Half over

Border blocks

I got my border blocks sewn for my Wales Sampler quilt. Wednesday is the meeting, so I need to sew the border on and write up the instructions. I will have a photo of the completed top next week.

Emerald Pools

I am getting down to the nitty gritty of my leader project on the wall. And in the bottom corner I just noticed that a triangle is missing! It could easily have been knocked down, and since that corner of the design was sloppily slapped onto the wall, I didn't notice it was missing until I tidied it up. Luckily I had more of that fabric, several of the black and whites were used up when I cut for this quilt. I hope to have this guy finished and off the wall this week.

More bowls for the shop!

I worked the shop on Friday and Saturday. While it was slow between customers, I was able to wrap more cord for bowls. I just need to trim some threads and then photograph them to list in my Etsy shop. I have so much fun making these! The little ones are perfect to put next to your machine as thread catchers.

Cute little guy!

I also made this little guy! My sweetie loved it so much that I told him I wanted him to have it. He put it on his dresser for a loose change catcher. And today is his birthday! So I will be baking his favorite Rum cake as a special treat.

This is my Design Wall Monday post.

Oh, and BTW, I drew a name for my giveaway. I will announce the name after I hear back from her. Thanks to everyone who entered! It was fun to hear all about your favorite treats!

December?

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful time. The kids and grands were down for the weekend. They left yesterday afternoon. Sweetie and I did a bit of clean up and then plopped down in our chairs, exhausted! I did not get into the sewing room at all. But after I get some chores done today I plan on getting back in there.

Sashing

First up is to finish the sashing for the block of the month that I designed for one of my local groups. I would also like to get the border on the top before the next meeting.

Wales Sampler blocks

I used all star block patterns for the 12 blocks and then used a star sashing design to continue in the same theme. The border also has stars.

Emerald Pools

I am still hammering away at this class sample as my leader project. It is slow, but steady progress. I hope to get it off the wall this week.

I also booked a class at a shop in California for January. I am going to be out there for a quilting retreat that my friends put on and so called the shop where I used to work and teach to see if the new owner would be interested in a class that week. She accepted! I miss that place! It will be fun to be back in the shop teaching. I will add it to my schedule after the owner gets a chance to announce it at her monthly Block of the Month event.

This is my Design wall Monday post for this week!

Since this is cyber Monday, I would love it if you are shopping at any of the sites that I have a banner for that you click on the link from my blog. I try not to be very pushy with promoting the ads and so I make very little from the ads. I greatly appreciate any clicks and purchases! I know that there are a lot of deals today and the next couple of weeks. Happy Shopping!

Design Wall Monday Bring out the UFO'S!

My main focus right now is an art quilt piece that I cannot show publicly until after the book comes out. So I will spotlight a couple of UFO's that have resurfaced recently.

The Never ending Hexagon 

I started this years ago, probably at least 10. It comes out every once in a while and then I get side tracked. I am using shirtings for the lights and 1800's repros for the darks and red centers. The last time this resurfaced I had laid out the blocks that were done and finally figured out a plan. It would have been a good idea to take notes on what that plan actually was! I think that I took a photograph of the layout, so I need to search my photo files and see if I can find it. Meanwhile I have been sewing the wrapped hexes together while I am at the shop and it is slow.

Hand quilting

This is another long time UFO. I was part of a row robin back in about 1999 or 2000. I sewed the rows together in about 2002 or so. Then I started the handquilting about 2005 or 06, I thought I had about a third of it completed. Not. But it came back out again. I am trying to quilt on it every morning for about 1/2 hour. We will see how that works out. I really would like this to be finished and then it can make the rounds of the local shows next year.

Red rock

My sweetie and I took a quick weekend trip down to Kanab! I adore the red rock of southern Utah!

This is my design wall Monday post for this week.

First Snow!

Back porch

We are having a little bit of snow. Nothing like those back East are dealing with. But it still counts as snow!

Birthday Hearts

On the back

This year I had challenged a couple of friends to finish UFO's. Twelve for the year. I did pretty well at the start. Then I had a couple of new projects with deadlines come up.  So in the last couple of months I only got one done, So I am at 7 for the year. Time to catch up. This little quilt top was given to me by my daughter more than 10 years ago. She had taken an applique class and this was the class project. She gave  me the top and said you quilt it! Happy Birthday to me! This recently made its way up to the top of the pile. The fabric that I was going to use for the back wasn't big enough and so I found I had this heart print that would work well. I got it pin basted yesterday and hopefully this week it will get quilted in between the new work that has deadlines and can't be shown publicly yet.

