Quilting Classes in Porterdale

    We have started a series of quilting classes in my home town of Porterdale, this year. 

     So far I have taught a pot holder class in January, a Sonja's Windows class in February, a Let's Polka class in March, and a Trip Around the World class in April. 

     Today, we had what we called a Quilter's Meet up, which was basically a day to come, and sew together, and just work on our own projects. 

I was blown away by all of the finished quilts that were shown at show and tell today, that were started in our classes. 

From Sonja's Windows class-Melanie

Linda

Nancy

Let's Polka:
Melanie

Linda

Trip Around the World:
Melanie

Debbie:

Linda

     I just love how different they all are, and love even more, that they are getting finished. We are having such a great time learning some quilting techniques in Porterdale. Soon, there will be painting lessons with Mayor, Arline Chapman.

Neglect

     Time always passes so quickly, so often, I look up, and I can't believe so much time has gone by since the last time I wrote anything! Since my goal is to write twice a week, I have been pretty neglectful. Is that even a word? I hope so.

     I say that I haven't been writing.
That is not entirely true. I haven't
 written on my blog, but, I have
 been writing all day. Next Saturday,
I am teaching my Let's Polka quilt at
A Scarlet Thread in McDonough. I have
 spent a good bit of today writing the
instructions for this pattern, and
gathering my thoughts on just what
 I can tell people to help them make
this quilt. 










    Last Thursday, I did our last demonstration at my guild quilt show. I didn't want to do the whole sewing machine thing again, so I thought it would be fun to try a few blocks for another quilt that has been tugging on my sleeve. Especially since it would be easy to work on while I was talking to people. I had already cut all of the strips for it, and I figured I could demonstrate rotary cutting the strips into squares and triangles, and get a few blocks ready to sew. The quilt was inspired by this painting by Vincent Van Gogh.

    
      I mostly, want to just explore using this color scheme in a very simple quilt with small blocks and an overall design. Here are the blocks that I cut, then I sewed them the next time I was at the sewing machine just to see how they would look together. I think I need a lot more to tell if I will like it. I may or may not add a thin sashing. This will be another good chain piecing, and work on away from home quilt.
 

  

     Yes, I am still working on my pieced hexagons-slow going, and my strip quilt. I have been carrying those strips everywhere, and I have all but 9 strip sets cut and ready to sew. There are about 250 of them. I have been sewing them between the other things, using them as leaders and enders, Right now I have 35 sewn, but they are not trimmed yet.

     One more thing. A couple of posts ago I mentioned meeting Karen from Honey Be Good.com. We have gotten together and done some brainstorming. She liked this drawing and chose some fabrics to make into a lap size to sell as a kit. I am trying to get it together for her ASAP .

      

     This is what I have done so far. I am writing a pattern for it too, as I make it. Sorry about the wonky perspective. My largest, best design wall is behind my loom, which makes photography difficult.

     So really I haven't been just sitting around and eating bon bons. Also, spring is almost here, so spring activities are starting up. The community garden, lending library, and my tennis team are all in need of attention. I am working on getting a newsletter started in my town. And now that the quilt show is down, there are all of those quilts to return to their rightful owners. Hope your life is full of fun too. Thanks for stopping by!






    

Finally Getting Back to Some Earlier Projects

       I have been having so much fun seeing all of the lovely quilts on The Blogger's Quilt Festival. What a brilliant idea. But, I have spent hours looking at the quilts, and I have only gotten to quilt #300. What is that-half way through!

   My customer was kind enough to send me a photograph of The Let's Polka quilt and pillows in place in her bedroom; and give me permission to use it in my blog.

     Since that project is finally completed and delivered, I have pulled out some projects from earlier in the year. I have been working on my solid quilt. I thought I was finished with these units, but when I was sewing them together I realized I needed about 82 more. There is more information about making these units in my January 22, March 28, April 2, and June 22, blog posts. Here is a photo of when I sewed some of the units into giant blocks at a summer retreat.

     I have also done some work on my Bird Cage Quilt. Boy, these blog posts would ramble on a lot less if I could only learn to work on one thing at a time! Not gonna happen though. I have been working on piecing some triangles.

     I am trying to decide if I want rectangles on all four corners of the quilt, or rectangles on opposing ends, and triangles on the other opposing ends. I won't decide until I get some equilateral triangles pieced, and put up on the design wall. This is going to be a pretty wild looking quilt either way.

     I had to take a temporary break from making pot holders. Remember this photo of the batting and backs cut? I thought this was more than I would ever use!

          
     They are all used! I had to wait until I could get to the store to get more of the ironing board cover fabric I was using for the backs. Tomorrow I will post some of the finished pot holders in my Etsy shop.

     That is what I have been up to. Thanks for stopping by!

More Pot Holders!

     I have been working on the Let's Polka quilt. I am almost done with the binding. I am really pleased with the way the binding color is working with the colors of the blocks. Thee are so many colors in the blocks that I thought almost any color would work; but the binding on the original quilt was purple, and the new color is a mighty big change. My client wanted to minimize purple, and bring out yellows, greens, and blues, so the color on the new binding is Kona Emerald.



