Christmas gift exchange

I belong to Sew Sisters, a weekly stitching group. Although, I am unable to attend a lot of the meetings, I always enjoy the creative input and lively conversations when my schedule allows me to attend. This year, I decided to participate in the holiday gift exchange. I made a wool appliqué pin cushion which is about 4 1/2" square and filled with crush walnut shells.


I am on a Bernina Yahoo group and a few months ago, the leader of the group posted information about a machine embroidery web site called Urban Threads. Urban Threads had some very unique and modern machine embroidery designs and I purchase 2 of their designs. One of the designs I purchased was Have a Holly Jolly Christmas which I used to make a gift bag for the cactus pincushion. The bag is 7 1/2" by 10".


I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

Christmas stockings

I needed to make a few new stockings this year and all the Christmas stocking are now hanging. I actually finished the stocking over a week ago, but life got a bit hectic and I was unable to do a blog post. I made a set of stockings for my daughter's new condo plus I also needed to make a new stocking for Emmie, my daughter's new miniature poodle for my house.

My stocking are made using Vogue pattern 1312 which came out in the early 1970's. In 2010, I used a Bernina 180 to embroidery the names on the stocking cuffs using a font installed on the machine. Luckily, Bernina kept the same font on my current machine, a Bernina 790. It is always a challenge to make sure the once the cuff in sewed on and turned down that the name is in the correct position and I must admit that I did sew one of the cuffs on incorrectly. Well that is why they make seam rippers.

I made the stocking for Marcie with Hoffman Christmas batiks which were retired in 2009 but I was able to find the batiks at my favorite on-line batik source, Batiks Plus.

Peanuts Christmas Quilt

Charles Schultz's Peanuts characters, Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucie and Marcie, have always been a favorite of mine. I have a lot of Peanut character Christmas ornaments which always bring a smile to my face. When I saw the Peanuts Christmas fabrics in 2012, I just had to buy enough fabric to make a quilt. It took me a few years to decide on a quilt pattern. My ideas always were rather complex and so I kept putting off making the quilt. This year, I decided to just keep it simple and decided to just make shadow box frames for each block. Jessica Jones Gamez did the machine quilting, she chose a perfect overall christmas light pattern. The quilt is about 47' by 47".

Pincushion for Sue Spargo

Saturday, I received a newsletter from Sue Spargo with some sad news.
Dear Friends,

On behalf of Sue, we feel it's important to share some very difficult news with you. In the recent weeks Sue has been diagnosed with breast cancer; she is in good spirits as she prepares to begin her treatment next week. Sue plans to continue her work in her studio here in northeast Ohio. We ask that you join us in surrounding Sue with much love and encouragement as she prepares to embark on this difficult journey.

Much love from Sue, Kelly, Andrew, Jason and Aimee

I have taken 3 week-long seminars with Sue plus I have participated in the 2013, 2014 and 2015 Block of the Month programs. Sue Spargo has inspired me with her creative wool appliqué embellishment. I decided to make a wool appliqué pincushion to support and encourage Sue in her fight with cancer. I will be mailing the pincushion to Sue tomorrow. The pincushion is approximately 5 1/2" square.

Another fun time in Houston

Sunday evening, I arrived home from Houston and today I unpacked and had a chance to reflect back on my time in Houston. I flew to Houston on Wednesday, arriving in time to attend preview night. Sandy and I were sharing a room and we met up with 5 friends from Phoenix. Preview night, 5pm to 7pm is reserved for class enrollees, Sandy and I of course hit the vendor aisles first. Oh my goodness, the first few aisles were slow going because of the wonderful hand dyed wool and thread I saw. This year there were certainly many more vendors with hand dyed wools and threads to tempt me. At 9:30pm, we had only seen about 75% of the vendors but Sandy and I were exhausted and decided to head back to the hotel. Thursday was another shopping day, it is not easy to be a quilter but somehow we preserved. Friday, we spent the entire day looking at the gorgeous quilts.
I saw Spirit of Sedona which was quilted by a group of very talented Phoenix quilters


2015 Houston quilt winners can be see at http://www.quilts.org/winners.html

Saturday, after braving a short walk in pouring rain, we finished looking at all the quilts and did a little shopping. After 3 1/2 days of quilt festival, Sunday is a short day, making sure we had not missed seeing any of the quilts or vendors.

