It's been a long break!

I have never taken this long between blog posts before!  I have been busy, not so much with quilting but with taking care of Peter and trying to keep up with everything else.  I have decided to take a break from customer quilting, I have one more quilt that I am committed to do this summer. 

I started this blog to showcase the quilts I quilted for my customers so I'm not sure what I will have to post from now on!  My quilt guild's show was last week and I have lots of pictures to post from there.  Hopefully after that I can find enough quilty news to keep blogging.  I intend to work on my own quilts too.

The quilt at the top of the post belongs to my friend Betty.  She really wanted to finish it in time for our quilt show but had health issues with her husband so got it done shortly before the deadline for judged quilts.  I quilted like a maniac, staying up late at night to finish it for her.  She picked it up Sunday morning and stayed up until 3 am finishing the binding!  I took it in for judging on Monday morning.  It didn't win a ribbon, but it is a pretty quilt!  I like her choice of black rather than red for the embroidery.

This quilt was made by Renee for son's wedding - in Hawaii!  I think the colors are gorgeous and very fitting for a Hawaiian wedding.  This is a huge quilt and it took forever between my shortened quilting schedule, the quilt show and my machine misbehaving.  I didn't finish it in time for the wedding, but they should receive it well before their first anniversary!

Last year at MQS I won an award for my miniature quilt and the award was a $1000 gift certificate for thread from Wonderfil Thread.  I wasn't familiar with their thread, so spent half of it at the show and figured I would order more of what I liked.  Wonderfil is a Canadian company, so I decided to wait and spend the rest this year at MQS to avoid shipping costs.  I wasn't able to attend this year after all, so went ahead and ordered online during the show.  There was no expiration date on the gift certificate, but I figured as long as I used it within a year, all should be well. 

But... it wasn't.  They said the gift certificate had expired and charged my credit card for over $500 in thread!  After three weeks, many emails and phone calls, they agreed to honor the gift certificate.  I really appreciate that decision!  I do love their thread and ordered all kinds of fun stuff, from 100 weight polyester to 12 weight cotton.  Here's a picture of $500 worth of thread!  Thank you Wonderfil.

As I said, I wasn't able to attend MQS this year but did order a CD from Marilyn Karper - her pictures are wonderful!  When I saw the three winners of the Miniature category, my blood pressure rose.  All three were wholecloths!  When the rules came out last fall I noticed that the description of the miniature category had been changed to eliminate wholecloths.  I contacted the person in charge of the judged show and she confirmed that wholecloths were not allowed.  So what happened?  I emailed her and she told me the judges had told her that all the other shows allowed wholecloths so she said it was okay!  I was frankly pissed - I really try to follow the rules carefully and had not entered a wholecloth for that reason. The judges are suppose to follow the rules too!  Grrrrr... I'm still cranky.

I'll be posting pictures from the Common Threads Show over the next few days.