One More Time With Feeling!

I wrote a whole post while on the way to visit my in-laws, went to look something up and must have forgotten to save it!  Lesson learned!

Last time I wrote I was on my way to China. It was an amazing trip!  Quite honestly, China was never on my bucket list but I was given a unique opportunity with my friend living in Shanghai.  Another friend and I spent 11 wonderful days exploring Shanghai, Xian (home of the Terra Cotta Warriors), and Beijing.  I won't bore you with a long travel log but share a few highlights and som quilting designs I saw.  The Chinese government does not like Goggle or Facebook and, apparently, some of the pictures I took. They magically disappeared-just some, not all. Oh well, at least I have spectacular memories and the other girls have shared their pictures with me.

We started in Shanghai where we saw a lot of everyday life, the world's tallest building being built and a wedding market.

The three of us on The Bund-the river front dividing the old part of the city and the new.

The world's tallest building. The fogginess is partly due to the dirty window but mostly from the smog.

Sunday Wedding Market where matchmakers post potential brides' and grooms' resumes on umbrellas and on the ground.  Some have pictures but most don't. I wonder what the success rate is!

From Shanghai we flew to Xian to see the Terra Cotta Warriors.  I couldn't believe how big the area was!  We even met the farmer who discovered the Warriors while digging a well and had him sign a book for my dad.

Each warrior and horse is life size!  I was a bit disappointed as how commercial the area outside of the exhibit is getting.  They force tourists to walk thru a maze of shops, basically selling the same things, to get in and leave the area.

We then flew to Beijing.  We had an amazing tour guide for 3 days who took us to Tienamin Square, the Forbidden City, The Great Wall, the Summer Palace, a portion of the old city, lots of temples and The Pearl Market.

This is only about half of Tienamin Square.  It is HUGE!

The entrance of the Forbidden City.  It's not really tilted, just me trying to take the picture too quickly. 

I couldn't get over how enormous it was!  

The Great Wall was amazing!  I had to keep pinching myself that I was really there!  We had exceptionally great weather with hardly any smog.

A portion of the old section of the city.  Our guide told us they are getting ready to tear it down and replace it with high rises.  I'm glad I got to see it before it was destroyed.

This is just a small area of the Pearl Market. There are 4 floors of little booths with scarves, purses, silk robes, Knicks knacks and just about anything you can think of.  You have to bargain and our hostess is a master bargainer!

I did get pictures of some designs I want to incorporate into upcoming quilts.

So, back to reality. 

More later!

Happy Stitching!

Gift Quilt

I've been working on a quilt I will take with me as a hostess gift.  I saw the pattern in the Late Summer Miisouri Star Block Idea Book. It's a star quilt-I'm partial to stars-and its a new technique to me that I wanted to try using 10" x 10" layer cakes. 

First you layer 2 squares, one light and one dark, right sides together and stitch completely around with 1/4" seam allowance. 

Next, cut diagonally across the layered square twice. 

Cut 1

Diagonal cut the other way. 

Press open and arrange with the hourglass design in the middle. Do you see the star yet?

Sew together. 

Next, be sure you have good light-especially if you are of a certain age!

You then need to cut 2 1/8" on either side of the center seam both horizontally and vertically. 

No star yet!

Then you start flipping the blocks around!  First turn the corners 180* ( no degree symbol on my iPad so I'll use the asterisk instead). 

Then flip the center 90*. 

Finally flip the remaining squares 180*. 

And there's your star!

Here's the layout. 

It's not my favorite color combination but I understand the colors in her home are black, gray and cream. If not, it's still pretty neutral.  I still have to add the borders and quilt it before I leave. 

So why the extravagant hostess gift?  Her home is in China!  She is a gal in our golf league whose husband was transferred to Shanghai for 2 years. She's midway through (hopefully) and gets home occasionally but misses the States. A few of us started talking about visiting her last summer and 2 of us are going next week!  The next few days will be busy getting ready for the trip but I've traveled enough that I know what I like to pack. I usually like to travel pretty casually but I think I need to take at least one nice thing for dinners out. 

Getting late.  Another busy day tomorrow including a private paper piecing lesson with a student. 

Happy Stitching!

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!