Just a few pictures of some of the wonderful things I purchased at the 2015 Houston Quilt Festival. Honestly, there were very few frivolous purchases, I really did need everything I bought.

Enchanted Pumpkin

I took a class with Claudia Dinnell in August and I saw the Enchanted Pumpkin pattern. I decided that stitching the Enchanted Pumpkin would be a good way to practice the multiple hooping skills I learned in the Tis the Season class. The pumpkin requires 12 separate hoopings and I chose to stitch the entire pumpkin on a solid background. Before starting the machine embroidery., I fused Pellon SF-201 interfacing to the background and then I fused Pellon fleece This is the first time I used Pellon fleece, the biggest advantage was I did not have to use any tear away stabilizer. Another first for me, I used Havel's 5 3/4" double curved appliqué scissors. Sandy, my quilting buddy, had an extra pair of the Havel scissors and graciously gave me the scissors. Previously, I have used Gingher duck billed appliqué scissors but I found the blunt rounded tips of the Havel scissors were much easier to use. I used my Bernina Maxi hoop with the Master-Hooper which stabilizes the outer hoop allowing easier alignment of the inner hoop/hoop grid. The quilt is 18" by 22".

Rhonda

I finished sewing the binding on Rhonda, the rhinoceros. Rhonda was designed by Barbara Jones of bjdesigns. I added piping between the quilt and the border which adds just a bit of color and pizzazz. Jessica Jones Gamez did the beautiful custom machine quilting. The quilt is 27 1/2" by 39 1/2".



Ellie is another quilt designed by Barbara Jones of bjdesigns which I completed in 2013. Jessica Jones Gamez also did the custom machine quilting on Ellie.

Spring Garden Visitor

A few years in the making, but Spring Garden Visitor is now complete. This wool appliqué features 3 dimensionally stitched flowers and bunny. I started this wool appliqué project in December 2011 but multiple home remodeling projects unfortunately took precedence over this wool appliqué project. Spring Garden Visitor was designed by Kathy J. Gaul of Meetinghouse Hill Designs. The beautiful butterfly and dragonfly porcelain buttons were hand painted by Cindy Webb of Gold Seal Products. I opted to have the wool appliqué professionally framed instead of being quilted. The wool appliqué is 14" by 23", with the frame the piece measures 20" by 29".


Close up of the 3 dimensional flowers.

More Beads of Courage bags

Two weeks ago, I became inspired to making more Beads of Courage bags. In June, I finished 20 bags and my goal was to make at least 100 bags in 2015. This morning, I finished 80 Beads of Courage bags, so I have accomplished my 2015 goal of 100 bags.

Beads of Courage was developed by Jean Baruch while working on her PHD in Nursing at the University of Arizona. She piloted the program at Phoenix Children's Hospital in February 2003. Every year, Beads of Courage provides assistance to more than 60,000 sick children coping with serious and life-threatening illnesses, and their families in over 250 children's hospitals throughout the United States, and in six additional countries.

I will be donating all Beads of Courage bag to Phoenix Children's Hospital, in memory of Kendall, a granddaughter of a good friend.

Tis the Season top

After much thought, I have decided not to do the machine embroidered borders on my Tis the Season quilt top. I really liked the Claudia Dinnell's Tis the Season quilt but I simply did not have an ideal spot to hang a 60" by 60" quilt. I really wanted to hang the quilt above my fireplace and the stone facing is only 50" wide. So I found a wonderful stripe fabric which I can use for the binding which I think will give a wonderful finish to the quilt. The quilt will be about 40" by 40". My quilt top was delivered to Andrea Woolsey who will do the custom machine quilting and I can't wait to get the quilt back.

