I had to wait a few weeks until Ruth’s longarm was open and available.
Here is the quilt, loaded on the machine, one large backing that I ordered from Connecting Threads, when I ordered they had a number of large backing fabrics on sale, for $8 instead of $12. That was a nice saving. With a quilt this large I didn’t want to piece the back.
I put so much time and effort into this quilt top, and it’s busy! So I needed to simply the quilting, not an easy thing for me to do. I have been watching Angela Walters Midnight quilt show, she shares great quilting ideas, in this episode, she shared a woodgrain design, and that is what I went with.
5 hours, that is all it took, from loading to unloading the quilt, with a break for lunch. Not bad at all for a queen size quilt.
Here it is, off the frame and draped over it so you can see how extensive and large the quilt is. I absolutely love the quilting, it ties everything together but doesn’t overwhelm the pineapple pattern.
Trying to capture the whole quilt on the ground. 
I was considering piecing together the binding, but once again, I felt that would be too much. This is a very busy scrap quilt. Having one unifying binding would pull everything together. Luckily I had bought a large piece of fabric on sale, I think at the time I thought I’d use part of it in the backing.
Ironing the binding folding over.
It’s a good thing I have this large pergola to hand my quilts from. Even so, this one is dragging on the ground. You can see how different a quilt looks when you can photograph it straight on.
I’m in love, Ruth said the same thing, had I not finished quilting in one day I may have come back to an empty frame since she wanted to steal it. 
A glimpse at the backing fabric. I really lucked out, on sale and it fits the quilt top perfectly.
A closer look at the chickens. I quilted more detail on them, I really tried to emphasize the eyes with quilting. Then I echoed around, so they stand out from the background. Another chance to see how pleasing that background quilting is.
Outlines and echoed the bees. I did add antennae with the quilting, not that it’s that visible. Then for my reward, I got stung this weekend by a bee. A neighbor had a beehive on his fence, no he’s not doing anything about it, even though we told him that I got stung. People!
The name was pretty easy to come up with. Leigh raises chicken, bees, and veggies in her garden. Maybe some of the pineapples can represent some lettuce or beans.
It’s done!! I am going to machine wash and dry it because that way Leigh will know that it can be laundered. Nothing delicate or sacred about it. Then on to take some ‘artistic’ pictures, share with my guild and off in the mail it will go.
He replaced the pre-tension disks with one from Singer. It works, I have never changed any tension there, so I doubt I’d be starting now. I was having problems filling my bobbins, turns out there was thread stuck in there. I wasn’t charged for that part of the repair – so yes, all my machines will be going to Mayhall’s for service.
Juki has come out with its own ruler foot. Yay! Maybe having the correct foot that really fits the machine will stop my thread breakage problems.
Here is a quilting ruler, butted up against the foot. Because the foot is thicker, the ruler won’t bounce under the foot – which could really cause some serious damage to the machine.
I got busy and used the rulers on the central medallion. Uh oh, still having thread skipping and breaking.
Same problem I’ve always had, when I move from left to right or move down to up, threads skip and break, not a problem in the other two directions. Even if I am working on the diagonal this happens.
So I drew some lines and tried it free-motion, yup, still same skipping and breakage.
So I tried good old-fashioned fmq, not a problem at all. Is this because I am moving in all directions?
I had been using Organ Needles size 90, you can see the problem in the lines up top. I had heard that Janome Purple needles are the way to go. So I ordered some and as you can see on the lower lines – yup, more breakage.
It has been so long, I don’t remember if I have shared this image. So many people are posting their completed samplers. Each one I see reminds me why I don’t want to simply make a sampler out of 100 disparate blocks – the question is, have I achieved more cohesion this way?
Slow hand sewing, there is something very relaxing about this.
Am I getting any better at this needle-turn applique? I must be, even if it doesn’t feel like it. 
Then I have to remind myself, no one will be looking as closely at these blocks as I am. So stop stressing and enjoy the process.
Then the question becomes, am I overwhelming the smaller blocks with these large applique ones? Maybe, there will be more small ones on the front, although I think most of them will end up on the back of the quilt.
I do enjoy seeing real shapes emerge from blobs. 
Some of these blocks have very high contrast, others don’t.
My final decision for the top is to make two half squares of applique for the top and bottom and fill in the spaces with a few more of the sampler blocks. I will probably add a solid border all around and then I have to make some serious decisions about the quilting.
A few more quilted ones. 
A chicken as garden art. 
A sheep on a quilt.
A turtle…
… and a frog.
Here is my own frog on the front porch.
Birds, maybe they are ducks?
I, of course, have owls around the yard.
Dogs heads on the Mulholland Dam at Lake Hollywood.
A dog sculpture doing what dogs do outside a veterinary clinic.
This is a very traditional guild. The modern quilts on view are actually from the Valley MQG. So I’ll be showing some of my favorites that clearly fall into the traditional category. I didn’t take down any of the names of the makers, sorry. Applique is certainly a big draw for me these days. From very traditional…
… to art quilts.
Here is a great example of how the quilting enhances the object. Sure this reads as a hand, but with the quilting, all the details of the hand are present as well.
This is lovely, not something I’d ever make, but something I can enjoy and appreciate.
