And now for 2013

And now for 2013. I never could have imagined a year ago that I would be facing it without Peter. 

The quilt above is for the MQS Charity Quilt booth.  My friend Tricia is in charge and she decided to use this quilt, which is much more ambitious than most of the quilts that are donated, as a raffle quilt.  She asked our longarm group for a volunteer to quilt it and  no one volunteered -  we were all facing a busy holiday season and no one had time.  Plus, Tricia wanted it custom quilted and not everyone does that.  Later, when I heard that the organizations to benefit from the Charity Booth were Harry Hynes Hospice and Victory in the Valley (an organization that supports cancer patients) I knew that I had to quilt it.  Both groups were so wonderful and helpful to Peter and to me.

This is a Thimbleberries pattern and I know I have quilted a couple of these - I wasn't sure how successful custom quilting would be on it since it's pretty busy.  I struggled to come up with ideas for it and ended up doing something kind of whimsical, with words quilted on the blocks: Home Tweet Home, Birds of a Feather Flock Together and so on. 

I quilted it with the new Superior Magnifico thread which I wasn't as thrilled with as I am with their other threads.  It doesn't seem to show up as shiny and impressively as Glide thread but had some of the same problems.  It's also more expensive.  Has anyone else had the same reaction to it?


Today I drove to Manhattan with Tammy and Nancy to have our quilts appraised by AQS Certified Appraiser Carol Elmore.  I forgot to take pictures until the last one, Nancy's wallhanging.

Last weekend I visited Material Girls quilt shop in Wichita to meet my friend Siriporn and here is one of the shop samples she quilted - didn't she do an amazing job on it? 

Here is Cathy working at the shop - I wonder what that customer was saying to give her that expression!

And to finish up - some cat pictures:

Lily helping me read the newspaper.

One of my favorite Christmas gifts from my sister, a wind-up inch worm. 

 

Elsie wasn't so sure about it at first...

 Then it was love.

Night and Day

At last - some customer quilts!  These are for Eddie, who makes huge quilts for her grandchildren.  This one is the Eleanor Burns pattern called Night and Day for a grandson from Texas that wanted a red, white and blue quilt.  Humongous pieced quilts like this are a bit tedious to do but look nice in the end.

A non-huge quilt from Eddie - this one has all the properly trademarked embroidery for KSU in the school colors. 

 

 

 

I mentioned Ollie the cat  a while back, a stray that I was trying to find a home for.  He had so much personality and was neutered and declawed, I just couldn't stand to send him to the Humane Society.  After taking care of him for 3-4 months and getting very attached to him, a friend found someone that was just moving into a new house and wanted a cat to adopt.  Ollie really lucked in to a wonderful home.  They sent me this picture of him relaxing as they unpacked.  Does he look comfortable and happy or what?  I nice ending to that stray cat story.

A little bit of Christmas

Yesterday was my little sewing group's Christmas party.  We brought a gift that we had made and then drew numbers and each picked a gift from the pile of goodies.  The quilt pictured above was not a Christmas gift, but one that I had quilted for Jean several years ago and she wanted to show it to everyone all bound and finished.  She made the cross stitched blocks and I put them together in this quilt for her.  The center is done with shadow trapunto.  It was fun  to see it again and made me wonder why I haven't tried more shadow trapunto!

Here is Jean with the tablerunner that Betty made.  Our meeting was held at Jean's house and you can see that with her red walls it is a great place for a Christmas party!  She had decorated her house beautifully and I'm kicking myself for not taking some pictures.

 

This is Kelly with her placemats made by Evelyn. I remember once making placemats and realizing even though they are small they need a lot of binding!

This is Virginia with her tabletopper made by Kelly.  I should have gotten a close up of it, the fabric had sewing notions on it - very cute.

 

 

 

 

Evelyn received this tabletopper made by Dee.  She lives next door to Dee and had helped her with it!

Jean embroidered this tea towel for Dee...

and gave her this pretty scarf.

Sherry received this quilt from Virginia.  Virginia had us all give her our signatures and she then embroidered a block for each of us and made it into this quilt.  It is made from doubleknit polyester and is very heavy and warm!  Virginia loves to make quilts from doubleknit and has a secret stash of it.

Betty received this wall hanging from Madeline.  Madeline quilted a Christmas panel to make it.

 

 

Madeline ended up with this pincushion which I made.  It's from a pattern called The Warbler by The Blackberry Patch. It's kind of hard to see - it blends into Madeline's sweater!

 

 

 

I was lucky to receive this cool little quilt made by Sherry.

 

 

 

 

 

I love to receive hand made gifts - I wish I would take the time to make more of my own gifts for friends and family.

 

 

 

 

 

Quilting break - it's hat time!

I'm still working on my wholecloth but I did take some time off over Thanksgiving to visit with friends from Colorado Springs.  Sandy wanted to goto Hatman Jack's - it's a great hat shop in Wichita.  If any of you are planning to attend MQS this May, it's walking distance from the show. 

I have pretty much given up wearing hats because women's hat makers think all women have the same itty bitty sized head.  I happen to have a big fat head and the typical women's hat perches on it like a toy hat.  The only hat I could find at Hatman Jack's that fit me was a men's large or extra large!  I wish it was due to lots of brains.


Sandy has the opposite problem - she's a pin head. 

Even women's hats are too big for her - this one comes complete with blond wig.

She tried one of those side-of-the-head pancake things.

Tom's head size seems to be more in the normal range.

Back to quilting!

I can't believe I'm doing this

I'm still slogging along on my wholecloth. Once I had finished about 3/4 of the quilting I took the quilt off my longarm and pinned it to my design wall. I realized one part of the design wasn't working - just too much thread.  It overwhelmed the rest of the quilt.  So I have been picking it out for the last two weeks!  I must be insane. It should all be out by Thanksgiving and I know it will be a better quilt for all this picking. 

I'll eventually post before and after pictures and you can tell me if I did the right thing!

Postcard from Houston

I'm still hard at work on my wholecloth so no photos there yet.  Gail Stepanek attended the show in Houston and I asked her  to send me a picture of our quilt hanging there. I wish I could have been there too!  Maybe next year I will make it to the show.


Here is Gail with Mistaken Identity and an Honorable Mention ribbon! 

About my last post: someone asked what kind of chalk I used - it is just plain old  schoolroom chalk.  I stick with white and have no problems brushing it off with a soft cloth.

A new quilt

I haven't had anything to post for a while because I have been busy working on a large wholecloth of my own.  I won't post pictures of it just yet, but this is some of the thread I'm using.  You can see from this that it's not going to be a traditional whitework quilt!

 

 

Since the quilt I worked on with Gail Stepanek is now in Houston all judged and ready to hang in the show, Gail told me I could go ahead and post pictures.  This is Mistaken Identity and I think it's a beauty!  Gail's workmanship is impeccable and I loved working on it with her. 

When I asked her if she had any suggestions for the quilting she thought a radiating design might be appropriate.  That seemed like a good idea to me so I went with that.

Working on the dark fabric was a challenge and I was very thankful to have my little light from IKEA.  But it was still hard to see when I did the tiny stipple around the feathers.  I ended up drawing over that area with white chalk and I could then see my stitches as I
quilted.

 

 

 

The chalk wipes off easily.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are having beautiful fall weather here in Kansas.  This is a neighborhood cat enjoying the sun in my bag of weeds. He looks very Halloween-y.