     As stated in the title of this post, I have also been working on pot holders. I made 5 sets last night, but I took this photo before I finished the last pair. As I have said before, they are addictive, and I was ready to pack in in and go to bed when I thought of one more set I just had to make.

       Normally I would not be working on these until the Let's Polka group is finished and delivered, but the I am a member of an artist guild that meets at the Southern Heartland Gallery in Covington, and they have a  holiday market of less expensive items for the holiday season. Those items are due to be in to the gallery tomorrow. Why is everything always come due at the same time?

     And, I got my supply lists for A Scarlet Thread finished and sent. It seems slow but there is SOME progress being made. I have 3 half pieced quilts that I am just dieing to get back to! Soon I hope.

      Oh, by the way, did I mention my house is a disaster from working on all of these things at once? A big part of the problem is all of my show stuff still lying about. I have not put it away because I have another show in Eatonton on October 27.

    I am also working on weaving a scrap rug for my weaving boss, so add to the above piles of sorted yarn!

     Tonight is the  "Meet the Makers" party at The Georgia Quilt Show, which I plan to attend. For more information on that go to: www.georgiaquiltshow.com  I am looking forward to seeing my quilt hanging there.

     Other than that, I just don't know how I am going to fill up the empty hours! Hope you are happily busy! Thanks for stopping by!

All About Bindings

     Where has the time gone? I meant to post about what I did while sewing at my friends house. That was Tuesday, and it's Saturday already, and I don't even know how tat happened! Oh well. 

     Tuesday at Eleanor's house was all about bindings. I now have 2 quilts at the quilter's waiting to be quilted. My Let's Polka king size quilt, and the Trip Around the World variation that is not yet named. So, the first priority was to make bindings for each of them, so that when they came back I would be ready.

     Next, I added bindings to the pot holders I had previously made; so I could carry them with me and hand stitch them down when ever I had time.

      I had a little time left at Eleanor's, so I sewed some strip groups together for another quilt I have "in the pipeline" More about that one in a future post.

     Since then I have been working on making some more pot holders.

 

    I was planning to sew a couple pairs last night while watching Bonnie Hunter's quilt cam; but I ended up cooking while she was on, and didn't get to my sewing until after she was off. In my scrap organizing, I found a bunch of left over strip sets from quilts that were made years ago. They made piecing for the pot holders interesting and quick! It was a lot of fun playing with them.  I now have 9 pairs sewn, so I now have a good group that only need to have bindings applied. I want to have as many sets as possible done for my 2 October shows. The first of which will be on October 13 and 14.  I figure if I just get the bindings machine sewn on them, and get a few hand stitched to begin with, I can hand sew some of them while I sit in my booth, and in the evenings after the show. I hope to get between 10-20 pairs done.  I do have a couple of pairs completely finished; hand stitching and all.

     That's what I have been up to lately, thanks for stopping by!

Chattahoochee Evening Stars Show Quilt back, and More

     I am getting packed for the Chattahoochee Evening Star Guild show this weekend at the Lakewood 400 Antique Market. I will have a booth, selling patterns there. Come by for a visit if you are in the area.

     I also, finally took a photo of the quilt back for the Let's Polka Quilt. I wanted my customer to see it since one of the colors she chose was unavailable.

     I got all of my HSTs sewn, cut, and pressed yesterday, when my friend, Elenaor came to sew with me.

Now I have plenty of trimming to do to keep myself busy in my booth this weekend. You know I always have to be doing something.

Just as I was ready to pack up My Water Lilies for it's trip to the Georgia Quilt Show, I realized that I didn't put a label on it yet. So, of course, something had to be done about that.

     So that's what I have been up to this week, along with all of that other non quilting stuff that always seems to need attention. Thanks for stopping by!

Quilt Back, Potholders, etc

     Believe it or not, I have been working, but there is not much to show you. Yesterday, the fabric for the Let's Polka quilt arrived; so last night I put that back together. It was so huge that I didn't even try to get a photo of it. 

      I made my 1st set of pot holders. A friend of mine is moving; and I made them to give to her as a going away keepsake. I intended to take a photo of them after I got the binding stitched down, but I forgot! I really like how they tuned out, but since I failed to get a photo of them; I can't show them to you. I will have to wait and show you the next set. They were fun to make. I look forward to making more of them.

     I have also been working on putting a "D" sleeve on the My Waterlilies quilt to get it ready to ship to The Georgia Quilt Show. I didn't realize that I never put a label on that quilt so it will need one before I ship it.

     Tomorrow, my friend, Eleanor will come over for a sewing day. Hopefully, I will have something more to show you after her visit. Thanks for stopping by!

    

Waiting for back fabric, a new project

    I found out today that one of my quilts will hang in the Georgia Quilt show.  

 
    I met with my client last week, and she chose colors to go on the back of the Let's Polka quilt. Now I am waiting for that fabric to get here before I can proceed.

     In the mean time, I have been working on more HSTs for the solid quilt. All of the squares are paired and marked.

     I also have been working on some pieced triangles for the Bird Cage Quilt.