Speaking of not being able to show publicly, a project from last year can now be shown! This is part of the Beatles project and this photograph my friend Kaye took at Houston a couple of days ago. What a thrill to have a piece in the show! 

Photograph by Kaye Evans

My quilt is "Twist and Shout" and I talked about it last week on this post.

This is my Design Wall Monday post for this week.

Blogger's Quilt Festival Entry #2

This is my second entry to the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side! I decided to enter my Rainbow Utah quilt into the ROYGBIV category.

Rainbow Utah

I made this quilt to honor the fight for equality. Since this was finished, there was a ruling on October 6,2014 and marriage equality is now legal in Utah. I may add some more text with TAP to update this piece.

Ready to be bound

This is my first time working with Trapunto. I enjoyed the process! I am looking forward to doing it again. I hand dyed the rainbow fabric in the center.  The quilting lines are intentionally not straight. The colors are more accurate in the second photograph.

I blogged about my other entry here.

Check out the rest of the entries!

Since what I am working on cannot be shown publicly yet, this will have to do for my Design Wall Monday post this week.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

I am excited to enter the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side! I decided to enter two quilts. This entry will go in the art category. This is my second boat using these fabrics. They are all hand dyed with the exception of the batik binding. I used the leftovers from the original boat. I just started sewing all the pieces together and I ended up with another boat!

Odin II

Auditioning the parts

Sewn together

D cup

After I had it quilted, it had a huge bulge in the center. So I decided to block it before I trimmed the edges.

Dye run

I laid the piece on the ironing board and spritzed the bottom half with water. Let is set for a few minutes and then steamed it flat. Moved the piece and spritzed the top half. After letting it set for a few minutes I cam back to find that the orange dye had run into the sky. It showed up in several spots. So I made a plead to my friend and found out you can get it out using Dawn natural essentials. I used a small washtub, added a bit of the dawn to some warm water and then soaked the piece. After a few minutes I went to check and Voila! The run was gone! I then blocked it again, trimmed and then bound it.

My Name

I am not good at free motion quilting. I do try to hid my name somewhere in the piece when doing free motion. This piece combined walking foot quilting with the free motion.

I am blogging about my second entry here.


This is my off the wall post for this week.

Check out all the quilts at the festival!

Design Wall Monday

I have 2 projects on my agenda this week. I had all kinds of weird shapes leftover from my boat project. I just couldn't resist putting them together! I still have a few sections that I am not sure about, so they are auditioning on the wall for a bit.

Leftovers from the Boat

Also up is a wall hanging for my nephew. When I made a t-shirt quilt for him last year he had included with his t-shirts a Boy Scout uniform shirt. I was unable to make it work in the t-shirt quilt, so I had set it aside to make a wall hanging for him. I removed all the badges and patches. I have carefully removed the back of the shirt, I am going to use that as the background.  Not sure exactly how this piece will go together, will have to work on it later today after sew day.

Scout uniform

This is my Design Wall Monday post.

Design Wall Memorial Monday

I finally got a quilt finished! Last year Brenda of Pieplate Patterns was the president of our Quilt Keepers group in Wales, Utah. She gave us a block of the month and I joined in. I really enjoyed piecing the blocks every month.  I did get the top finished earlier this year and got the piece quilted earlier this month. Now it is bound and hanging in my entry.

I have had these blocks floating around the studio since March. I decided to redo one block because it had some raw edges that would not be hidden under the seams of the sashing (and it wasn't crooked enough). I do plan on another version of this quilt as you go technique and I have that not crooked guy and a partial in these blues and greens. I may go with the blues and greens again, and I may just go some other direction, who knows? I have my sashing auditioning on the wall. I may have to go back to the scrap bag to find a few more strips. I am pretty sure that I want to use that dark green for the binding.

Another thing that has been hanging around on the design wall is a challenge that I am doing with a friend. She provided the shell stamped fabric and also the hand dyed orange/goldish piece. I have an idea and have several other hand dyes auditioning on the design wall. Hopefully if I get the sashing finished on the blue/green guy I can get going on this one.

And I have some exciting news!  In the upcoming release of "Inspired by the Beatles an Art Quilt Challenge" I have a quilt that will be in the book!  We just got notice of the cover and are allowed to start talking about the book! My quilt is "Twist and Shout".  I can't share a photograph of it yet, but I will as soon as they say to go for it! I am told that the book is available to pre-order at Amazon.

This is my Design Wall Monday post!

Design Wall Monday

For last week's guild meeting we went to Tracie's house for a potluck and trunk show. After showing us a few quilts,she let us wander her house because she had quilts all over the place!

I love this version of a log cabin quilt!

Her closet full of quilts!

