KISSed Quilts - Keeping It Simple and Stunning

Life

2012-02-27T08:27:00.000-08:00

While much changes in our lives, we must still have faith that it is for a good reason.

My husband and I are going through a lot of changes right now. It is never easy. Especially when you're not sure what is next.

Let me provide a little context. I moved to this area in SE Washington in 2003 because of a job opportunity. Throughout the trials and tribulations of the next 6 years, the best part was meeting Duncan, whom I married in February 2009. For that I am eternally grateful for God's leading in our lives and count it as the most successful outcome of leaving San Francisco.

After a rough transition of jobs for both of us in 2009, Duncan's new position provided an opportunity for me to start my own quilting business. I've continued to keep some of my consulting and various volunteer activities related to my old profession.

I've volunteered for a variety of roles in my life, the most recent to end was a 3-year term on the board of a local credit union. The last two years I've been the board chair. This was an opportunity to give to an organization the skills and experiences from my 12 years working in financial services. Although it is nice to not have the obligation, it is sad to not have a place to share those skills. These skills come from a very different part of my brain than quilting!

I also do some consulting --mostly bookkeeping related, but sometimes project management (the best part!). For my largest contract with a non-profit, I was given notice of termination (thinking they had found a volunteer to do the necessary role, but then was asked to do the advertising for the volunteer role), but now they aren't sure, have posted a paid position but for half my rate even though they have the budget for my contract, maybe want to extend mine while they look--really poorly communicated and handled, but then they are volunteers trying to manage the situation with a professional. Perhaps their business skills aren't mine, and I need to be sensitive to that. None-the-less frustrating.

My husband's job is ending in 3 weeks time and he has been applying for jobs for several months with nothing panning out. Very frustrating. He is a mechanical engineer and would like to get back into design work (vs. managerial). To give you an idea of what he is passionate about --he hopes to some day build an airplane using CNC machines to make the parts. The Corps of Engineers has a significant local presence, and he has tried many times to get a job there. If we had a choice, we'd stay in the Pacific NW, preferably not IN a big city. But Denver, CO to be near his brother, or Arizona --near my parents, or California--near my sister, or North Carolina --near one of his sister's....probably in that order would be worth pursuing as well. i.e. we'd prefer Denver or WEST. If you have any leads, we'd be open to hearing them!

Do you watch Doomsday Preppers--do you ever wonder, if 2012 will be the year?

On our way to an event this weekend out of town (4+ hours), the car was hit with a lot of icy slush from a large semi truck. For a second or two we couldn't see anything. Moments later the engine quit working. As my husband carefully guided the vehicle across several lanes of traffic from the fast lane to the shoulder, I thought 'what now?' I got out the manual, Duncan checked under the hood. We talked several times of what might be happening and brainstormed how to deal with it. We prayed several times both in desperation and true faith that God would help us, as He has many times in the past. The car just wouldn't start. Duncan checked under the hood several more times, made some apparent repairs (a cracked hose) but logically didn't necessarily connect with the symptoms of the situation. After about 45 minutes, the car sputtered when trying to start. He tried several more times, each with a bit more success. First we rolled about 10', then maybe 20', then 50', then finally some speed where he thought he could get off the shoulder and into the slow lane. Needing to keep the RPMs high, we kept it in 4th gear all the way down the mountain. Since the 'engine check' light was on we decided to try to find a VW dealer and get some expert opinion and be sure we should / could be driving it. After finding one, they wouldn't be able to look at the vehicle until Monday and advised that it should be ok to drive home and get it looked at by a local dealer. Driving was still tricky when hitting a low rpm, but seemed to get better the longer we drove. As soon as we were feeling confident though, it would sputter again. We were able to get a replacement hose, but then broke something else in replacing it on Sunday. Duncan was able to repair the newly broken hose and had purchased a diagnostic computer so that we could understand the 'check engine' light. The initially repaired hose was a vacuum hose, and the diagnostics said that some cylinders were misfiring. So this kind of made sense. We re-set the diagnostic codes, started the car, and no lights stayed on. Yippeee!! We made it all the way home without one sputter.

At this point, we think that the slush flood might have highlighted the cracked hose to us. Although it was frustrating to be on the mountain pass for about 45 minutes not knowing what to do, Duncan was able to tape up the cracked hose and after letting things dry out a bit, we were able to carry on. The longer it dried out, the better it got.

So grateful for our guardian angels that kept us safe.

Although my post today hasn't been much about my quilting, it does give a glimpse into my life and what is going on with us. It all factors into my emotional state which effects my creativity. Sometimes working on a custom quilt requires no distractions. Having these other distractions definitely impacts my creativity. Do you have a way to compartmentalize between your quilting and life's distractions?

This week, I'm focusing on customer quilts and my EQ7 2011 BOM quilt. All Mi Amore testers are done and feedback has been provided. This weekend I had the opportunity to work with my graphic designer and web designer (Zoe's mom!) and learn some uses of Adobe Illustrator so that I could make the heart outlines for the pattern much easier for the pattern user. I'm confident now I can get Mi Amore published this week, too.

Mi Amore

EQ7 2011 BOM ....suggestions for names??

Any ideas for mechnical engineering jobs?
Have a great week!

WIP

2012-02-22T20:21:00.003-08:00

Thank you to everyone who voted last week for "Mi Amore" in the Quilting Gallery's contest--I got the most votes and will receive a jelly roll of fabrics designed by Deb Strain for MODA in a valentine theme. YEAH!

Completed

Charmed Network v.2 ("Eva" fabric line by Kate Spain for MODA) Entire blog post about it with quilting detail photos was posted on Monday.

2012 finish #8 !!

Progress

...Alaska block - Mountain Pines
...Out of the Darkness block #2

Also awaiting quilting:

EQ7 BOM Layout--ahh...I only have a week!
WWVQG 2006 Basket BOM (Since I won Quilting Gallery's contest last weekend, I won't be pushing to get this done for this week's "Baskets" themed contest. Definitely participate or at least check them out and vote, regardless!

'Til Next Time

Skill Builder Sampler Blocks
Rose of Sharon Bird Block (open to border design ideas --see Monday's post)
Oddie's Wild Nature (O.W.N.)
McCall's Mystery - Part 3 --waiting for pattern!
Snowflake/Blizzard Quilt
Irena Bluhm coloring samples

2012 STATS

Completed: 8

In Progress: 10

To start: 3 (Peace Park, Shop Hop the Blues 2007 & 2009)

Are you going to Ireland in June? New pricing available for the 'tour' only, i.e. do you have miles you can use to get there? Join me!! Pay by check by March 7 and get a 3% discount.

More WIPs at the linkup on Lee's Freshly Pieced blog. Happy WIPping ;-)

{Sew} Modern / Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

2012-02-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

My {Sew} Modern finish is another version of Charmed Network. I've written an entire post from this weekend about the quilting on this.This is featuring the fabric line 'Eva' by Basic Grey for MODA. I started teaching this class last week at Stash. I had a lot of fun quilting this. I find myself taking a fair amount of time deciding what to quilt, once I stitch one or two of the repeating designs I'm then kind of bored with it and wish it was done already. At that point, I'm easily distracted by other things going on in my life. Glad to finally get this done. I know my customers will be glad to have their quilts back on my table!

BOM's Away --here is my Alaska 2007 Shop Hop -Mountain Pines from Seward. note: color#7 was not provided with sufficient fabric, so I pulled from my stash a bit. I was in Seward to attend a wedding in 2007 and enjoyed staying at a hotel right in the harbor. The Kenai fjords were beautiful. The quilt shop in town had wonderful regional print fabrics.

I didn't get anything posted last week, so I pressed on and got caught up.

Here is my Pam Bono's 'Out of the Darkness' - Block #2 - Patriotism's Eternal Bloom --now I'm not sure what that flower is, are you? But I love the striking contrast of these colors. I went with the medium/dark green combo in the leaves rather than the light/medium combo called for. I've also changed the fabrics provided in the kit from the shop I purchased this BOM, so that I have all batiks except the background and with a brightness to the fabrics that I prefer. Sorry that the pic is a little blurry. The one I took with flash had a shadow in a weird way.

No Skill Builder's yet, even from last week...we'll see how we go this week. If I get anything done, I'll post on WIP Wednesday.

Design Wall - my Rose of Sharon 'bird' block....how to applique the pieces down and what type of borders/framing shall I give it. The applique pieces are currently fused in place. I am thinking of a 'window' effect for the framing. wdyt? The image on the left is from the original EQ - Rose of Sharon design contest that made it into the Nine Patch Media DVD. On the right is the version I've created enlarging it to a 15" block with batiks from my stash and a sky like background so it looks like it is in flight.

I've mocked up an idea in EQ7. Not sold on it yet...any other ideas? I wanted to create something that would look like you were inside a thick walled structure and looking out through a small window to see the bird flying by.

So.....Ireland?? Are you going??

Check out other Design Walls, BOM's Away progress and {Sew} Modern finishes.

Charmed Network

2012-02-20T12:45:00.000-08:00

Creating a new design over the holidays and getting built in testers of the pattern at my design location was too good to be true. I had to take advantage of it! This past week I had to focus on getting this second version of Charmed Network finished.

A few notes about the design--the challenge to myself was to use a charm pack and stay within the fabric line for all fabrics selected. So, if you're thinking of doing this, you can buy the pattern on patternspot.com and here is a guide to your fabric choices --get a charm pack of a line of fabric that you might be particularly fond of, choose a dark dark or a light light as the background and two contrasts to the background you have chosen. One more predominent (the magenta churn dash blocks in this first example) and one not so predominent (the blue network connectors in this first example). Consider medium to large motif fabrics, that have a mirrored repeating nature, for borders. It is a great way to show off some of your favorite fabrics within the line.

The first version that I made, using the 'Terrain' line of fabric by Kate Spain for MODA, I quilted with a simple 'bones stipple'. The design on its own, with the busy fabric, etc. especially when used as a utility quilt, seemed to carry itself enough to not need something custom. The picture below is from the backside.

The second version, tested with my own fabric selection but pieced mostly by my sister and finished by my mom over the holidays, used the "Eva" line of fabric by BasicGrey for Moda. This was fairly 'pink', but with the dark burgundy and bits of green it seems to still read pink! HA! but the burgundy really pops....my sister wanted something simple on the back, perhaps a blue and white stripe. Well, see below for what I found and I thought it needed something, so decided in the churndash blocks that I needed to do some special quilting. The pink rivers were quilted with a sort of water stipple to show the river movement.

Here are a few images of various details in the quilting.

Details of the border quilting. Freemotion curly swirls and outlines of the peacock like bird image when it worked.

This is the backside of the inner border quilting.

A few charm squares that are between the churndash blocks are on their own, so I freehanded a flower that kind of looked like the flower in the inner border.

I blewup the spade image from the inner border as large as I could on a printed piece of paper, and it just fit inside the churndash. Tracing this with a Pilot FriXion pen to give me a basic shape, I was able to then quilt this space. It is easier to see the quilting from the back. I hoped that it would create something that looked like a 'crest'. Maybe a name could be embroidered in the 'arch' of the handle of the spade. I used a purple 100 wt Invisafil thread on top, and black 100 wt Invisafil thread on the bottom. I didn't have any blue that would work, so thought just the thin black would work.

I bound it cutting the stripe fabric across the stripe to create more interest in the binding. Since I ended up with a stripe on the back, I figured regardless of color (it is dark) it would coordinate sufficiently with the back. I used Aurifil 50 wt black on top, 50 wt white in the bobbin.

Went outside to take my photos and it is RAINING! OH MY...ok, so this one will have to do strung up in the garage with my makeshift mechanism. Not possible to get good lighting or straight on, but close enough.

Feels good to have this finished. Back to customer quilts this week with several custom ones for Nelda King!

Are you going to Ireland in June? New pricing available for the 'tour' only, i.e. do you have miles you can use to get there? Join me!! Pay by check by March 7 and get a 3% discount.

WIP

2012-02-15T09:41:00.000-08:00

I really need to get back to customer quilts...but I want to keep up with a few things. So here is some progress. The key point is the picture near the bottom. But--I've also put my Mi Amore quilt into Quilting Gallery's quilt contest for this coming weekend. Hope you'll stop by and vote! It is in the Valentine's Day Showcase as well (voting Feb. 21-25)

Progress
Skill Builder Sampler Blocks--Leila has become ill and won't be able to publish more blocks until maybe mid-March. I'm sad for her, but maybe it will give me an opportunity to catch up. They are ready for #26 ...I'm ready for #8, 9, and 10...I've got instructions printed out and basic coloring selected.

Alaska --I chose the next block ;-)

Charmed Network--the next onto the quilting machine.

Also awaiting quilting:

WWVQG 2006 Basket BOM
EQ7 BOM Layout -- check it out! I decided that since EQ is posting them as they arrive, I'll go ahead and reveal what I'm doing now. I look forward to writing this up in detail of how I did it.

'Til Next Time

Rose of Sharon Bird Block (hoping for a finish within February)
Oddie's Wild Nature (O.W.N.)
Out of the Darkness (block 1 is done...next up in February)
McCall's Mystery - Part 3 --waiting for pattern!
Snowflake/Blizzard Quilt
Irena Bluhm coloring samples

2012 STATS
Completed: 7
In Progress: 11
To start: 3 (Peace Park, Shop Hop the Blues 2007 & 2009)

Are you going to Ireland in June? New pricing available for the 'tour' only, i.e. do you have miles you can use to get there? Join me!! Pay by check by March 7 and get a 3% discount.

More WIPs at the linkup on Lee's Freshly Pieced blog. Happy WIPping ;-)

Happy Valentine's Day and 3rd Anniversary

2012-02-14T19:00:00.000-08:00

Happy 3rd Anniversary my love.

A postcard.

Set of four placemats.

Mi Amore.

My valentine themed projects.

Antiquing via quilts

2012-02-11T23:36:00.000-08:00

I have to start off by sharing the pride of the week when I was told by a former colleague that I should to go to SuperOneFoods in Walla Walla, WA and see some of my former engineering students with their new product--a bread baking machine that the public can watch as the bread is mixed and baked right before your eyes. Two of the designers were part of the engineering program where I was the Assoc. Dean of Engineering a few years ago. I was the advisor for one of them on their senior project. Check out the story of the bread baking machine created at Wilkinson Baking Company. Every 3 minutes a loaf is ready. It takes 96 minutes from start to finish for one loaf to be made. It smells wonderful!

I'm so proud!!!!

I was also awarded --twice no less, a 'Versatile Blogger' award. So honored! Thank you to BEAQuilter and WhataHootQuilts for naming me in your list of 15...you would each be in my list if this came from someone else!!
The Rules:

Add the award to your blog.
Thank the blogger who gave it to you.
Mention seven random things about yourself. (see below)
List the rules.
Award to 15 bloggers.
Inform each of those 15 by leaving a comment on their blog.

So the 7 random things....

I grew up on the coast of California --I so miss the ocean.
I come from a family of award winning teachers--I try ;-)
My California vanity plate at one time was MBASISE.
I feel like I'm into my 3rd career (typically have spent about 10 years in each or had a major transition at the 10 year mark each time).
Didn't marry until in my 40s.....but God was working on both of us. Everything in HIS timing!
Although affection is my #1 love language (thank you Gary Chapman for helping everyone understand this)...quality time is a close second.
I'd prefer to just design quilts and be able to hand off the concepts to a team of fabricators!

I award a Versatile Blogger award to:

Lee @ Freshly Pieced -- she got me going in a major way with the on-line community through her Supernova Quilt-a-long.
Becky @ Becky's Blabber--met through the Supernova Quilt-a-long and only lives about an hour from me. We've gotten together several times--so fun to meet up with another quilter.
Anne Henrie @ And Sew It Goes--a fellow McCalls 2011 Quilt Design Star challenge 1 finalist.
Shirley @ Sewing Obsessed! --a fellow McCalls finalist and round 2 winner!
Mary @ Quiltin' Grandma's Blog --a fellow McCalls finalist...and in the next town from me!
Carl @ 3 Dog Design--a fellow McCalls finalist.
Megan @ CanoeRidgeCreations --host of {Sew} Modern finishes on Mondays.
Leila @ Sewn -- I'm enjoying the Skill Builder Sampler with the Rosie the Riveter/We Can Do It quilter button
Melissa @ Sew Bitter Sweet Designs--a fellow Pacific NW Quilter
Chrissy & Linda @ SewLux Fabric & Gifts --have gotten some great online fabric deals here.
Leona @ Turbo Quilter - a very talented long-arm quilter and part of the Outlaw Quilters!
Diane @ A new tradition in quilting - beautiful machine quilting
Sierra @ The Bee Keeper's Wife - one of the first bloggers I ever met.
Suzanne @ Suzanne Thompson Photography -- my SIL...an aspiring photographer who has an eye for it! I wish she lived closer so she could photograph all my quilts.
Vegan Sisters - some wonderful looking food can be found here!

So...here is my intended subject for the week!

Opportunities this week saw me looking at several antique quilt tops and figuring out what to do with them.
The 1/4 Dresden Plate design, resulted in me doing a completely free motion design, the background inspired by Irena Bluhm. I figured out a continuous path to go from left to right on the quilt on each row without stopping. yee haw!

The next quilt was a lightweight fabric crazy quilt, put together in four pieces backed with 10 lb sugar sacks. The embroidery stitches at the seams were all the same design, but in different colors. Any ideas on how to appropriately quilt this? Right now I'm thinking it should just be tied with 28 wt cotton. What do you think?

The last is a medium weight fabric crazy quilt, put together in blocks with lots of different embroidery designs over the seams, but not on the square block seams. With additional fabric from the client that went with the thinly weighted border, I intend to finish up the borders to make the piece complete. After much research, I decided that I just should quilt the square block seams and leave it at that. Any other ideas? What type and color of thread should I use? The backing is a taupe background with dainty red flowers occassionally--looks very period. Do you see the pink initials stitched (left side)? There is a date that includes '97 also stitched in it elsewhere. We're thinking it is 1897.

ok...a lot accomplished in this blog...hope you're still with me.

If anyone is still deciding about Ireland...NOW is the time to make that decision. I've heard that some options are filling up. C'mon let's go!

Have a wonderful Valentine's Week--its my 3rd wedding anniversary on Valentine's Day! I've got dough rising to make special heart shaped cinnamon rolls in the morning.

WIP

2012-02-08T08:37:00.000-08:00

Completed
Zoe---'Summer School' --for a great review and some lessons learned, check out this blogpost.

