A new postcard!

The mail man brought me this lovely treat from Vicki today! Thanks Vicki, I love it!! I am really enjoying the postcard swaps!
And my client wanted a sneak peek at the quilt I'm quilting for her elderly mother. I don't normally do this, but the dear lady needle turned all those penguins, so this time I relented. So that means you get a peek too! It really is a cute quilt, and it's fun to do.

Then I spent time taking pictures to send to Jerald at Gammill. My extended base does not fit properly on my new machine...the cutout on the underside is too narrow to fit flush on the machine base. Gammill sent me a new one and that one didn't fit either. So they wanted pictures to see exactly what the issue was. Hopefully, it won't take too long to get resolved as it is sort of frustrating to have the thing flip up on one side when you put pressure on your rulers!

More fun

Today was the monthly get together of the textile arts group I belong to. We experimented today with xpandaprint paint. There was a great article in Quilting Arts Mag issue winter 2006. It is a puff paint, meaning that when heated it "puffs' and expands. I have used Jones Tones puff paint before (and love it!) but this was my first use of this brand. It worked very well. On the positive side, it is immediate gratification..meaning as soon as you spread it on your fabric and embed whatever you want in it , you heat it with your heat gun and puff it. Then you can go on to paint it the color(s) of your choice and do any other embellishment you choose. The Jones Tones paint puffs and expands beautifully but you have to let it dry completely before heating it(8 hours or more). the down side of the xpandprint is that is a little more expensive than the other. But for my use they both work well. Our hostess for today was my friend Susie..left front in the photo. And thanks, to another friend Laurie for the photos! You can see how intently we are applying the xpandaprint to our fabric.
And now I'm heating mine to 'puff' it.
And this is what I finished today. There is still much work to do on this composition before it's ready to quilt, but it's coming along!

And then this afternoon I finished work on my next group of postcards that are about due . The theme for this group is 'Autumnal views'. My background is a piece from my recent 'dye day', as are all the fabrics in this piece with the exception of my 'moon' which I made from angelina fibers. I love doing these postcards...quick and easy and great little miniature art pieces!

And then our weather has been divine the last 2 days...low humidity and temps in the mid- upper 80's . Lots of breeze...so we were able to shut off the air for a couple hours and open up the house! Course, now we're closed again and back on the AC, but that little respite from the heat was heavenly and a sign that in just a few more weeks it'll be temperate and beautiful for the next 5 months! Harry and Chloe took advantage of the lovely weather too!

Well I've had a nice weekend off, so I guess tomorrow it's back to work again! Have a great night!

Wearing it down

Well, vacation is over! Got back to work since returning from the Jax show. Finished 2 customer quilts and am halfway through the 3rd. No pictures yet, the owners won't see them till Friday. So quilt pictures will come later.

In the meantime this is the latest of my youngest granddaughter, Fiona. She will be a year old in November....isn't she a cutie?


October is a busy month for me...lots of quilts waiting to be done. Hopefully I'll even get in a little of my own work!?? We'll see. Have a great week!

Back home

Boy! I should go away more often! I returned last evening from a couple days at Quilt Fest Jacksonville. And I had received not 1 but 2 presents in the mail while I was gone! This postcard from Michelle....she needle felted it. It is so soft and rich! It is loads of fun getting these tiny pieces of art from all of you talented ladies!
And my other package was from my MQR secret sister! Can you believe all these goodies she sent me?!! There was cat fabric,thread,patterns, notecards, an address book and 14- 1/4yd pieces of beautiful hand dyed fabric!! It is all such a treasure....Harry thinks so too...he's guarding it! lol

Jax Quilt fest was fun. They had lots of quilts. And lots of vendors! These hand dyed fat quarters of dupioni silk just wouldn't let me walk by!

And here is just a small sample of where I spent the most money (:-)
If you like quilt show pictures, click here to see some of the photos I took.

I had a very nice couple days at the show, but I'm glad to be home; and now it's back to work! Thanks to Michelle for my lovely needle felted postcard, and to my MQR secret sister for her wonderful gifts. Life is good!

