Strawberry Jams....forever!

The strawberries have begun their shiny red, appearance here in Davis, and the smell of Strawberry jam is heady in the air at the Gifford house.  So many people are excited the delicious berries are here, including myself, I am on my fifth batch of jam since the little Strawberry stand opened!  Keep the requests pouring in, and I will keep cranking out the jam!

So I know it appears that I have taken a long hiatus from quilting, but the truth is that I have been exceptionally behind in taking pictures of the quilts.  The weather has been cooperating, so we are working diligently on our backyard, preparing for Tour de Cluck.  New deck, planting fruit, flowers and trees.  Plus, I have developed a nasty case of tendinitis in my right arm, so the quilting, jamming and anything fun has been slowed....but I assure you, I have not stopped. I wasn't completely happy with how the fireman quilt came out. Greg, if you a reading this, I am sorry it isn't my best work.  However, I accept the fact that there are some things, no matter how hard I try, I just can't be perfect at doing....quilting is one of them. But, each time I do one, I get better. For example, I had fun doing my friend, Sandra's, quilt....it was a simple pattern that used many different fabrics in my stash, and I finally got the stitch length and tension right on my machine to quilt it as if I knew what I was doing. I am proud to give this quilt to her so she can raise money for her breast cancer walk this fall.

Sandra's quilt to auction off  to raise funds for Breast Cancer (front)

Back

This is a Thimble Blossoms pattern called "Pieces of Cake {2}."  It was relatively easy to put together and I quilted it using a "squiggle" pattern horizontally across the quilt.  I think it turned out really cute and I am especially happy with the quilting, thanks to Elizabeth Hartman's tutorial on her blog, "Oh Fransson!"  She has some great suggestions on there regarding how to quilt on your home machine that were very helpful.

Another quilt that I had fun doing was a pattern by Elizabeth Hartman called "Crazy Nine Patch Lattice. "  It really inspired me to use some of my orange fabrics, one color I don't use too much of, but I really like how mine came out:

I love the wine colored binding I used...it really brings out the purple color in the stars on one of the fabrics.  I wasn't as happy with the quilting with this one.  I got a little overzealous and didn't discover that I had the tension all wrong on it until I basically finished, and by then, I didn't want to start over.  Oh well.  I liked the way this one came together, so I am making another one in yellow fabrics and I plan on doing a few more!  I like the wonky blocks that have lots of room for forgiveness in non-perfect sewing.

I also finished up my "Lemon Squares" quilt by Faith Jones of Fresh Lemons Quilts.  I love how this ultimately turned out, but this is a perfect example of why you need two people to make your quilt "sandwich."  When I laid it out to quilt, I slightly turned it and missed the sandwich on one corner.  I used my mad stitching skills to hide it, but I learned a valuable lesson to utilize the hubby for assistance in laying out quilt stuff.

Fresh Lemons Quilts with "England Swings" fabrics by Rebekah Merkle

Back--Mistake hidden

While we were taking pictures of my quilts last night, we were graced with an unexpected guest on my roof:

We named the turkey, Tamale.  I was hoping that Jackson would tap into his retriever instincts and catch us some dinner, but he simply sat down and was bored as we snapped photos of the bird.  Oh well.  

Happy Crafting!