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

Destination Creativity

Friday and Saturday, Sandy, my quilting buddy from Henderson Nevada, attended Destination Creativity. The 2 day event, hosted by the Bernina Connection, included four 3 hour classes. All the class kits and supplies were provided as well as the Bernina machine. Friday morning I made a small bag using the Bernina 1150 MDA overlocker. The bag was constructed entirely with the overlocker.



Friday afternoon I learned curved piecing while piecing blocks for a table runner.

Saturday morning, I made a large project bag.



The last class was machine embroidery taught by Claudia Dinnell. Claudia was a fabulous teacher and I really learned some great new machine embroidery techniques. The class project was a double eyeglass case which is almost finished, I just have to sew on the binding.

Snap Hoop Monster

Today, I decided to do some machine embroidery, not my most favorite thing to do. I usually do my embroidery design using Floriani Total Control software. The software is great but it is PC based, since I have been a Mac user since 1986 using PC software can be a chore. I can use Floriani Total Control because I have Parallels 9 installed which allows my Mac to act like a PC. So I deal with the stress of “using” a PC and get my design exported to my Bernina thumb drive. Now, it is time to go to my sewing room. My new Horn electric lift got my Bernina 780 to the proper height effortlessly and I now store my embroidery module in the new Koala cabinet, so now it is easy to get my embroidery module. Just to make things interesting, I decided to try 2 new products. When I was at the Houston Quilt Festival, I stopped at the Wonderful booth and I learned a new use for Wonder Guards. I was told you can use Wonder Guards on the embroidery thread spool, so I tried them and they worked great. The second new thing I tried was the Snap Hoop Monster. The Snap Hoop made hooping my fabric quite easy, sure did not have to deal with tightening the screw on the Bernina hoop. So my embroidery is now finished, just have to put all the embroidered units together to make a wall hanging.

Bernina Studio Rollabout

Today, my new Koala Bernina Studio Rollabout was delivered and I am so excited to have a drawer especially designed for the larger Bernina embroidery module. My local Bernina dealer, Bernina Connection, was able to order the rollabout for me. The Bernina Studio Rollabout is 32” wide, 25” deep and 29” high. I decided to get the white finish which would go with my new white Horn Super Quilter’s Dream electric lift cabinet. My Bernina 780 machine is quite a bit larger and heavier than my Bernina 630 and I decided upgrading my older Horn Quilter’s Dream cabinet was really necessary. The top drawer of the rollabout has special latches that allow the front of the drawer to lie flat so the embroidery module can easily slip in and out of the drawer.
Pictures of the rollabout and with the special top drawer open


My Bernina embroidery module inside the top drawer and a close up the drawer latches.

Houston International Quilt Festival

I flew to Houston last Wednesday and spent 5 wonderful days at the Houston International Quilt Festival with Sandy, my quilt buddy from Henderson Nevada. This year was the 40th year anniversary of the festival which was celebrated with a special red and white quilt exhibit "Ruby Jubilee!"



I took a class with Nancy Eha, Bead-Dazzling Embroidery Interpretations. Nancy is an excellent teacher and I learned many beading techniques.
We used printed stitch templates which are carefully removed after stitching. I did not remove paper on my stitching sample.


Of course, Sandy and I spent many enjoyable hours walking the 20 long aisle of vendors, 1000 vendors in one place is quilter's paradise. There were so many unique products, many not available at local quilt shops. I was especially happy to find some beautiful variegated size 5 pearl cotton threads made in South Africa imported by akonye ken and some beautiful linen fabric and hand made buttons from l'Atelier d'Isabelle These are just some of the things I purchased.

Once a Wildcat, Always a Wildcat

My new mailbox flag just got installed today. Wasn't easy, as the flag was designed to be installed on a metal mailbox and I needed to install my flag on stucco. My flag was designed by Mark Alan Designs.
I don't think there is any doubt that I support the University of Arizona Wildcats.

Kaleidoscope blocks

Saturday, I want to a kaleidoscope clinic at Quitz, a local quilt store. In 2007, I had took a class with Bethany Reynolds, but I need a refresher on the stack and whack technique. I purchased the Arizona centennial fabric in 2011 with the intention of making kaleidoscope blocks from the fabric. Saturday, using the Stack-n-Whack 45 degree Triangle tool, I cut out wedges from the Arizona centennial fabric. Today, I began sewing the wedges into kaleidoscope blocks. I was able to sew 20 of the 24 blocks I wanted for the quilt. I pinned the blocks on some black fabric that I think I will be using for the sashing and borders for the quilt.
This is a picture of the completed blocks a small piece of the centennial fabric.

Poodles

This week has not been the best. 11:30 Monday night I was at the emergency room after noticing the beginnings of a rash. Yes, I have shingles and yes, I did have a shingles shot 2 years ago. Sometimes life is just not fair. I am doing much much better, I firmly believe that starting anti-viral medication so quickly has definitely ease the course of the infection. Friday afternoon I received a small package in the mail from my quilting buddy, Sandy which did wonders for lifting my spirits.
The poodle magnet

I also should thank Katie and Molly for their excellent nursing care this last week. They definitely deserve some time to rest after some non-stop nursing care.