The proof is in the pudding

If you ever wondered if the quilt you made would be appreciated, look no further. I am the chairperson of my guilds' community quilts program and yesterday we delivered quilts to our local Head Start school. This is an annual event for us and one that never ceases to warm the heart. We put the quilts out on a table in each classroom, and each of the children got to choose their own.

These children were so excited and just cuddled those quilts! We distributed 74 quilts this time, and from the look on these faces, I'd have to say that I believe we ARE making a difference; one quilt at a time.

Tomorrow morning, I'm driving up to Jacksonville for Quilt Fest! Of course they are having terrible wind, rains, and flooding there this week :-( It'll probably be a nasty trip up but fun once I get there....maybe it won't be as bad as they're predicting....hate to think of driving 5 hours in the yuck! Oh well..... I'll take lots of photos!

Another finish

I am not nearly as fast as Mary; in fact I am VERY slow as compared to her. But, I finished another customer quilt today. So that means I am on schedule...only 1 more quilt due for September. That one will get done when I return from the Jacksonville show the end of this week.

So, tomorrow we deliver quilts to the head start pre-school, Tuesday I do the grocery shopping and pack, and Wednesday I'm off to Jacksonville. Should be fun! I've been waiting on thread as Superior threads will be at the show, so I can stock up and avoid shipping costs!!

The fruits of my labor

Well here they are! Not my usual palette of brights. I needed some warmer, more subdued colors and some neutrals for a fall theme. I have plenty of bright and hot colors from earlier dye sessions.
I added black to these blues and greens to tone them down a little.

The rest were done layering colors in the dye process. The colors look a little flat and washed out in the photo I think because of the bright glare coming in the window. But they are very rich and warm. I'll have to get another picture in better light.

And here you can see what my "helpers" were up to today! I was ironing all that fabric out and happened to see Harry in the sink as went by. As luck would have it, he stayed in there so I was able to get the camera.

And Chloe was perched in her favorite chair!

The rest of my day was spent sorting community quilts to be donated to the local Head Start school on Monday. The quilts were made by members of my guild. Looks like we will be distributing around 100 quilts!

This quilt I finished yesterday, but could not post till today as my customer just picked it up. She did raw edge applique with different color lame fabrics and then covered them with a layer of shimmering tulle. I stitched the applique down in the quilting process. it gives a very different look...very soft and surreal looking. It really can't be appreciated in the photo..one of those you have to see up close.

I used monopoly for the ditch stitching, outlining around the applique, and in the applique. So Fine for the background fill, and Superior "glitter" for the feathers in the border and the sashing. I had some issues with the metallic thread and the tulle. In fact I frogged the border and redid it. Still not perfect, but better. The tulle keep snagging the metallic thread. I gave her the option of me frogging it again and re-quilting with a regular thread, but she likes the look of the metallic(so do I) and we elected to let it stand. It's really not bad...just not perfect.

My day today...it was my monthly "dye" day. So in the next day or 2 after the "washout" we'll have more hand dyed fabric pictures. This session was mainly devoted to getting "Fall" fabrics. We'll see how it works out!

More postcards!

I have now received 3 postcards! They are all wonderful from incredibly talented artists! This one is from Judy.

This one is from Shirley.And this is from Brigitte.

They are just beautiful and I love them all. It is such fun getting this artwork from others. Now I have to work on a way to display it.

Thank you ladies!

Round & Round

I got out my circle maker to demonstrate its use to a prospective buyer (I'm upgrading to the circle lord). So I pulled out one of the charity tops I had waiting and went round and round! Makes a cute kids quilt. Circles and spirals are quick and easy. Think I'll do a couple more before I put it away....that'll help put a dent in that pile of charity quilts waiting to be done too!

Finally getting some work done

The light wasn't that good so these are not the best pictures. But you can see that I am back to work.


This is a shop sample for the LQS who's owner is a friend of mine and allows me to do what I want. Well this quilt "told" me ruler work is good! So not a mark to do, my trusty ruler and feathers did it all!