2012 Finish #7

Progress

Skill Builder Sampler Block #6, 7, 21

I've put the first 6 together with the sashing that I have come up with. Carefully fussy cut both the sashing and cornerstones. Hoping for creating the effect of rivets (they are buttons printed on the fabric for the sashing) and a square washer at the cornerstones in red with a grey center.

McCall's Mystery - Part 2 (both versions), it might be a couple of months before we get instructions for part 3 which should include the final assembly.

EQ7 BOM layout, today is piecing day! Can't reveal this until March 1

Also awaiting quilting:

Charmed Network v.2 - Eva
WWVQG 2006 Basket BOM

'Til Next Time

Oddie's Wild Nature (O.W.N.)
Alaska's 2007 Shop Hop (block 1 is done....next up in February)
Out of the Darkness (block 1 is done...next up in February)
Rose of Sharon Bird Block (hoping for a finish within February)
Snowflake/Blizzard Quilt
Irena Bluhm coloring samples

2012 STATS
Completed: 7
In Progress: 11
To start: 3 (Peace Park, Shop Hop the Blues 2007 & 2009)

{Sew} Modern / Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

2012-02-06T12:19:00.000-08:00

For my {Sew} Modern Monday - Finish, I did another version of 'Zoe' I'm calling 'Summer School'. I wrote a 'Lessons from Zoe' blog post on Friday that I hope you'll check out if you're interested in learning from some of my own experiences. I've included many other versions of mine as well as clients. It is a fun review!

On my Design Wall is the first row in my Skill Builder Sampler quilt-a-long organized by Leila @ Sewn. More blocks will be revealed in Wednesday's WIP blog entry. About three times a month Leila posts a new block. I didn't start this until very late, so it is a weekly installment quilt for me with several blocks to finish in order to catch up, but I am hopeful that I can with my new plan to get the blocks done even with key assembly points along the way. Excited to see the first row with sashings all put together.

For BOM's Away progress....here is version 1 and 2 of Part 2 of the McCalls Mystery.

Also on my Design Wall..... I can't show you :-) I'm working on the EQ7 2011 BOM Layout contest....reveal to happen by March 2 weekly blogpost.

Some new pricing options have been posted for the trip to Ireland. Check it out!! Got miles you can use...get there on those, but still be on our tour. It is going to be a great experience!

Check out other {Sew} Modern finishes at Canoe Ridge Creations
Design Walls at PatchworkTimes
BOM's Away progress at WhataHootQuilts

Lessons with Zoe

2012-02-03T07:46:00.000-08:00

This week I was working on a 'sample' adapted from my 'Zoe' pattern. I used up leftovers from a layer cake with reds and blues and a few black and white fabrics that remained and a bit of additional yardage some purchased from stash for the purpose of making this quilt and other yardage purchased on sale from Sew Lux (online store) before Christmas. All of this fabric is called 'Punctuation by American Jane Patterns Sandy Klop for MODA". Although the contrast levels of the fabric aren't like my original design, the scrappiness of it makes for a happy retro quilt suitable for a boy or a girl. I've decided to call it 'Summer School'.

I learned some lessons that I hope you can learn from me the easy way!

1. I loaded the backing with selvages between the rollers instead of ON the rollers. The stretch left to right was 'ok', but I think I should have done it with the selvage ON the rollers. (see photo in #3 below) Remember, the selvage does not stretch at the same rate that the rest of the fabric stretches. When using it at the roller it seems to be ok, but when stretching it between rollers there is a difference.

2. I contemplated putting it on the long-arm machine horizontally, but wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to quilt it. After getting into the quilting, I wished I HAD loaded it horizontally. I knew what I wanted to do in the border, so got it loaded and started quilting. I ended up quilting it with straight vertical lines, around the circles and then went back and added different punctuation marks, symbols and an 'A' and a 'Z' inside the circles. The vertical lines seemed to keep a retro theme of the fabric style.

Look:

If I had loaded it horizontally, I could have stitched each line across the quilt without stopping!

3. I used my new side clamps. Normally the batting would be part of what is clamped, but I was using some 80/20 scraps for this sample and it just wasn't wide enough for that. Given the close quilting that I was doing at the edge of the quilt, these clamps worked really nice to keep me from hitting the clap with the bottom of the sewing machine. These clamps are sold by Renae Haddadin. They are a separate purchase from her Red Snappers which you can also see in this photo being used to attach the backing.

4. The border quilting I would typically SID (stitch in the ditch) w/ my channel lock on, but I did the fill at the same time. Just take it slow and it works out pretty good.

5. To do the binding, I wanted it to be exactly at the edge of the ticket on the fabric, so chose to sew it on the front first. Using a 2.25" strip folded in half lengthwise and knowing how far between the raw edge and the edge of the ticket, I could stitch the binding down with confidence. I had trimmed from the inner edge of the border consistently all the way around. Folding the binding around to the back, I then SID from the front. I wanted to use these new clips 'Wonder Clips' from Clover for holding the binding down. Generally this worked pretty well. I learned that you really need to push the clips in snuggly around the binding so that it stays tight. There were a few spots I had to re-do because the stitching didn't quite catch the binding on the back side of the quilt. But, for a completely machine sewn binding--I'm happy!

Here are other versions that have been made of this pattern. The original one (below left) made for our friend's daughter 'Zoe'. I put minkee on the back. I was really pleased with how it turned out. The second (below right) was made mostly with the fabrics used when designing it in EQ and as a store sample that has now been returned to me. This is headed to a baby born a month ago and they named her Zoe, so I just think it is the perfect way to now put this quilt to use. Most of the fabrics are 'Giselle'.

These are made with a pre-cut layer cake (10" squares) and some yardage from the fabric line 'Punctuation by American Jane Patterns Sandy Klop for MODA'. I split up the layercake by colors with the green and orange and accents of yellow in the first, then the reds and blues in the second. Black and white fabrics are used throughout as the highlight fabrics. The sizing in these are a bit different because of using a layer cake which also makes it scrappy. The retro effect of the fabrics prompted me to do the quilting in a more simplistic traditional style. Left has a cross-hatch in the background and curved cross-hatching in the circles. Right has vertical lines in the background and punctuation symbols and letters in the circles.

Client versions that I got to quilt include these from Crysta:

And this version from another client, Hildred. This was her first quilting project with an assist from me ;-). A beautiful light green minkee with alphabet letters is on the back. Made for her first grandchild. On the day it was finished my peonies were blooming beautifully in the yard, so had to include them with this photograph.

Have you made a 'Zoe' quilt? Send me a photo! I'd love to add them to the collection of how people interpret the design.

The red/blue sample finished this week is now on display @ Stash in Walla Walla, WA.

I'll be teaching two classes there in the upcoming months -- Charmed Network in Feb/Mar and Elephant's Play in May. Contact them directly for details on the class.

If you're considering Ireland--it is time to make a decision! 3% discount if paid in full by check before March 7. Details for booking on my tour click here. They have recently posted additional fare options, i.e. make your own airfare reservations --got miles? and just book the local part of the trip w/SewManyPlaces.

WIP

2012-02-01T07:31:00.000-08:00

Progress
Zoe - another one! (READY FOR QUILTING really hope to have it finished today--we'll see) This is using part of a layer cake and some yardage from the 'punctuation' line of fabric by American Jane for Moda. Using the red/blue blocks and a few black/white blocks and a bit of the multi-print black and red yardage to get the tickets for the border and some circles. I was able to get some yardage on sale from Sew Lux before Christmas which gave me a bit more of the white fabric with the punctuation marks and a backing for the quilt. The layer cake makes it very scrappy. I think I like the orange/green/yellow version that I did better in terms of contrast and values, but this is one I've had sitting around waiting to be done. The original pattern was only from 4 pieces of yardage, so this scrappy effect is quite different but I tried to keep the reds as 1 fabric, the blues as the alternate fabric, and the black as the darkest dark and the 'white' as the large motif (if you're looking at the pattern). I did get to use the compass rotary cutter from Olfa to cut most of the circles--loved it! Some of the circles were leftovers from a prior quilt (cutouts from the back) so were sized a little bit smaller. I machine appliqued with a blanket stitch all of the circles and then cut out the fabric behind them. For locals--Stash one of our LQSs, has a lot of fabrics in this line. This quilt is headed there as a sample. With the red/white/blue theme it almost makes me think of 4th of July fireworks!

Skill Builder Sampler Block #5 - I tried Eleanor Burn's Quilt-in-a-Day method when needing 8 alike HSTs. This meant that the outside edges of each 2.5" unfinished block did NOT have bias edges. Her instruction page that comes with her ruler (which I don't have), help explain the concept and give a math chart for various sizes of finished blocks and what size squares to start with, etc. I've added it to my resources tab on this blog. I'm very happy with the points on this and so quick to stitch the HSTs!

And Skill Builder Sampler Blocks #22-24 --all about curves. I jumped ahead and did these so that I can participate in the giveaway going on this week. I feared these curves. It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, but it still took longer than I prefer ;-) Glad they are done though. I think I have a new strategy so that I can finish when everybody else does too!

Progress now on Oddie's Wild Nature with the addition of an Eagle block.
Just have to show you the latest pattern testing progress -- here is test #2 on the MiAmore quilt--no applique applied and different border treatment, but a fun interpretation to see! The tester made this for her husband. I especially like the use of the stripe in the border and binding. I've got one more test coming in.

EQ7 BOM layout, fabrics have been assembled and a strategy identified to create the background fabric, my binding(s) will be decided after the center is complete-- Can't reveal this until March 1.

Also awaiting quilting:

Charmed Network v.2 - Eva
WWVQG 2006 Basket BOM

'Til Next Time

McCall's Mystery - ready for Step 2
Alaska's 2007 Shop Hop (block 1 is done....next up in February)
Out of the Darkness (block 1 is done...next up in February)
Rose of Sharon Bird Block
Snowflake/Blizzard Quilt

2012 STATS
Completed: 6
In Progress: 11, do I add what I started in a class last week (see below)?
To start: 3 (Peace Park, Shop Hop the Blues 2007 & 2009)

If you have a minute- go to my 'older post' from Sat. night and read about what I did in a class last week!

Are you going to Ireland in June? Join me!!

More WIPs at the linkup on Lee's Freshly Pieced blog. Happy WIPping ;-)

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

2012-01-30T06:59:00.000-08:00

My newest version of Zoe in red/blue black/white colors of the Punctuation line....it's now ready to quilt! I was excited to use my new circle cutting tool from Olfa, received as a result of making it into Round 1 of the McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 contest last year. This would be a great tool to make all kinds of circles. Accomodating for seam allowances as appropriate by placing the pivot point accordingly, it worked well to cut circles, half circles and quarter circles for my Zoe pattern. This pattern is purchasable at patternspot.com.

Added another block --the eagle block to my 'Oddie's Wild Nature' quilt.

Check out my post on what I learned from Irena Bluhm last week! Here is what I'm working on with colored pencils.

More Design Walls linked up at Patchwork Times.
More BOM's Away Monday's linked up at Whatahoot Quilts.

Learning from Irena Bluhm

2012-01-28T19:26:00.000-08:00

The Washington State Quilter's Spokane Quilt Guild hosted Irena Bluhm on Thursday with a 2 hour lecture as part of their guild meeting. I was excited to take advantage of this opportunity to hear from Irena in person, even if it took an almost 3 hour drive to get there--a lot less expense to travel that distance than across the country. I've watched some of her videos online and have been inspired by her work for a while. She is originally from Poland and lived in Germany for a few years before immigrating to the United States in the 90's. She got her long-arm in 2004 without ever having used one when her husband retired and she decided she wanted to make a bit of her own money. She is quite entertaining and is a very common sense thinking person.

Here are some of my notes from the lecture and a few pictures.

The quilt immediately to her right has won a lot of ribbons and was made within about 5 months of getting her long-arm machine. I believe this is the one she first showed with only the center medallion colored and realized that it needed more color to have that visual impact--the second of three critical elements to winning in the shows, the other two critical elements: (1) good design and (3)workmanship. She then colored the rest of it as seen in the photo.

As an illustration of an issue with a lack of repetition and balance, this quilt has a different border on the ends and she thinks this is a mistake.

With this quilt she made the point that the blue was the wrong color to use and the asymmetry of the quilt was also not well balanced.

She loves hummingbirds! Look at the background fills on this. A bit of bling added as well.

You know I love hearts, so had to share this one with you too.

Friday was a 5 hour class about her coloring techniques. These are samples that she brought for us to be inspired by. You can purchase these 'quilted panels' on her website and then color them in yourself! Or experiment by quilting a design on your own machine, then color them in! If marking before quilting, she uses Mark-B-Gone to identify registration elements used in doing the quilting. She doesn't typically draw the entire design, just the registration marks. Often creating an entire grid with Mark-B-Gone on the fabric to help with laying out the entire design. Using just about any pigment medium you can come up with (soft lead, rich in color are factors to consider--also cheapo pencils have more wax in them, expensive pencils have less wax --the less wax the more pigment), the key is to 'fix it' with textile medium. She recommends to NOT use liquid based textile medium--minimize the water as much as possible to prevent running of colors. Occassionally a color will change after the textile medium is applied so always test it. Delta Perma coat was the textile medium provided in the class. Once it has 'cured' for 7 days, put it in the bathtub for 30 minutes or so, then on the spin cycle in your washing machine, then hang it to dry. Once dry, steam the quilt flat. The samples are on a white muslin and have one layer of poly batt. For show quilts, she recommends white 100% cotton sateen (smooth fabric), a layer of cotton/poly or wool batting--something with loft, and then a second layer of batting that is 100% cotton --very flat and hangs well to help in the draping. All should be BLEACHED when using white so that seeds can't be seen. Use a contrasting thread when quilting to help color within the lines. Deciding on the color to use for shading and filling in may be the hardest part of the process. Consider shading techniques from general art concepts when coloring. She also demonstrated marbling techniques for backgrounds and suggested items to put under the fabric to create a texture while color treating the fabric i.e. sandpaper under the fabric, then use your colored pencil to rub over the top. I'm thinking a rubbing plate or your own stencil using tulip paint or something like that could also work and create interesting effects.

Here is the coloring that I did. I want to do some marbling in the center and add fill quilting on the outer edges then probably do some additional marbling. The color pencils are set with textile medium. I've got a couple of other designs on order and am excited to do a few more samples in the future. The fill quilting will be done with a thin non-contrasting thread unless a color is desired.

Other's work included:

During the class I had opportunity to show Irena a photo of my 'Supernova-Blackhole' quilt that I quilted with inspiration from her formal feathers. I also got some advice on my McCall's quilts that need more quilting in order to really become 'show quilts' that can compete. She was very helpful.

The photos above are of a purse that my mom made me with special fabrics selected based on my own personal favorite colors and styles. My dad makes the wooden part at the top which acts as an automatic closer of the purse when grabbing the handles in either a long strap or grabbing both sides for short straps. It is quite clever with lots of pockets inside and out, so everything stays very organized. While discussing some of the homemade purses that happened to be sitting on our desks while packing up at the end of the class, Irena was interested in having some of her old samples made into purses or totes in the way my mom had made mine. Kinda cool...will be interesting to see what comes of that. Maybe a new product will be available soon from Irena with some assistance going to the Adobe School Project. My mom and other women at her church makes these and sell them as a fundraiser for their local school. If you're interested in having a purse like this made, contact bettybaerg at cox dot net for details or via Facebook--in the next week she will post information in her 'notes' on her FB page for details. All proceeds go to a great cause. Patchwork ones are available from them directly from donated decorator samples, or you can send the fabrics you'd like to have it made with and they will make it for you. They can give you fabric requirements, etc.

While in Spokane I was able to find a few more batiks to use in my EQ7 2011 BOM layout! Still need a background fabric that I have selected--still trying to confirm the one I selected out of EQ7 is the one I want and can source it.

Have a great week!

WIP

2012-01-25T12:09:00.000-08:00

Completed
BMCU Mug Rugs / Table Runner and Placemats
I have served on the Blue Mountain Credit Union board for the last 3 years, the last two as board chair. The staff organize dinner for our normal monthly meetings. At least two years ago I designed a table runner and placemats to replace the well worn ones that are currently utilized for our meals. Last night I got to present the staff and the board with the items and a unique individual mug-rug for each staff member. Bitter sweet to complete my years of service to this organization. With these items on the table for years to come...somehow my presence might be remembered ;-)

back side of the mug rugs.

This is the center of the table runner while it was still on the quilting table. I put $ and cent symbols in the center, alternating them, in each bar of the table runner. In the dark green it says Blue Mountain Credit Union -- one word per side of the center square. The center square is four identically fussy cut pieces. The radiating lines from the center of each bar are kind of like stacks of coins.

12 placemats with different but similar bindings in sets of 3. This photo shows my quilting signature.

Other side of the placemats.

(Started and completed)
Irish Hand Welcome Block for International Quilt Festival of Ireland Exhibit

This block will go into the welcome exhibit at the IQFOI this coming June. I traced my own hand with a few quilting marks to show the structure of the hand. I had this fabric in my stash that I just had to use given the theme and location that this block will be used at--Ireland!! Hope you'll be able to join us in Ireland this June and find my block in the welcome exhibit!

Progress

Skill Builder Sampler Block #4 - Pinwheels
I have really gotten the hang of doing HST's with a full square sewn on the outside then diagonally cut both directions, press and trim to the exact square size. It worked really well even with these small pinwheels. I don't like wasting (trimming), but well worth the exactness that results and it is very fast to sew. The biased edges aren't great, but am wondering if I started with a square cut on the bias, the resulting cuts would be on the grain, eh?

McCall's Mystery v.2 step 1 done. (blogged on Monday)

EQ7 BOM layout -- Can't reveal this until March 1.

Awaiting quilting:

Charmed Network v.2-Eva
WWVQG 2006 Basket BOM

'Til Next Time

Zoe - red/blue retro version (started, but forgot to mentioned it)
Oddie's Wild Nature
Alaska's 2007 Shop Hop (block 1 is done....next up in February)
Out of the Darkness (block 1 is done...next up in February)
Rose of Sharon Bird Block
Snowflake/Blizzard Quilt

2012 STATS
Completed: 6
In Progress: 11
To start: 3 (Peace Park, Shop Hop the Blues 2007 & 2009)

Are you going to Ireland in June? Join me!!

More WIPs at the linkup on Lee's Freshly Pieced blog. Happy WIPping ;-)

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

2012-01-23T18:55:00.000-08:00

Irish Welcome Hand block for the Céad Míle Fáilte exhibit at the International Quilt Festival of Ireland, June 2012.