Tis the Season - Noel unit

I was in my sewing room Friday, all day Saturday and Sunday and I now have all the blocks embroidered. I have most of the seminole piecing done too. I was anxious to sew 2 blocks together with the light grey sashing. Even though I was tired, I squared up two blocks and then sewed on the sashing. I am pleased with the fabric I chose for the sashing and really pleased with the overall look of the 2 blocks.

Tis the Season blocks

This week, Sandy, my quilting buddy from Henderson Nevada, came for a short visit. Sandy and I took a 2 day machine embroidery class with Claudia Dinnell held at the Bernina Connection. The class project was Claudia's beautiful Christmas redwork style quilt called Tis the Season. I am not very experienced with machine embroidery and I was excited to learn Claudia's perfect placement multi-hooping technique.

Tuesday, I stitched the Teddy Bear block which is 25 1/2" by 13 1/2" and required 3 hoopings with the Bernina Maxi hoop to complete the design.


Wednesday, I stitched the Ornament block which is 15 1/2" by 24 1/2" and required 5 hoopings with the Bernina Maxi hoop to complete the design. What a great feeling to have all the stitched designs align perfectly which is a testament to Claudia's excellent perfect placement instructions.



I have 4 more blocks to embroider plus 5 word sashing blocks to embroider. I am planning to embroider at least one large block today so I can reinforce the multi-hooping techniques that I learned in class.

I would definitely recommend taking a class with Claudia Dinnell.

Serendipity blocks

I finished stitching 4 more blocks for the Serendipity quilt tonight. Of these 4 blocks, I think my favorite is the daisy block, the bright white, yellow and green wools look so cheerful. I stitched palestrina knot stitch for the daisy stems and cast on bullion stitches for the daisy centers with a variegated DMC thread. I added some cross hatch running stitches for texture on the rose colored fish. Two of the fish are missing eyes, they will get beads for their eyes which will be sewn on after the machine quilting.

Sewing Through the Seasons

Christmas Goose Quilt Shop in Las Vegas Nevada designed an adorable wool appliqué for the 2015 Row by Row Experience. When I saw the cute little featherweights, I just knew I had to make a small hanging for my sewing room. I pre-quilted the background fabric before I started doing the appliqué, I also made some changes to the appliqué shapes. The Christmas tree is decorated with tiny red ornaments made with cast on bullion stitches. The quilt is 36 1/2" by 9 3/4".

In Full Bloom Quilt

I finished stitching In Full Bloom December 30, 2014 and I have patiently been waiting for the custom machine quilting to be completed by Jessica Jones Gamez. Turn around time for custom quilting is 6 months and sometimes it is hard to wait patiently. In Full Bloom was recently published by Sue Spargo, so I am now able to post a picture of my finished quilt. In Full Bloom was Sue Spargo's tenth BOM and this was my second Sue Spargo BOM. Quilt is 36" x 43 1/2".

In Full Bloom label

Serendipity 2 blocks stitched

I finished stitching 2 of the 20 blocks I have planned for my Serendipity quilt. I made quite a few changes from the original pattern. I discovered some super tiny black buttons, so I decided the birds will have button eyes instead of french knots. I used the double cast on stitch for the watermelon seeds and I embellished the tail of the larger bird with some drizzle stitches.

Bali Wedding Star Quilt

February 2011, I traveled to Tucson to take a 3 day Bali Wedding Star class with Judy Niemeyer. The plan was to make a king size 116" by 116" quilt which required about 27 yards of Bali batiks for the top. I got a good start sewing the arcs and melons during the 3 day class. After returning home, I continued to sew arcs and melons but a remodeling of my sewing room forced me to pack up the Bali wedding star quilt. As happens so often when a projected gets packed away, it is hard to get started again which is what happened. Last week, I was looking for a new quilting project and I unpacked the Bali wedding star quilt. Again, as so often happens, I could not remember my organizational construction logic. What to do? Luckily, I found a Judy Niemeyer Club with certified instructor Kelly Grant which meets the first Tuesday of each month at Arizona Quilts.

