Is December Really Almost Over?

I think I say this just about every year!  Where does the time go?  Weird Humor Alert!  When I was in the 3rd grade, we saw a film strip (remember those?) about the Grand Canyon told through the "eyes" of Father Time. After he introduced himself he said, " When people ask where time goes, I tell them 'I go to the Grand Canyon!'".  This year he must have spent a lot of time there because I don't remember  having much time to myself!

The end of November saw the last of the customer quilts out the door in anticipation of a get away with my husband. Just before our daughter's wedding Joe proposed getting away the beginning of December. I had visions of relaxing on a tropical beach until he said."Let's go back to Ireland!"  Well, these crazy Americans headed over to The Emerald Isle on December 4th. We made hotel reservations for the first and last nights and had a loose itinerary for our trip-hugging the southern coast.

There were many rainbows!

The sun would come out and the scenery was breathtaking!

We found interesting places down quaint 2 way (?) lanes. 

Stunning views. 

Beautiful crystal being crafted at the Waterford Factory. I think "factory" is so deceiving. It's more a studio because every piece is made individually by hand. 

We even found "our" town!  It consisted of a church, a cemetery and a pub!

We had such a great and relaxing time. We are already planning another trip back-next time to the north. 

Came home to the Christmas rush, wrapping frenzy, and general getting the house ready for the big day. Only 2 of the girls were going to be home in addition to my 93 year old father and husband but the girls surprised me and Katie, my daughter who is currently living in Salt Lake City, flew in to surprise us!

Ally and Josh, the newlyweds, will come for a few days after the New Year.  

This week is going to be all about MY projects!  

I just finished the second top of my Dancing Lady series. I put them up to photograph last night and need to make a few tweeks now that I stand back.  I need to put together a gift quilt then I'll be back at it!  I'd like to have both done when I go back for another few classes with Ursula Kern in March for her to critique them and help me capture the movement I'm trying to capture.  I'm hoping the quilting will help. 

Got to get my workout in then back to sewing. It's a sunny morning so I'm going to sew upstairs today to enjoy the rare winter sunshine here in Michigan. 

Happy Stitching!

Christmas Crunch is On!

I finished my customer's quilt and she LOVED it!  I'm always so nervous that a customer won't like the quilting even after they tell me to quilt it how I think is best.  I'm so glad not only she, but her quilting "sisters" liked it as well.

I finished the 2 brothers' quilts and their mother went crazy over them!  We did meet at the local quilt shop to pick out the borders and backing and I'm really pleased with how they turned out!

You can't see it from these pictures but we chose a grey and black houndstooth.  Very masculine but did not take away from the tee shirt blocks.

I'm now working on 2 quilts a customer made using blocks that she found in her mother's house.  They were poorly pieced but have sentimental value to her and her family.  She repaired the blocks as best she could and set them on point.  I looked in books to try to figure out how a quilt made at the approximate time these blocks were made would have been quilted.

  At one time, this was turned in the correct direction, but for some reason it's not downloading in the correct orientation.

I saw the sunflower motif and thought it went well in the yellow alternate blocks and the curved lines softened all the straight lines in the original blocks.

 I drew out the design on template plastic approximately 10" x 10" to fill the blocks.

I also drafted the cable for the border-not too fancy because I didn't want to take away from the beauty of the blocks.

Cable Border

One of the antique blocks

This is the border and the setting triangle.

And the final quilts!

Quilt 1

Quilt 2

It's kind of like Thing 1 and Thing 2!  (sorry, my weird sense of humor).

I hope she likes them!

Happy Quilting!

Quilting Again

This summer was pleasantly busy!  A trip to Cape Cod, a wedding shower and bachelorette party in Chicago and THE WEDDING!  Our eldest got married on September 6 and the day was a dream!  It was absolutely the best! 

My Girls

So I'm finally back to quilting.  I went to the Machine Quilter Expo in Springfield, Illinois.  The best class I took was from Karen McTavish.  If you ever get a chance to take a class from her, JUMP ON IT!

Back to the projects on my work list

First was a Hawaiian style penguin quilt.

I did get to do some McTavishing on the baby to make it look fuzzy!  Wish I could have done more.

My student, Mildred, has finally finished her "Yuletide Snowflake" pattern by Fig Tree Quilts without the snowflakes.  She had seen one that I had done years ago and wanted to do one in purples and greens.  I ordered the thread we chose to quilt it with but it took longer to arrive than expected so I started laying out a tee shirt quilt for a client.

The thread finally arrived and I am busy quilting it like the one I had quilted for myself only I'm doing it on the longarm this time!  It's much easier but it has taken me some time to remember how I drafted the quilting.  It's moving along now but is going to take quite a bit of time.

I really have missed quilting and am glad to be back at it despite the Christmas crush starting.  I really need to clean and reorganize my downstairs studio.  I'm hoping to squeeze in a little of my stuff in between!

Happy Stitching!

Silly Me!

