Mother's Day procrastination

I did it again. Procrastinated on making my mom something for Mother's Day. My mom usually gives me lists of things she wants made and with three occasions a year I get most of them done. For Christmas I went in with siblings and paid for getting home movies put on DVD's so I didn't make anything. For her 70th birthday in Feb. I found the replacement china pieces online she needed and gave her those which she was expecting to pay for.

Here we are, Mother's Day weekend. Yesterday I looked through a pile of fabric belonging to my mom (she buys pieces on sale she likes but doesn't sew) and she had a lovely piece of a Christmasy wildlife print. Their family room is decorated in wildlife. I went to Orofino to The Wild Hare and found some flannel that would coordinate and today I will be machine quilting a VERY simple throw and hopefully delivering it tonight (machine sewn binding).

I will get a photo when it's finished.

A Finished Project

I bought this pattern last summer in Estes Park, Colorado, the designer was from there. It's called Merry Meadow. I bought the fabric at Quilt Something
in Moscow, ID and hand appliqued 60 yo-yos. The yellow border next to the binding is dimensional. It makes a nice throw size and I love it. I quilted it at a retreat a couple weeks ago at Palouse Divide.

Busy Weekend

I hosted a small group Friday and one of the members took up my challenge to make something for the American Hero quilt project. These were all scraps and turned out great.

Saturday I went to a quilt show in Clarkston, WA, yes the same quilt show that is a couple posts down a year later! I saw a lot of people I knew, bought green batiks and had a nice time. Doing all the errands wasn't as fun!

Today I decided to be dumb and clean out freezers, one large upright, one small chest, two over a fridge. It took all day because I decided to make jam out of some berries, a cobbler out of some peaches and throw some stuff out. I need to make a a quilt block tonight if I have the energy!

Finally, I'm back!

It's been awhile and I could not figure out how to get back into my blog! How sad is that? I made a vow to myself to blog and update my webshots instead of playing tetris.

It's not that I haven't quilted for a long time and didn't have anything to post, I have finished quite a few projects. It's more like I have been mentally challenged in updating things.

Just to get things started this is a wedding quilt I completed in six days, start to finish over my spring break.


My friend Deb commissioned me to make this quilt for her niece. We decided on a pattern on a Friday, Saturday I started cutting from my stash and by the next Friday the binding was finished.

Now that I know how to get back in (and yes I wrote it down!) I will post frequently.

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!

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!

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.

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 to 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.

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!

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!

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!

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!

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.

Quilt Show Ramblings

I went to the Seaport Quilters show in Clarkston Sunday. Nothing really grabbed me there, although I took a few pictures of some of the fun challenge pieces they had. I had entered some quilts in the show and did receive a 3rd place viewers choice ribbon for a group quilt block robin. I was thrilled with that! I only purchased some spray baste spray by Pam Clarke of Spokane http://www.homestitches.com/supplies.html . It is wonderful stuff, my can is almost gone and her invisible machine applique is awesome.

The only other thing I purchased was a pieced of 30's reproduction for a round robin. I just needed a final border fabric so I could get it mailed off yesterday. The center was an actual 30's dresden plate block and my border was to put it on point. I did that while making half dresdens out of reproductions to fill in.

I have gotten out my daughter's graduation quilt to work on again. I figured since graduation is May 27th, I should get it done! I hope I get it done sooner than my other daughter's last year. I finished the binding about 15 minutes before we left for graduation! I have 27 of the 63 blocks for Lisa's quilt made.

Inspiration Abounds

Last night I went to a meeting of my small design group, the 3-D's in Lewiston. I am DeepPurple Designing Diva, we all have a different D name for the first D. There is a lot of originality and creativity in this group and we are focusing on learning new techniques for non-traditional pieces. As usual, I came away from there wanting to do something fun, instead of the traditional stuff I have been stuck doing for a long time. At the same time, I picked up 9 quilt tops to machine quilt for a friend however. Machine quilting helps support my habit, so they are hard to turn down.