     These will be mixed in with a couple of other types of equilateral triangles in groupings in the blank areas in some of the corners.







     I made these by cutting the central triangles. Then I added a long thin strip.

 

I trimmed the strip after it was sewn to the triangle. Ignore the piece of tape. It is on the ruler for an entirely different project. 

     I even let myself start a new project. I have been wanting to try his for a while. It is going to be similar to a trip around the world, but I want to try something a bit different. I have all of my strips cut.

 

    I have made myself a cheat sheet so I can  remember the order of the colors.

     I got one strip set sewn together to see what it looks like.

         But when you find yourself sewing strips of the same fabric to each other, it is time to give up and go to bed!

Thanks for stopping by!

Top Sewn Together, Pillows Finished

      The Let's Polka quilt top is sewn together. I took it's picture in the back yard yesterday. Good thing I took the picture yesterday; because it has rained most of today.


     I have a meeting with my client tomorrow so she can see it and choose a color for the back, and a color for the binding.

   








   She also wanted 2 pillow shams. I made 7 pillow tops for her to choose from.

     I sure hope she likes them!

      When I was in Batavia, one of the neighboring vendors suggested that I should approach a distribution company with my patterns.  In preparation for that I am redoing most of the covers. Some of them have my previous P. O. Box on them. Most of them needed to have my Etsy and blog address added to them.

     Speaking of Etsy, I was approached on Etsy to do the Briar Patch Arts Festival in Eatonton, GA, on October 27. Since I have always wanted to do a show in that area; I decided to try it. 

     My friendship group met tonight. I got to work a bit on my Solid quilt, and my Birdcage quilt. I haven't yet photographed what I did tonight, but I will in time for the next post.

     Thanks for stopping by!

Arrangment Complete, Note Cards, and Pot Holders

     I have the entire Let's Polka quilt laid out and ready to sew together. It will be hard to show the whole thing at once, since it is so big, but here are a couple of photos to give you an idea. Yesterday, my friend Eleanor came and looked at it with me. It always helps to have another set of eyes to help decide where to put things, and provide moral support.

     I spent the day cutting out batting and backing for some hot pads I plan to make for my Blue Ridge show in October. I am using batting leftover from trimming the sides of large quilts. It feels good to make use of this stuff. Since I want the hot pads to be nice and thick, I will use 2 layers of batting in each one. I will be using my scrap collection for the fronts, and piece QAYG. I can't wait! I think they will be a lot of fun to make.

     In the evening, Eleanor and I went to our quilt guild's 1st meeting of the year. Our guild is The Cotton Boll Quilters; and we are having a quilt show in January of 2013, I am the chair person. It will be held at artstation.org

     The opening party will be January 12 at 7pm, and the show will be up through March 2. I hope you will come and see all of our beautiful quilts!

     After I got home I went through and organized my note cards. Eleanor had suggested that if I made groups of 6 that were different views of the same quilt, or followed some other theme; I could put them  in my Etsy shop. So I got together several complete groups, a few others that only lack a couple of cards, and identified a couple of possibilities where I have a couple of nice photos of, but need to take a few more details of that quilt to make a nice group of cards. I hope these will also be helpful in my booth at the Blue Ridge show, and in the art gallery where I am a guild member, for the coming Christmas season.

     Now it is time for me to get in there and get that Let's Polka sewn together. Thanks for stopping by!

Arranging the Let's Polka Quilt

      I have been offline for a bit lately due to a computer tragedy. The screen on my old one bit the dust. They are really hard to work without a screen. So now I am trying to do everything on a new computer. Easy for most folks, I'm sure; but, I am rather technologically challenged. So everything I am doing just takes a bit longer. I am sure I will get used to it soon. It is interesting to me that 2 1/2 years ago I didn't even have an email address. Now, when something goes wrong with the computer; I feel like I have to do something about it immediately because I use it to communicate with others so much. It's like having your phone down.

     Now that I finally have all of my Let's Polka blocks finally done; it is time to arrange them on the design wall. Arranging these blocks is a bit different. Usually you try to minimize the proximity of blocks with like fabrics or similar colors. In this quilt I often put blocks with like fabrics right next to each other with the common fabrics touching, so that they form other shapes. I try to let the blocks form a color grouping that gradates to other colors using the color combinations in the different blocks.

 

This is going to be a king size quilt. !8 blocks by 18 blocks. The blocks are 6" square. It is difficult to get a good photo of the whole thing at once; especially with the loom in front of it. All of the other quilting bloggers have a long arm machine. I have a loom. It's what makes me unique. lol!

 

     I have 11 out of 18 rows up so far.

     This is a reminder of what the original full size quilt looked like. My client wanted less bright red, and less purple.

    

     Now that all of the blocks for this quilt are done, I have been working on a different portable project. I have done several EQ drawings for future quilts; and I have started more HST for this quilt.

     I also added a pattern to my Etsy site yesterday. It is called: Flip and Sew Tableware.

     I the also entered the Martha Stewart Made in America Contest; which was not easy to do with a computer that was in the process of dying.

     So, that is what I have been up to lately; thanks for stopping by!