Hello

Well ladies I've been off for a while during the especially busy summer months around here.  For those of you who do not know I am an avid gardener and canner so the spring and summer and somewhat into the autumn months I stay extremely busy.  Also this year I took a trip to see my grandson in Hawaii.  I had a wonderful time and got to visit a lot of quilt shops in the islands and purchased a lot of fabric.  Even had the opportunity to take a quilting class on Hawaiian quilting while I was there.

Well it's time to get it all back together and back to quilting for my late autumn and winter months.  Right now I am getting ready to start a class at the Senior Center and I'm really looking forward to that.  I've also entered some of my quilting into the local Agriculture Fair, in addition to some of my canning projects.

Got several quilts to get done, some for me, some for paying customers and some that I do as a charity project so I've been busy upstairs this morning working on some of those.  I'm still practicing some of the things I learned in my class with Lisa Sipes who is a wonderful quilting and if you don't know about her, please check her out on the web or FB.  She does wonderful quilting.  I have many friends on FB that are quilters and I love sharing some of their pictures and they always and forever inspire me.  Lisa Calle is just a wonderful quilter at Stone House Quilting and has some great rulers which are on my wish list.

Today I will not be posting any pictures of the projects I have completed over the summer and there have been a few.  One of the ones I am working on is for my grandson Collan who is going to get married in June.  He is the one who is currently living in Hawaii and he is a precious man!  But then I also have another precious grandson and two precious granddaughters and one great-grandson.  Each one is special in their own way and there is no way I could even begin to tell you how much they are loved and adored by me.  Oh well enough of that.

What's on my schedule in quilting?  Oh we will be using up some scraps and finishing some projects that are already started.  Looking forward to my class.  Looking forward to getting a few more supplies, such as the rulers I spoke about and learning to use them.

One little thing that I want to share with you is the importance of getting good instructions about how to use the things you are purchasing.  One of the reasons for this is my own problems that I have had.  I had someone recommend a particular item to me that would make my life so much easier.  It was a quicker way to get my backing and tops loaded onto my longarm machine.  Then another person recommended it also so I bought it.  The cost wasn't astronomical but nevertheless at $80 it wasn't a cheapo.........Well try as I might I was having all kinds of trouble using this new device.  After months of struggle and complaint that my hands just weren't strong enough and it was really hard to use someone posted and sent me a link on how to use the thing.  Guess what, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought and I could use it when I started doing in the way they showed.  Instruction is very important!  What can I say.....I'll try not to make that mistake again!  Now some things you can learn how to use very easily and there is another item that I purchased that actually cost me well over $100 that was a breeze to use!  I didn't need anything more than being told once how to do it and it worked really well.  Be on the safe side though, and get your instructions.  If there is a free class or if you can look at U-tube videos and see how to use it, go for it!  If the class will cost you extra money you may want to try to figure it out first and then if things don't work out well think about the class!

I hope you all have a wonderful day!  See you soon.

Guild Quilt

I joined with a lovely group of ladies several years ago and we decided that we would form a quilt guild, so we did and we found a place to start meeting and getting together and now there are quite a few lovely ladies that have joined with us.  Our guild decided early on, that we would like to give to the community and not be just takers.  Giving back is such a wonderful feeling and we have in the past completed many wonderful projects.  We've done a little of everything we could think of and when people have new projects they are interested they can present those projects to the guild and see if this is some the group wants to be involved in also.

We had decided to let the guild purchase some background fabric and each month as we present new blocks to the membership the members are to make up the block and bring one in to the guild for donation and we put those block together and get the top quilted and bound and then donate the quilt to whichever charity that we have chosen.  At present we are working on some quilts for the crisis center in our town.

This week I worked on getting one of the quilts quilted and I decided to use a variety of quilting patterns in the background fabric.  Since I had just taken a class with Lisa Sipes, who is majorly awesome, much of my inspiration comes from what she was teaching us in class and some of her work.  The block pattern here is a bow tie and I decided that I would do minimal quilting in the bow tie and just did some loops to represent the folds that you will see around the knot in the bowtie.  I put stars in the outer border because we have no ideal if this will be used on a bed for a man, woman, boy or girl and stars are so generic.  I really hope whoever gets to use the quilt really enjoys it!

Here are some pictures.

After it is all put together.  These quilts are for twin size beds and should fit them really well.  The bed it is displayed on is a queen size.

Hate when I get the camera strap in the picture!  This picture shows some of the different quilting patterns I used and you can just faintly see the bowtie patter in the green block.

More backgrounds, this is very angular.

And this one is curvy.

This is both straight lines with rows of bubbles.

Swirl pattern.

A bubble with a little wink!  Takes longer than I expected.

Any old timers out there remember paisley.

My little butterflies.  I've been doing these for a long time now.

Another oldie in the meandering hearts.

And finally just some pebbles.

 

 

I also did some straight lines and double lines and triple lines and just wavey lines and meandering in addition to all of the above and some cross hatching.  At any rate it was fun to just practice some of the background fills that I know and some new ones that I learned.  Now on to the next quilt!

 

Oh I also purchased some red snappers which are devices used to attach the quilt backing to the quilting machine.  Now I just hope I'll be able to use them.  Getting them on the first time was not easy at all!  Still waiting to get a stapler that works!  Hate when I get something home and it does not work and then I have to carry it back and wait for the replacement.  Drat!!! and Double Drat!!!

 

I hope you all have a wonderful week quilting and doing those things you love to do.