Thursday, May 03, 2007

Gift for a Friend









This is a wallhanging that I made as a challenge for a small design group I am in. Our challenge was to make something 15" X 45" and it needed to hang vertically. I had some other ideas but this one just kept screaming at me. I turned it into a gift for my friend Nikki. She likes circles and the color green. I used some threadwork, beading and diagonal straight line quilting for accents. I also faced the quilt instead of using binding and I really like the look of it.

I had been wanting to post a picture but the quilt was in a show last weekend in Lewiston, Idaho and I mailed it to Nikki Tuesday. I wanted it to be a surprise and now that she has it and loves it I can write about it!

I enjoyed the Lewiston show this year, viewing the wallhangings and challenges is my favorite part!


Monday, April 16, 2007

Quilt Show Thoughts

Saturday I went to the annual Palouse Patchers quilt show in Moscow, Idaho. I always enjoy this show. This year I met 5 friends before hand for lunch after dropping my daughter off to visit friends. I was not overly inspired by the large quilts, but oh my on the small quilts. Karen Schoeflin Hagen from Genesee, ID is so wonderfully creative. She had done two sets of alphabet quilts. Small pieces with so much detail and thought. That was 52 small quilts! I think it would be a fun journal type project to get me doing more fun stuff.

Karen also made the most fanstatic lilacs. First of all her branches were recylced pantyhose. The lilacs were baby rick rack. I just don't have the creative brain to think like that! Karen also had a couple other wall quilts I just loved. She was in a mystery project, which was really a pretty regular pieced block project, like a lot of us have done. But the most incredible applique was added! I wish I could share pictures, but I am not one to put other people's work on my page without permission.

I also have been overwhelmed by the vast amount of projects and fabric I have so I only came away with some freebie fabric. Not good for the vendor business I know, but I just didn't need anything.



Fun Shopping and Lots of Inspiration


During my spring break I went to Ephrata, WA, someplace I had never been. Ephrata itself isn't a prime vacation destination, but I was visiting my friend Deb. We went to The Fabric Patch in Ephrata. OH MY!!! What a fabulous shop! The prices are excellent and there is stuff everywhere! I was completely overwhelmed! I did buy just a few pieces of fabric. One just screamed at me, but I have no clue what to do with it. I did get a green to go with it.



I fell in love with this Pat Sloan fabric also. I am one of those that loves all styles of quilting, from very contemporary to folk art to traditional and everything in between! I guess I never get bored that way, my UFO numbers prove that to be true!


Thursday, March 29, 2007

Spring Break!

I am officially on spring break as of 12 PM today. I work in a school district with a 4 day school week and I only work half days as an aide. However I do teach kindergarten and first grade in a one room school. My plans for break include quilting, yardwork, housework and going away for 3 days to visit a friend.

This is a picture of finished wallhanging started by my friend Vicki through the Pat Sloan yahoo group. I made some of the blocks in this and inherited all the blocks. I set them together and added the applique borders and thought Friendship Memories was appropriate as a memorial to her.

I'm thrilled to have finished two UFO projects this month, along with the tablerunner. I have also been doing assorted little projects, making blocks, machine quilting for others, etc.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Finished a UFO!

I am actually almost finished with two projects for the month! I quilted and bound my Katie's Tulips wallhanging I posted on March 22nd. I just have the binding to go on another large wallhanging that was not even my UFO to start with but was given to me at the passing of a friend.

I have another project I am trying to machine quilt and yet another I would like to finish by next Tuesday when
I head to WA to visit a friend for a couple days. Plus I have a challenge quilt I am working on. I filled out the form for the Seaport Quilters Show in Lewiston at the end of April, now I need to finish the project!

Since I don't have new quilt photos t
o post (I will take some) I will post a picture taken out my bedroom window last month. I live in Idaho, but the mountains you can almost see in the background are the Blue Mountains in WA.




Saturday, March 24, 2007

On a Roll

Last weekend was National Quilting Day. My guild did a two day charity quiltathon. We had several tops ready and set up two frames and tied them. I was only able to attend Friday, since my son had his first track meet of the season Saturday. Friday night I came home and didn't feel like machine quilting and looked around and got out an old piece of fabric and started whacking. Literally, I did a 4 patch stack and whack. I love how this quilt turned out and the title isn't definite but something on the order of "Why is Junk Food so Bad, But Tastes so Good?"

I have a Hershey Bar fabric in my stash also that will be the backing. My friend Rosan had seen the blocks last Sunday when returning my quilt frames and brought me a piece of french fry fabric yesterday, but I had the top together. I think I have come up with a plan for it though. I am going to fussy cut areas and fuse them on around the border and use the fabric for binding! This was a total stash project. Now to get it quilted along with lots of other projects!


Friday, March 23, 2007

This is a tablerunner I made for a birthday gift for my friend Joann for her March birthday. It all started on Feb. 25th when one of my yahoo groups had a Christmas sew-in. We schedule them on the 25th of every month so some of us procrastinators can try to be ahead of the game when December rolls around. I have always loved the cover quilt of the book "Scraps to You" by Debbie Caffrey. I decided to start cutting batiks and make a miniature version. I seem to have slightly overcut so I start piecing and ended up with this tablerunner and sent it to Joann for her birthday. To give you an idea of scale, the darker 4 patches are made of 1" finished squares. I am working on the original project I started on the 25th, but this was a lot of fun!

Thursday, March 22, 2007

A Little Quilting

This is the third time I have tried to post and my browser closes on me with this new blogger! It's driving me crazy! I spent most of February either sick or working on commission projects.

I worked on a variety of different things, but I pieced this top at a recent quilt retreat for the American Hero quilt project. I plan on getting it quilted as soon as I can!

I also fused and blanket stitched a wallhanging that I have had the pieces traced and fabric picked for several years. It's a Pat Sloan design, Katie's Tulips.I am going to try to publish this now before adding anything else. So far so good on not crashing!

Friday, February 02, 2007

Two quilting finishes

The quilt on the right is a 22" quilt I finished in early January. I started it Dec. 27th after the stress of getting Christmas quilts finished. It started as a packet of "In the Pink" fabrics from Buggy Barn and I don't even like brown! I joined a pink and brown log cabin challenge and this is what I came up with. Not what I envisioned originally, there was supposed to be a vine with the leaves but that didn't work out for me.

On the left is a tree skirt I started in October. It's huge, over 60" in diamter, and I didn't really think ahead when I saw the size! I didn't have it ready for Christmas, but I finished it in January, including beading and hot fix holly berries.

Since then I have just been doing commission quilting, but it's about time for a break from that, although I have to make my mom a birthday quilt by Feb. 10th!

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Testing

Spud's Excellent Quilting Adventure

I haven't posted in forever and I'm just testing to see if this works. I don't seem to have many options.