Trying to decide if I want to add quilting within the hand. I'd like to add crystals where my ring would be, but am waiting for details on whether or not that type of embellishment is permitted. Still need to add my name and other required details. I'll post a completed photo on WIP Wednesday.

McCall's Mystery version 2 - Part 1 !! If you saw my blog post around Christmas time I had Part 1 done in my 'version 1' selection of fabrics. I've now got my 'version 2' selection of fabrics also done through Part 1-- our Fearless Design group will meet this week, so had to get this one done as well ;-)

Fabrics:

Design Walls are linked up at PatchworkTimes.
BOM's Away progress posts are linked up at WhataHootQuilts.

Ice bound

2012-01-20T15:06:00.000-08:00

We've had an interesting storm sequence this week with mostly ice coming out of the sky and accumulating on the ground. I had hoped for real snow so I could put a big bowl out, collect the snow and make some instant ice cream the way we used to do it when camping in the snow at Yosemite. (snow and Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk stir it up and add whatever flavorings or extras you'd like -i.e. chocolate chips ;-)) The weather has prompted my husband to work at home for parts of the last couple of days. A different scenario than normal. It has been nice to ask him a question without waiting for him to get home, or get a mechanical thing fixed that takes him about 5 seconds and I might sit there and wonder how to approach the situation and what tools I might need or how to just fix it. Yesterday he even took me out to lunch--I think he just wanted to go out and drive in the stuff! But...I'm not complaining!

I've been able to get some quilty things almost done (binding still to go!) that I'm preparing to give away next week (full blog post on WIP Wednesday next week) as well as a couple of client quilt tops that were requested to be done so they could be finished in time for trips being taken by my clients and the quilts are being given as gifts on the trip out-of-state. Always fun to have more of the story and be a part of making it successful. Still have Charmed Network-EVA version to quilt...but there is next week.

Tried a new pantograph this week that I've had since I got my machine, but it just seemed like the right design for this quilt. It was one from a package, so not on a roll and wasn't long enough, but after a couple of photocopies and some tape, it was good to go. Rather than moving the panto for each row to get the alternating effect, my husband helped me see how to set the laser light and then just move the laser light each row so that the pattern itself stays in place. YEAH! It actually was much quicker once I got the system figured out. Perhaps making a 2nd row of copies and taping them to the other one in the right alternating pattern would allow me to do two passes before moving the quilt vertically--that would also save time. Ah....things to think about.

I'm excited about spending some quality time with Irena Bluhm who will be presenting a 2 hour lecture at the WSQ-Spokane Quilt Guild meetings on Thursday next week and presenting an all day class on Friday which I'm going to also attend, she is also doing another one on Saturday. If you're not familiar with her work, use the link and check it out. I tried to apply some of her techniques in my Supernova-Blackhole with the quilting I did on that one. I was also inspired by her painting/coloring of fabric after quilting it, but haven't learned her style specifically yet. I'll try to blog about it after my classes next week, but it probably won't get posted until Saturday night.

I hope you have been able to stay warm and productive. I'm glad to have more daylight hours!

WIP

2012-01-18T20:43:00.000-08:00

Completed
Charmed Network v.1-Terrain -- blogged about here.

Progress

Tina's version

I have to share about the exciting photos I got last night. I had sent my Mi Amore out for testing and the first testing results were returned. WHOO HOO!! Thank you Tina! She challenged herself to use fabrics from her stash and used a different applique method to save on fabric. A few good feedback points on adding some additional thoughts on border sizes if you don't use the exact border that I did and a less techy solution for creating the heart shapes. Very exciting for me!

My original - Mi Amore

Skill Builder Sampler Block #3 - ChurnDash

I used a different method than the two described for the HSTs. Start with 2 - 7 1/8" squares and sew all the way around the squares, right sides together. Then cross-cut on the diagonal. This is a nice tutorial for it. Used some big print I got in a grab bag last fall on a shop hop that seemed to work with my colors and a special center block ;-)

BMCU Mug Rugs / Table Runner and Placemats
These need to be done by next week, some progress made. Quilting is done on the mug rugs.
Added border print ends to the table runner. Now loaded on the quilting table. Need to quilt the runner and placemats and then get them all bound.

Out of the Darkness BOM - see post here.

EQ7 BOM layout --one layout idea flushed out, another in the works today. Wondering if there are more ideas. Can't reveal this until March 1.

Awaiting quilting:

Charmed Network v.2-Eva - Backing got pieced.
WWVQG 2006 Basket BOM

'Til Next Time

Oddie's Wild Nature

McCall's Mystery

Alaska's 2007 Shop Hop (block 1 is done....next up in February)

Rose of Sharon Bird Block

Snowflake/Blizzard Quilt

2012 STATS
Completed: 4
In Progress: 11
To start: 5

Are you going to Ireland in June? Join me!!

More WIPs at the linkup on Lee's Freshly Pieced blog. Happy WIPping ;-)

{Sew} Modern / Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

2012-01-16T19:15:00.000-08:00

Whew...lots to share today. So excited to get my latest design, Charmed Network - Terrain version quilted and bound. I had a customized quilting planned out, but the quilt kept sitting there on the machine and distractions kept taking me away from the idea. The more I looked at it and kept seeing how busy the fabrics were, I decided a simple 'bones stipple' all over which is done freehand, would be nice. It would also give me a sample of this quilting design.

A {Sew} Modern Finish - Charmed Network
(v.1-Terrain by Kate Spain for MODA)
This pattern is now available at patternspot.com. I will also be teaching it as a class at Stash in Walla Walla, WA starting February 16, 2012. It will be a two session with an optional third session class.

The next sample on the design wall is another 'Zoe' in the punctuation fabric line, focusing on red/blue as the backgroundn colors with black and yellow accents. Once I add the circles, that are all yellow/black, I'm hoping it will give it a bit more pop. None of the circles are cut out yet except that little one in the lower right. I got a circle cutter as part of the McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 round 1 gifts and want to use that to do the circle cutting. This is using about half of a layer cake, instead of the actual size called for in my pattern. Using the tickets as a border adds a bit of whimsy. There are blue tickets too.

Here is my BOM progress for this week - Pam Bono's Out of the Darkness. I had started this block several years ago, got it all cut out and nicely put back into sandwich baggies, but never sewed it together. I decided it was time to work on this quilt this year. I'm hoping to get one block a month done. This is Block #1 - Morning Glory. Lots of little pieces, but using the Angler2, it goes fairly quickly. It still needs the 1/4" bias stems, but I'll make enough to do them all when I'm done with the blocks.

Contests are in full swing again, and this weekend I participated in the Quilting Gallery 'New Beginnings' themed contest. My 'Your First Journey' quilt was entered and received a 2nd place! I was awarded a $25 gift certificate from Fat Quarter Shop. THANK YOU!!!!

I'm currently in a contest that lasts through January 25. If you have a Facebook account, become a fan of Aurifil Thread and vote! My '1892 Rondure' is entered. Thanks for checking it out.

While on a self made mini shop hop on Friday, I heard of another person going on the Ireland trip! Don't forget you can still sign up. And that irish welcome hand block....I've got my fabric picked out of my stash and hope to work on that this next week. Let me know when you post yours!

Enjoy the others linked up via

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

{Sew} Modern Monday @ Canoe Ridge Creations

BOM's Away Monday @ WhataHootQuilts

Distractions

2012-01-13T09:04:00.000-08:00

So easy to get distracted when the schedule falls apart!

I had in my queue this week a commission quilt that the client hasn't provided critical information in order to continue the process. It was so easy to let other things creep into my daily life when I'm on 'hold'. I probably should have pressed on with the next client in the queue, but I also wanted to get 'Charmed Network' the Terrain version quilted. But, even other non-quilting activities have distracted me significantly. Most of them will be out of my life I'm hoping within a month, but it really does take time away from my business. Maybe I'll get it quilted TODAY??

And then...I hear of a long-arm shop closing their store-front to work only out of their home, so everything is basically 50% off (fabric, patterns, etc.)...now that is usually worth checking to see if there is anything you HAVE to have, right? That is in the schedule today too!

Some were good distractions...I decided to spend some quality time designing the EQ7 layout. Exciting times ahead.

So....We'll see.....!! Happy Weekend!

WIP

2012-01-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

Completed:
Christmas Mug Rug - actually did two (but will count it as one finish)...I'm calling them lame and late. ;-) (HA!) They are so small, I just did a quick quilting job on my domestic with my regular foot. Sometimes I wonder, what I am thinking? The top one used the backing fabric as my design motif which is laid out in offset squares, so just quilted on those lines. The second one I quilted from the front around the stocking motif and in the ditch between the 4 fabrics. These are scraps given to me through someone who got them from another person who had closed their fabric shop long ago and was trying to clean out old fabric samples. I like the 'old world' style to them. One of them is going to the person who selected it in the mug-rug swap, and the only one left for me to pick in the swap was the other one ;-) At last night's guild meeting, I gave them both to the person. She liked them! yeah!

Extras
I decided to use every scrap of this bright floral fabric which was used in some blocks I made for a quilt guild project last year. These pictures are both sides of the 'mug rug'. I get really stumped when dealing with something so small. WHERE do I quilt it? On my domestic or my long-arm. To change my domestic over to doing real quilting is just annoying (not really hard, just annoying), so I started off trying to hand-hold this on the long-arm and move the long-arm too...well don't try to imagine that picture. I ultimately put the channel lock on both vertical and horizontal and moved the mug rug around to get these loops just as I would have on a domestic, but on the long-arm. OH BOY. It didn't help that I had a quilt loaded already and I was doing this in the remaining margin and the back handles were hitting the side. DOH!

I gave it to the recipient of the latest quilt that used the original fabric, last night at quilt guild. Just for fun! This should surely brighten the recipient's day when using it! She had not been able to attend the December meeting, given her medical situation, which is when we did the mug rug swap. I hope it is the thought that counts with this.

I'm including a photo of the finished quilt too--it was a group project--along with the recipient from last night's guild meeting. So glad she is back with us! We call them hearts and flowers quilts. There is a committee in our guild and when a life altering event occurs, we try to whip one together. Sometimes it takes us a while, sometimes they come together like magic. One of our newly minted guild officers for 2012 had some subdural hematoma's just after Thanksgiving. When her friends didn't hear from her for a couple of days, they checked on her and found her on the floor! CHECK ON YOUR FRIENDS! I was working on some blocks for our Dec. block lotto which should have been a 'light' background....but I found a fat quarter of these gerber daisies in my stash and just thought WOW! These would be so great. When this life altering event occurred and it became evident we were on task for another hearts and flowers quilt, I suggested instead of me submitting these blocks to the lotto which was to be turned over to hearts and flowers anyway, and since I was in such violation of the original idea of the lotto blocks, that we just use them as starting points for the latest quilt. I had 24 blocks in all which was a great start to get going. The stash of collected blocks had some loud / bright blocks too and we were able to put this together. The striped inner border was out of my stash, and the outer border came from donated stash of a deceased quilt guild member (Trudy Y.). I volunteered to quilt it and put the same bright green -- minkee backing on it which I still had in a charity project / stash from several years ago. This was a good cause! Jan E. is our committee chair and was instrumental in getting it put together--including fixing some of my hastily pieced blocks that were NOT the right size, DOH! Thank you Jan!! She always has such a can do spirit--so appreciated!

I also got the binding done on this class project from Linda Taylor's class at MQX-West 2011. This wasn't on my list, but had been quilted and was awaiting binding. When I used the binding fabric on that mug rug, it is what I typically use to bind the class projects, so went and grabbed it from my long-arm room and got it bound as well! YEAH! Another one completed!

Progress this week:

Charmed Network - Terrain Version quilting in progress

Got the quilt loaded yesterday onto the long-arm machine, thinking I'd get it done and take it to guild last night. After finishing the Habitat for Humanity quilting yesterday morning, I just didn't have time, so pushed on and got some other things completed (see above!) So...this is what is on my list today!

BMCU Mug Rugs - tops are finished, one has some quilting done on it, but am little bit torn on what type of quilting to do...on my domestic (these are small pieces) or on my long-arm just because writing a word is easier to do on the long-arm. I may end up doing a mix ...the straight stitching with a walking foot to outline the mountains on my domestic, then take them to the long-arm to write the initials of the credit union in the lower portion.

Skill Builder Sampler - this is a photo of both blocks so far since I didn't show you what this was last week. If you follow Lee at all, you'll recognize these blocks since she is working on this quilt-a-long too. I'm way behind the rest of the group, but fun to add them to the flickr group anyway.

Started:
Alaska Shop Hop 2007 - fun to get something new going! It appears there will be lots of trees and stars! This block is called Whispering Pine and was from Quilts of Many Colors in Wasilla, AK. I went to Alaska for the first time back in 1995, but returned in 2007 to attend a friend's wedding in Seward. I discovered a quilt shop while hanging out in Seward for a few days and their State Shop Hop was underway. I cannot imagine that anyone is physically able to get to all of the shops that participate. It motivated me to try and get to other shops in the locations that I would be during that trip which included the Anchorage area and north to Denali. Wasilla is on the way! I don't think I actually made it to this particular shop based on the information I found today on the web, but for all the places I didn't get to, I called and had them ship me the block! More than one way to accomplish a shop hop. Each block had to be purchased (they weren't giveaways), so add some shipping and it arrived in my mailbox back at home. With my recent cruise to Alaska in 2011 with my husband's family and my parents, my motivation was renewed to get this out and try to make it.

Untouched this week:

EQ7 BOM layout --well, I did some research and sketching...any details may have to wait until the March 1 deadline for the contest ;-)
Oddie's Wild Nature
BMCU Table Runner
McCall's Mystery
Rose of Sharon Bird Block
Snowflake/Blizzard Quilt

Awaiting quilting:

WWVQG 2006 Basket BOM
Charmed Network - Eva version ----but I must tell you, I'll be teaching the class at stash Feb. 16 with follow-up classes on March 1 and another TBD. yeah!!

STATS
Completed: 3
In Progress: 12
To start: 5

Are you going to Ireland in June? Join me!!

More WIPs at the linkup on Lee's Freshly Pieced blog. Happy WIPping ;-)

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

2012-01-09T22:26:00.000-08:00

Continuing with my Mug Rugs, I got two Christmas Mug Rugs done (lame and late) and finished the piecing of the remaining CU Mug Rugs. In the end I decided that the upper portion did not need to be exactly alike, the key was to get them finished! One was done completely improvisationally because I remembered there is also a part-time worker so needed to make one more and thought it a great opportunity to try some improvisational piecing.

Skill Builder Sampler Block #2 - we were supposed to learn color values in this block.

Alaska 2007 Shop Hop Block #1 - there will be lots of trees and stars! So fun to get started on something new. This block is called Whispering Pine and was at Quilts of Many Colors in Wasilla, AK. I went to Alaska for the first time back in 1995, but returned in 2007 to attend a friend's wedding in Seward. I discovered a quilt shop while hanging out in Seward for a few days and their Shop Hop was underway. It motivated me to try and get to other shops in locations that I would be during that trip which included the Anchorage area and north to Denali. Wasilla is on the way! I don't think I actually made it to this particular shop based on the information I found today on the web, but for all the places I didn't get to, I called and had them ship me the block! More than one way to accomplish a shop hop. Each block had to be purchased, so add some shipping and it arrived in my mailbox.

oh...and I did the Block Lotto block for our local quilt guild.
King's Crown ...scrappily ;-)

Other Design Walls @ Patchwork Times and BOM's Away progress @ What A Hoot Quilts.

Back to the routine!

2012-01-06T06:30:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!! -- ** DELVE INTO '12 **

Are you 'delving into '12? ha! I thought that was a fun word to rhyme with the new year's number.

Yay...so great to back in the routine of getting several customer quilts done and also working on my own stuff. A great balance to stay creative and feel that the work I do for customers can still be fresh and continues to develop.

So typically Monday is spent working on my own creative list of items! I was able to do my first Skill Builder Sampler block (twice DOH) and blogged about lots of other items I'm working on as well. But it was technically a holiday, right? ;-) My DH was home, so there were some other things to take care of too.

Tuesday, I try to work on pattern writing and samples. After testing and getting the feedback on these patterns, I was able to publish two new patterns on patternspot.com. Click on their logo to the right here on my blog to go directly to my patterns that are there. I hope to get test patterns out for at least two or three more shortly. I have the two "Charmed Network" test versions to quilt and finish next.

Wednesday and Thursday are intended to be days that I work on client quilts. Four client quilts got done, from small ones to LARGE ones, free-motion fills on all four which included bones stipple on two, loops on two, and one of the loops had specially placed free-hand stars too. Three are already picked up and they loved them, so that makes me feel good! Photos are always posted on my Facebook page as I do them in the 'Customer Quilts v.X' album....this year is v.3. Key lesson this week: when the quilt top is large, I still like to attach the bottom of the quilt top to the bottom leader with my red snappers, mid-size just do the short snappers in several spots, and a small quilt, typically not worry about it. But...if the loft of the batting is quite high, attaching the bottom of the quilt top to the bottom leader is very helpful in maintaining a consistent tautness across the quilt. Do you have any other tips? The wool bat was my biggest loft this week AND it was a big quilt. Ideally I like to stay at 96" or less in the smallest direction of a quilt because of my short table. This one was squeaky close inside 100". With the simple quilting stitch, it went fine. YEAH!

Several more quilts tops were put into the queue this week as well as another 'memory' quilt to be designed and made. Just talking to the individual requesting the 'memory' quilt is an emotional experience. They clearly want something to be made as a momento of their lost loved one, but don't have the emotional will power to do it themself. It is gratifying to me to be able to assist in their grieving process by creating something that they can treasure. I remember dealing with my Great Aunt's estate when she passed away years ago. There are so many details to deal with, but those kinds of details are ones that come easy to me to handle. Though my mother was handling the estate it felt good to be able to help her during that time i.e. calling creditors, opening mail and sorting bills, getting the death certificate, etc. At one point I almost thought of doing that as a business. The people who are emotionally involved often find it difficult to focus on these types of critical tasks. To me, it was a bit of a puzzle, a mystery, an investigation. All things, I enjoy!

Enough of my musings, need to get my Friday chores done and quilt a group effort quilt for a member of our guild with a minkee backing!....hope your year is off to a great start.

WIP 2011 Recap

2012-01-04T07:41:00.000-08:00

What a year!
Here is my photofinish of my WIP projects for 2011 and a kickoff for 2012.

