What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I went on my 5th annual Gruber's Retreat last weekend and it was awesome!!!! I thought it was a good time to start a few new projects, since I've been so good at trimming down my WIP list lately.

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One week of total fun with a great bunch of cousins and another week opening boxes that have been in storage for 20 years.  It was like Christmas in July.  Now to recover and get back to work.

Before tackling the unpacking my daughter and I absconded and went to see Quilt Colorado, which is a great show put on by the Colorado Quilt Council.  This year it was open to members only, but with over 800 members there were lots of beautiful entries.  There were numerous categories and lots of winners so I didn't take photos of all ...

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In January 2013, I started my first Sue Spargo BOM. I was new to Sue's wool appliqué stitching and I decided to make a test block using wool from my stash. Of course, I then had a finished 6 1/2" bird block which I decided to use as the front of a small needle keep. My original needle keep has served me well these last 18 months but as Sue introduced a wider variety of needles, my original needle keep did not have enough labeled spaces for the needles. I designed my new needle keep with 4 wool ...

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I finished the African tulip tote today. The African Tulip tote was designed by Sue Spargo and is 21" wide, 16" in length and 5" deep. The embellished wool appliqué front gave me a chance to learn some new embellishing stitches and to use some different embellishing threads. Valdani pearl cotton, Thread Gathers silken pearl, silken chenille, and sea grass are some of the embellishing threads I used. Sue's pattern was constructed using batting but I decided to use Soft and Stable to give the tote more body. I also wanted a zipper closure and I used instructions from ...

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June 2013, I took a quilt cruise to Alaska, one of the featured teacher was Sue Spargo. My class project was embellished circles. I found some fabric and based my circle color choices on the chosen fabric. Sue was an excellent teacher and I learned quite a few embellishing stitches for my circles. Sue's book, Creative Stitching which includes step by step instructions for 50 of Sue's favorite stitches was an excellent resource for embellishing the circles. I finished embellishing the circles and and I can't wait for the piece to be made into a pillow.

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I am behind in posting my completed Bird Dance top. I had a total knee replacement on January 14, 2014, life is slowly getting back to normal. Last Tuesday, I took Bird Dance to Jessica Jones Gamez to be machine quilted, I can't wait to get it back. Lately, I have been doing a lot of reading, physical therapy and generally just relaxing, something I probably don't do very often.

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All the blocks are now complete and sewn together. I have really enjoyed stitching the bird blocks and learning some new stitches. I am working on the borders and I can't wait to sew them on the top.

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I finished stitching Bird Dance blocks 25, 26, 27. I have begun to stitch blocks 28, 29 and 30 which are the final birds. I received the border for the quilt last week which has 96 circles to stitch along a vine. Just cutting 96 1" circles seems overwhelming.



I continue to get my house organized after my remodel. Molly had the difficult job of testing out my new sectional. We all should have such a difficult life.

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Life has been quite hectic. The remodel/construction finished Saturday, October 12, 2013 but the clean up was just beginning. Closets, everything in the kitchen, basically everything in the house needed cleaning. I am beginning to place furniture and rehang everything on my walls. Last Saturday was the first time I was able to stitch on my Bird Dance blocks. Before the remodel began, I was almost finished stitching the August blocks, blocks 22, 23 and 24. Last night, I finished the blocks and placed them on my design wall. It really felt good to do something besides cleaning and ...

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I’m just popping in quickly to tell you the new Puppy fabrics have finally arrived and are arriving in stores now!

 

I always give away the first fat quarter pack – so if you are interested in this pack and want to be entered into the drawing, please leave me a comment!  I will draw a name later on this week, so be sure to stop back and see if you are the winner.

 

I am working on getting the kits cut up and shipped out, for those of you who have already ordered.  If you missed the posts with ...

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I started working on a quilt for a friend’s daughter. She’ll be transitioning into a big girl (twin sized) bed soon, so she obviously needs a quilt! This has been the most collaborative quilt I’ve ever done, which has been such a fun experience. Her mom picked out the fabric, and this is what she chose:

Isn’t it so cute? Once the fabric was decided, we started talking about patterns. She showed me a lot of patterns that she liked, which we narrowed down to a few, and she told me to pick from the final ...

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So imagine my surprise when I saw lovely images of this beautiful woman in a dress she created using our Border print from Beauty Queen (Valerie) in her dress design.  I almost fell off my chair when I got to see her vision in real time.  Exquisite.  border prints can go a long way but you have to be inspired,  you have to know what they can be used for and we think Paisley Farm did an incredible job!! You will be so stuck on her blog!!  She does it all so well!!!!  Sofia lives in Las Vegas , Nevada and ...

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… or rather Song of Patriotism pillow!  The following pictures show what I mean.  Dear Friend Joyce made my Song of Praise pillow in patriotic colors, and she plans to display her pillow through the summer!  Isn’t Joyce’s pillow a beauty?

I always like to quilt my pillow top before constructing the pillowcase because I think the quilting adds a dimensional look to the pillow top.  I never remember to take pictures of my pillow tops before they are quilted… but Joyce didn’t forget. Her pictures illustrate the dimensionless/before quilting and dimensional/after quilting looks perfectly!

Before ...

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Of course getting a new cottage last summer meant that I "needed" new quilts for every bed (and any other possible surface).  And it just so happens my girls have a pair of bunk beds in the "girls' room".  Four twin quilts were in order!

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When I started this blog I had no idea how long I’d be doing it. I didn’t know if anyone would be interested in reading it.

Well sometime today or tomorrow I will be hitting half a million views of my blog.

I’ve talked about my quilts, color, my family, my activities, and anything else I want to keep a record of.

In reality it has become my diary that I share with anyone who wants to read it.

I am going to do a rerun of the first week of posts.

If you look carefully at ...

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Nothing has changed on my design wall so I’m not even putting up the same picture . . that’s the kind of mood I’m in!  :) Please share your beautiful creations and help get my quilting mojo back . . please!!  :)

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Jim and I had a busy weekend. He’s had so little time off this year at all, that it felt great to just get out and do something different! On Friday, we went to Little Rock and had a really nice day. We took Cosmo along and he was terrific! Jim walked him around the river front while I went to the Flying Fish and grabbed us some shrimp and poppers, which we ate on a bench outside in the shade.

Then we went and visited the Kodiak Steel company, then onto the Little Rock Dog Club (which didn ...

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Remember my account of my epic journey piecing the Ocean Waves top (see here)?
Well, I finally got the top loaded on the long-arm and have started the quilting process:

After lots of thought and test patterns with pen and paper, I finally decided on a feathering scheme for the quilting patterns. This little motif in each square set on point:

And a feathered wreath in the triangles surrounding each square set on point:

Stay tuned for the feathered border….

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I made some more progress on the wonky quilt…..

here is the before

Here is the bowl I am using as a template

and there it is today

I have a way to go but it is going pretty fast….so back into the hoop and more hand quilting..

here are a few more pictures of the back and the front (click pictures to enlarge)

Happy Quilting

Tim

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RECIPE FOR DISASTER:
1)  Start with one of these.  It doesn't have to be a zucchini, it could be any fresh vegetable.

2)  Get a cutting board to chop up the vegetable.

3)  Take the cutting board and the chopped vegetable over to the stove.
4)  Ensure you have the cutting board UNsecurely held, and then drop it on one of these.
5)  Voila.  Chipped bone.
In case you are unaware, you cannot prop yourself up on crutches AND push a quilting machine around.  So now you must call your customer and explain that her QUILT will take a ...

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