This morning I took time to make 7 Artist Trading Cards (ATC's). I made them in a sheet and I will have to try again on a picture. The flash is really washing out the color in the cards, they are only 2 1/2" X 3 1/2" and it felt great to do something fun. This afternoon I had another group of Deva's (spelled differently) to attend and it was also a lot of fun. My quilt guild has Joyce Becker (author of Luscious Landscapes) coming to do a class in June and we have been going over the supply list. I don't have paints, pens, etc., but will be ordering some.

A new book I got recently that is very inspirational is Quilt Toppings by Melody Crust. I can hardly wait to try some of the ideas in the book. Again, I need more supplies! To that end I ordered a Dharma Trading Company catalog today!

My daughter is on her trip to D.C. that her government class won (see an earlier post) and called three times today. She had never flown before and was thrilled with the experience. Their trip is interspersed with sight seeing and competing in "We the People".

Graduation quilt top

This is the quilt top I made for my daughter's high school graduation. Now I need to get it quilted before May 27th! She designed the quilt in EQ5 and helped pick out the fabrics. She is thrilled with this quilt and this is the kid who has two blue walls, 2 yellow walls and with a blue on yellow polka dot ceiling in her room! I'm sure she will have a bright college dorm room next fall.

Her sister's room is VERY country oriented!

Finally Finished!

My Tropical Flowers is unofficially finished, I still have to add a label, but I finally have it this far! I started this quilt (using a Judy Niemeyer pattern)http://quiltworx.com/index.html .

I did the paper piecing at a quilting retreat in Feb. 2005, in Oct. 2005 I did the fusible applique (without stitching it down) and I quilted most of it at a retreat in March 2006. I used techniques from the book "Coloring with Thread" to quilt the applique pieces down .

This is the quilt I was working on when my Janome 6500 died, completely froze up with the needle down. The machine was less than a year old and has been a nightmare to have fixed do to the lack of dealers in my area and some other problems with the dealer I did take it to. The machine is ready but I have not had time to make the six hour round trip to pick it up!

Music Challenge

This is a small challenge quilt I made in response to a group's music challenge. I had the help of my family with ideas and it was my 17 yo daughter's idea for the shape. I found some novelty fabrics to fit my song idea and made this 16" roundish quilt in an evening using fusible batting and fusible web binding. It will be displayed in the Seaport Quilters show in Clarkston, WA this coming weekend.

Now for the question, what is the name of the song I based this quilt on?

Spud's Excellent Quilting Adventure

Trying to get into blogging
I started this blog and then promptly abandoned it. I finally remembered my password to get back in and I'm going to really try to learn how to do things with it now (she says hopefully). I still haven't figured out how to add a picture, that is next on my agenda. I have some quilting pictures to share.

This week I managed to set together my local guild's raffle quilt for next year. It is an Outdoor Idaho theme and all the blocks were different sizes so it was left to me to set it together since I have presented programs on how to accomplish that. The group loved it last night, so I was thrilled about that.

I have two kids in track and I have made it to all their meets but one so far. The team lost a lot of fast seniors last year and there are only about 10 girls total on the team so it's pretty slim for them to have relays. My daughter has won the triple jump twice this season so far.

I have two of my machines in Spokane for repair and it's slow going on machine quilting without them. I do my piecing on a Pfaff 2040, and my quilting on a Janome 6500, with a 23 year old Pfaff 1214 for backup. At a retreat in March the Janome just totally died, stalled out, froze up, etc with the needle down. It was less than a year old and I have yet to get the machine back and the store lost the foot control and cord but said it wasn't brought it. Big mess, so we going halves on a new set. In the meantime, thinking I was getting the Janome back I took the 1214 in for a checkup and to have some worn out parts replaced. It's kind of like sending your kids away from home from the first time, my machines are special to me and it's been hard to focus without them!

So this doesn't get too long I will stop now and go clean my house! Oh yeah, that sounds exciting!