When I joined the WIP linkup part way into 2011, I started off with 13 projects on the list and the possibility of new patterns.

Original List Completed Items (above, l-r, 1st row then 2nd row)
One Fabric Wonder - Table Cloth
SuperNova-BlackHole

Starlight-Flutterbright

Jinny Beyer BOM 2010 'Jinny's Garden' --my version= "My Garden"
My First Journey

View from the Old Cellar

Psychedelic America

Original List Progress
EQ7 BOM blocks completed, EQ7 layout contest now due March 1.

Oddie's Wild Nature - several blocks completed, several to go, will keep working on this!

Lonestar Wallhanging, setting blocks re-set, but really no progress
Basket BOM still ready to quilt --definitely a 2012 project now!
Tulip Wallhanging -still needs to be re-quilted
Old duvet repurposed - still ready to quilt

New Patterns

- Hugs and Kisses

- Charmed Network

now available at

patternspot.com

Ready to test several more. Great feedback from the Blog Shop Hop and Giveaway post in December! Thank you!

Added to list...Completed items (above l-r, 1st row then 2nd row)
1892 Rondure
Mi Amore
Two Christmas Potholders
WWU Baby #1/spring theme
Pulsed Illumination
INMQ Challenge
Wine Valley Placemats
Fearless Design Placemat set --fancy quilting inspired by Sharon Schamber
WWU Baby #1/star theme

Added to list...Progress
These last few items have become part of the list since the last WIP posting in December. I've got a couple of Christmas mugrugs in progress too. One that was supposed to be done for our Guild's mugrug swap in December, but at least the person who liked it said I could finish it later!
Christmas MugRug
Charmed Network - 'Terrain' version ** NEW PATTERN **
Charmed Network - 'Eva' version ** NEW PATTERN **
BMCU Table Runner
BMCU Mug Rugs
McCall's Mystery Quilt

2011 WIP STATS
Completed: 16
In Progress: 12....9 of which I do want to finish in 2012 ;-)

note...I'm dropping the tulip re-do, heart duvet quilting and lonestar projects going forward.

So what is new for 2012?

I've created quite a list from my piles in my stash, but will only add a few for now. Monday I talked about how I want to go about accomplishing this in amongst the real work of my business.

*1. Skill Builder Sampler {Sewn by Leila}-- I so wasn't going to do this one, but had a crazy idea, so now I want to and just got it started this week. Hoping to do one a week until I'm done.

2. Out of the Darkness - a Pam Bono design - I'll do one block a month and will likely report this on Monday's Design Wall/BOM's Away blog post. Major progress points, I'll include here.

3. Alaska Shop Hop "Trees" from 2007. - I'll do one block a month and will likely report this on Monday's Design Wall/BOM's Away blog post. Major progress points, I'll include here.

*4. McCall's Mystery - our 'Fearless Design' small group has decided to do this. It will be in three issues of the magazine. I got started a little early (see above), but also want to do a second version of fabrics.

5. Irish Hand Block (Céad Míle Fáilte) for the International Quilt Festival of Ireland -- Due Feb. 2 --are you doing one?

*6. Rose of Sharon Bird Block - this is my block that made it into Nine Patch Media's DVD from the Rose of Sharon Block Contest. I started a large version of this in 2010, so want to finish it up.

7. Peace Park -- can't wait to do this!!

*8. Snowflake/Blizzard - I won a few blocks in a block lotto several years ago. I have a rough design that I'd like to explore more and make this one. The block lottos of course are done ;-), but much more to do here! I even stole some in the past and used them in another quilt. HA!

9. 2007 Shop Hop the Blues - the first shop hop I did locally. I got the pattern from completing the shop hop and collected fabrics as I shopped. I want to get this collection of leftovers (once the quilt is pieced) back into my stash ;-)

10. 2009 Shop Hop the Blues - leaves, some applique some pieced, all blocks with pattern and material provided on the Shop Hop.

*started ;-)

2012 Stats

In Progress: 12
To start: 6

Thanks Lee for hosting the WIP linkup! I look forward to another great year of inspiration and accomplishments through the motivation and encouragement provided by all of you. Let's go DELVE INTO TWELVE!

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

2012-01-02T12:42:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! Great to look back on 2011 and see what has been done (stay tuned for the WIP on Wednesday update for a review of my WIP finishes for the year) and look forward to 2012 and to create a new list. Today will focus on my current Design Wall and on my BOM's Away progress, specifically my own personal projects (not usually my business related projects....but sometimes you just might get a sneak peak!)

In general for 2012 my plan is to work on 3 different BOM's until they are done. With January having 5 Monday's....this week I'm going to play catchup on a few things and a new mystery project is on my design wall today. But normally weekly I'm going to do the Skill Builder Sampler, Week 1 of the month I will also do an Alaska Shop Hop 2008 (I think) block, Week 2 I'll also do a Pam Bono Block from her 'Out of the Darkness' quilt. Week 3 and 4 I'll be working on some project hoping to start or finish something. There are a few things from my WIP 2011 list that still need to be finished, so I hope to keep them on the back burner and get to them as I can.

EQ7 BOM for 2011 is DONE!! Whoo Hoo!!

Here is December Diversion which did get done in time last week and was submitted before month end.

I used the Square-in-a-Square technique to make the flying geese. There are 5 different greens, this photo makes it seems like only two. The center block is a pale green and each direction of geese has its own green fabric which I had hoped to be a nice variegation.

Just waiting to hear about the 'layout' contest EQ7 will host now that the BOM is complete.

We Can Do It! Skill Builder Sampler Block #1 (This is from Leila's 'Sewn' blog). I have what I think is a really fun idea for putting these all together. She started this quilt-a-long several months ago, but I wasn't interested until this idea popped into my head. I couldn't get started though until the new year with everything else going on. I missed my opportunity to create an element of 'my cool idea' while on Christmas vacation, but hope I can still execute the idea sometime in the near future. I wanted this block #1 to be a true log-cabin vs. the pattern that was given, so did my own in EQ7. Unfortunately I mis-read the center block dimension so will need to re-do this! I cut a 2.5" square instead of a 3.5" square. DOH!!! UPDATED --> Got it right this time!

This is my fabric selection for the McCall's 2012 Mystery. Our small group 'Fearless Design' has decided to do this and see the different interpretations we create based on our fabric selections. I've completed the instructions for part 1 for this version of fabric.

I hope to get a second version done too in the pink/blue fabric set.

So...I'm linking up my BOM's Away at WhataHootQuilts and Design Wall at Patchwork Times. Check them out!

One year of blogging!

2011-12-30T07:53:00.000-08:00

After blogging for one year, it is exciting to write this last blog of the year and wish you all a Happy New Year!

I've used this forum to linkup with Judy's Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday, Lyn's What-a-Hoot Quilts BOM Monday, Canoe Ridge Creation's {Sew} Modern Monday and Lee's Freshly Pieced Work-in-Progress (WIP) Wednesday. The year end Giveaway Day at SewMamaSew and QuiltingGallery's Blog Hop & Giveaway brought even more followers and was exciting to get all the feedback provided through the question posed that required an answer to be eligible for the giveaway. Thank you all!

New ideas have surfaced through reviewing others work and I've met a lot of goals that I set for myself with the encouragement and motivation provided by you--my readers. I look at my business anniversary as based on the date I received my long-arm machine, so back in November I wrote a year in review post that has most of the details for 2011.

The alternate version of 'Charmed Network' was finished up this week with the help of two testers (my sister had to leave mid-progress and my mom finished it up). This is a queen size version and utilizes 42 charm squares and uses long horizontal borders. This new pattern was on my new list to get done in December...so yeah!!! Check next week at patternspot.com to purchase it online.

There were 5 WIP's that I put on my list that didn't get finished. Three are ready to quilt and two need more piecing work. I plan to post a WIP year in review next Wednesday as Lee kicks off the new year at Freshly Pieced.

My personal quilting goals for 2012 include the Irish Hand block (Céad Míle Fáilte) for the Int'l Quilt Festival of Ireland welcome quilt (are you joining me?), Rose of Sharon Bird Block, continuing with some Block-of-the-Month (BOM) quilts that I've had in my stash for a long time, the McCall's Mystery currently being published (2 versions) as a project my small group is doing together, a couple of shop-hop patterns with stashed fabrics, some block lotto wins from past years in my local quilt guild, several personal t-shirt quilts, some WWU wedding quilts that have been sitting way too long, and a quilt I designed on our honeymoon almost 3 years ago!

My business will include long-arm machine quilting for customers, pattern writing, and creating treasures from client ideas --I've got no less than 4 currently in the queue and several others who have expressed interest in having me create something for them. Exciting times ahead!

Have a merry and safe Happy New Year!! Delve into 12 !!

Design Wall Monday

2011-12-26T17:52:00.000-08:00

This has been a productive week in Arizona. Great to have time with the family and celebrate the Christmas season, but to also make progress on ideas.

One was this table runner. I'm currently the board chair of a credit union and they desperately need new placemats and could use a coordinating table runner that would be used each month prior to board meeting when the board members are fed a meal. The colors in the room are teal walls light wood furniture and burgundy covered chairs...kind of old school banking colors. I searched a long time to find a border print to use in this table runner that would incorporate those colors. I also had some 'money' fabric that I thought would be fun to incorporate too. This print seemed to have all the pieces and so this is what I finally put together. It is a Jinny Beyer pattern that I modified to fit the dimensions of the fabrics I had as well as the needs of the long board room table. I still might add a border print on the ends. wdyt? I don't have enough to border it all the way around and once it is quilted I'll trim it straight on the top and bottom before binding it. Maybe the binding should be out of the border print? Hmmm...not sure I have enough for that either.

I plan to make placemats with the border print's coordinating print and back them with burgundy. I hope that just putting a big piece of fabric on the quilting machine will allow me to quilt the whole piece and then just cut it up and bind it.

I also produced a new design "Charmed Network" and tested it (posted yesterday), and here is a second testing version in progress.

While helping my mother at her church's outreach program, I noticed a set of decorator 'leather' samples they had been given to use as they can to help with raising funds to pay off a school building loan that their church is paying. Recently Jinny Beyer sent out a trinket box pattern that required no sewing. I thought maybe that type of material would work well and be super easy. The sample pieces of leather were too small, so I sized down the pattern to make it fit. Here you see the template I made, a blue one that is cut out, and the red and brown ones are folded up in their 'finished' form. Fun, easy project. Maybe the non-profit group can use them as a fundraiser.

More design walls linked up at PatchworkTimes. What a great 2011! See you next year!

Happy Christmas!!

2011-12-25T13:06:00.000-08:00

While preparing for Christmas festivities last night, I made one of my husband's favorite traditions of the season...affectionately called 'Christmas Log', also known as 'Hurry-up Roll'.

This seems to be basically a german chocolate cake done as a roll-up....it is always so yummy at my MIL's home, so I am excited to have made it for the first time this year at my parent's place. The 'snow' on this log is the only bit at this house here in Arizona this year.

As promised, here is my Christmas present to all of you..."Charmed Network". A new design using a charm pack and yardage from the same line. I challenged myself to design something using a charm pack and 5 fabrics that include a background, two contrasting colors, and a medium and large repeating motif in the borders all selected from the same line of fabrics (backing and binding could be the same or additional elements). Of course you could do anything you want, but this was the challenge I gave myself. Sew Lux Fabrics asked what I would do with the Terrain by Kate Spain for Moda fabric that I won from their weekly customer order drawing and this is what it is! My sister (a novice quilter) is testing it, as I write this, in another fabric line and using a full 42 piece charm pack. This version uses 35 charms and creates a more rectangular quilt. A modern twist on a churn dash and shows how repeating motifs can be used to create a mirrored mitered border. I hope to have the pattern ready for publication next week!

Happy Christmas 2011 !!

Borders with BIG Motifs can be mirrored

2011-12-23T16:00:00.000-08:00

I have used border prints several times to make mirrored mitered borders.

A few examples:

Royal Peacock Jewels - sewn and quilted

1892 Rondure - sewn and quilted.

Mi Amore -- here I am testing the border print with a mirror to see how it should look if I line it up right.

This week I experimented with using a large motif fabric and creating a similar effect.

These are from the Terrain by Kate Spain for Moda line of fabric.

I previewed the concept of a new quilt in my post on Monday and these are the fabrics I used in the borders.

When looking at the motif, there is a repeat and is vertically symmetrical in the fabric on the left (the eyes are flatter on one end), and basically both vertically and horizontally in the fabric on the right (the flower centers aren't quite symmetrical).

Cutting strips the size of the repeat, provides an opportunity to get very close to a mirrored mitered border. If the fabric is not printed straight, it does create some opportunity for inconsistencies. Here is how it turned out:

My Christmas Present to you all will be to show you on Christmas Day how the quilt top turned out.

Design Wall Monday

2011-12-19T19:19:00.000-08:00

An exciting week was wrapped up after hosting two giveaways through linkups on Quilting Gallery's Blog Hop Party and Giveaway and on SewMamaSew's Giveaway Day - Dec. 12, 2011. The winners packages will be in the mail on Tuesday and should arrive before Christmas! It was great to get all of the comments. Each set of comments are compiled and have been edited on the original post. Very enlightening! The blog now has over 100 followers as well.

On the design wall is a new project I'm working on....hope you'll come back next week to see the top completely pieced! I'm using 'Terrain' by Kate Spain for Moda. You'll be 'Charmed--I'm Sure!'

Who's doing the McCall's Mystery Quilt? The Fearless Design small group that has met for a year at my house has decided it will be our first project for 2012. I've got the fabrics and hope to make at least one version, maybe two! If you're doing it as well, let me know in the comments with a link to where you'll be posting about it. It seems to be a great one to learn how to choose fabrics that work together.

Hope you are getting your last minute items finished or shopping done for that specific loved one during this holiday season of giving. I still have some to do for sure, but lots of time still left in the week, right? :-)

More Design walls linked up at Judy's Patchwork Times!

Christmas Rush

2011-12-16T14:18:00.000-08:00

My tip this week is for pieced borders. Be sure to stay-stitch your edge before sending it out for quilting, or quilting it yourself. This helps to keep the edge from stretching or unraveling when it is being handled in the quilting process.

I'm working on some new designs that I look forward to sharing with you after the holidays!
Time to finish up those Christmas gifts and enjoy time with your family and friends. You are part of the gifts I have received this year. Thanks for reading along.

Design Wall Monday

2011-12-12T07:15:00.000-08:00

Started making several 'Mug Rugs' for a Guild exchange as well as gifts for the employees at a local Credit Union --I just happen to be the Board Chair and my 3 year term on the board is about to end, so thought this would be a nice little gift to the current employees. The Blue Mountain range can be seen from our town and we grow onions, grapes, wheat, have a hot air balloon stampede each year and well, it is a credit union, so money should be represented somehow. These are the themes that will be used on the lower portion of each mug rug as well as on the back. Here are two so far. I also have a surprise in the works for my departure.

I've got over 100 followers now!! WHOO HOO!! The 100th is Tina and she's going to test the 'Mi Amore' quilt and receive a discount for quilting, if I do it for her. Thanks!!!

This week I've got two giveaways going on. You'll have to read my SewMamaSew Giveaway Day post (runs through Dec. 16, 2011, 5pm PST) and this past weekend's Quilting Gallery Blog Hop Party & Giveaway post (runs through Dec. 17, 2011) in order to find out how to enter and what the giveaways are! LOTS OF FABRIC!!!

Hope you are getting lots done in the rush before Christmas. I need to get back at it!

Giveaway Day!

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

ANOTHER GIVEAWAY!!!! Welcome blogland....I'll keep this post simple and focused on the giveaway, but if you're curious about who I am and why I'm blogging, please read my post from Friday where there is another HUGE giveaway.

SewMamaSew is hosting 'Giveaway Day' - December 12, 2011 ...and letting it last through Dec. 16, 2011 5pm PST to give you all a chance to get around to all the blogs.

The other giveaway 'Blog Hop Party & Giveaway' is hosted by Quilting Gallery, with more than 240 blogs listed...so...check it out if you'd like to try and win more--way more! My own giveaway in that event consists of 7 half yard cuts of cotton sateen ombres. You'll have to leave an appropriate comment on my other posting to be eligible.

'Tis the season to give, right? And SewMamaSew's linkup is prompting me to do ANOTHER giveaway!

So...this giveaway is fabric with lavender flowers on it. It will make up beautifully as lavender sachets or in a quilt or whatever your creative mind comes up with! I'll send you one (1) yard.

How to qualify? Leave me a comment of what you might do with this fabric if you win it. Be sure you're not a no-reply blogger or leave me your email within the comment. I'll randomly choose a comment at the close of the giveaway and the winner will be contacted for snail mail information.

Thanks for stopping by! 'Follow' me if you'd like to keep up with my long-arm quilting tips and quilt top designs. Good luck w/the giveaway(s??), and I hope you'll check out my other post and try to win that fabric too.

12/16/2011 5pm PST. The giveaway is now finished. Thank you for participating!

Here is my summary of comments received and statistics.
108 comments; 5 inelgibile (no 'what you would use it for' was indicated).
In order of popularity of what you'd use it for:

Quilt (31)
Little girl/spring dress (20)
Sachets (18)
Tote/Bag/Purse/small purse (11)
Skirt; Pillow/pillow case (8)
Table runner/Placemats (4)
Flaxseed/lavender heating pad; eye mask; scarf (2)
rice sock, shirt, gift bag, pin pillow, stash, patchwork wallet, garden apron, cosmetic organizer, earrings, curler wraps, sunbonnets, mug rug mat by the bath for soaps a 'tub rug', book cover/gardening journal, zippered pouches, something for mom. (1)

Some great ideas here...thanks!!

Here is a view of the entire line of fabric at RJR Fabrics.
http://rjrfabrics.com/fabrics/collection.cfm?packageID=911

And the winner is: #34 -- Morgan "A dress for my purple-loving girl. Thanks!"

What a fun week with all the comments too!
If you are interested in purchasing some of this fabric, I do have some more of this particular piece, you're welcome to contact me directly to get some.