This on the other hand, looks like something I’d like to adapt. It is called Baltimore Sea by Sherryl Zurek. At first glance, it’s a traditional Baltimore album quilt.
On closer inspection, most of the elements are from the sea, seahorses, turtles, and seashells.
An octopus!
I like the combination of piecing and applique.
I’m trying to pay more attention to the quilting itself.
Here is the ultimate in a traditional medallion quilt. Applique, piecing, very simple somber colors. I’m glad it won a ribbon.
Pineapples, very different from the pineapple block quilt I have been working on.
As are these roosters by Harriet Sartinsky.
This was a level 4 walk, only two miles, but it included almost 700 stairs, most of them going up. Really, on the downhill, we were on steep streets, uphill was on the stairs. We were a large group, somehow I managed to get a photo before anyway started up on these.
We walked by Neutra’s
I don’t know what this is called, all I know is that it’s old and no one builds houses that look like this anymore.
Across the hill and across the reservoir is this Lautner home, 
This is an interesting perspective of the Hollywood sign and the Griffith Observatory. In reality, the Observatory is east of the sign, but from this angle, it looks the opposite.
Here we are, starting up the Loma Vista Stairs. Quite long with many interesting homes to see.
I guess it’s been a while since Charles climbed these stairs, this painted wall was new to him. And yes, quiltspiration! I love that I stumped spell check with this world – a combination of quilt and inspiration and no, I didn’t invent it, I’m just using it, in hopes that one day, everyone will know what a quiltspiration is.
Across the way was this house with artwork from A to Z. 
The fall decorations are coming out!
There were a lot of us, I’m not good at estimating crowds, but I’d say at least 50 people if not more.
Which caused local residents to turn as watch us go by.
This initiative and signs are new to me. I do think that Charles deserves a lot of credit for bringing these stairs to the publics’ awareness.
It’s always good to catch a glimpse of downtown LA.
And the beautiful refurbished Silverlake reservoir. Oh, and as we were climbing one set of stairs, we bumped into a couple coming the opposite way, with Charles 
The class was advertised with this sampler. I signed up and hoped for good instruction.
Jenny is a delightful teacher, very informative. Our first design, basic swirl, or squiggle. Now I know, working on a 15″ square of fabric isn’t hard, but she had good tips on how to get this design ‘right’.
A little bigger is a little better.
Two views of the meander, same piece, different angle, and lighting. There is a method to this, it isn’t random. This is a very traditional filler. During the class, Jenny spoke about how to handle a large quilt. That is the rub, that is where all the issues arise, on a large project. Well, I’ll have to try some of her suggestions and I need to realize that it’s going to be slow and hard, wrangling a large quilt. There is no magic solution.
The ever popular pebbles. A very tedious design that looks great. Jenny had some good tips, and yet…
…the best advice is doing be too ambitious with pebbles. Use them sparingly. They take up too much time, thread and effort.
This scallop pattern is great. Jenny calls it ‘charity quilt background’ because it looks complicated. It is relatively easy and is great to cover a whole charity quilt with. Most people who quilt charity quilts want it to look good but not be labor intensive. This fits the bill. It would also make a good background on selective areas of any quilt.
As you can see, we did each of the designs in the sampler, but we never put them all together in one project. The class was billed as an introduction class. Turns out all of us had some kind of experience, so we moved along quickly from one design to another.
So much so, we even got a quick feather tutorial. Now I’m quite good at feathers, I use them in most of my quilts. Experience is really a great teacher. And yet, Jenny had some good tips to share.
There was a professional photographer, so at some later date I will put up better pictures. I was really too busy to take many of my own.
Yesterday I was busy setting up whatever I could.
Early in the morning, I was busy getting the tables decorated and the food put out.
It would have been fine to only have 3 large bagel platters, but 10 packages of lox from Costco worked out just fine.
We actually had way too many sweets, I don’t think I’ve planned an event for close to 100 people before.
The Mohel (the one who performs the circumcision) absolutely loved this sign, he took it home and is planning on putting it up in his garage. Andy Schpall is amazing, this is our 4th grandson he has circumcised and he was chocking up a little. All the people, all the joy, all the love welcoming Eyal to the family and the Jewish community. 
We weren’t the only one who was trying to guess the name. This is was as good a guess as any.
I should have given her a marker, it’s very faint, but there is his name Eyal Noam. He is named after three strong women, two of whom are deceased, all had Ann in their name. I know, EN isn’t Ann, but in Hebrew, אן, is. Yoch chocked up as well as he said the name and explained the significance. 
A little goofing off.
Then the cousins helped out with opening the presents. What a wonderful day.
It is a wonderful prop for my photos, be they grandchildren….
… who play next to them with trucks.
Or run by it.
It is a great place to pose, showing off a new dress.
That goes for me as well.
It is a lovely backdrop for my knitted shawls.
Or small quilted items.
For a rope basket,
A knit bunny.
And a fabric cat.
I have been working on this block. I do enjoy handwork, a lot! 
Building up layers with needle turn applique is very relaxing.
I was given a lot of green and blue fabrics to work with, I don’t think I used all of them, although I have tried to get a lot of variety in here.
The final touch, a yellow center on every flower. I hand this back to the Valley Quiltmakers Guild this week. It will be fun to see how the whole quilt comes together.