Her First Quilt!!!!!

This is my 11 year old granddaughter Alexis and the first quilt she has ever made! She is giving it to a teacher who had a baby right before the holidays and will present it on Monday. I am so proud of her and the job she did (with a little help from Nana).

A very amazing and humble man

While at the Houston Quilt Show I spent a little time with a most amazing man. His name is Ricky Tims. I am sure most of you have heard of him. I saw him on Simply Quilts a few years ago and loved his easy going ways, both in attitude and quilting. He freed me up to know that it was ok to not always use a ruler. Amazingly freeing. But I digress. See what I found out after spending some time with him in Houston is how amazingly humble he is. And what an amazing musician he is. And how wonderful his hand dyed fabrics are when you see them in person. But as each new person came to the booth ( I helped cover his booth for short periods of time and also worked the cd table at his concert), I saw just how truly humble he is. That endeared me to him forever.

Now I would ask you to do something for me. Listen to the song (it is the title of the new cd) below. If you think it is as amazing as I do, then go to the website and order a copy for yourself and one or more for presents. Also check out the picture of me with Ricky. He was being silly for me and I have to tell you he is so much fun!

Ok I have kept you waiting long enough lol.

 

First the picture.

Now the song.

Dancing Flowers Quilt

I started this and did the top in 2006. Put the top on my (new then) floor hand quilting frame, did about 2-4 inches of quilting and then put the whole thing away till last week. Finished up the top, love the frame, and now it is happy hanging on my wall finally.

Quick Baby Quilt

I decided this past week to make a baby quilt for someone due on October 8th. I know, what was I thinking! But I managed to finish and here it is.

It's official!!

I paid my airfare to houston today!! I am off to the houston quilt show !!!!!

Look out Houston here I come, well in October lol.

David Jonathon is here!

David Jonathon is here! He weighs 9.5 and is 22 inches long!

Here is a picture of the quilt I made him.

One of my daughters is quilting!

While my youngest daughter learned to quilt (and still does a little sometimes) while we were homeschooling, my other two daughters haven't really shown an interest. Well the oldest was living 900 miles away so that may have been part of it lol. Anyway Keri (oldest) has decided to try quilting. And she is loving it!! I am so happy. I want to know that someone in our family will continue to quilt after I am gone. There will be more babies as these grandchildren get older and they will need quilts!

Anyway here is a picture of one of the blocks she has machine appliqued. She is having a long time friend come in from out of town this weekend so we will be starting the quilting process next week. I will of course post a picture of the finished project as soon as it is done.

Let's Talk Applique!

As anyone who knows me knows, I adore applique! Especially hand applique! It is the reason I quilt.

Over the many years I have been quilting now (almost 20 wow!), I have tried to learn something new, or at least try a new method (to me anyway lol) every year. Over the many years I have tried many different ways to applique, both hand and machine. And I have incorporated a little from each method, well most methods into the way I applique now.

Recently an online friend (thanks Retta!) sent me some fabric and a little book by Ami Simms called Invisible Applique. I had never tried her method, and of course decided I had to try it lol. While her method of using the ladder stitch is not for me, I did learn (why I didn't think about it before is beyond me lol) a new way to make sure that intricate blocks like the Baltimore Blue and Christmas Windows blocks are stitched down right where the pieces need to go. I had made clear overlays and was doing it that way, but if you are familiar with the method, pieces can shift when you remove the overlay. So what I am doing now and it works wonderfully for me, is to use a blue water soluble marking pen, (be sure you read and see if you can iron over the markings, on some of the old kind you couldn't but the one I recently purchased there are no heat warnings) mark the entire block on the background fabric and then worry about one piece at a time. I like to iron the block multiple times before it is finished so that the pieces lay down flat as I add the next pieces. This pen has completely washed out with just a small paint brush and some room temperature water. And I have ironed the completed block and it has been over a week and the lines haven't reappeared on the back or front where I was "off" just a tad in some places.

On the Baltimore Blue block some pieces fit on top of others so I will use a marker to mark the underneath piece and sew that on (which I normally do anyway) then fit the bottom piece into the drawn background.

Clear as mud? Feel free to ask any questions this post raises for you lol.

I am sad

I was prepping templates and fabric for the rest of the Baltimore Blue blocks cause I had a dream a few nights ago that I didn't have enough fabric. Well the dream was right. I went to buy more fabric this morning and guess what? They don't have it anymore ! So since it is the greens, I bought what hopefully is enough to do the whole quilt, and I will remove the pieces on the first three blocks that are finished and put the new greens on. They are in the dryer right now. So I am off to remove the other pieces. Sigh. Such is the life of a quilter.

Another new project

Well as of right this moment I have 4 quilts going and 2 knitting projects. I know I am a glutton for punishment. But by having so many different things going I don't get bored. Right now I am hand appliquing three projects.

The baltimore blue
The hawaiian
and a block of the month from my local quilt shop called Christmas Windows

And I am machine appliquing a pattern called A Summer Garden

If Kaci comes by today I will have her take pictures for me of the completed Summer Garden blocks for you to see. And once the first block of Christmas Windows is completed (either today or tomorrow) I will post a picture of that for you also.

Happy quilting!

P.S. If you have a quilting blog or webshots, leave me the address I would love to see them.

Be Warm Wallhanging

This is my latest completed project. I hope to make a lot of small wallhangings like this in the next few months and swap them out.