I got a new phone-an iPhone 5. I've been trying to upload all my apps and, for some reason, the Blogspot app didn't show up. "No problem", I thought. "I'll just post from my computer".  I've been busy going to a workshop with Paula Nadelstern and then off to Boston to care for my youngest after major knee surgery. I've taken pictures on my phone but couldn't figure out how to email the pictures to myself. Long story short, I finally found the app and now I can try to catch up!

I had the pleasure to attend The Hudson River Valley Art Workshop with Paula Nadelstern. This was the second time I have attended to take a class with her. She is a great teacher and a wonderful person. The first day we warmed up by making a relatively simple Nadelstar.

My Nadelstar

Class Nadelstars with one kaleidoscope block

Paula shared some of her quilts with us...

Snowflakes

A print of one of my favorite blocks of hers. 

The process is not always pretty!

After 5 long days I finished mine!

I am very pleased with the results!  It's almost 30" across. I think I'll probably add setting triangles, frame it and use it as a wall hanging.

I really enjoyed the process and would love to play for a few more weeks making more blocks but life goes on. More on that later. 

Until then, 

Happy Stitching!  

Picture Day

Right now I don't have any customer quilts to do so I came up with a plan to finish some of MY quilts.  Some of them I finished YEARS ago.  Some I just didn't know how I wanted to quilt them or wasn't confident enough to tackle them.  Well, and unfinished quilt is just pieces of fabric sewn together!

First, I realized I hadn't taken a picture of the latest charity quilt I quilted. 

Oooopps!  I didn't turn the photo! 

 The border

 A line of mussels

 Mussels and feathers

 Mussels and swirls

 Ocean waves

 Straight lines.  I like this more than I thought I would!

 I should photograph all the charity quilts I do.

I also photographed my UFO's to be quilted.  I just ordered 8 X 10 prints so I can put them in a plastic sleeve and play with quilting designs.  Some I know what I want to do and others are going to require a bit of thought.  I'll post pictures as I finish them.

Happy Stitching!

New Dedicated Quilting Computer

I finally got a pc based computer for my quilting business.  The quilting business program I use is made for pc's and I had to use a program that ran pc programs on my Mac.  I caused everything to run slow on my Mac and took quite a bit of time to switch it from one operating system to the other.  I would put things aside to enter the next time I opened it.  Things would sometimes get misplaced so I think this will make my record keeping more accurate since it's easy to open and enter the information.  Now I have to figure out how to do get around on it!

I have been quilting.  I was finally able to finish this tee shirt quilt for a client.  She was really pleased with the outcome and doesn't know if she can wait to give it to him on his birthday in May.

I've also have been practicing on charity quilts.

I was able to practice using a rope template I used on a client's quilt and play with different motifs in the negative space.

 This was fun!

 Bear Claw Feathers

I really liked this pattern!

 Feathers between feathers.

Triangle feather fill.

More pictures later.

Oh, the other thing I am finally going to be able to do is learn EQ.  I've had it for a few years but have not taken the time to play with it enough to learn it.  My youngest has to have major knee surgery in a few weeks and I'm going to help her out for 3 weeks.  I'm going to take this along to play with it. 

Happy Stitching!

Back to Normal

The last time I posted I was having my meds adjusted.  I'm back on track and I'm sorry I vented on the blog but life isn't always sunshine and lollipops.

Back to quilting!  I finished a table runner I started in a Sandy Klop class this past fall.  When I saw the pattern it screamed peppermint candy to me so I made a Christmas table runner.  Unfortunately I didn't finish it until a week after Christmas-or 51 weeks before next Christmas!

   

Completed table

runner

I used invisible thread so it was difficult to photograph.  I free motioned feathers in the candy stripes and swirls in the outer corners of each block.  I wanted to try curved cross-hatching in the centers and was pleased with the outcome!  I did use templates and wanted to become more comfortable using them.

I met a wonderful quilter who lives in my area who teaches at the dealership where I bought my longarm.  It seems like everytime she's teaching there I have other plans out of town!  I got in touch with her and she came to my house to give me a private lesson.  I learned SO MUCH!  I'm much more comfortable using templates and she showed me some other templates I should get.  I want to do a rope motif around a customer's quilt I have and we played with one she brought.  I ordered it and am practicing on a charity quilt.

Rope template

This is a charity quilt someone in my guild did and I'm quilting it.  It's a great way to practice and someone will get a quilt.  They won't care if there's mistakes on it and I work on new skills.  I plan on doing at least one a month-more if I don't have many customer quilts.  I''m going through my sketch books and doing a different vine motif in each empty zig-zag.

 Leafy vine

Leaves and curls

I've done more but it's rolled up on the take-up bar.  I'll post those pictures when I take the quilt off the frame.  I have a few more zig-zags to do and I hope to finish it up this afternoon.  

BTW-the music I was listening to while quilting this was the Sly & the Family Stone station on Pandora.

Happy Stitching!