Blog Hop Party & Giveaway

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

Quilting Gallery is hosting a blog-hop party with giveaways galore! I'm participating and hope you'll join in the festivities. QG also has a weekend quilt contest each week...this week's theme Christmas Table Runners. I've put in my mystery table runner (right) 'Poinsettia Points'. You can check out all the entries and help people win items from the sponsors by voting for your favorite. This was the first quilted item that I quilted using a walking foot on my domestic sewing machine. Nice straight lines! Note: 12/12/11 - Theme contest is now over.
I've been in business now over two years and blogging for almost a year. A new resolution in my 3rd year of business is to blog on Friday about things I've learned this week related to my long-arm quilting and quilt top designing. If this would be of interest to you, I hope you'll 'follow' me. I'm also on Facebook if you'd prefer to follow-along there. On Facebook I also post all customer quilts with detail photos of the quilting, here on my blog I might explain a bit more about the quilting or process of designing a quilt. There is an opportunity each time I design a quilt to signup to be a tester for that quilt pattern, always an incentive is given as well, I even have a few spots left for the most recent ones--some are my McCall's Quilt Design Star Entries, read my post about testing for details.

I often blog to join the fun at Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday linkup, What-a-Hoot Quilts BOM's Away Monday linkup, occassionally on {Sew} Modern Monday linkup at Canoe Ridge Designs, and Freshly Pieced WIP (Work in Progress) linkup. Always a great idea to stay motivated by being accountable and sharing our goals and successes! I wrote about this in the Dec 2011/Jan 2012 issue of the Country Register (local edition).

This week I was working on my 'I need by Christmas' client quilts. The most seasonal quilt was this one:

Often when I won't be using the same thread in the center as I am using for stabilizing and/or borders, I will baste across and vertical the center. This time I used pins horizontally across each time I rolled the quilt forward and it seemed to work fine. This was quicker and didn't use up thread.

So...what am I giving away and how can you enter to win?
GIVEAWAY:

Half Yard cuts of 7 Lumiere Sateen 100% cotton variegated color/ombre fabrics.

To enter the random drawing: Leave a comment by end of Dec. 17, 2011 indicating which is your favorite quilt displayed below and why it appeals to you. I'll randomly pick a qualifying comment and email you for mailing information. Good luck and thanks for the feedback.

Written patterns: Elephant's Play, Zoe, WWBaby#3, Will you Accept This Rose?, Hugs and Kisses, WW Contemporary, Starlight-Flutterbright,
To be written: Dutch Kids, Protection from the Storm, Royal Peacock Jewels, 1892 Rondure, Mi Amore

Dutch Kids Protection from the Storm

Royal Peacock Jewels, 1892 Rondure, Mi Amore
This was my Entry Quilt, Challenge 1 and Challenge 3 quilts respectively
in the McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 Contest.

Thanks for stopping by. I'm hosting a second giveaway 12/12-12/16, so I hope you'll come back. Merry Christmas!!

Update 12/17 --the giveaway is now closed.

179 Comments, 18 did not leave a reason why they liked their chosen favorite :(, but thank you so much for participating! WOW! What great feedback.

Both modern and traditional markets represented.

By vote of popularity:

1892 Rondure - 37 --pattern testing to start January 1

Zoe and Mi Amore - 33 -- Zoe avail. online; Mi Amore pattern testing to start January 1

Starlight Flutterbright - 23 -- avail. online or @ Highland Quilts, Athena, OR

Protection from the Storm - 15 --thinking I should write this one up!

Elephant's Play and 'Hugs and Kisses' - 13 --EP avail. online, Hugs and Kisses available Jan. 1

Royal Peacock Jewels - 10 - pattern testing to start January 1

Will You Accept This Rose? - 4 -- available from me directly or at Animas Quilts.

WW Baby #3, WW Contemporary and Dutch Kids - 3 - patterns available from me directly for the WW's, 5 versions are available; Dutch Kids is on the list of patterns to write in 2012.

Online patterns available at http://patternspot.com/users/216. If you'd prefer to have a printed pattern, contact me directly. I can let you know if they are available to you locally or directly from me. If you'd like to buy them wholesale for your shop, contact myself or Pattern Peddlers.

Testing and future patterns will be available online when they are ready.

The Random Winner is #70: Needled Mom -- "Starlight Flutter Bright!!! What is the name ofthat quilt below them patterns that looks almost 3 dimensional (like a ballcoming at you)? It is gorgeous!"

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

2011-12-05T12:21:00.000-08:00

Can't say I've made much progress, but I also lost an opportunity to take a photo of some exciting things I was working on. I donated them before capturing a shot to a worthy cause.

Here are the leftovers that I just can't put in the trash. Thinking I should mug rug them or something! Any other ideas?

Still working on my Oddie's Wild Nature (O.W.N.) ....auditioning backgrounds for the eagle block. I'm also thinking the eagle might need to have a fish in its talons! wdyt?

More Design Walls indexed at Patchwork Times.

More BOM's Away indexed at What-a-Hoot Quilts.

This week in review

2011-12-02T07:46:00.000-08:00

Every customer project so far this 'year 3' has had interesting challenges or learning experiences. Here are two:

Pillow tops ...those small things on a long-arm could be more easily loaded if the back was one large piece and you could just place the pillow tops across the table and quilt them. So...if you're thinking about having your long-arm quilter quilt pillows, consider having 1 large back for the totale of your pillow tops. These pillows coordinate with a quilt I did in Year 2 - CQ84. They asked for a similar motif of the quilting. This collage shows all 3 and the backs so you can actually see the quilting--a big bunch of grapes still on the vine.

Fancy front AND back ...When designing a quilt, sometimes there are elements that just won't work together, so you decide to do something special on the back too. Well, as soon as it is special and has borders that kind of match the front--this is a major challenge to the long-arm quilter. Unlike domestic machine quilting, we don't put the sandwich together and THEN load it...we bring all 3 pieces together as we quilt down the sandwich...so the way the fabric stretches or has been pieced is going to show up as we sandwich it when quilting. This week I had a quilt with a 'charm pack' pieced quilt top with a border, and the 'backing' was a large piece of fabric with borders and then applique in two corners across the center and border. The borders didn't EXACTLY match and the overall dimensions were roughly the same. Besides the "I can't match this exactly" issue, I needed to go back to pinning the bigger piece onto my backing leaders (which was the charm pieced top) instead of using my Red Snappers and to grab the sides, I had to grab all 3 layers--just no choice. We really need 4-6" each direction on the bottom layer to NICELY attach and grab the sides when doing the quilting. The client seemed happy with what I did....and here it is. I should say..I am too given the situation.

"BACK"

"FRONT"

I quilted it from the 'BACK' checking where the border seam was as I went with a feather / leaf treatment in the border and then migrating into loops in the center from the feather so that it appeared to be intentionally flowing rather than a clear start/stop at the border seam. It worked well on 3 sides, but by the time I got to the bottom border it ran over a little on the true 'front' of the quilt's border. This quilt will be headed to Germany with the military family and baby and I'm sure will be well loved regardless. How else could it have been done? - Applique the letter on the true front and let the back be blocked together to just be the back. It doesn't need to be pieced together symmetrically. It will give the back some character. This was a new quilter doing a favor for an ill quilter, so it will be ok.

If you're reading this Dec. 2-4, 2011 ...please check out Quilting Gallery's 'star' themed quilt contest this weekend. You'll see my Starlight-Flutterbright. This week a client dropped off a 'blue/purple' colorway and elongated version of this quilt. That is going to be fun to do!

Going to Ireland with me in June 2012?? I hope so!!

Interested in making a block for the welcome exhibit?? Make one along with me within the next month.

May the stars be bright where you are tonight.

Continuous Line Butterfly, Odd Angle Binding and Scallop Background Fill

2011-11-25T15:00:00.000-08:00

Last week I got started with Year 3 of having a Gammill Quilting Machine. My first customer quilt was a custom quilting request on these antique butterfly blocks that the client had set in a very unique configuration for a table runner. I came up with a continuous line to stitch the applique work of the entire butterfly, except the dark spots in the middle of the wings. I've tried to illustrate the path in this photo. I used black thread to match the blanket stitch that had been done by hand originally.

Start on the side of the butterfly and move towards the center on the bottom edge of the top wing (this photo has the butterfly flying DOWN). Go around the black center, including the antennae (if you forget, you can catch them on a second pass past them later). When you reach the point of the black center where you started going around that section, then back track to the bottom of the butterfly and stitch around the entire external part of the butterfly. When you come back to the black section from the opposite side, back track up the black center to the bottom of the top wing and then stitch to the outer edge of the butterfly.

With a neutral color I then stitched about 1/4" from the edge of the butterfly and then filled the block with a medium size stipple.

Given the inner corners as well as outer corners, I went searching for Marci Baker's tutorials on doing special angled bindings. I've added video links to both on my new 'Resources' page on this blog. Thanks Marci! This year I hope to expand the resources page to include tutorials I find online that deal with specific techniques I have found helpful. I hope they will be helpful to you too.

Here is what the whole quilt looks like --it is intended to be used as a table runner on a rather large table. The client intends to put a piece of glass on top of it. I think the layout even makes the whole piece look like a butterfly.

On the second quilt of the year, I decided to do a scallop design in the center blocks. I've included an illustration to remind us all that you section it with always a HALF space left at the end so that there is no need to run along the ditch to continue with the next row. (DOH!!) ;-) Learned this originally from Pam Clarke in her Designs with Lines class. Should have gotten my notes out before I started and had to re-think it all through. I'll add a link to the 'Resources Page' to Pam Clarke's books.

Glad to have gotten some customer quilt's finished and enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal with dear friends. I hope your Thanksgiving holiday has been one of good memories made with friends and loved ones.

I did enter the Kitchen items contest at the Quilting Gallery this weekend. You'll recognize my Heart Placemats. Thanks for hopping over and giving them consideration for your vote.

WIP

2011-11-23T13:00:00.000-08:00

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Progress on 'Oddie's Wild Nature'. The bear block is finished. Added two different fish than I had originally made. One was from a novelty print (far right), the second was just out of another batik (far left) that made it past the bear.

EQ7 BOM - November Novelty (bottom block) was added.

Finished (See blog entry):

One-Fabric Table Topper
Two potholders that I forgot were started, so they will count as 'new' and 'completed'!

Trying hard to get this list done by the end of the year. I've already been strategizing for 2012.

2011 Stats - I started off with 12 projects in process and 1 I counted complete that first week:
New since the last posting: Two Potholders (we'll count this as one project)
In Process: 6
Completed: 15 - I'm thinking a year-end post with a photo finish ;-) I've definitely finished the NUMBER I started out with, just a few more got in there and others weren't touched.
In Progress: 6

Oddie's Wild Nature
EQ7 2011 BOM- on track

Awaiting Attention:

Lonestar wall hanging - I'm thinking I might take this with me during the holidays since I want to do some handwork on it too. Maybe I'll get it done before the end of the year. MAYBE :-)

Completed Tops awaiting Quilting -- hmmm, not sure these are going to get done. We'll see!

2006 Basket BOM
Tulip wall hanging --this is a redo of the quilting - target November
Colorwash Heart Duvet Cover -- this is to salvage an old duvet - target December

Other WIP's indexed at Freshly Pieced.

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

2011-11-21T07:26:00.001-08:00

Trying to focus on customer work at the moment, but found a few minutes to get the November Novelty block from EQ7 BOM done last night. So...this is on my design wall and keeps me up to date on my BOM work.

More Design Walls @ Patchwork Times
More BOM's Away linkups @ WhataHoot Quilts

Friday's Foibles

2011-11-18T10:01:00.000-08:00

We're still making progress towards 100 followers on this blog. Even though we didn't meet the goal last week with the giveaway promotion, I still want to give stuff away to thank especially those who were voting throughout the McCall's contest, so some of you who participated will be receiving special things in the mail soon, just because. When I hit a 100, I'll also draw a name from my followers and send something your way. How's that?

We got news that my husband's position will be extended at least until January (YEAH!), so a bit more reprieve as we consider the next job options. We'll spend Thanksgiving at home and now can make plans for the Christmas holidays. It's time to get serious about those customer quilts that are needed before Christmas!

I've started my 3rd year now with my long-arm machine and participated in a Thanksgiving Dinner Challenge to make potholders or oven mits this week. Although I've had some consulting work distractions as well, I've been working on customer quilts and had a few distractions that were somewhat entertaining.

There was a local restaurant that went out of business, Lorenzo's. Macon Brothers was brought in to do an auction. Included in this auction was a vegetable and meat slicer, those big Hobart ones! My husband has been wanting one of these for a very long time. Not that we have any room to store it or use it, but wants one none the less. So, he asked if I'd go sit at the auction and bid on it. We set our limits and so I agreed. After scraping the ice off the windshield with a credit card and trying to get the warmth of the vehicle to shed the rest, I arrived a little after 8am for the preview. The item of interest--#529. OH MY. I asked one of the auctioneers how long it typically takes to process through the list. They said approximately 100 items per hour. Wow...ok, this is going to take a while. But, since I'd never sat through a real auction (just seen them on TV, etc.) I thought it would be fun to observe for a while at least and get the feel of various bidders, etc. I also thought I had an idea of who might also be eyeing the slicer. Bummer. The auction started at 9am. I don't think the heat was on in the place, most everyone was very cold or well bundled up. About 12:30p I decided I was too hungry and cold and had to take a break. Drove home, made a sandwich and got gloves and a scarf. Fortunately I didn't miss anything of importance, and it wasn't until about 2:30p that our item of interest was finally up for auction. The whole thing was over in about 2 minutes and I hadn't even placed a bid. It went for well over our limit. That was the 'automatic' slicer. Next came the 'manual' slicer. I had called my DH earlier to see if we should use that as a backup item and he agreed. The whole thing was over in less than 1 minute. And NO, we didn't win the bid, but at least I participated this time. It quickly got bid up beyond our limit by ONE other individual. I'm pretty sure it went to a guy who is starting a 2nd pizzeria in Klamath Falls...so they had a bit more money in their pocket for these types of expenditures. I'm sure my blood pressure was crazy as I left the place. Reminded me of why, when I used to work on the trading floor, I never became a trader. I really didn't like that sense of risk and bidding and not being sure if you would win or not....or how about trying to buy a car? My first car was purchased by my uncle who LOVES this process. I didn't live far from him at the time and asked if he'd come in and negotiate the deal. He was happy to! So glad that amongst the team we can find different traits to handle various situations and make life fun ;-)!

Enjoyed listening in on Margaret Miller's call on Thursday with Morna @ International Association of Professional Quilters. Margaret is going to host a teacher's workshop next February. So far, sounds like something I'd love to do! I've got several ideas of quilts that could use her rectangular triangle template/ruler.

I've received word that my McCall's challenge design rights have been reverted back to me. This means I can now write the patterns and proceed with publication. I'll be writing 'Royal Peacock Jewels', '1892 Rondure' and 'Mi Amore' for sure. If you're interested in testing the patterns for me, let me know. We'll probably be ready to start testing after Christmas, so no panic here if you want to, but don't feel you have the time right now. I'll be taking the first 5 interested, for each pattern. I'll give you in return for testing--which means following the pattern the best you can, making notes, free to ask questions throughout the process, providing me with any notes at the end--1 cent /sq.in discount on getting it quilted by me provided you get the testing done within the allotted time frame. I keep rights to photograph it and use the photo(s) as an example of the pattern. You get the quilt and a finalized pattern. The key for me is to have people who will test it in a timely fashion and I want to reward your timeliness. These three patterns, along with 'Hugs and Kisses' which has already completed testing, I'd like to have ready for Spring Quilt Market.

As I finish writing this, I'm watching the Regis Philbin farewell show on Live! with Regis and Kelly. His ability to make people feel like a million bucks is truly a special gift. May we all be able to make others feel special in all of our interactions together.

Have a blessed weekend!

Design Wall / BOM's Away / {Sew} Modern Monday

2011-11-13T21:55:00.001-08:00

On my design wall is the progress on the 'bear' block in my 'Oddie's Wild Nature' quilt. Had a few too many interruptions today to get it done, but progress is happening.

I also finished my one-fabric table topper. Just glad to have it done. This technique is to take a border print, cut it up and re-piece it back together creating the blocks you see in the center and the cornerstones. Some have four triangles, some have 8 triangles to make up the block. Typically you would make a much larger quilt and so the center would be repeated to make a nice effect. These were blocks made to demonstrate the concept at a guild meeting a year or so ago, so just trying to use what I had and make something from it. I think the back side especially will be great for game night and give a little bit of protection to the table. I love the back! :-)

When I saw the Thanksgiving Dinner Challenge, I remembered some unfinished potholders that I could get out and finish! Here are two that I have finished so far. The loop method on these is a new idea that I picked up from Prudent Baby.

I quilted this on my domestic machine and stitched just around each heart. The backing is fabric specially designed for ironing boards or potholders. I used 3 layers of warm & natural cotton batting in the center.

This tree is paper pieced. I created this during a Christmas vacation with my mom and sister to teach them how to paper piece a few years ago. I pulled the block out of my cubbies and all the fabric was with it to finish this up. I stitched in the ditch.

Normally I back potholders with colorful fabric, but I wanted to quilt these in such a way that I thought the silver stuff would highlight the quilting too.

The deadline is Nov. 17--you still have time if you'd like to join in. There is a giveaway drawing. http://www.sewsweetness.com/2011/10/thanksgiving-dinner-challenge.html

Received a couple of boxes of pantographs from another local long-arm quilter today. She does only computerized work now. I haven't even had a chance to look through them yet, but thank you Lynn at Thread & Bolts. She's remodeling the shop and will have a big open house on Thurs. and Fri. this week. If you're in the area, you should stop by and check it out.

More Design Walls indexed at Patchwork Times.
More BOM's Away indexed at What-a-Hoot Quilts.
More {Sew} Modern Monday finishes indexed at Canoe Ridge Creations.

Two Years Already!

2011-11-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of my Gammill Optimum+ arriving after purchasing it while at Houston Int'l Market and Festival in 2009. Today I'm reflecting on those two years and hosting a giveaway to thank my faithful friends and new followers for supporting me along this journey. I took a process pledge a few months ago and so, here has been my process for growth over the past two years.

Year 1 was full of practice--16 charity projects and creating 19 of my own samples (many have already been given away or are on display in various quilt shops). I did enter the Rose of Sharon contest and got one block published in the book (basket block) and another published on the DVD (bird block), I won 'viewers choice' in the Jackie Robinson Roses Block Contest and was able to make a quilt that I designed the block for and it went on a Maywood Studio trunk show for almost a year. I also created some finished product potholders and table trivets that represent our local Walla Walla Valley as well as the local University and put them up for sale along with some of my original quilt patterns at the University Book Store. A few patterns also made it into local quilt shops. I built enough confidence to quilt 47 quilt tops for customers and design and make two quilts by commission.

