It's Monday... Happy Valentine's Day!

[Barbara C.]

Morning & Happy Valentine's Day,

It's finally above freezing at the waking hour! I love sporadic days like these. It gives you hope for spring! That you can actually make it through the rest of winter, and the spring flowers are only a few weeks away from popping their little heads up!

Well I got up early and got 50+ Valentine's cupcakes frosted so the hubby could take them into his group and I saved a couple to take to my quilting group this afternoon. The rest of this morning is laundry, vacuuming and I need to get some of my plants sprayed for spider mites. I hate those little buggers! Should fit in a work out for mom and I and need to figure out something for dinner. Well off to my sewing room to figure out what I'm going to do at quilt group. Have a great day everyone!

Happy Stitching,

Margaret

[Barbara C.]

I have two kids valentine parties today, then a workout and probably just crashing at the end of the day. Have a great day everyone. I hope you all have an amazing Valentine's Day.

[Barbara C.]

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!
We are just staying home and cooking dinner for just the 2 of us. Then Hubby is going to lite the firepit outside and we are going to sit out there and watch the stars, I hope it doesn't get to cold.
Wow Margaret that's alot of cupcakes.
Huggs,
Cie

[Barbara C.]

DH gave me a cute card and 2 small heart boxes of candy, one for me and other for him. Nothing special planned as we're waiting on the plumber to arrive to fix our water heater, the pilot keeps going out. May in Jersey

[Barbara C.]

50 cupcakes! That IS a lot! Sounds wonderful!

I worked today after going to the dentist. I got the hygienest who flosses you TO THE BONE after making sure you bleed good while doing the cleaning. Now I need to finish DD's laundry before she leaves for school tomorrow. I have been spreading it out so I would not run out of soft water all in one day. I also waited to do ours with hers to make sure I had full loads as much as possible.

I also broke down and spray basted the Thimbleberries quilt to machine quilt it. Just in the ditch although I HATE doing it in the ditch because I get upset when I go OUT of the ditch. Then I think it looks terrible. But I really am not gifted enough (translate to 'practiced enough') to do it all free motion. I did an adhesive pantograph on the graduation quilt I just did and it turned out nice. SOOO much easier than "steering" the design myself but the Thimbleberries will just be in the ditch. Also, I didn't have any polyester batting so since I had to use cotton, I decided tieing it was probably not the best way to finish it.

Gotta get supper going. DS is coming over to see DD since she is leaving tomorrow.

Kathy

[Barbara C.]

Kathy, all my "free motion" is done by tracing or copying a stencil or pics of the design, spray basting or pinning to the quilt and then quilting it. The worst part is the tearing off of the paper, but I have found out that parchment paper works really well. Another thing I did with a quilt I made for my granddaughter was to do squiggly lines instead of just in the ditch, then I didn't have to worry about going out of the ditch (because they were all out), but that quilt was just plain blocks. Also I've been told that the squiggly lines hold up better than straight ones. I also believe that cotton batting is easier to "free motion" because it seems to not "bunch up" or slip on the back of the quilt as much.

Judy

[Barbara C.]

I'm with Judy on using cotton batting for any type of machine quilting, whether free motion, stitch in the ditch or whatever. I don't use polyester any more. It is like an unruly child when in my hands. Because of the extra give in the thread I prefer to do the slightly squiggly lines to straight lines. I actually quilted a grid quilt for the second time because it was easier to do that than fix all the grids. Border was fine because I had quilted it in a cable.design.

The romantic part of Valentine's Day was to feed Vern ice chips. He's doing well after surgery.