Today, I attended the Judy Niemeyer Club and Kelly helped me to get sewn arcs and melon reorganized. I think I need 348 arcs and I have 124 arcs sewn so I still have a lot of arcs yet to sew. I did have a few blocks sewn together and some of the blocks I pinned together. This afternoon, I put the completed blocks on my design wall so I could take a picture.

The Girls

The Girls is now quilted, bound and hanging on a wall, it always feels like quite an accomplishment to have another quilt totally finished. I selected the poodle, schnauzer and the golden retriever in honor of the breeds of dogs I have owned from Mixed Mutts, a machine embroidery pattern designed by Angie Stevenson. I refer to Katie and Molly as The Girls, so I decided to title my quilt, The Girls. Machine quilting was done by Jessica Jones Gamez. The quilt is 25 1/2" by 32 1/2".
You can see pictures of Katie and Molly my standard poodles plus pictures of my dearly departed dogs at Waiting at the Bridge.

Serendipity blocks

I started another wool appliqué project. A few weeks ago, I saw Summertime Sampler, a wool appliqué quilt designed by Erica Kaprow. I was drawn by the bright colors and the whimsical nature of the designs. I was able to find other wool appliqué quilts designed by Erica Kaprow but the quilts all had different sized blocks. It was quite a challenge to determine a finished block size for my quilt and pick 20 blocks for my quilt. My blocks will finish to 8 1/4”.

Serendipity means the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.  I decided to name my quilt Serendipity because serendipity describes how I found and decided to stitch this quilt.

I have 2 of the blocks ready to stitch.

Beads of Courage Bags

For the last few days, I have been making Beads of Courage bags. I finished 20 bags and have fabric cut for an additional 30 bags. Beads of Courage was developed by Jean Baruch while working on her PHD in Nursing at the University of Arizona. She piloted the program at Phoenix Children's Hospital in February 2003. Every year, Beads of Courage provides assistance to more than 60,000 sick children coping with serious and life-threatening illnesses, and their families in over 250 children's hospitals throughout the United States, and in six additional countries.

I will be donating all Beads of Courage bag to Phoenix Children's Hospital, in memory of Kendall, a granddaughter of a good friend.

Marcie's Bunny and Birds

I took a break from working on Folk-Tails, Sue Spargo's 2015 BOM, to stitch Bertie's Spring by Bonnie Sullivan. I added some embellishing stitches, notably the buttonhole scallops on the baby chick wings and bullion knots for the bird legs. I decided to eliminated the half square triangle sashing and border on Bonnie's pattern and I was really undecided on borders for the wool appliqué. I thought about designing a wool appliqué border but then I saw some linen fabric I purchased at the 2014 Houston Quilt Festival in my sewing room. There were 7 15" by 15" of beautiful 100% Italian linen. After some careful calculations, I determined I would have enough linen fabric to make a piano key linen border. Linen is more loosely woven than regular quilting cotton and tends to shift and fray easily so I starched each piece of linen with Mary Ellen's Best Press which made cutting the 1 1/2" strips much easier. After machine quilting, I will be giving the quilt to my daughter. The quilt is about 32" by 38".

It's a rabbit!

About 3 weeks ago, Molly was looking out the living room windows and barking. Molly is on alert, it is a cul de sac EMERGENCY! Molly is getting more agitated. I get up to check out this cul de sac emergency. I don't see anyone walking on the sidewalk, I don't see any vehicles, I simply do not see anything which would cause Molly and Katie to be on hyper alert. Molly and Katie continue to look out the living room windows and barking. I go to look out the window again and this time I see the cul de sac emergency. It is a rabbit, a cute little cottontail rabbit.


I live very near the North Mountain Preserve but a rabbit in my cul de sac does not seem possible. The rabbit would have to exit the preserve and then hop about an eighth of a mile down Central Avenue to get to my cul de sac. It appears that the rabbit has taken up residence in my cul de sac which is definitely causing Molly and Katie extreme angst. Yesterday, I was able to get a few pictures of rabbit.