Here are the commissioned pieces:

I was most excited to quilt this one for my mother. This is a Pam Bono design 'Remembrance Poppies' with an extra border so it will fit a king size bed.

Detail photo below of the quilting.

I have several albums on Facebook that capture all the details of the various quilts with a variety of styles represented. www.facebook.com/kissedquilts If you're curious, enjoy checking them out.
albums: 1. Customer quilts; 2. Samples; 3. Practice Quilts; 4. Commissioned Quilts

For year two, I set a goal of at least two customer quilts a week, gaining exposure, entering juried shows to improve my reputation as a quilter, adding t-shirt quilts to my services and exploring pattern publication more earnestly. After the Christmas season of rushed quilting jobs, I realized I also needed to create balance in my week or I was going to burn out. So, I established a rough goal of

Monday--my own time for creative development;
Tuesday--create patterns, samples, or finished products;
Wednesday and Thursday--customer quilting;
Friday--marketing and accounting. I also do some consulting work, so that would give me dedicated time to be sure it gets done as well.

This new scheme was very helpful in keeping good balance. Within the 1st 6 months, I had already quilted 47 customer quilt tops (the same # I had done all of the 1st year).

Exposure - Literally on New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, 2010, Elaine Shaw of Highland Quilts in Athena, OR took me to lunch and asked me to write a column for the Country Register. She had met the editor of our regional semi-monthly paper and believed she could connect us and make this an opportunity that I should pursue. It worked out, and I have faithfully written an article every two months for the Washington, E.Oregon and S. Idaho Country Register.

That same day I made the decision to start writing a blog. My Facebook presence was reasonable, but it seemed that much of the quilting/sewing world was blogging, so I better jump on board ;-) Through this process I found Judy's Patchwork Times' Design Wall Monday (most recent 11/7/11), Lee's Freshly Pieced Supernova Quilt-A-Long and then started linking up with her Work-In-Progress (WIP) Wednesday (1 year anniversary link). I also discovered Megan at Canoe Ridge Design's {Sew} Modern Monday linkup and Lyn's What-a-Hoot Quilts' BOM's Away Monday linkup. All of these kept me motivated in one way or another to regularly or occasionally linkup with something to show in the appropriate category. Thank you hosts!! I've also made new friends along the way.

Another chance for exposure was joining in on the EQ7 Block of the Month, making the block in our own chosen colorway, posting a photo on their blog, and at the end of the year a contest to design a setting for the blocks. I've kept up each month and in September my block was the chosen winner (probably random;-)...but I received the Kaleidoscope add-in software to EQ7. This is still a work in progress, but so far...

and to my surprise a couple of months ago I was asked to be a part of their EQ Artist Campaign...

This went out in an e-newsletter and links to a page on their website with a quote from me. Wo Hoo!

On a local basis, I was given an opportunity as I brainstormed ideas for marketing our Guild's raffle quilt this year, to display and sell quilts at a local winery. Years ago I made a log cabin block potholder with fabrics selected that symbolically represent our local area. I still had a few, made some more and put these up for sale in the winery. I also finished up a small piece I had started years ago as a challenge for a local festival. It gave me an opportunity to try some heirloom quilting. It sold the next day! So...I'm still producing the potholders/table trivets, have added additional versions (Balloon Stampede and Onion Festival), bottle bags, and most recently placemats using a beautiful set of panel prints that I found this fall. I need to make more wall hangings as well.

In the spring I decided to enter again (I had tried in 2010), the McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 Contest. I was selected this year using the 'Royal Peacock Jewels' commission quilt from Year 1 as an entry quilt. Each round a challenge was presented, each contestant produced a quilt top and submitted a photo, public voting ensued online and judging by industry judges make a final decision on who moved forward to the next round. I made it through to the FINALS where we also had to finish the quilt and send it to McCall's. Alas I was told this week I was not the winner, but this consumed a great deal of my time this year. It brought a great deal of exposure, including publication in the McCall's Quilting magazine (so far the Nov/Dec 2011 issue) and on their website (Design Star image in the right hand column here on my blog will take you to my profile page).The 'McCall's' label in the right hand column of my blog will take you to the blog posts related to these quilts that explain the actual challenge and my design process. When they are shown together, I see geometric and dimension as a distinct 'style'. I had never really given myself an opportunity to design, representing myself as a designer. This is a new concept for me. Hmmmm.

1892 Rondure 70"x70"

Pulsed Illumination 37"x37"

Mi Amore - 51"x63"

AQS Mystery - Beyond the Block;

my version (borders added): 'Bordered Beyond the Block'

Reputation/Juried Shows--I followed along with the AQS Mystery Quilt pattern published in the AQS Quilter magazine during the winter months and my version was juried into the AQS Knoxville show. I had two member exhibits accepted for show at the Association of Pacific West Quilter's Show in Tacoma, WA and had two personal quilts (1892 Rondure and Pulsed Illumination--rounds 1 and 2 in the McCall's contest) and a customer quilt (Wisteria Garden by Elaine Shaw) accepted into the MQX-West Show in Portland, OR. MQX was the only show of these three that provided judges comments, so it was good to get those and understand a bit more clearly what they are looking for. It was clear from my visits to each of these shows that the winners spend a great deal of time creating the masterpiece. It is intended as a work of art to hang on a wall. That is a very different way of looking at a quilted piece than making a quilt to snuggle with! ;-)

'Valley Icons' a group quilt made by the WWValley Quilt Guild for their raffle
- drawing to be held Dec. 13, 2012 (tickets still available)

designed and quilted by Marlene Oddie, artwork by Eddie Walker

Many guild members participated in the creation of this quilt.
Accepted into the special 'group' member exhibit at the Pacific West Quilt Show, Tacoma, WA

A photo of the quilt was used in the show program.

Starlight-Flutterbright (pre-crystals applied); designed on request by Highland Quilts, Athena, OR

accepted into the 'Star' special member exhibit at Pacific West Quilt Show, Tacoma, WA

Local shows provide an opportunity for local potential clients to see my work. I was fortunate to have several client quilts hung in local shows this year. One received a 2nd place, People's Choice award. This helps to get the word out about me even being in business and an opportunity for people to see the quality and style of my work. To the right in this photo is a 'Hugs and Kisses' TEST quilt.

'Jinny's Garden' - Jinny Beyer's 2010 BOM, made by Betty Baerg (my mom) for her husband (my dad), quilted by Marlene Oddie (me--her daughter!) We got to work a few days together on this pattern while I worked on my own version and visited them in Arizona this summer. My version didn't get finished in time for the festival, but it is finished now.

Walla Walla Valley Quilt Festival, 2nd place, People's Choice, Large Quilt

T-shirt Quilts - I was able to create a test quilt using shirts my parents provided from their days of working at Monterey Bay Academy located at beach front property on the central coast of California. This was a fun opportunity to set the shirts within a beach scene. I've now made two customer t-shirt quilts. First for a daughter, and then for her mother. Both of them are shown in my FB - T-shirts quilt album. I have a memory quilt using dress shirts sitting in my queue and several others who have expressed interests in having one made. I love the confidence that my clients give me by trusting me with their precious ideas.

Patterns - With the time consumption of the McCall's contest, my time to develop patterns is what was put on hold. I did put what I have written online at Patternspot.com (see button in right hand column) and also have them with Pattern Peddlers for wholesale inquiries. McCall's owns the rights to the contest entered quilts until they are reverted to me and I'm waiting on that news now to proceed with writing up at least 1892 Rondure as well as Mi Amore (but have permission for a special giveaway--keep reading!). I've written 10 patterns so far, the 10th--Hugs and Kisses--is yet to be published but has completed testing and just needs me to do some supplemental writing and illustrations. I also have several new designs I want to write patterns for, so maybe this can be a key focus in year 3 besides my long-arm quilting for clients. I even have a book idea...am I ready for that?

Customer Quilts - A new FB photo album was started for year two, 'Customer Quilts v.2'. With a goal of two per week...can I have two weeks vacation? that would mean 100 quilts. Well, I'm excited to share with you that I have worked on

75 quilt tops for customers (several were in local shows, one was accepted at MQX-West);
4 commissions (2 t-shirts, 2 original designs) --do commissions count for more than 1 ?;-);
5 quilts completely constructed, 8 placemats and 2 postcards for charity;
5 quilts completely constructed that ultimately ended up in a contest --big time commitment here (how much does that count?);
8 sample quilts completely constructed and 2 placemats;
6 customer projects that required work beyond quilting;
more than 25 pieces of small quilted finished products created to sell at the winery.

I'm going to say, it was a successful year!

And to top it all off, Sew Many Places, asked if I would be a quilt blogger escort for a group from Seattle, WA to attend the 3+day International Quilt Festival of Ireland as part of an 11 day tour of IRELAND, June 5-15, 2012.WOW! Sooo excited. So jump on board with me if you'd like to go.

All in all...an incredible second year. So, I want to thank you in a special way with something I've seen frequently online--a giveway. This is how this one will work. I've currently got over 50 followers on my blog. Can we double that? Encourage your own friends to check out my blog, and if it is of interest to them, ask them to follow. Post it on your website, FB, Twitter, blog it or any other social media avenue, come back here and for each type of media that you use, post a comment with the link of where you shouted it out (One type of social media and link per comment, only use that type of social media once as a unique comment entry--you're free to shout it as many times as you'd like). Be sure you are a 'follower' of my blog, too. I will need your email address to contact you, so be sure you don't post anonymously. On Sunday night, 11/13/11 at 10pm Pacific time, provided I've got 100 followers by then, I'll take a random number generator and select 11 (I'm posting this on 11/11/11, I just have to go with 11) entries. This is what will be in the prize pot, you're welcome to encourage which one I give you by telling me what appeals to you most in your comment (no guarantees, i.e. I'll draw for a particular item and that will be yours if you are the lucky #, if the prize you asked for is still available--I'll switch it). List any and all in priority order that you'd like to receive) items 1 and 2 are for services or goods that I will provide as part of a quilting arrangement with me; I will cover postage on items 3-7; items 8-10 are electronic files and you'll need EQ7 in order to open them; 10 and 11 include fabric and I will cover the shipping cost):

1 cent per square inch discount on your next quilt, quilted by me
Warm & Natural batting provided by me on your next quilt (typically half cent/square inch), quilted by me
Elephant's Play pattern.
Zoe pattern.
Will you Accept this Rose? pattern (available from Animas Quilts)
Starlight-Flutterbright pattern, includes 4 pre-printed paper piecing papers
Hugs and Kisses pattern - NEW! <This will make me finish it up!>
Royal Peacock Jewels EQ Project file (personal use only) - initial McCalls entry
1892 Rondure EQ Project file (personal use only) - McCall's round 1 challenge entry
Cotton Sateen fabric kit to make Mi Amore with EQ Project file (personal use only) - McCall's round 3/FINAL challenge entry. This will not include the Jinny Beyer 6055-04 border print that is available at her website.
7 half yard cuts of quilter's cotton sateen variegated fabrics.

It gets lighter to the left and darker to the right

Now I need to think about some year-3 goal setting! Thank you for being a part of this journey!

YMarlene

WIP

2011-11-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

Super big day as we wait on the announcement about the winner of the McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011. As one of the 12 participants that made it through to the final round, all I can say, regardless of the result, is THANK YOU to all who stopped by and took a look, then decided to vote and sometimes left a comment. Thank you McCall's and all the sponsors for the opportunity! What a blessed experience, great online camaradrie with several of the contestants, and exposure to a whole new world. Couldn't have done it without you all! Thanks again! Thank you ! Thank you ! Thank you !

11/9/11 - 1p update: Congratulations to Melanie!

Lee's anniversary WIP brings back some great memories for me since joining this link-up. I probably found her as part of the SuperNova Quilt-a-Long that she hosted this spring. I LOVED the design and the format and getting to know so many people. My version is to the left, SuperNova-BlackHole. Read my written journey. One of her original linkup ladies was Becky of Becky's Blabber. Turns out she lives 1 hour from me. I've enjoyed meeting up with Becky on several occassions for some quilty chats. Thank you Lee for providing the opportunity to make friendships on our quilting journey.

My WIP:

I've got my one-fabric table topper on my quilting machine today. Time to get this one done!
I created these blocks as a sample for a guild presentation on using one-fabric designs. I used what I had (and that means lots of little pieces put together in the borders to make this work--wish I had found more when trying to put this together--just making the most of what I had) to make an exactly fitting table cloth for just the top of my table, so the idea of how you cut up the border prints and put them back together isn't fully executed (a much larger quilt gives it a better repeat of the blocks to really see how cool it can be), but hopefully you get the gist of it. I wanted the borders to be where placemats would go, so that the center of the piece is what you see on the table. Not sure why, but there you go. I chose a fun batik for the backside so I can use it too! ;-) Maybe more than the top! HA!

I'm still plugging away at the 'Oddie's Wild Nature' blocks. Here are some auditions for backgrounds on the bear catching salmon. I had posted some originally when joining WIP Wednesday, these are new. I've lost a fish, and think I might re-do them anyway in a different fabric and perhaps orient them in the other direction since they should be swimming upstream. I traced them incorrectly when I originally made them in the process of learning about fusible applique.

Note in this photo water flows to the left and the lighter fabric at the bottom almost makes it look like the bear is standing at the top of a waterfall, but the perspective of the water behind him doesn't seem right.

How about some pebbles in the foreground.

Oh...the water is on my wall backwards (as in right side of the fabric is against the design wall). whoops! So now it flows to the right and this version has a combo of the light fabric 'extra spalshy edge of the water?' and the pebbles. Maybe some fussy cutting at the water's edges to give it a bit more realistic sense?

The actual block needs to be 42" long by 12" high, so, part of my problem is I have several nice pieces that aren't 42" long or 12" high ;-) ...so I think I want to use a series of fabrics to create something big enough and more realistic to how we've seen bear in the wild.

How about a WIP finish?

Heart Placemats (See Monday's post for details). Very excited about how these turned out. Lots more photos at http://facebook.com/kissedquilts 'Fearless Design' album. And I did donate them to our local Senior Center for their craft sale at guild last night. Definitely going to have to make more for myself and maybe use the quilting as part of a wall hanging to sell at the winery. If you like it and want it quilted into something you have...I can do it now!!

This year:

In Process: 7

Completed: 13

I'm making progress!

The end of the week is near and it will be the close of my 2nd year in business. So, follow my blog and stop by for a Friday post of reflection, new goal setting and a giveaway. See you then!

Interested in attending the first International Quilt Festival of Ireland? I was asked to escort a group from Seattle June 5-15, 2012. Check out the details and sign-up to come along. You can also have your own piece of quilting at the festival. Check out the exhibits and how you can participate whether you go or not.

Check out others' WIP at Lee's 1 year Anniversary WIP link-up at Freshly Pieced --there is even a giveway there if you're timely!

Design Wall / BOM's Away / {Sew} Modern Monday

2011-11-07T18:54:00.000-08:00

On my design wall is the finished 'Snag' block. This is part of a quilt that I'm making for me (us--my dear husband and I) taking inspiration from June Jaeger's and McKenna Ryan's designs and making a collection of blocks that represent various scenes as we have seen them in nature.

I also finished up the set of four heart placemats. I used the Go! Baby Accuquilt cutter to cut out the hearts and then raw edge appliqued them onto a piece of white background, cut 10.5" x 15.5". I then added cut 1" red strips and then cut 1.5" black strips to border each piece. Quilted them on the long-arm with Sharon Schamber's inspiration and then bound them with the same black fabric as the outer border. Should I write this into a tutorial or is this good enough for you to follow and make some yourself? This started out as a project in my Fearless Design group. It was suggested we take the Chapter 9 exercise and make placemats with 4 identical blocks and different borders. Well, my EQ7 has all of my border design ideas, but time was not on my side, so I went with different heart fabrics and red and black borders and the rest is all the same. They are intended to be given to our local Senior Center to be sold at their craft fair, but after learning with Sharon Schamber's DVD this morning, I'm not sure if I want to give them away. Perhaps I'll just need to make myself some more! I'm also throwing in another set from my winery themed placemat testing last week.

This is the last week of my 'Year 2' in business. I've got a couple more quilts to hit a goal I've set, so I better get back at it!

Ireland!! Join me on a fabulous adventure in Ireland, June 5-15, 2012. As part of the trip, three days will be at the International Quilt Festival of Ireland. The planning of this spectacular event already is mind boggling. You definitely want to be a part of this totally new style of show. Wouldn't you like to be sure you can see one of your own works of art there? Check out all of the exhibits, including Céad Míle Fáilte, "100,000 welcomes" in Gaelic--send in your own block to be included! There are plenty of activities if you're not interested in quilting during the three days of the festival. Bring your friends and/or loved ones!

McCall's Quilt Design Star FINAL round voting is still happening, vote for your favorite once a day through Nov. 8. Mine, called 'Mi Amore' is to the right and is 1 of 12 that are still in this FINAL round. *****That's only two more days!***** Don't forget to leave a comment at the bottom of the voting page. Thanks so much!!

Linkups are indexed with more Design Walls @ Patchwork Times.
Linkups are indexed with more BOM's Away @ WhataHootQuilts.
Linkups are indexed with more {Sew} Modern Monday finishes @ CanoeRidgeCreations.

WIP

2011-11-02T09:14:00.000-07:00

I've made some progress on my Oddie's Wild Nature. The elk block got done this week. I'll now start making a final decision about the background on the old stag. This photo includes an audition. The elk's rack will be attached across sashing and into the next block once they are connected. June Jeager's design of this block helps to keep things looking 3-d!

For an update on my placemats, check Monday's design wall.

2011 Stats:
In Procress: 8
Completed: 12

This is not officially on my WIP list because it is business related (I realize I've made a few exceptions), but wanted to share what I worked on yesterday with you and see if you have some opinions on the quilting styles. Feel free to share a comment. If you like these panel prints and would like to purchase the raw fabric, just let me know! There are four unique designs. Three are printed on 1 width of the fabric.

I'm busy getting ready for Fall Release in our local wineries this weekend. What do you think of these four styles of quilting?

This panel has been quilted outlining the motif of the picture. This takes quite a long time and probably will not be cost effective to quilt a placemat this way. It might work for a wall hanging where the price point can be higher.

This panel will be made into a placemat and given to Patit Creek for their tasting area as a thank you for allowing me to display my quilts and sell finished products on consignment. I kind of like the fancy feather in this and might do more like this without the words at the top.

