Christmas is coming… new toys for all

Let’s start with a new toy for Steve… the children delivered a big shiny red snow blower back in November and it has already been useful. Having never owned or used one before there’s been a steep learning curve but Steve has been doing a great job! He doesn’t actually love it enough to want to do the sidewalk for the block like the reviews said,  but you never know. He is happier since I bought him new gloves and we found him a hat out of the box…

I didn’t need gloves for my new toy. My Bernina 820 is happily ensconsed on Steve’s old desk… That means my studio is spreading… I’ll be taking over the world next. I collected it from Sew Something in South Elgin 2 weeks ago today. So far we are very happy together. I have had one lesson so I do know how to thread it and wind a bobbin. We had a family viewing of the DVD so Joanne knows all the details. We are looking forward to sharing a long and productive life.

Once again the new class list and newsletter is out for Pieceful Heart Fabrics. I was mostly done with my samples, just having to wait for the last couple of patterns to come in before I could finish…

First  a FabricOrigami Ribbon Box. Just right for Valentine’s Day…

And a Patrick Lose Wintry Friends Banner…

The class is in February… There will probably still be snow on the ground…

Now it’s off to buy last minute Christmas presents for the rest of the family…

How to wear out a sewing machine…

I’ve been busy with lots of projects over the last few weeks… and it’s been the Holidays too.

Gina asked me to make a store sample for a new kit they were cutting at Pieceful Heart Fabrics. This one was a lot of fun to do.  It’s a Paris Bottman design for Bigfork Bay Cotton Company called Peace. The eyes were constructed from lots of small pieces but they are really worth the effort it takes to cut them out and fuse them together.

Meanwhile I have also been working on my new class samples. I’m going to be teaching two classes from the new Skinny Quilts and table runners II book. I finished my second one, Seasons of the Moon by Lonni Rossi.  Here it is in situ on the dining room table. The arcs are fused and satin stitched. It’s difficult to take a good picture of a skinny quilt but I like the salmon pink and green combo!

I really enjoyed Pamela Mostek’s book, Dazzling Quilts so I was pleased to find her new Blended Borders book from That Patchwork Place on the shelf at PHF. Dottie chose me a stunning new line of fabric to work with and I set to work on a little quilt inspired by Pamela’s Simply Sensational design.

It’s basically a simple square in a square design, but then cut out motifs from the border fabric are added as raw edge applique and quilted down. All went well until I started the quilting. As I wound some new bobbins  my machine seemed to be slowing down. I kept going at the slower speed, after all nothing was going to stop me… however my machine had other ideas and just stopped! In all its 12 years my trusty Bernina 160 had never failed me before, other than the time I knocked the timing out by sewing over a safety pin, but nothing I could do helped.

It was hard to wait until 10am the next morning but what else was I going to do? So at 10 I called my favorite Bernina store, Sew Something in South Elgin and arranged to take it straight in. I went to the local Panera to wait and after 4 hours the diagnosis was made. The main shaft was worn out. The machine was working again but basically near the end of its life… What is a girl to do when her sewing machine is facing a death sentence? Why, start looking for a new one of course. To cut a long (long) story short I will be going to collect my new Bernina 820 on Friday… I am going to be trading in my old machine and I think I will miss it…. but not for long!!

Anyway, it has held it together to finish the blended border sample and also to construct and finish a new coffee quilt for breakfast in the morning…

I got a charm pack and some co-ordinating 1/2 yards from the Judy’s Quilt and Sew booth at the recent Quilt and Sewing expo in Schaumberg. I hope the ladies like it tomorrow. I’m planning some tasty dishes to go along with it.

Other stuff of note:

1. I have a second quilt for sale in the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative this month. Unravelling 2 is in the auction until 10PM EDT on December 10th, so not long to go. You can find it at

http://www.alzquilts.org/quiltauction.html

It was up to $65 last time I looked. I’m hoping someone will like it enough to bid a bit more, it’s a great cause.

2. Happy Birthday on the 11th to my Dad! I will celebrate by going to the gym.

Good times!

Kathy and I had a fun time on the road visiting our boys last week. Here I am with Jonathan in the Opryland hotel.

I’m not sure whether this was before or after the boat ride… Please note the Christmas decorations. I guess they mean I should be starting my Christmas shopping sometime soon. It’s months since I made the  Christmas place mats but November seems to be slipping away.