Fabric and Ties of My Life

I just returned from The Rocky Mountain Quilting Adventure held in Steamboat Springs Colorado. RMQA is sponsored by David Taylor and this year Sue Spargo was the guest teacher. The focus of Sue's class was to create a fabric journal quilt. For the last year, I have wanted to create a wool appliqué quilt which would incorporate silk fabric purchased in Japan by my parents in 1963 along with some Japanese silk ties. Other fabrics I wanted to included were some llama print cottons purchased in Peru in 1971 which were made into some ties for my Dad, fabric from a wool sport coat and ties belonging to my brother in law, John Protz. I also have velveteens that Lucie and I made skirts or dresses. The working title of my quilt is Fabric and Ties of My Life.
This is a picture of my quilt so far, I still have to add wool appliqué borders. The center section is about 20" by 23".


These are few the fabric and ties I have used and some that will be used in my quilt.

Sliced Nine Patch quilt and label

This quilt was inspired by Right Slice quilt published in Quiltmaker Magazine, November/December 2013. I used 3 batik fabrics, 2 batiks for the nine patch blocks and the remaining batik was inserted into the slashed nice patch blocks. Machine quilted by Jessica Jones Gamez. Finished quilt is 96" by 96". The label was designed using Floriani Total Control U software, the machine embroidery was done on my Bernina 780.

Pillow Shams

I finally finished the pillow shams for Lucie's Pineapple Star Quilt, only took me 8 years since I finished the quilt. I put the quilt on the guest room bed but covering the pillows made the overhang too short on the end of the bed. Something jogged in my memory, I think something was made for pillow shams. Amazing, I was able to find the quilts and extra fabric in a drawer in my sewing room. Constructing the pillow shams was really quite easy, not sure why it took me 8 years to get them done. I also realized that I never made a quilt label, drat, another thing to put on my To Do list.

I also spent the morning working on my web site. August 2013, I completely redid my web site using RapidWeaver software. My house remodel and knee replacement sort of hindered my actually finishing the transfer of all the quilts to my new web site. This morning I just stopped all the procrastination and did it.

Rain in Phoenix

Yes, it does rain in the desert. Yesterday, Phoenix had localized heavy rain which caused some flooding. I live in North Phoenix which did experience some heavy rain. There is a wash along the west side of my property which catches the rain coming off the mountains to the south of me. There was some rain early morning, the heavy rain began about 11:30am and lasted 30 to 40 minutes. I went out to look at the wash after the rain and there was quite a torrent. I am really not in danger of flooding as the wash is quite deep and very wide.


Today is a beautiful day in Phoenix, the sun is shining and the air is clean. What a difference 24 hours makes.

Mixed Mutts appliqué

I just got back from Henderson Nevada, I spent a few days with my quilting buddy. We decided to work on an embroidery machine appliqué project from the pattern Mixed Mutts. 10 dog are available in the pattern but I decided to do just 3 of the adorable dogs. I chose a poodle, a schnauzer and a 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. The pattern also includes embroidered designs for woof and paw prints which I will embroider as filler blocks after I decide the placement the 3 dog appliqué blocks on the quilt. You can see the 3 dog blocks Sandy made at http://sandywf.blogspot.com

Bird Dance Quilt

Drum roll, please. Bird Dance is finished, I even have the quilt label on the back. The gorgeous machine quilting was done by Jessica Jones Gamez.. Bird Dance was designed by Sue Spargo for her 2013 BOM. Sue's quilt design was inspired by a tile floor while on vacation in Italy, check out the full story of Sue's inspiration.

Needle Keep

In January 2013, I started my first Sue Spargo BOM. I was new to Sue's wool appliqué stitching and I decided to make a test block using wool from my stash. Of course, I then had a finished 6 1/2" bird block which I decided to use as the front of a small needle keep. My original needle keep has served me well these last 18 months but as Sue introduced a wider variety of needles, my original needle keep did not have enough labeled spaces for the needles. I designed my new needle keep with 4 wool pages which would allow spaces for 24 different types of needles plus I added two zippered vinyl pockets to hold thimbles and needle threaders. I did a wool appliqué flower on the front. The needle keep is 8 1/2" high and 7 1/2" wide.

African Tulip tote

I finished the African tulip tote today. The African Tulip tote was designed by Sue Spargo and is 21" wide, 16" in length and 5" deep. The embellished wool appliqué front gave me a chance to learn some new embellishing stitches and to use some different embellishing threads. Valdani pearl cotton, Thread Gathers silken pearl, silken chenille, and sea grass are some of the embellishing threads I used. Sue's pattern was constructed using batting but I decided to use Soft and Stable to give the tote more body. I also wanted a zipper closure and I used instructions from a by annie tote pattern.