This panel was stitched with a cross-hatch and will be made into a placemat. I had a bit of an issue using my RedSnappers to attach the fabric to the leaders and using my GamGuide to assist with the cross-hatching. I'll pin the top of the backing next time! I think in principle I like this concept as long as I do a more accurate spacing. It kind of looks like you're looking at the scene through a window.

This placemat is just a scallop from the corner freehand sort of design. I was experimenting to try and find something that didn't take so long and yet still worked. This kind of looks like a bunch of grapes in macro, but I don't think it looks 'nice' enough.

Ireland!! Join me on a fabulous adventure in Ireland, June 5-15, 2012.

McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 contest is still open for voting, once a day through November 8. Thanks for voting! Don't forget to leave a comment at the bottom of the voting page. It doesn't seem like they have approved any comments since last Wednesday, so hoping they will get caught up today.

In an effort to do more blogging that isn't just 'status' related for WIP's/ Design Wall's and BOM's Away Monday link ups, I intend to write a blog post each Friday as I explore techniques, fabric finds, and designs. I hope you will follow along.

The Blogger's Quilt Festival is currently going on through Nov. 4. Here is my entry and a subsequent link to the link-up.

More WIP's indexed at Freshly Pieced.

Thanks for stopping by!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

2011-10-31T16:00:00.000-07:00

As I reflect on the past 6 months it is difficult to decide which single quilt to share with you. Right now, the voting is still happening, once a day over at McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 and so the most exciting quilts I've worked on in the past 6 months have been at least two (Mi Amore and 1892 Rondure) of the three that I have created through the three challenges presented to the contestants. The final challenge was to use lyrics from a song to be inspired.

My husband and I have found very meaningful songs in our 2.5 year marriage so far. The first, 'Never Alone' and the second 'I Run to You', both sung by Lady Antebellum. We discovered the first song through Jim Brickman's CD and then started following Lady Antebellum a bit more. So, our love is still pretty young, but we've had to endure many stressful situations already that have only made us stronger as a couple. We're headed into a potentially stressful situation again with a job change, but we come back to our faith and our songs. Our special songs aren't necessarily that recognizable, so I tried to chose a love song that was at the top of the charts for a while...even it was back in the 90's!

I did a complete writeup of the design and fabrication process of the quilt 'Mi Amore' here. As I listened to the words, the visual of hearing a song kept coming to mind. I wanted to explore more 3-dimensional design work in the background and then something coming forward as well. I am very excited with the result of this quilt. I hope you like it too!

Mi Amore by Marlene Oddie 2011
Final Round Entry in the McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 Contest

What did I learn? Here is a quote from an old post that I want to just share directly with you:
"When I started this McCall's contest, I didn't feel that I could clearly define my style of quilt design. I have made many quilts, most my own designs, but always a reaction to a particular inspiration for the ultimate recipient. Now having made 3 quilts within this challenge process, I believe that in a series, these all say that I have a style that incorporates geometric shapes, perspective/3-d and color variegations. I look forward to continuing to develop this (my) style.

1892 Rondure 70"x70"

Pulsed Illumination 37"x37"

Mi Amore - 51"x63"

Thank you McCalls for the format and organization of this process and giving those of us who participated an opportunity for exposure to a larger public and reason to explore our own style."

My next big excitement is escorting a group to the Int'l Quilt Festival of Ireland June 5-15, 2012...so if you're interested in leaving out of Seattle....the full-payment discount is good through Nov. 1! Join me!

Thanks for stopping by during the festival. There are many more bloggers participating in the festival. Check them out at this linkup over at Amy's Creative Side.

YMarlene

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

2011-10-31T15:17:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween....I hope you are having a spooktacular day! This picture was taken at the Washington State Quilter's show entrance in Spokane, last year.

So, on my design wall are my placemats. These hearts were cut using a Go! Baby. I've got the tops finished, just need to quilt them now. Wondering if I should back them with black or white. If I do white, then white thread for some quilting would work nicely, but if I put black on the back...then the thread choice becomes a bigger question.

I want to make some progress on my 'Oddie's Wild Nature' quilt using blocks adapted from some June Jaeger designs and Ryan McKenna. This is a June Jaeger one. I'll consider this as a BOM's Away Monday category project just because each block is so different. The eye is cut out and it just placed perfectly to really look like an eye using the background fabric coming through! Yeah! June's pattern is done as a silhouette, but I'm doing mine more real life. My husband and I actually saw elk during mating season one year. Well heard them more than saw them, but we saw them in a deep forest setting, so I thought this background was perfect for how we have experienced the wild.

I also did some browsing this last week and discovered what the Skill Builder Sampler is all about. I've been watching Lee @ Freshly Pieced do hers and wasn't interested in participating until I saw the button. Amazing what will inspire us, right? Have you seen this? I've got a really cool idea and think I just might try to jump in on this project.

I'm going to try to start writing blog entries that aren't just 'status' related on Friday's, so I hope you'll check out my blog entry from last Friday if you aren't a regular follower.

Ireland!! Deadline extended to Nov. 1 **** TOMORROW !! **** for full-payment discount. Join me on a fabulous adventure in Ireland, June 5-15, 2012.

McCall's voting is still happening, vote for your favorite once a day through Nov. 8. Don't forget to leave a comment at the bottom of the voting page. Thanks so much!!

Linkups are indexed with more Design Walls @ Patchwork Times.
Linkups are indexed with more BOM's Away @ WhataHootQuilts.

Life just keeps on going

2011-10-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

I have been so busy w/the McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 contest the last several months it seems that I've been out of touch with real life sometimes, let alone keeping up with what is going on in the quilting industry. Within the past week I have tried to catch up on various activities that I enjoy browsing online. This includes promotions and sale fabric and other fun things like that!

I just want to give a shout out for Sew Lux! I saw a promotion shared by one of their friends on Facebook, checked it out and actually purchased some sale fabric. Of course I signed up for their newsletter and now follow their blog. When I received the newsletter I was their FQ winner for the week! OH my!! How exciting! I'm adding a FQ of Kate Spain's Terrain Fern Berry. This will go nicely with the Terrain charm pack I already received in the mail. I'll probably use it as some element of a zinger in the design. Love this color!

As I get close to the end of the year it is nice to reflect on what I've done and think forward to new goals for next year. This year included gaining exposure in the quilting industry and the McCall's contest alone has done a significant amount to reach that goal for sure! Thank you to all who are now following along. Getting into several juried shows, one regional and two national, was also very exciting and helped to increase my exposure and reputation for quality work. These included: AQS - Knoxville, PWQS and MQX-West. Another goal was to create balance in my work life. That was going well until McCall's started! HA! But, I'm already settling back into it and it feels great!

I just took a moment to look at the statistics of this blog and am blown away. Thank you to Patchwork Times and Freshly Pieced for their weekly hosting of linkups. They are my highest referral sites and I got a huge amount of traffic when posting at Patchwork Times when the FINAL quilt for McCall's -Mi Amore was posted. Wow!
If you read my WIP posts on Wednesdays or my Design Wall/BOM's Away/{Sew} Modern Monday posts (click on the labels to the right to read the indexed posts) then you have some idea of things that I've been working on personally. This next year I hope to build on this to include tutorials and other fun projects that I try. Is there something you want to do but would like a little advice? There seems to be a plethera of options online for learning about the art of quilting. I'd like a list of all my favorite resources so I can access them quickly when I need them!

The next few months are going to be an adventure. My husband's work project is wrapping up in just over a month and we're wondering what will be in store for us in the future. He is a mechanical engineer who has enjoyed fulfilling a life long pursuit of working in the renewable energy industry with this current project. He is also interested in airplane construction, air powered cars and pneumatics. We draw on our faith to believe that the right situation will present itself as we search for the next opportunity. Perhaps you'll be a part in that journey.

Fortunately for the most part, my work in the quilting world can travel with me wherever we may end up.

Have a wonderful weekend!

YMarlene

WIP

2011-10-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

Thank you Thank you for all of the wonderful comments left on the voting page. (click on the 'vote for me' to the right to check it out and add yours)

Bonus: Just wanted to share my latest customer quilts.....so happy to be back into the swing of things. I'm loving how the feathers turned out on this cotton sateen (left). The borders especially! On the right is my 'Zoe' pattern with a front facing frog pantograph which was just the perfect design to put on this Tula Pink 'Prince Charming' fabric with the frogs subtly in the design. This particular frog in the fabric and the pantograph just happened to align in an amazing sort of way. I have a client who has done several of my 'Zoe' pattern quilts and I usually get to be very creative with the quilting. This is the first I've done a pantograph on 'Zoe', but it was just the perfect design for the fabric and the quilt is intended for a boy. I'll post more photos in my Facebook album.

An exciting development in my long-arm machine setup includes a set of Red Snappers that I bought from Renae Haddadin while at MQX-West. No more pin pricks for me and quilt backs (and tops if you want) are loaded and unloaded in a snap! Check them out on her website.

Personal Projects Progress: 8 are in process

EQ7 2011 BOM- on track through October! I think the remaining two blocks will need to have green centers, but a fair amount of white, wdyt? Maybe another with significant black. I don't know what the block patterns are yet, so just thinking about trying to get a decent balance. The EQ challenge will be at the end of the year when we get to design a 'setting' for these blocks.

Fearless Design Ch. 9 - 4 blocks w/diff. borders/placemats for charity . I got the hearts attached to the background. Now to decide on the various borders. I've designed several in EQ7, but not sure I want to go through the real exercise and make them, just due to time

Awaiting Attention:

Lonestar wall hanging - missed the deadline that I was trying to hit....so we'll see when I get back to this idea
Oddie's Wild Nature

Completed Tops awaiting Quilting

One-fabric re-pieced table cloth (it was ready to quilt!!)
2006 Basket BOM
Tulip wall hanging --this is a redo of the quilting - target November
Colorwash Heart Duvet Cover -- this is to salvage an old duvet - target December

Completed during 2011 (TOTAL: 12)

McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 - FINAL Challenge - @ McCall's HDQTRS
1892 Rondure - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #1 - accepted into MQX West, Portland, Oct. 12-16.
Pulsed Illumination - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #2 - accepted into MQX West, Portland, Oct. 12-16
My Garden, adapted from Jinny Beyer's 2010 BOM - Jinny's Garden (my mom's version that I quilted won 2nd place, People's Choice, large quilt @ WWVQF 2011)
INMQ Challenge 2011, @ WA State Quilter's - Spokane show, Oct. 14-16
Starlight-Flutterbright - designed for Highland Quilts, Athena, OR and now on display there
View from the old cellar - SOLD
Supernova - Black Hole
Psychedelic America - on display @ Patit Creek Cellars, Walla Walla, WA
WWU baby - star theme - given to Becky St. Clair's daughter
WWU baby - spring theme - given to Donny Veverka's daughter
My First Journey - commission for Teacher Tammy's twin granddaughters

Ireland!! Deadline extended to Nov. 1 for full-payment discount. Join me on a fabulous adventure in Ireland, June 5-15, 2012.

Thanks for stopping by....Thanks for voting! Don't forget to leave a comment at the bottom of the voting page. Thanks so much!!

More WIP's indexed at Freshly Pieced

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

2011-10-24T06:40:00.000-07:00

Mi Amore

The voting is still going on for the McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 challenge. This is the FINAL round. You can vote once a day from any device you have internet access with and can leave a comment on what you like about the quilt, how it speaks to you, etc. Thank you for your consideration as you look at the 12 quilts. Mine, 'Mi Amore' is shown on the left.

I've been able to get back to customer projects and have made significant progress on a t-shirt quilt that was commissioned by the mother of the owner of one I have already made. This mother was clearly supportive of her daughter's pursuits and had plenty of used and unused t-shirts and dress shirts with licensed embroideries to show for it! It is fun to imagine the adventures that people have been on while piecing these quilts together. I plan on writing a tutorial for doing this, at least a checklist of tasks so if any of you are interested in making your own in this fashion and would like some guidance, you can! Follow along with my blog and you'll get to see it soon. The border is the 'periwinkle' color of the Lumiere Sateen --the same line of fabric used in Mi Amore. This will be on the back as well.

Personal projects--I have the EQ7 BOM - October Opportunity block finished (shown right).

Ireland!! Deadline extended to Nov. 1 for full-payment discount. Join me on a fabulous adventure in Ireland, June 5-15, 2012.

Thanks for stopping by....Thanks for voting! Don't forget to leave a comment at the bottom of the voting page. Thanks so much!!

Linkups are indexed with more Design Walls @ Patchwork Times.
Linkups are indexed with more BOM's Away @ WhataHootQuilts.

WIP

2011-10-19T07:03:00.000-07:00

Not much progress on personal things, as I've gotten back to customer requests and trying to catchup on a few. Did you see my post with my FINAL McCall's Quilt Design Star challenge revealed? I counted it completed last week since I had to send it off to McCall's, but I couldn't show pictures until McCall's revealed it on Monday afternoon. You can read all about it at that link. Please consider a vote every day through Nov. 8. I was really going for a 3-d effect. wdyt? When voting, there is an optional comment section on the same page, please leave one! Thank you!

And for all of you who voted in the past rounds....thank you for helping me get through to here. This is the final stretch and I'd appreciate your continued daily vote support!

So, I still have In Progress: 8

EQ7 2011 BOM- on track
Fearless Design Ch. 9 - 4 blocks w/diff. borders/placemats for charity

Awaiting Attention:

Lonestar wall hanging - missed the deadline that I was trying to hit....so we'll see when I get back to this idea
Oddie's Wild Nature
One-fabric re-pieced table cloth - target October --am wondering if this is ready to quilt. Need to get it out and look at it.

Completed Tops awaiting Quilting

2006 Basket BOM
Tulip wall hanging --this is a redo of the quilting - target November
Colorwash Heart Duvet Cover -- this is to salvage an old duvet - target December

Completed (TOTAL: 12

McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 - FINAL Challenge - @ McCall's HDQTRS
1892 Rondure - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #1 - accepted into MQX West, Portland, Oct. 12-16.
Pulsed Illumination - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #2 - accepted into MQX West, Portland, Oct. 12-16
My Garden, adapted from Jinny Beyer's 2010 BOM - Jinny's Garden (my mom's version that I quilted won 2nd place, People's Choice, large quilt @ WWVQF 2011)
INMQ Challenge 2011, @ WA State Quilter's - Spokane show, Oct. 14-16
Starlight-Flutterbright - designed for Highland Quilts, Athena, OR and now on display there
View from the old cellar - SOLD
Supernova - Black Hole
Psychedelic America - on display @ Patit Creek Cellars, Walla Walla, WA
WWU baby - star theme - given to Becky St. Clair's daughter
WWU baby - spring theme - given to Donny Veverka's daughter
My First Journey - commission for Teacher Tammy's twin granddaughters

More WIP's indexed at Freshly Pieced

Design Wall / {Sew} Modern Monday

2011-10-17T16:01:00.000-07:00

Great to be able to show you my final McCall's challenge. Please vote daily through Nov. 8! I'm still loving the 3-d effect of the background alone and the hearts coming forward.

I have written about my creative process in a separate blog post.

Last week I got to attend a hands-on class by Linda V. Taylor at MQX-West in Portland, OR. Here is what I created based on what we learned. I used it as a real practice piece rather than trying to create something for show, but here it is!

Ireland!! Deadline extended to Nov. 1 for full-payment discount. Join me on a fabulous adventure in Ireland, June 5-15, 2012.

Thanks for stopping by....Thanks for voting!

Linkups are indexed with more Design Walls @ Patchwork Times.
Linkups are indexed for {Sew} Modern @ Canoe Ridge Creations

McCall's Quilt Design Star - FINAL Challenge

2011-10-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

Mi Amore goes from idea to reality

Having taken the process pledge....I will share.
Challenge: use lyrics from a well recognized song to be inspired, let it represent you as a designer.

I immediately thought of several songs that are 'ours' (my dear husband and I), but I didn't feel like they would be well recognized. I went in search of something that would still represent our love but be more recognizable. My quilting in general is so supported by him, I had to choose a song that could represent why I am even here.

I Adore, Mi Amor - by Color me Badd - if you don't recognize it from the title, I believe you'll recognize it when you hear it (if you were alive in the early 90's!).

So...it is all about listening and knowing the love of my dreams ..... (lyrics) and so started my design process.

In general I was thinking about some sort of background but then large applique over the top. In thinking about these specific lyrics, I imagined hearing it from a speaker. If you look at the speaker fabric under a microscope it just might look like the background I have created. The hearts represent the love of my dreams coming forth from the speakers. The more I tweaked the design, it almost looked like a castle wall with small glass (red) windows. Medieval Love!

I have Lumiere Sateen in my stash that I've wanted to use for a long time.

I love Jinny Beyer border prints, but wasn't sure I'd find one to work, but alas I did! Four Seasons - 6055-04. This softens the geometric design of the center but keeps it looking Latin.

I loaded the fabric image (although not a full-repeat) into EQ7 so I could get an idea of how it would come together and then quickly ordered from Jinny Beyer's studio the only place I was able to find it online.

Besides the Lumiere Sateen, I also had some Cotton Sateen solids, including a lot of black and only a fat quarter of several other colors. I decided that one solid red I had was too cherry/orange like, and the dark/maroon was the best darkest dark to go with the Lumiere Sateen. I then decided NOT to use the lightest end of the Lumiere Sateen in the redish colorway. These squares get cut once on the diagonal.

I wanted to print the text on the fabric, but the size of the heart was too big to feed through my printer. Light box and fabric pen to the rescue! This font was used for our wedding stuff too!

Here I have cut up strips from the greyish colorway of the Lumiere Sateen. I also had solid black and decided that was best for the darkest dark.

I decided I should do a test block. I don't know if I have ever done a 'test' block before, so this was really disciplined of me. But I wanted this quilt to really work well and the color placement was critical. I did one block, took a photo of it, then replicated that photo multiple times to get a mocked up version. It is going to work! WHOO!! HOO!! If you don't see the 3-d effect, just squint a little bit.

Chain piecing by folding a grey strip and a red triangle in half, align the midpoints, sew, set the seam, press (special directions to keep the seams going in a nice way), then trim to size. I just happened to have the perfect ruler!

There really are only two blocks, but half of each block should be pressed in opposite directions so that when putting the blocks together you get seams that complement each other rather than overlap. I put together the half square triangles into a square. Then the four squares that make a larger block, 3 blocks in a row and 4 rows.

