What a Pretty Quilt!

I loaded and quilted this beauty of RoseMary's last night, along with watching American Idol. She wanted the Baptist Fan and I think it's a perfect fit. It's a pleasure to quilt something that lays so flat and advances just perfectly each and every time.



The thread is Mother Goose PermaCore and the batting is Hobbs 80/20. Just Lovely!



And the back:

What to do when they are showing your house...DonPablos of course

My first Mobile Post

Yea, I finally figured out how to post directly from my phone.

Design Wall Monday - A little Pink!

Here's the design wall today, with the cute little pink quilt for Vicki's new baby girl, Kati. I saw this on the wall at Lolly's Basement shop and although I wasn't planning to buy anything this weekend, I went shopping in the FQ boat. Their's didn't have a border, so I may not add one, but I will have enough of the backing fabric to add one if I decide to.

Stashbusting 2010 - #13

Fabric Added This Week - 6 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 11 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 2 yard
Fabric Used Year to Date - 27.25 yards

YEAR TO DATE STASH USED: 16.25 yards

I bought 8 FQs to make Vicki's baby quilt and used them all. 2 yards are for the back of that quilt and the other 2 are for the backing of alphabet letters for Andrew. So, I'm really planning to use all that I bought within the next 2 weeks.

Back From Shipshewana

I'm home and everything's put away and the laundry is finished.

First off, here's some cupcake eaters even in their jammies.


This is the dress shirt quilt that I finished at retreat. The back will be made using the leftover pastel shirts.



Here is my finished Fig Tree Club table topper. I'm a little iritated that the pattern had a mistake in it, but it turned out well anyway. For the 8.5" setting triangles, you don't need to cut 8 from the left and 8 from the right. They are exactly the same.



Here are my leader/ender blocks that I finished this weekend.



For the October Shipshewana Retreaters, here are some photos of the room we will be sewing in.

Greetings from Shipshewana

We are sewing and watching the Purdue-Duke game. Go Boilers. I have just completed my first project, but can't figure how to post a photo from my IPhone.

Quilter's Chocolate

I'm going up to Shipshewana for a couple days. My car is all packed and I will work a half-day and then pick up Janet and away we go. My treat to share is these yummy devils food cupcakes.



Poor Dan will be home alone and said he needs some chocolate of his own, so I made this little cake for him to satisfy his sweet tooth while I'm gone. He picked out the icing, which is called Triple Chocolate Fudge Chip. I'll bet there's no calories in that, huh?



Hopefully, I'll get some sewing done while I'm there. I just realized that we have a PJ contest Saturday night and I have no fun PJ's at all. Hmmmm, I'll have to sleep on that.

Barb's Star Quilt

Barb made this one for her grandson and just picked it up. It turned out really nice and she was so happy that I got a tip. I gave her a little demonstration on measuring across the center of her quilt to get the measurements for her borders. She didn't know about that trick and was happy to learn.



Continuous curves and beadbord in the borders. So Fine and Bottom Line threads and Hobbs 80/20 batting.



And the back:

Design Wall Monday

This is what was on my design wall early this morning. These are NICU quilts and the one on the bottom still needs another border.



And this is what's on there now. These blocks were made with a deceased gentleman's shirts. His daughter asked me to make a quilt with them and this is an easy-peasy pattern that looks nice to me.

Stashbusting #12

Fabric Added This Week - 0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 5 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 1.5 yard
Fabric Used Year to Date - 25.25 yards

YEAR TO DATE STASH USED: 20.25 yards

Carole's Purple Feathers

I re-loaded this yesterday to do the side borders. It is a little work to re-load them this way, but it sure makes it easier to do the borders....and these were big borders.


She wanted feathers, and that's exactly what she got. Longarm meandering magic feathers in the log cabin blocks and outer borders, and more controled, over-and-back feathers in the white borders.



I used PermaCore lilac and white thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting. She usually wants Warm & Natural and has a roll here that I use on her quilts, but this one was too big and I would have had to piece it, so I used the Hobbs.

Shadow Box

This is Andrea's Shadow Box quilt that I finished this morning. I have this pattern and now I have the motivation to make one of my own. This is another custom job and I'm sure ready for a pantograph or two. I always keep track of my stitching time and this one took 2-1/2 hours. About 7 hours of actual time.



I used PermaCore Lilac and eggshell, and Superior MonoPoly Smoke threads. Hobbs 80/20 batting and the quilting is swirls in the background, 1/4 inch echo in the shadows, and the same kind of feathers in the blocks and border. i know there are several names for these, but I can't remember them.



I love the back of this one. It's a light green with lavender thread.

Design Wall Monday

As you can see, my design wall is empty, but I still wanted to show it. Julie and I spent Saturday afternoon cleaning, rearranging, and filling a very large box with items for our guild auction. I took lots of small totes with projects in them to my batting storage unit, along with my sewing machine rolling tote, Gem Gold machine and assorted other stuff. The room is only 10' x 10' so there's not a whole lot of room. It's so much nicer to be in here now. I stitched a few bindings on last night, but didn't really want to make a mess. We'll see how long it lasts.....

The design wall is behind the door in this photo.



This dresser is actually Dan's and all but 2 drawers have his clothes in them. The drawers I have claimed are: one for my embroidery stuff and one for my serger stuff. Makes it really convenient.



