was smaller.  Here's the back!

Backing of second Natursecapes Kotiya quilt

Check out this link to see the entire collection of Naturescapes Kotiya. It's pretty awesome.   You can also see two other quilts that were designed by our designers. Those have also been reproduced and will be hanging in our booth at Spring Market. I think both or at least one of them will be.  I can't remember - too many details!

I got the next one ready for the long arm and hope to load it tonight. There are four other panels as well that were just released.

Naturescapes Fields of Gold

Naturescapes Heading for Cover

Naturescapes Pleasant Pastures

and my personal favourite (although I love them all)

Naturescapes Solitary Sentinel

They will not be available in stores until later in the fall, but if you want them, call your local shop and ask them to order in the products. There's also a coordinated collection of nature fabrics (Naturescapes) to go with the panels which contains some very exciting prints.  And you'll see from the quilts on each of the links above and eventually on my quilts, that we did NOT use the fabrics in the traditional landscape fashion.  And they look amazing!

Time to shut down the long arm and do something else.

 The next task was to use the die-cut machine that I had borrowed. I had wanted some letters to add a quote to the border of a quilt and Susan had the perfect option for me.

Die-cut machine

My quote across the kitchen counter

The quote on the left and the scraps on the right

I couldn't help myself.   I just can't seem to throw anything away!  But all those bits have fusible on the back and well - I'm sure I could come up with something cool if I mess with them.

My knee felt great when I got up this morning.  I have to say that taking the tensor bandage off did help, although I'm still having trouble bending beyond 90 degrees.  Just keep bending, but not too deep!  While they recommended cycling as part of the rehab, I decided to take it easy this morning and just did the elliptical for 15 minutes on the basic level. I don't think my heart rate got over 100.  It actually felt great to stretch out the joint and was less painful than walking!     Just need to get the swelling down because although I did sit with ice on it several times yesterday, it's a tad swollen today.  But as I sit at my desk - gasp - yes I drove the car - no problems, I have an ice pack on my knee and it's feeling great!

And the best news - each day is going to get better and better!!!!  

On that note, time to get more work done today!

Have a great day!!!!!

Ciao!!