I also got 6 charity quilts done since the new machine arrived. I am still waiting for my small spool holder and the proper extended base(I used my old one that doesn't fit this machine properly), but the tension is set now and I've established I can satisfactorily run all my favorite threads, so I'm back to work full steam, and not a minute too soon, as those quilts pile up pretty darn quick!

It's done!

Well Don got the batting roller mounted today, yeah! It turned out to be really simple... just a length of pvc pipe mounted to brackets on the frame. Works great and now everything is back in it's proper place.

I spent the rest of the day quilting charity quilts that had started to stack up. Got 2 done this afternoon thanks to Suzanne Earley's meandering magic. It goes so fast and looks wonderful. My version is actually Jodi Robinson's 'less stress' feathers on Suzanne's meandering framework.

No pictures today..to busy. But the piece I used to get the tension straight shown in last night's post, is now a nap bed for Chloe & Harry. They claimed it the second it came off the frame!

New stuff

Today I found out that this quilt that I did for a customer last year won a red ribbon at the Augusta,ME quilt show this week! That kind of news always makes me happy!

Well, here it is. What a difference a table can make! The only thing is, there is no batting roller! Yikes! What to do with all those rolls of batting?? My guest closet already has 2 rolls in it. The 2 rolls that were under my old table are now standing up against the wall in my guest room. I'm used to storing 2 rolls under the table. Well never fear, Don is going to make me a roller for under the table...just soon as he gets 'round to it'... lol. But never fear, I will P&M so much that I bet he'll do it this weekend!

Don't scrutinize my feathers too much...I was concentrating on tension, not form.

My biggest concern about getting a new machine, was that my old premier stitched PERFECTLY. I mean perfect tension, perfect everything. I could run any kind of thread without issues. Well, I spent the afternoon tweaking the tension on the new machine and playing with different threads and it is fine! Whew...what a relief. And the new machine has some new features that the old one didn't. Not to mention a warranty! And my dealers were great as always. Happy, happy, happy! Very glad I went with the custom table; fits in my studio, and has the extra space I need.

All in all, a very good day!

A change of "plan"

There is a slight change of plan. In an earlier post I had 1 mariners compass block and a "plan" for a quilt. Well the plan changed, as often happens, and I designed a new quilt for this block. Only trouble is, for this design I now need 4 mariners compass blocks. OK, so I SUFFER through paper piecing 3 more of these blocks. And by the way, whoever said paper pieced blocks are perfect?? HELLO....mine sure aren't!! Anyway, I digress. So, now I have 4 mariner's compass blocks and a 'plan'. Well, after all that trouble of piecing those 4 PITA blocks, it surely is a waste to use them all in 1 quilt!

So, now, the new 'plan' is to make a series of 4 quilts...each starring their very own mariner's compass block in some way, shape or form! Brilliant, don't ya think!

Earlier, I was in a discussion about pre-planning vs 'flying by the seat of your pants'. Well the gist was, that I'm a fly by or wing it kinda gal. So the above makes sense to you now, right?

And as to that earlier discussion, my sister Mary made a post and this is for her: I am NOT more creative than you...we just create different things, and they are all art in my view, yours, mine and everyone else's too. And for those of you who haven't seen the wonderful charitable work she does just look here Mary's blog and here Heartstrings project. She does it for the greater good....me, well.............

I do some charity quilting, but it doesn't even begin to compare with what Mary does.

My post cards are done and in the mail. Thanks, Vicki for coordinating this exchange. And the theme was perfect. I used a piece of fabric I hand dyed that looked like 'stormy skies' to me. I made a sheet of Angelina 'fabric' and cut my sun from that. Then I took some embroidered flowers and some yarn and stitch them on. And last, added hot fix crystals to the flower centers, and voila! Postcards are born. And I can't wait for the next one! It is such a neat way to collect art from your friends, old and new.

And thanks to all who commented on my beautiful new stained glass windows thanks...Gina, I'll tell them you're adoptable and a good deal at that!

And first thing tomorrow morning my new machine and table arrives, yippee! then, I guess the foolin' around is over and it's back to work!

Don't know how I ended up with so much empty space at the bottom.??? Oh well. Have a good night all.