EZ Crazy quilt

I had forgotten that she had taken my EZ Crazy quilt class when I first moved here. I love to see finished quilts from my classes! It was a fun meeting!

My Iris's are in full bloom!

On my "wall" this week is to finish the binding on my sampler Block of the Month from last year. I can't see the black threads in the evenings anymore, so I need to work on it during daylight hours.

This is my Design Wall Monday post for this week.

Design Wall Monday

Finished!

Next up!

I finished quilting on the Trip Around the World Quilt! I am getting a lot of UFO's done this year! Next up is a Convergence quilt that was pieced sometime about 10 years ago. I am auditioning threads.

My daffodils finally bloomed! They are planted on a North facing slope, so are always later than anyone else's in the neighborhood.


This is my Design Wall Monday post for this week.

Rainbows

I try not to get political on my blogs, but the events that have been happening the last couple of days in my state have inspired me to make an art quilt piece.  I am only in the design stage at this point. And because of the holidays I am not going to be able to do much more than that for a couple of weeks.

Hand dyed fabric

I had recently found this fabric in my pile of hand dyes from one of the dyeing parties. I remember thinking I should do something with it soon. As I was in the shower today (I get lots of ideas in the shower!) I thought of a design to use this fabric to mark the historic ruling on Friday.

Rough drawing of my design idea

I had a vision of the shape of the State of Utah cut from the rainbow fabric.  I also want to include the historic date of the court decision and the number 18 to commemorate where we stand nationally in granting civil marriage rights to all citizens of our state.  I am still not sure how the details will turn out,  but I am so inspired right now that it is difficult to pull myself away to do the things that are scheduled for today.

This is my Design Wall Monday post, check out what everyone else is up to at Judy's blog.  

Monday blues

 

 

  

About the only thing going on in the sewing room or the design wall is to make some more clothesline bowls. I have a holiday party for my quilt group on Wednesday and need a gift for the exchange.  I haven't decided which one to take to the party. I still need to trim the loose threads and then the rest of the bowls will go up into my Etsy shop this afternoon.  I keep 3 of these clothesline bowls in my sewing room.  The smaller ones are perfect for thread catchers!  The threads really stick to the bowl.  I have two smaller bowls next to each machine and a larger one at the cutting table. Last year I had brought a bowl for the gift exchange and the lady who ended up with it really liked it!


This is my Design Wall Monday post for this week.  Check out what everyone else is up to at Judy's blog.

What a Week!

I had quite the wild week.  Tuesday I was heading to Salt Lake for a luncheon with my crafty friends and halfway there had a flat tire.  I was lucky to be able to pull over to the side of the freeway.  Luckily a good Samaritan stopped and helped me change the tire. Well, really he put on the spare and I looked on.  The tire was ruined so I stopped and spent some quality time with Les Schwab.  They did stand by their warranty and replaced the tire.  But it took longer than usual since they had to get a tire from another location.  I got to the luncheon late and a bit frazzled.  It was nice to visit with my friends, but I did not take any photographs

The new Wales Town Hall

On Wednesday was the quilt guild meeting in Wales.  We were able to be back in the Town Hall.  The old building was in very sad condition and had to be condemned.  So they set fire to it as a training mission for the local volunteer fire departments from all the nearby towns.  The new building was recently completed. They did a nice job making it "feel" similar to the old building. It is very nice inside.  We had the reveal of our Lime Green fabric Challenge!

Sherre

Brenda

Carol's (I think??)

Tammy and Mary

Leslie's (??)

Jolene's

The New Gal (I was introduced and can't remember her name)

Twila's

Val's

Charlotte's

Connie's

Another Mystery Woman

Mine!

It was a fabulous turnout!  I love the various things that everyone made.  I forgot to take a photograph of Marcia's, it was an unfinished twister Jack-o-Lantern with the lime green as the leaves.  We also had a record turnout for the meeting, 22!


Charlotte also brought a quilt top she has been working on. She took this class from me at the Super Spring Retreat in March.  I just love the scappyness of it!  Love the colors!

Charlotte's Log Cabin quilt

The new challenge, due at the January meeting, is making a quilt based on a children's book or story. Brenda had a bowl full of slips of paper.  We each took a turn drawing out a slip and we were assigned that title to work from.  After everyone had a chance to draw a title, if you really hated what you got, you could draw another one, but then had to do that one.  And a few traded (someone gave Charlotte "Charlotte's Web") I really lucked out, I got "Treasure Island". I can already picture what I would like to do with the idea. Watch for me frantically working on it in December!

This is my Off the Wall post for the week!


Since I actually have a finished quilt, I am also linking to TGIFF!