There were lots of pretty flowers demanding to be noticed and photographed. Here is a camellia that stood still for me…

It smiled very sweetly and didn’t worry about how its chins would look at all…

 

So when it came to select a picture for our Altered Photo Artistry class with Beth Wheeler and Lori Marquette at the guild this week it was an easy choice. The Two Sipsters gave a very informative lecture at our meeting on Tuesday and then we had a fun filled day of creativity on Wednesday.

Here are Beth (seated) and Lori signing books.

We each supplied a picture which got altered using Adobe Photoshop and then printed out onto four fabric sheets. We pieced those together before layering and quilting to our hearts content. I was able to finish mine at home  yesterday and then added a few beads for sparkle…

Not too shabby?

 

I’m back to my Skinny Quilts and Table Runners II book today… More good times ahead!

 

Where does the time go?

It’s Bonfire Night tomorrow… at least back in the UK it is. We don’t celebrate such things here, perhaps we should… but we just finished the Halloween candy so maybe it’s not really necessary?

I made, as in pieced, quilted and bound, two quilts in the last week. Not big quilts but finished items never the less…

I bought Kaffe Fassett’s Quilt Romance as soon as it came in to the store and knew I needed to make Brandon Mably’s Two Up Two Down Quilt… It was a great opportunity to use some of my Westminster Fabric prints I have been saving over the past few years. I limited myself to just buying the sashing and binding fabrics. We didn’t have the cloud fabric that is shown in the book for the sashing so I chose something in a similar color palette. Now the houses are in a forest instead of up in the sky.

Once again I’m missing an assistant for a full quilt viewing but you can get the idea. I used a wool batt and quilted an all over grid design to help hold the fused windows and doors. I think it gives a nice “shabby chic” effect. My apologies to Brandon if that doesn’t appeal!!

Less shabby and more glamorous is the flowing LINES table runner designed by Elizabeth Rosenberg for Eleanor Levie’s Skinny Quilts and Table Runners II book. I bought some more silk dupioni and made this one yesterday.

and closer up…

I used YLI silk threads for the quilting. Gotta love that curved piecing!

 

It seems like I have been neglecting my sewing machine recently. We did go on a trip down south…

New Orleans was fun!!

 

…and I have taught a few classes, including FabricOrigami Stars. We had a full class of fun loving ladies that day! They all worked hard and went home with lots of finished stars…

 

No doubt it will soon be time to be thinking of classes for the next quarter… At least I’ve got a few ideas ready to go.

Finishing things

Last week was a time of finishing things… I had two quilts pin basted at the beginning of the week and now I have two finished quilts, bound and everything!!

First we have a Japanese Jigsaw quilt started after the Long Beach IQA July 2008. I bought the pattern, template and fabrics from Tracy Brookshier and soon got the top made, but as we all know it’s not a quilt until its quilted. Well now it’s a quilt,

I used Quilters Dream 100% Cotton Select batting so it should wear well if it happens to go somewhere it will need washing.

I made the next top several years ago from the book Super Simple Triangles from Possibilities which is now out of print. We called it Chocolate Covered Cherries at Pieceful Heart but that was not the name in the book.

I used a piece of super soft  Valorie Wells designed flannel which I bought in Las Vegas on the way through this summer. I have discovered in the past that putting flannel on the back of a quilt can make it very heavy so I used a wool batting in this one. I have already washed it (on the cold water regular cycle), and dried it in the drier (on delicates). It held up well, so hopefully it has a happy life ahead of it.

If one bag is good then two bags have got to be better. I made my second Maple Island Grommet Bag. I had the pink fabrics in my stash and used the fuschia grommets I got from Tammy Tadd’s.

I have a white, yellow, green (gender neutral) top awaiting my attentions next…

It stopped raining yesterday long enough to go for a walk in the woods at the Arboretum. There weren’t a lot of people where we were but we did connect with the wildlife. We saw a small snake… Steve was scared it would bite but we took some photos without incident.

It was a skinny little thing, about 10″ long. It looks a lot bigger in the picture!