Rhonda

Rhonda, the rhinoceros, is now awaiting machine quilting with Jessica Jones Gamez. Rhonda was designed by Barbara Jones of bjdesigns. I almost had all the necessary fabrics and supplies in my stash, I only had to buy the background fabric. After machine quilted, Rhonda will hang over my daughter's bed. The top is approximately 29" by 42".

Arizona Centennial Kaleidoscope

Arizona Centennial Kaleidoscope quilt is finished including the label and hanging sleeve. The kaleidoscope blocks were constructed using the Stack-n-Whack 45 degree Triangle tool designed by Bethany Reynolds and the Arizona Centennial fabric designed by Jason Yenter of In the Beginning fabric. The quilt is 29" by 41".



I inserted mini piping using a companion Arizona Centennial fabric which I also used for the back of the quilt.


I will be donating this quilt to Quilt for a Cause which auctions and sells handmade quilts and quilt patterns to support breast and gynecological cancer research. Since 2003, Quilt For a Cause has raised over $750,000 and donated 99% of the proceeds to Tucson area organizations in support of research, training and assistance for uninsured and underinsured women.

Strolling at Lake Havasu

In January 2015, I attended Quilting at the Lake, a quilting retreat held in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Linda Hibbert of Silver Linings Originals, designed Strolling at Lake Havasu specifically for this class. Even though I have done a lot of paper piecing, Linda's paper piecing patterns are quite challenging. I enjoyed learning some of Linda's techniques for paper piecing. Jessica Jones Gamez did the gorgeous machine quilting. The top is about 16" by 36".


Close up of some of the machine quilting

Quilts of Valor

Finally finished and delivered. I belong to Carol Doak's on-line Yahoo group, Carol generously designs blocks specifically for the on-line group. In 2007, I started making the free block designs in patriotic fabrics so I could donate a quilt to Quilts of Valor. I made 16 12" blocks, enough for one quilt but not 2. I received 8 more blocks and I was able to make 2 quilts. After the quilts were machine quilted, my sister, Lucie, had a relapse of cancer and after her death, the quilts got put into a drawer and forgotten. A few weeks ago, I discovered the quilts and took the time to bind both quilts. The quilts are 56" by 68". The Bernina Connection, my local quilt store, sponsors sewing days to support the Quilts of Valor project. Today I delivered the 2 quilts to the Bernina Connection so they can finally be sent to the Quilts of Valor Project.

Starburst and Kaleidoscope Quilts

Quilt top was finished in February. Machine quilting was finished March 10th. I finished sewing the binding the end of March. I embroidered the quilt label the beginning of April and today I took a picture of the quilt. 2 years ago, I purchased the Judy Niemeyer Starburst pattern at my guild's yearly tag sale and I actually started piecing the top. At some point, I stopped working on Starburst. In January, Marcie moved into a new home which has lovely blue walls and I became inspired to finish Starburst for Marcie's birthday. The quilt is 94" by 112" and I used Quilter's Dream wool batting.



While I had the quilt stand up in my living room, I took some pictures of large quilts which I had previously finished and check off another item off of my to do list.
I started collecting blue and yellow fabric in March 2007 after seeing Robin Strobel’s quilt Spring Fling in her book, Quilter’s Bounty. The quilt is made with a traditional kaleidoscope block. I drew the kaleidoscope block in Electric Quilt and paper pieced 144 7” blocks. Machine quilted by Jessica Jones Gamez. I finished the quilt in March 2013. Finished quilt is 104” by 104”.

Labels

I discovered a few quilts which did not have labels and decided I could not procrastinate any longer. In 2013, I had 2 linen hand embroidered table cloths machine quilted by Jessica Jones Gamez. I hand embroidered the linen table clothes in the late 1950s and it seemed rather sad to have these vintage tea cloth languishing unused in my linen closet. Fuchsia Cross stitch needed a label and hanging pocket while Purple Daisy only needed a label. It was rather nice to cross a few things off my to do list.






I then decided to hang 2 quilts and a cross stitch picture behind my bed. The cross stitch picture was hand embroidered by my sister, Lucie Protz, circa 1978 when she was living in Lake Jackson Texas.