Snow Day Fun!

After finishing up my first Quilt of Valor volunteer project I decided it was time to put on a fun for me quilt that I had absolutely no expectations for this go around.  I chose my brown heart quilt I bought in a group off of eBay right after Christmas.  I chose a tan colored thread to match the tan heart fabric.  I quickly got it loaded on the machine and remember to put down a straight line of sewing so I would know where to line up my quilt.  On the QOV I didn't remember to do this step and luckily I was only off 1/4" by the time I got to the end of the quilt with my stitching. Lucky!!!

The brown heart quilt locked & loaded.

After my quilt was loaded I had to wait.  I do not have a heart pattern for quilting.  Dustan has figured out how to draw quilt patterns for my machine and upload them so I don't have to go and purchase them.  I will give him a rough sketch and he takes it and makes it happen.  Quit drooling, he's taken.  He was having a few glitches pop up so he was having to smooth those out.  Then I was ready to go.  I didn't even get out any practice material and practice quilting it.  I just started right on my loaded quilt!  Oooooo! Talk about daring and reckless.  There is something about when it's a design you've doodled many time during faculty meetings that makes it easier to just go for it.  (Yes, I'm a heavy doodler.  If I'm forced to sit for any length of time and expected to be quiet I get out scratch paper and doodle.)

Here's what a quilt design loaded on my Pantovision program looks like.  

Here's the pattern quilted.  Not too shabby!

We went to bed last night with a lot of snow on the ground and it was still coming down slowly.  We woke up to a foot of snow this morning.  That doesn't include the 3" we got several days before in a weekend snow.  I went out and pulled the first shift of shoveling.  Dustan took second shift and I left him all the drifts.  We had a 3' drift in front of our garage.  This was a snow storm for those with a pioneer heart.

Dustan and Happy out cleaning off the front walk.  Yes, that pile is every bit as big as it looks in the photo.  

After shoveling I went back to work on my quilt.  It went smoothly with no tension problems, batting shifting, or any of the other things that seemingly pop up.  I took a break at lunch time and a siesta, because when will I get another snow day in the near future where the day is completely mine?  I finished about 30 minutes before sunset.  I follow several blogs and I've seen some awesome pictures of quilts taken on the snow.  I thought this one might be a good candidate since it was such a dark color that would contrast well with the brilliant snow.  What do you think?

My finished heart quilt out on the snow.