Sliced Nine Patch Quilt

I love a challenge. Last week I decided to make a queen size quilt for a friend. I needed a fast and easy quilt and I picked The Right Slice quilt published in Quiltmaker Magazine, November/December 2013. The quilt in the magazine was constructed using assorted red and green 5 inch squares. I decided to make my quilt using just 3 batik fabrics, 2 batiks for the nine patch blocks and the remaining batik was inserted into the slashed nice patch blocks. The queen size quilt requires 36 blocks. I want to finished the quilt top by Tuesday so I can take the top to be quilted by Jessica Jones Gamez. It is going to be close, but I think I will finish the quilt top by Tuesday afternoon. I now have 24 blocks finished and sewn together, plus I have the remaining 12 blocks started. I took a picture of part of the quilt hanging on my design wall.

110 pillowcases

I have sewn another 40 pillowcases and they have been delivered to 35th Avenue Sew and Vac, they collect pillowcases for Back to School Clothing Drive. I made a total of 110 pillowcases in the month of June, it certainly was a great feeling to clear out fabric from my stash. I will admit that sewing the last 20 pillowcases was just a bit of a chore, but I wanted to really wanted to see if I could make at least 100 pillowcases.

Hope everyone is have a great 4th of July holiday weekend, although it seems as if most of the United States will be having rain. Phoenix had dust and thunderstorms yesterday, some local fireworks displays were cancelled. It is very overcast and humid today, thunderstorms are also predicted, hopefully we will get some rain too.

More pillowcases

I have sewn another 40 pillowcases and they are ready to deliver to 35th Avenue Sew and Vac, they collect pillowcases for Back to School Clothing Drive. I have been able to reduce the fabric in my stash which keeps me motivated to make more pillowcases. I have now made a total of 70 pillowcases and I plan to make more, maybe I can get to 100 completed pillowcases.
I will keep you posted on my progress.

Pillowcases

I have been busy these last few weeks sewing pillowcases. I have found that making pillowcases is a great way to use fabric in my stash. I construct the pillowcases using the roll it up pattern found on the Million Pillowcase web site. On Monday, I delivered 30 pillowcases to 35th Avenue Sew and Vac, they collect pillowcases for Back to School Clothing Drive. I will continue to go through my stash and will be making more pillowcases, I will keep you posted on my progress.

Katie and Molly

Katie and Molly are good buddies and they have really brought out the best in each other. Katie is 7 1/2 years old and Molly is 4 years old. Molly loves everyone while Katie is a bit more selective, but with Molly leading the way, Katie has become more outgoing. It is not often I am able to take a picture without either Katie or Molly deciding to move. I usually end with a picture of one poodle and one black furry blur. Katie is on the right and Molly is on the left looking much serious than she really is.

Quilt ladder

Finally, my quilt ladder is set up in my office area, it only took 6 months! I ordered my quilt ladder from DWR Custom Woodworking when I was at the Houston Quilt Show in November 2013. At that time, I was not in a hurry to receive the ladder. The extremely cold winter weather in Pennsylvania delay the shipping of my ladder but it finally was delivered the end of March. So why is it May and I am just getting my ladder set up? Long story short, the ladder is much easier to put together if 2 people are doing it. Last week, my electrician came to install receptacle strips to my desk and I persuaded him to put the quilt ladder together.

Circles

June 2013, I took a quilt cruise to Alaska, one of the featured teacher was Sue Spargo. My class project was embellished circles. I found some fabric and based my circle color choices on the chosen fabric. Sue was an excellent teacher and I learned quite a few embellishing stitches for my circles. Sue's book, Creative Stitching which includes step by step instructions for 50 of Sue's favorite stitches was an excellent resource for embellishing the circles. I finished embellishing the circles and and I can't wait for the piece to be made into a pillow.

Ellie

I attended the Arizona Quilters Guild quilt show on Friday March 28th and bought the pattern, Ellie the Elephant designed by Barbara Jones. http://www.bjdesignsandpatterns.com
I loved the whimsical patchwork elephant. I decided to make Ellie and challenged myself to only use batik fabrics from my stash and I was able to complete Ellie in just 2 days. Ellie is constructed using raw edged appliqué, I used a dense satin stitch to appliqué each piece to the background. Ellie was given to Jessica Jones Gamez on Tuesday April 1 to be machine quilted.

Fiesta Mexico

AQS, American Quilter's Society, held their first show in Phoenix this year and my quilting buddy from Henderson Nevada traveled to Phoenix to attend the AQS show February. We alway have a great time when we attend quilt shows and take classes. I signed up for an appliqué class with Karen Kay Buckley, the class project was one block from Karen's award winning quilt, Fiesta Mexico.

I finished the center of block and have started on the borders.



This a picture of Karen's finished class project. As you can see, I have a lot of work to finish my class project.

Bird Dance Top

I am behind in posting my completed Bird Dance top. I had a total knee replacement on January 14, 2014, life is slowly getting back to normal. Last Tuesday, I took Bird Dance to Jessica Jones Gamez to be machine quilted, I can't wait to get it back. Lately, I have been doing a lot of reading, physical therapy and generally just relaxing, something I probably don't do very often.