Look, you can actually see the wall. The ironing board and fabric stash used to be in front of the other window. Seems like there's lots more room this way.



The 7-drawer cabinet has mostly craft supplies in it, although there's one drawer with thread. One has ribbon, one has zippers and velcro, one has buttons, and one has markers and glue. It's so nice to have it organized.



I still have that canvas bag full of patterns to go through and I'll probably have a bunch of those for the auction.
THANK YOU JULIE FOR ALL YOUR HELP!

Stashbusting Report #11

Well, I have missed a few weeks and haven't gotten a lot of sewing done, but in the last few weeks:

Fabric Added This Week - 0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 5 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 7 yard
Fabric Used Year to Date - 22.75 yards

YEAR TO DATE STASH USED: 17.75 yards

A Quilt Done Last Summer

There was a question on one of my quilting message boards about quilting fleece and minkee. I knew I had done one for Janet last year and so I went in search of it on my blog. I can't find it, so I'm posting it now.

She purchased 2-1/2 yards of each and I quilted it using Feather Me pantograph, PermaCore Strawberry thread. No batting for this one. It quilted like a dream and she says it is just cozy as can be.

Quilts For Kids

I loaded these together and finished Peggy's Quilts for Kids the other day.



This one has the cutest fabrics and I used Square Spiral, white PermaCore and QD poly batting.



This one was a book panel that she cut apart and pieced. She did such a good job at creating an exciting layout. The panto is Heavy trucks, white PermaCore thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting.

Retreat Thank You's

Thank you so much to the following companies for door prize donations. We had door prizes for each quilter, and many sent flyers and coupons for our goodie bags. I really didn't know what to expect and was pleasantly surprised with the quality of items sent by these generous companies.

Accomplish Quilting, Always In Stitches, Back Door Quilts, Batiks Etcetera & Sew What Fabrics, Calico Point, Cherrywood Fabrics, Cheryl's Quilts, Coats & Clark, Fabric.com, HawaiianFabricShop.com,Hobbs Bonded Fibers, June Tailor, Kingsmen Quilting, Kwilts 'n Koa, Martingale & Company, Marvy Markers, Nancy J's, Nancy's Notions, Needle & Thread, OLFA, Oriental Trading, P&B Textiles, Pellon, Quilt Hawaiian, Quilters Harvest, Rossville Quilts, The Warm Company, Urban Elements, Wal-Mart Supercenter

Many thanks also to the quilters at "Spring Break In Hawaii" for my card and gift. It was my pleasure to plan a fun-filled weekend. I can't believe we have to wait a year for the next one.

Now, I must return to my regularly scheduled long-arm quilting!

Bobbin Central

A few weeks ago I requested a free sample of ready-wound bobbins from Fil-Tec Bobbin Central. Tonight I am using my first one and I love it! I took the check spring out of my bobbin case as the Magna-Glide has a magnetic core. This is a polyester bobbin and I'm using PermaCore on top. No adjustments were needed and I love the look of it. I will be ordering a supply of these soon.

Retreat Projects

I did get some sewing done at retreat, but not quite as much as usual. I started this quilt for Elizabeth using paper doll fabrics. The clothes are ironed onto fusible fleece so that they will sort-of stay on the dolls. This will probably be for her 2nd birthday next January, so I have a while to get it quilted. I layed some of the clothes on the borders and I really like how they look. I may fuse some onto the border also. The clothes will be stored in a pocket on the back.



Then I got to the outer borders on this kit that I purchased in St. Louis in June of 2008. Can't remember the name of the shop, but they had one hanging and I loved it. It was embelished with crystals and the quilting was awesome. I have solid black for the outer borders, but I think I want something else, maybe with a bit of white or red in it.



Isn't this just the cutest fabric? It reminds me of Dan's parents who love to travel.



I got the center of Andrew's train quilt finished using disappearing nine-patch blocks. I plan to applique a train engine on a top border and the words choo-choo on the bottom, and then a border around the whole thing. He loves trains, you know!

Spring Break In Hawaii Quilt Retreat

We had a wonderful time at our retreat! All the time and energy was well worth it. I received wonderful comments and many thank you's and was even asked to coordinate it next year. So, the wheels are turning and next year will be just as fun, I promise.



I took lots of pictures of the festivities, the meals, the projects, the door prizes, the quilters and have a Picasa album HERE!

We had tote bags printed and lots of goodies were packed inside.



We made little zipper bags using pet screen, tropical fabrics, printed ribbon as a reminder of the event.


We were taught how to do the hula.



We had over 100 door prizes to hand out the 45 quilters attending.



The food was wonderful, as were the accomodations. What a wonderful group of quilters!!

Pretty Sparse in the Posting Department Around Here!

Geesh, where is the time going? I have been very busy getting ready for quilt retreat that starts tomorrow. I did get the group quilt quilted that we are giving to the massage therapist who will be at camp. He wanted a quilt this year instead of beeing paid, so Laurie and I met him at Cheryl's Quilts and he picked out the pattern and the fabrics. Laurie tok them home and cut up and packaged the blocks. Guild members then made the blocks and Laurie assembled the quilt.



I quilted it last weekend and it's ready for the binding. Don't have a good full shot of it but will take one with him at camp.



Here's an update on my bright nickel quilt: