HALF OVER!

    
     Oh my gosh! This year is half over already! How did that happen?!! I fear that I am not doing very well on the goals I set up for this year. Oh well. At least some good things have been happening. It is always nice to have a custom order. It just seems like so much time has gone by since I worked on the quilts I started piecing earlier in the year. Remember this?

 
     And this?

    
     And this?
    

     It may seem like I have forgotten them, but I haven't. I hope to get back to them before too much longer. I have been working away on the Ohio Star quilt for my Etsy customer. Still trimming the dog ears off of flying geese and choosing centers for each block, then sewing the geese onto the centers, and the background squares onto the geese.

     In the mean time I finished the rug I was weaving, and have set up another. 

     We have had quite a bit of cloudy, rainy weather here lately. All of the clouds gave me the opportunity to finally get a portrait of this rascal:

  
     I couldn't take the picture until I got the binding finished, and I couldn't get the binding finished until I got the label on, and I couldn't get the label on until I decided on a name for the quilt, but finally, all of that is done.

    And, I have a new sewing machine! When I went to Washington DC to help my friend, there was an vintage sewing machine that she didn't want. It is a Singer 404 slant needle! I always wanted a straight stitch only machine! I am so excited! It is currently being serviced. I will take pictures when it comes back. I am sure that Bonnie Hunter could have gotten it going by herself, but I am not as experienced with these things, and I did not want to mess up this machine. Since I have a feeling that no one has used it in decades, I thought it would be good for a professional to look at it and if there were any problems, or parts that needed replacing, he know what to do. 

     I am also very happy that I got signed on to do my first out of state trunk show and teach a class in Arkansas next year!

     I hope the first half of the year has been great for you too. Thanks for stopping by!

More About Retreat

     I go on 2 retreats a year with this group. One in February, and one in June. It is a really fun group of women, and I am always so happy to see them! And, I just love beeing surrounded by all of that creativity, and all of those beautiful projects! It makes it very sad at the end of the June retreat, when we contemplate not seeing each other again for 8 months! I think this came about this way because our first retreat ever was in February, something to chase away winter blues. Mary our fearless leader, and beloved organizer is a school teacher, and wanted to have us get together again during her summer break. We have talked about having another in the fall, but I think the fall is too busy. Several of us are in jobs that seem to be busier in the fall. Often, there are rugs that need to be woven in time for the holidays. I think the fall season is a bit busier for most people. A group of us are getting together to have a fall art show in November. So, hopefully, you will soon see blog posts about what I am making to prepare for the show. I have plenty of large quilts; but, I wanted to make some smaller "gifty items" for the show. This show will be a continuation of a show that used to be at my house back before I was blogging, and more of my personal work was weaving. This was before I found out how much I love quilting. We quit having that show because I moved into a smaller house. Now, a friend of ours, who was at retreat with us, has graciously volunteered to let us have it at her house.

     Anyway, back to retreat. We always have a fabric swap. In Februarys  we have door prizes, but in June we have the beloved pincushion swap. After doing this for several years, we are all getting quite a collection. Some of them are more practical than others. It is so much fun to see all of the creative pincushions they come up with. This is a photo of the pincushion, sitting on the fabric I ended up with in the fabric swap. I love them both. I had always wanted a chicken pincushion, and I am beginning to collect fabrics for a future red, purple, brown and (some form of) orange quilt; so I was thrilled wth this deep red fabric. Ironically, they both came from the same person. I think we must have similar tastes. Thanks Angie!

     This is a group shot of all of the pincushions.

     I forgot to take a photo of mine before I wrapped it. It is in the 2nd row, just a bit towards the left. It is predominately blue, with a blue ribbon. I made it out of a hand dyed hand woven wool scrap from my blanket weaving days. I like to make pincushions that would be easily usable as a pincushion. I always put a piece of template plastic in the bottom of mine, to keep the pins from going all the way through. I hate when you grab a pincushion, and get stung! I hope this cuts down on that experience. 

     Most of the time at retreat, I spent working on my Etsy quilt. When I was in the car, riding to DC, I pinned groups of a set of star points with a set of background pieces.

     I came to retreat with a whole box of them. I think I counted that I need 226.

     As you know, an Ohio Star has 4 flying geese in it, so my first task was to sew the first seam on each goose. I chain piece, and cut the chain in between each block and pin the  unused background squares and star points to the chain. This keeps each block together, and helps me stay organized.

       Then, of course, I had to press that seam. The running joke of the weekend was, how long it would take for me to get to the bottom of my box for each step!

     I got both seams on all of my flying geese sewn and pressed. Yesterday afternoon, I went to sew with some friends, and instead of bringing a sewing machine, I brought my box with a small cutting mat, ruler and cutter.

      This carrying case is one of my favorite quilting tools.  A  friend made it for me many years ago. It stores all of the tools I need to make small cuts, trim, and mark. It holds a 6" square ruler, a 6" long ruler, a small mat, rotary cutter, scissors, a piece of sandpaper to keep fabric pieces still while marking, marking implements, and even a spare set of reading glasses! All in a case that will fit in any project box. It is so so handy to have all of these things packed this way so I can just grab it and go-knowing that everything I need for certain tasks is in that case. 

    I trimmed the dog ears off of my geese, and choose a center square to go with each block. I got through about 1/3 of them. 

    Last night I did some sewing on the blocks I had trimmed and chosen a center for. I sewed a background square onto 2 of the flying geese, sewed one goose to the center square, then cut from the back of the chain, and sewed the other 2 background  squares onto the other sides of the first 2 geese, then cut from the back again, to sew the last goose on the opposite side of the center square. I ended up with this.

 
      They are still chained together, so they will stay organized. All I have left is to press these seams, and sew the 2 sides on either side of the center. Then I will be done with all of my small stars. I will need to put another round of star points on 20 of them to make the larger stars.

     So that is what I am up to. Thanks for stopping by!

 

Trying to Catch up

     Well, I finally got the Etsy-Ohio Star cut out, just in time to go to Washington DC. That worked out great because I got to pair the backgrounds with the star points in the car, on the way up. 

 
     The Washington trip went pretty well. We got a lot of packing done. We were blessed with weather no warmer than 82 degrees the whole time we were there. What a miracle!

     I came home to this in my next door neighbors yard. Talk about a shock!

      :(  They said it had dropped some branches-I had only seen one, so I was quite surprised that they were so expedient in taking it down. I guess it is for the best though. I know it isn't safe to have an unhealthy tree of that size around. Still, it will be missed.

     So, I only had 3 days at home. The first thing I had to do was to get the loom set up for the next rug.

   
     Then it was time to get ready for quilt retreat! YAY! HAPPY DANCE!

     Did I tell you that Missing Monkeys came back from the quilters? I trimmed the excess of of it.

     I like to bring a quilt that needs a binding sewn down. It serves 2 purposes. I can sleep under it, and I have something to stitch on if I need some handwork.

     I was a bit disappointing when I got home and loaded my photos onto my laptop. I thought I had taken many more pictures that I did. I guess I think of getting a photo of a certain quilt, but then put off taking the photo-hoping to get it in it's most finished state. I missed getting photos of many many beautiful  quilts. Here are some I did get though.

     Angie worked on this beautiful quilt. It was so rich looking from across the room. It made me want to make one.

 

          How is this for knock your socks off spectacular! Jeanne is working on this beauty. She is a flight attendant, and I guess she gets some time to do handwork on layovers and such. She pulled out another fabulous quilt. I forget the name of the pattern. Sunflower? There were circles and points. Brave! Unfortunately, that is one of the quilt that I thought I got a photo of, but didn't.

      Kathy made this quilt-the horse heads are machine embroidered, and she brought them back from Paducah.

     Mary Beth made this quilt out of the jelly roll race quilts we made last year. She just cut it up like fabric. Sorry this photo is a bit blurry.

     Eleanor has been working on this quilt for several retreats now. I love how eclectic it is. 

      As you may have guessed, I worked on the Ohio Star quilt, and made a binding for the Missing Monkeys quilt. More about that in my next post.

 

     I hope all is well in your world. Thanks for stopping by!

Still Cutting. . . .

     Well, obviously I didn't get on the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I misunderstood the deadline dates. Very disappointing. Maybe next time. . .

     I am still cutting the quilt I am making for the Etsy customer. Since my last post I bought a few more fabrics. This time I did better at finding more purples. I found some good greens too.

     I prefer to work assembly style, now that I have one block finished, and I have verified the piece sizes. So now I have all of my points and centers cut.

    
     
     Now, I am working on cutting backgrounds. I have a big basket of fabrics that I am cutting from.

     I have a trip that I am going on soon, and pairing points with background colors will be the perfect project for a long car ride!

     I also got the Missing Monkeys quilt back from Regina (my quilter extraordinaire) this week. I will put in a photo as soon as I get it trimmed. Getting the backgrounds cut before I have to leave town is a higher priority for now.

    That is what I am up to now. Thanks for stopping by!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

     It has been a busy week with deadlines, so, I am running a bit late, but finally, I am joining the fun at Amy's Creative side, and The Blogger's Quilt Festival. I hope it is not too late to get this link in.

     The quilt that I decided to share this time is called Anastasia, because my friend Eleanor said that it looks Russian, and reminds her of the St. Basil's Cathedral.

 

 

     I wanted to use the Kaleidoscope pattern to combine Kaffe Fassett prints with those lovely rich stripes he has. I like to make my quilts scrappy, including the backgrounds. When I drew out this quilt on EQ, my printer was running low on ink, and this is what I got.

 

     The background color gradates from a light green in the lower right to goldy peach in the upper left. When I saw how this printed out, I thought, Hey! I could do that gradation on the quilt! The change is subtle on the drawing and on the quilt, but, naturally it shows up better in person. I really like it when there is more to see in my quilts the closer you get to them. As you can see, I also scattered the colors in the "stars".

     This quilt won 1st place in the Guild Members Choice Awards at our guilds quilt show earlier this year. For what it is worth, it is also the subject of my very first blog post ever, but then it sat for awhile, as other quilts were quilted ahead of it. Like my other quilts, this quilt was long arm quilted by my good friend, Regina Carter. 

     There is a wide variety of beautiful quilts on display at amyscreativeside.com/2013/05/17/bloggers-quilt-festival

Thanks for stopping by!

Cutting the New Quilt

    Well, I got up a bit early this morning (early for me anyway). The plan was to go feed my friends' cats (I am cat sitting this weekend), and go sit on another friends porch and sip tea while a large group of tandem cyclists ride through our town. Just as I was about to leave, the sky opened up. Darn! So I sat down to write this post. Then the rain stopped, so I saved the draft and went. Then it rained again. No cyclists, but we had a nice time chatting, eating pastry, and sipping our coffee/tea on the porch while it rained and rained. Finally, we gave up; and went our separate ways to get on with our day. Now it looks like the sun is coming out! Go figure.

     I am trying a larger font for this blog post. I usually think the font on the blog is tiny, even though the size I use is called "normal". When I switch the size to large, it looks enormous while I am typing the post. So, I usually change it back to normal; but, it looks very different published than it does while you are typing.

     I have started on the custom quilt order that I mentioned last time. On Friday, my friend Eleanor came over, and we had our first sewing day together in months. She made several sets of beautiful pillow cases. I wish I had been thinking about blogging when she was here, and I would have taken photos of them for you. I worked on making a sample block for the quilt order. I thought I knew the size pieces to cut, but I wanted to sew 1 block together just to make sure I had the measurements correct. Then I cut out all of the red star centers, and all of the red star points.

     Last night, I worked on my blues, and I hope to finish the greens, and get to the neutral backgrounds today.

     I also ran out to Sweet Home Quilt Company to pick up some additional fabrics. This quilt used civil war and similar older looking fabrics, and Sweet Home is my "go to" place for civil war prints. I did not limit myself to using "official civil war reproduction" fabrics; but, added in other fabrics that I thought would coordinated well in the mix. I still have many of the fabrics I used in the original quilt, but I have run out of many. My purple collection is the worst. But, I could use a few more browns, and greens too. What better time to boost the stash a bit, than when I actually have an order. Good excuse-right? This is what I came home with.

     I'm not sure about using that bright coral on he top, but I really like it. I know I will use it for something. I may as well make a block or 2 with it. If it turns out to be too bright, I don't have to use them in this quilt. I love this about quilting. As a weaver, it is much much more difficult to work this way. In weaving, you have to make decisions on where things will go based on seeing only a foot at a time. Sometimes, you can add or delete a small amount when you are finished, but it is much more difficult. Things always look so different on the loom than they will when they reach their end use.  

 
     When I saw that coral fabric on the bolt, I thought of my customer saying that she wanted this quilt to be vibrant and varied like to original quilt. Most quilters would not have thought of that quilt as vibrant, but it is all relative, and it is a bit more lively than some other quilts in that genre. I think this because it is scrappy, instead of just coming from a single line of fabric.

     I only found 2 purples. Purples always seem to be the hardest to find. I want to add to my purples for another quilt that I have in the back of my mind too. I have 2 more quilt shops I want to check out this week, but neither are open in Sundays, so I will have to wait until next week. Patrick's carries a lot of "Kansas Troubles" fabrics, and A Scarlet Thread has a good selection of subdued colors. With it raining off and on (I was wrong about the sun earlier), today will be a great day for more cutting.

     So, it's off to the cutting board with me! Hope your Sunday is peaceful, and you get to do something you love. Thanks for stopping by!

New Classes, and a Quilt Order!

     Once again I have been guilty of blog neglect.

     There has been a frustrating lack of sewing going on around here lately. But, good things have been happening, and I do have lots to be grateful for, so NO complaining from me!

     Since I last wrote, I had a lovely time doing a trunk show at the Southern Crescent Guild in Fayetteville, GA. It was great fun to make some new friends, and to see a couple of familiar faces there, from the classes I have taught at A Scarlet Thread, earlier this year. AST has asked me to teach 3 classes there this fall. I will be teaching Indian Summer on September 28th.

     Pineapple Storm on October 26th.

      And Sonja's Windows on November 8th.

          One thing I have been noticing over and over again in my travels this year is huge range of greens you can see everywhere you go. From the bright green new leaves, to the dark green pine trees, and everything in between. And, some days the sky has been SO SO blue! I have been thinking about this for a couple of years now. I have got to make a quilt about this before much longer.

     Unfortunately, some of the widest range I have seen was while I was driving, and I am not so good at taking pictures while I am driving!

     One more bit of good news. I think it will be easier to get some sewing done soon. I have almost caught up on my weaving. This is lucky, since I just got an order from Etsy.

        
       I sold this quilt last fall, and now they want another one just like it! Woohoo!!

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