Bag with grommets

Amongst my purchases at Tammy Tadd’s last week was the Wallet and Grommet Bag pattern from Maple Island Quilts. I’ve been waiting for the right time to try it out and today the stars were aligned…

I bought a couple of pieces of the latest Paula Nadelstern for Benartex fabrics at PHF on Saturday and some big grommets so I had everything I needed. It was a quick fun project and before long I had my bag…

The grommets were easy to apply and went over the two layers of fabric and fusible fleece no problem. I have my fabrics ready for a second one. It’ll be pink – what else?

It’s a Wrap

There was a full house on Saturday at PHF for the It’s a Wrap class. We used Susan Breier’s book to guide us as we wrapped, coiled and built our pots.

People wrapped in different ways. Some stood up,

others wrapped sitting down.

Some people made small pots,

others had bigger plans.

But whatever way people worked, their pots grew,

and grew…

and after 5 hours of concentrated effort there was a whole collection of pots ready to go home.

Some needed a little bit more work to finish them off but once again a good time was had by all!

Over the hills and far away

After a fun filled two weeks my parents left for home last Wednesday so who wants to stay in and wash sheets? Well not me, so I joined the Material Girls Bee for a field trip to Tammy Tadd’s in Sycamore. Loraine drove us all and before we’d even had time to ask “are we there yet?” there we were!

There was a welcome notice awaiting us in the front window so we knew we were in the right place.

So in we went…

We needed a team photo.

The team colors were rather fetching (my favorite). We had all read the e-mail….

There was lots to see and some difficult decisions to make but everyone played well and got back in the van happy. Then we payed a quick visit to the friendly folks at Paper Pieces before heading into town for refreshment at Nat’s on Maple.

it was a fun day out and the sheets were quite happy to wait until I got back…

Fun and Games at Riverwalk Quilters Guild

We had a fun time “meeting the board” last Tuesday at RWQG. Seventeen board members took part sharing some personal details and lots of quilts. We had 26 door prizes so everyone stayed awake…

Here is a summary of the personal details as revealed in the program,

The average board member (is there such a thing?) has been a member of the guild for 7½ years and is serving their 4^th year on the board (It must be fun!). Board members have 54 children and 58 grandchildren, with several more on the way. They have 18 cats, 10 dogs, 12 birds, 2 bunnies, lots of fish and a horse between them. One board member owns 11 sewing machines. The ladies own a total of 63 machines at present. Bernina was named most often as the favorite brand, followed by Janome and Viking. Brother and Pfaff were also mentioned.

Pieceful Heart Fabrics was the clear favorite amongst local independent quilt stores. Stitches and Stuffing, Thimbles, Tammy Tadd and QuiltFabric.com were also named. The board members owned up to having 5000 yards of fabric in their stashes but several ignored the question and several just lied… It’s probably at least double that amount. The AQS show in Paducah tied with the IQA show at Rosemont as favorite quilt show.

An equal number of board members create in a studio or a sewing room. One designated her space a “sweatshop”. Others sew in the dining room, living room, basement or even outside on the deck.  Local teacher Connie Pomering was mentioned most often as favorite instructor, followed by Sharon Schamber. Also mentioned were Tricia Spitzmueller, Jane Sassaman, Caryl Bryer Fallert, Mary Ellen Hopkins, Karen MacTavish and Marti Mitchell.

The only real problem was a time management issue. I discovered you cannot possibly interview that number of Naperville quilters in 1 hour. Even with some gentle pressure to keep the stories short and sweet the program took around an hour and three quarters. That meant there was no time for show and tell. It’s the Small Quilt Auction next month so we will be waiting until November to see what people have been creating recently…

Artist(s) at work

A fearless group of young quilters and their adults were to be found hard at work in the class room at Pieceful Heart Fabrics on Sunday afternoon making door signs. From “Queen Jane” to “Keep Out” they were all totally adorable as you can see…

There was a great deal of color theory conversation in the room as the backgrounds were assembled, followed by some fabulous quilting and a final flourish of creative couching. The time passed very quickly but everyone went home finished. No homework for this class!

Tomorrow at Riverwalk Quilters we are having a “Meet the Board” presentation. I have been hard at work getting what I think will be an entertaining evening organized. As part of the fun we will having a Power Point show of board members studios. I cleared mine up especially…

It would be a different story if I pointed the camera in the opposite direction but I will be working on it soon.

It’s Labor Day today so we needed a trip out and where better to go than Morton Arboretum ? The sun was shining and there were photo opportunities whichever way you looked.

Back to work tomorrow?