Note the pressing, especially in the center of this four-square.
Carefully pull apart the seam so that they all lay in different directions. This is supposed to help the join lay squarely. This also meant that each square nicely joins with the next square in all directions.

Center pieced-- look at the 3-d effect! WHOO HOO!YEAH!!

Mirrored mitered borders, the Jinny Beyer way! Here I am testing with a mirror to see if I like the mitered location or if I should choose an alternate 'center' point (there were two points of symmetry in this border). The middle border, top and bottom, used the Lumiere Sateen WOF; left and right used a slice from the LOF on the dark edge. In the design process I changed the size of the quilt to fit the WOF to be able to use the fabric this way. If you chose to make a king size you could use two WOFs. The inner and outer border print were on just the right repeat so that I didn't have to cut the long sides to get a good design mirror miter at the corners. Typically with a rectangle you need to do a middle join half way between the two corners on the long sides in order to keep the mirrored miter working correctly. When doing so, the center joins aren't very noticable, but I didn't even have to do them!

This could have been the entire quilt, but I felt it needed more to be in this challenge. Now, let's test the applique' process. How do I want to put these on to the top? I tried it several ways (see the test below), but ultimately decided upon fusible woven interfacing to give it extra opaqueness, used on all hearts except the tiniest to give them consistency in their texture and look. Thank you Suzanne Young for the interfacing.

With templates from EQ7, I traced each of the 15 hearts on the interfacing, cut each of them out and ironed them onto the wrong side of the fabric as shown. The visual here is key to get the shading direction correct if I wanted it to be like I had designed it!

Right sides together, stitch the actual heart shape, right at the interfacing. Split open the back side and turn it inside out. Hand applique 'blindly' to the quilt top center in its appropriate location. Remembering a tutorial I saw at our local quilt festival in September by Mission Lake Designs, I wanted to use silk thread, but didn't feel the one color and very old thread that I happened to have in my stash would be a good choice. I ended up using my Aurifil Maco 40 weight in a variety of colors. Thanks Aurifil!! I'm also not convinced I really knew what I was doing with this applique since hand applique really isn't my thing, but I felt the fabric type required it. I like to use fusible raw edge applique when I can ;-).

Test. There are several different ideas tried with these four hearts, including machine (black heart only) and hand applique; (left to right) cotton batt sewn into the seam, batting added behind the quilt top as if it is being trapunto'd, no stuffing, stuffed with hobbs 80/20. I also wrote on the heart with a fabric pen to test how that would work. I then added a layer of wool and a layer of cotton batting and then the backing. Not sure if I want to do all of that on the real thing.

I experimented with the quilting a bit on the hearts. Quilting half of two of the hearts and not the other half just to see how they would set up. I quilted the Mi Amore in the large heart. Motif quilting in all 4 sides and straight line in the borders based on the fabric motif in the left and bottom borders. Definitely want to do the straight line on all borders in the real quilt. Need to outline the hearts with quilting (just outside the heart) but need to use clear or smoke thread. Used 3 different threads in the curved lines: black (upper right), grey (lines lower of the hearts) and a white WonderFil (lower left). Decided the grey was probalby best, but needed to be a bit darker. Thank you Suzanne Young for coming through with the right threads!

At this point I'm just hoping the applique hasn't distorted the quilt top too much. I'm going to use wool only for batting and solid black cotton sateen on the back and binding.

In quilting this I was concerned about losing the 3-d effect in the background so didn't want to quilt it too densely. Keeping with my notion of 'Simple and Stunning', I tried to do just that. Long sweeping movements are difficult even on a long-arm since I like to stitch them fairly quickly and that overruns the regulator and wool batting is fairly lofty providing some shifting to the quilt top as you move across the quilt. The cotton sateen is fairly flimsy (i.e. not stiff) so the quilting lines definitely add movement and movement of sound can be spastic, right? ;-) I think it would be fun to make this again and this time heavily quilt the background with spastic illustrations of sound bursts and see how much difference it makes to the 3-d effect (if at all). I roughly chalked the sweeping curves with a chalking wheel before quilting them. Only one had to be continued after shifting the quilt since I loaded it sideways on the long-arm frame. The hearts in the border were freehanded as I did the inside ditch with 'smoke'--an invisible thread that is dark in color. This thread was also used in the scallops of the border and going around each appliqued heart. The key is to get the thread with a sock on it or put it in a bag so that the thread doesn't jump off the spool and then catch underneath and stop the machine or break the thread. (rrrr) I freehanded the Mi Amore lettering. The thicker sections are outlined.

How is this for having just enough thread? I had to pull some off the bobbin back onto the spool in order to finish up the binding. WHEW!!!

My working title was Medieval Love, but I decided to go with Mi Amore which isn't exactly the title of the song, but apparently is part Spanish and part Italian and since the quilt feels Latin, I just liked how it looked and sounded. Hope you like it!

This quilt was made for the FINAL round in the 2011 McCalls Quilt Star Design Challenge. Voting is open Oct. 18 - Nov. 8, 2011. Thank you for your support throughout this entire process. May I suggest after you get to the voting page that you make it a 'favorite' or put a link on you desktop so you can access it easily every day! Don't forget to leave a comment on the voting page as well. Thanks!!
Vote HERE daily.

Personal Reflections: When I started this McCall's contest, I didn't feel that I could clearly define my style of quilt design. I have made many quilts, most my own designs, but always a reaction to a particular inspiration for the ultimate recipient. Now having made 3 quilts within this challenge process, I believe that in a series, these all say that I have a style that incorporates geometric shapes, perspective/3-d and color variegations. I look forward to continuing to develop my style.

1892 Rondure 70"x70"

Pulsed Illumination 37"x37"

Mi Amore - 51"x63"

WIP

2011-10-12T09:45:00.000-07:00

An exciting email arrived on Monday--the e-newsletter from EQ started off with this! Yes, that's me!!

I also finished my McCall's Quilt Design Star FINAL round challenge. I can't post photos yet, but come back next Monday night and there should be something for you to vote on!

This is how much thread I had left on the spool both on my long-arm (left) and my domestic (right)! The Aurifil on the right is re-wound from the bobbin so that I could actually FINISH! YIKES!!!!!

I did post photos on Monday of my INMQ Challenge Entry which I couldn't post previously.

The MQX-West show is starting Wednesday evening in Portland, OR. I intend to be there with two of my own quilts and a customer quilt in the show. I also get to take a hands-on class from Linda Taylor.

So, I still have In Progress: 8 (starting to feel like I'm on the downside of the curve!)

EQ7 2011 BOM- on track
Fearless Design Ch. 9 - 4 blocks w/diff. borders/placemats for charity

Awaiting Attention:

Lonestar wall hanging - missed the deadline that I was trying to hit....so we'll see when I get back to this idea
Oddie's Wild Nature
One-fabric re-pieced table cloth - target October --am wondering if this is ready to quilt. Need to get it out and look at it.

Completed Tops awaiting Quilting

2006 Basket BOM
Tulip wall hanging --this is a redo of the quilting - target November
Colorwash Heart Duvet Cover -- this is to salvage an old duvet - target December

Completed (TOTAL: 12)

McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 - FINAL Challenge - headed to McCall's HDQTRS
1892 Rondure - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #1 - accepted into MQX West, Portland, Oct. 12-16.
Pulsed Illumination - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #2 - accepted into MQX West, Portland, Oct. 12-16
My Garden, adapted from Jinny Beyer's 2010 BOM - Jinny's Garden (my mom's version that I quilted won 2nd place, People's Choice, large quilt @ WWVQF 2011)
INMQ Challenge 2011, @ WA State Quilter's - Spokane show, Oct. 14-16
Starlight-Flutterbright - designed for Highland Quilts, Athena, OR and now on display there
View from the old cellar - SOLD
Supernova - Black Hole
Psychedelic America - on display @ Patit Creek Cellars, Walla Walla, WA
WWU baby - star theme - given to Becky St. Clair's daughter
WWU baby - spring theme - given to Donny Veverka's daughter
My First Journey - commission for Teacher Tammy's twin granddaughters

Design Wall Monday

2011-10-10T06:33:00.000-07:00

Lots of good progress made on my McCalls FINAL challenge. I look forward to sharing it with you next week and hope you'll all help me get out the vote!

I can show you a picture of my INMQ Challenge piece now since all entries were due by Oct. 8. Everyone had the exact same quilt to make, it was then up to each person on how to quilt it. No embellishments beyond thread choice were allowed. I have used several different metallic thread colors. When I first saw the design, I thought of the story of Christ's birth with the star over the stable in Bethlehem and the three wise men being led by the star to find the baby Jesus. So, I added the manger scene in the lower right using black thread in a heart shape almost (great clip art that I found and I love hearts, so this just seemed appropriate for my quilt) and used silver metalic thread as a halo affect over the baby's head. All other metallic threads used throughout the quilt are blue or purple both have a light and a dark version. I even added a shooting star. I tried to position the variegated batik fabric used in the binding to have the brightest color in the upper right corner. I used wool and cotton batts - layered to hopefully give loft but also stablize it. If you come to the Spokane - Washington State Quilter's show next weekend, you can see it and vote too!

I also put in my 'Waiting for my True Love' quilt in honor of the featured quilter - Pamela Mostek. I learned her blended borders technique a couple of years ago and used it to finish up the quilt.

Also in the show is the WWVQG's Raffle Quilt --it will be in the GROUP category. I hope you'll stop by and check it out. You can still get raffle tickets at Stash or Sew & Vac in Walla Walla.

I'm so excited about attending MQX in Portland this week too! I was able to get into a Linda Taylor hands-on class. I posted photos last week of my quilts that will be in the show. Let me know if you'll be there!

Ireland!! Deadline extended to Nov. 1 for full-payment discount. Join me on a fabulous adventure in Ireland, June 5-15, 2012.

Thanks for stopping by....get ready for voting on the McCalls FINAL challenge next week! See you then! Linkups are indexed with more Design Walls @ Patchwork Times.

{Sew} Modern / BOM's Away / Design Wall MONDAY / WIP Wednesday!

2011-10-03T06:49:00.000-07:00

These were both finished last week and shipped off for MQX-West in Portland, OR, October 12-16. Excited to have them accepted into the show mostly on their design, since only one was partially quilted when photos had to be submitted. I hope you'll be able to attend the show and find them!

Challenge #1 - 1892 Rondure (front and back -->)

The story of designing 1892 Rondure is here. I used wool batting and a fat back that ended up showing off the quilting in a way I hadn't thought about initially. Lots of pebbles and water like quilting in the diamonds, hoping for a stained glass affect. Motif quilting in the centers and border. Circle in a circle in the purple border. With four curved rulers, I was able to create the curved cross-hatching based on the various dimensions of the blocks in the 'beams'. A Pilot FriXion marking pen, that disappears when you apply heat to it (an iron), helped to insure I was curving the right directions based on my plan. I'd like to thank the rep at Ronda Beyer's Quilter's Rule booth and JoAnn Blade helping at Boersma's for ideas shared with me while at the Tacoma show, including the recommendation to use WonderFil Specialty Thread. I was able to use it in the motif quilting and the beams.

Challenge #2 - Pulsed Illumination

The story of designing Pulsed Illumination is here. Using a low loft polyester scrap of batting, I wanted to maintain the original concepts of each element, so chose to SID the aperture blades and create 'motion' or churned up dust between the blades with feathers and such. In the center I did pebbles for the outer three rings and left the inner two alone hoping they would pop on their own a bit. I stitched around the motif in the border.

For you BOM'ers ....I posted this last week, but since the BOMers link was down...here it is again. My Garden is done!

Check out last week's WIP for my EQ7 BOM progress as well.
As much as I'd like to get another BOM started, I think I'll just focus on the EQ7 BOM for the rest of this year, and get started with at least a new one in 2012, maybe two. I have got to get some customer quilts taken care of and catch-up for time lost while working on McCalls. I do still have the Basket BOM to quilt. Thanks Lyn for hosting the linkup.

My design wall is under secret wraps for a couple more weeks! Mark your calendars to start voting daily Oct. 18 through Nov. 8. Thanks for your support!

So, I now have In Progress: 9

McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 - FINAL Challenge
EQ7 2011 BOM- on track
Fearless Design Ch. 9 - 4 blocks w/diff. borders/placemats, ultimately for our local senior center craft sale.

Awaiting Attention:

Lonestar wall hanging - missed the deadline that I was trying to hit....so we'll see when I get back to this idea
Oddie's Wild Nature
One-fabric re-pieced table cloth - target October --am wondering if this is ready to quilt. Need to get it out and look at it.

Completed Tops awaiting Quilting

2006 Basket BOM
Tulip wall hanging --this is a redo of the quilting - target November
Colorwash Heart Duvet Cover -- this is to salvage an old duvet - target December

Completed (TOTAL: 11)

1892 Rondure - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #1 - accepted into MQX West, Portland, Oct. 12-16.
Pulsed Illumination - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #2 - accepted into MQX West, Portland, Oct. 12-16
My Garden, adapted from Jinny Beyer's 2010 BOM - Jinny's Garden (my mom's version that I quilted won 2nd place, People's Choice, large quilt @ WWVQF 2011
INMQ Challenge 2011, @ WA State Quilter's - Spokane show, Oct. 14-16
Starlight-Flutterbright - designed for Highland Quilts, Athena, OR and now on display there
View from the old cellar - SOLD
Supernova - on display @ Patit Creek Cellars, Walla Walla, WA
Psychedelic America - on display @ Patit Creek Cellars, Walla Walla, WA
WWU baby - star theme - given to Becky St. Clair's daughter
WWU baby - spring theme - given to Donny Veverka's daughter
My First Journey - commission for Teacher Tammy's twin granddaughters

The latest Country Register -Washington edition is out. My article "Today's Quilting Bees go Cyber and Globetrot" can be found on p.14.

Ireland!! Deadline extended to Nov. 1 for full-payment discount. Join me on a fabulous adventure in Ireland, June 5-15, 2012.

Want to see more?
{Sew} Modern Monday linkup at Canoe Ridge Creations
Design Wall Monday linkup at Patchwork Times
BOMs Away Monday linkup at WhataHootQuilts
and on Wednesday there will be a WIP linkup at Freshly Pieced!

WIP

2011-09-28T06:26:00.000-07:00

Lots completed the past 2 weeks since the last WIP linkup (glad to have the 2nd week ;-))!!!! Don't feel I have much to show for it, but this week will also be productive, so check back next week t

NEW (2) :

Progress is beginning on my McCall's FINAL challenge! YEAH!!!! Sorry no pictures until Oct. 19 WIP...I'll probably post an entry on my blog by Oct. 18 of the process. Voting will begin late on the 17th. Thanks so much for keeping up with this and getting the vote out. Your vote and comments on the entry will be very important in this final round!
Our Fearless Design group has decided to use the assignment in Ch. 9 as a charity project. Make 4 blocks exactly the same, then border them all differently. We'll then make them into placemats and donate them to our local Senior Center for their craft sale. Here are some of my Accuquilt die cut hearts.

COMPLETED (2):

Very excited to get these finished amongst other non-quilting demands for my time over the past couple of weeks. Just glad I'm physically feeling better so that I have some energy.

INMQ Challenge --no photos until WIP - Oct. 12; was shown at the INMQ meeting last Saturday and will be at the Washington State Quilter's Show in Spokane, WA Oct. 14-16.
My Garden, adapted from Jinny's Garden - Jinny Beyer's 2010 BOM. My mother's version (with my quilting) got a 2nd place People's Choice ribbon at the Walla Walla Valley Quilt Festival two weekends ago. Wondering if I should submit mine to HMQS next year? I need to read the guidelines and see if this 'made for my bed' quilt fits an appropriate category.

So, I now have In Progress: 11

1892 Rondure - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #1 - accepted into MQX West, Portland, Oct. 19-23. -- almost quilted!

Check out the curved cross-hatching on the beams! I have absolutely loved using the Pilot Frixion gel pen. The ink disappears when heat is applied. It will reappear at 14 degrees F. It has been incredibly helpful in the quilting design process on this project. I have used 4 different curves due to the sizing of each block to get this affect.

EQ7 2011 BOM- on track (9 blocks - photo at right)

Awaiting Attention:

Lonestar wall hanging - missed the deadline that I was trying to hit....so we'll see when I get back to this idea
Oddie's Wild Nature
One-fabric re-pieced table cloth - target October --am wondering if this is ready to quilt. Need to get it out and look at it.

Completed Tops awaiting Quilting

Pulsed Illumination - McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #2 - accepted into MQX West, Portland, Oct. 19-23
2006 Basket BOM
Tulip wall hanging --this is a redo of the quilting - target November
Colorwash Heart Duvet Cover -- this is to salvage an old duvet - target December

Completed (TOTAL: 9)

My Garden, adapted from Jinny Beyer's 2010 BOM - Jinny's Garden
INMQ Challenge 2011
Starlight-Flutterbright - designed for Highland Quilts, Athena, OR
View from the old cellar - SOLD
Supernova - on display @ Patit Creek Cellars, Walla Walla, WA
Psychedelic America - on display @ Patit Creek Cellars, Walla Walla, WA
WWU baby - star theme - given to Becky St. Clair's daughter
WWU baby - spring theme - given to Donny Veverka's daughter
My First Journey - commission for Teacher Tammy's twin granddaughters

Ireland!! Deadline extended to Nov. 1 for full-payment discount. Join me on a fabulous adventure in Ireland, June 5-15, 2012.

Thanks for stopping by....more WIP's linked @ Freshly Pieced.

Design Wall / BOM's Away / {Sew} Modern Monday

2011-09-26T08:15:00.000-07:00

DONE!! "My Garden" - adapted from Jinny Beyer's 2010 BOM - "Jinny's Garden"

More photos on my KISSed Quilts Facebook Page. This fits nicely on our king size bed. It feels very fresh and modern with the use of the light green in the sashings that makes it almost have a neon affect and the plumish borders and hint of plum in the setting triangles to give almost a glow surrounding it all.

DONE!! September Soother - EQ BOM

Design Wall ...

Hearts and Flowers or placemats for Senior Center ..testing out my new Go! Baby and the Accuquilt Hearts Die.

The McCalls Challenges are still taking up much of my time, hope to get back to my business very soon!

If you like seeing some of the new 'modern' styled quilts and sewn items, check out {Sew} Modern Monday over at Canoe Ridge Designs, more traditional Design Walls at PatchworkTimes and BOM's Away Monday at WhataHootQuilts.