Strolling at Lake Havasu

Last week, I finished paper piecing all the Gambel quail, well almost finished. 10:30 pm last Thursday night, I realized I did not have enough of one batik to finish the male quail block. I need a strip 2" by 11". Luckily, my quilting buddy, Sandy had a small piece left from her kit and was kind enough to mail me the fabric I needed. Today I was able to finish the male quail block, piece the blocks together and add some borders. Although there were many tiny pieces, I actually found piecing the quail easier than I expected. The top is about 16 1/2" by 37". Tomorrow, I will be taking the quilt to Jessica Jones Gamez for machine quilting.

Emmie

Introducing Emmie, an adorable miniature poodle born September 20, 2014. I drove to La Jolla California on February 6 to pick her up and she proved an excellent car rider on the long drive back to Phoenix on Saturday, February 7. Marcie, my daughter, is thrilled to have Emmie living with her. Emmie has the sweetest personalty, she loves Marcie and both are eagerly awaiting the start of training classes at Petsmart in a few weeks. Katie and Molly enjoy having Emmie come to my house for playtime and Molly has been teaching Emmie how to patrol the wall for lizards.

Magic Carpet

I just returned from a 3 day Magic Carpet class held at Quilting in the Desert. Ginny Goodbar taught liberated quilting techniques to construct strata which were then combined to create a "magic carpet". The finished top is then layered with batting and backing. The top will be quilted with couched threads, beads and decorative stitching. My magic carpet top is now ready to quilt, but I have a few other projects to complete before I can start embellishing my top. The top is 30 inches by 42 inches.

Quilting at the Lake

Back home after a great few days with quilting friends. We attended Quilting at the Lake in Lake Havasu City Arizona. I drove up on Friday with with a quilting buddy Perri. We then had a great lunch with Sandy and Joann who had just driven in from Henderson Nevada. After a wonderful lunch and visit to 2 great quilt stores we were back to the hotel to rest up for our quilting class on Saturday.

We had a little bit of rain on Saturday morning but that did not dampen the fun we had in class with Linda Hibbert, Silver Linings Originals, who designed an intricate paper pieced quilt for the class. Linda titled the quilt "Strolling at the Lake Havasu" which featured Gambel quail. It was a great class, learned some great paper piecing techniques.

This is Linda Hibbert's finished quilt


I was able to finish 2 of the chicks on Saturday. Can't wait to to finish the third chick plus the other Gambel quail.


After an intense day of class, our entire group when out for a wonderful dinner at Shugrue's
After dinner, we decided to take a group picture with the London Bridge as a background.

Summer Blooms Bag

A few days ago, I finished embellishing the flowers on my Summer Blooms bag and today I sewed the bag together. It is always a challenge to sew wool because wool is thicker and the layers can easily shift when sewing a seam. I have found using the dual feed feature on my Bernina 780 a big help when sewing wool. Reducing the presser foot pressure also helps to minimize shifting.
Summer Blooms bag was designed by Sue Spargo and is 12" by 9".

In Full Bloom

In Full Bloom was Sue Spargo's 2014 BOM. This was the tenth year that Sue has done a BOM and this was my second Sue Spargo BOM. All BOM participants agree not to post any pictures of In Full Bloom before the quilt is published. Since I am unable to post a picture of my completed top, I am posting Sue's line drawing. I am just thrilled to have completed In Full Bloom in 2014.

Tomorrow, I will be taking my completed top to Jessica Gamez so she can do the machine quilting.
I have signed up for the 2015 BOM and is titled Folk Tails and I can hardly wait to begin. I should receive my first 2015 BOM package the beginning of January so I guess I have a few weeks to stitch on some of my unfinished projects. This is the line drawing of Folk Tails

The Girls

I spent a few days with my quilting buddy working on a embroidery machine appliqué project from the pattern Mixed Mutts. The quilt top is now complete and Jessica Gamez will be doing the machine quilting. I chose the poodle, schnauzer and the golden retriever in honor of the breeds of dogs I have owned. My web page Waiting at the Bridge has pictures of my dearly departed dogs, you can also click on web pages for Katie and Molly my standard poodles. I often refer to Katie and Molly as The Girls so I chose to title my quilt, The Girls. You can see Sandy's finished quilt at http://sandywf.blogspot.com