Finally – Something Interesting!

Every year, for the past 5 or 6 years, I have attended a quilting seminar hosted by the Amherst Quilters Guild in Amherst, NY.  They bring in nationally known teachers for a 4 day seminar of full day classes.

This year, the teachers were Debbie Caffrey and Sue Nickels.  Since I’d taken classes from Sue before, I took 2 of Debbie’s classes this year and I wasn’t disappointed.  That lady has so much knowledge and information and she is so willing to share.

The first class was her Power Cutting class and I learned a whole new way to cut so that you are moving your ruler, and not your fabric.  It makes a huge difference when you are cutting strips and eliminates the need to constantly be squaring up your fabric.

We learned how to make half square and quarter square triangles using the Omnigrid 98L and 96L rulers and the techniques she taught have convinced me I’ll never use Thangles again!

I also learned that it was Debbie that convinced Moda to sell 2 1/2” strips of fabric, now known as Jelly Rolls and also the 10” square Layer Cakes.  She was also quick to point out, though, that all the other weird shapes they are selling had nothing to do with her!

She explained that Moda’s strips are the most accurate as they are cut where they are manufactured, whereas all the other strips are cut after the manufacturing process.  This would explain why I’ve heard so many complaints about Bali Pops being so irregular.

Debbie’s quilts are not what I would call showstoppers, but she is more interested in teaching techniques so you can go and make your own showstopper.  I love the border treatment on this quilt and look how easy it is!

She used sashing in this quilt, not only to add interest, but so she didn’t have to worry about matching seams and adding bulk. 

On Wednesday night,  we attended Sue Nickels lecture and trunk show.  I think I’ll just let you drool over the eye candy!

 

Look at the unique border treatment on this one!

The pictures of this next one really don’t do it justice.  It’s called Tea at Tenby and the machine quilting (all on a domestic machine) is just unbelievable.

And another unique border treatment.

Sue is a wonderful, entertaining teacher and we got to hear the story behind The Beatles Quilt and The Space Quilt and saw slides of the various blocks.  Both of these quilts are now in the collection of the Museum of the American Quilters Society in Paducah, Kentucky.

I’ll save the rest of my pictures and tell you all about my other class with Debbie another day.

It’s A Little Chilly Outside

Nothing improves my state of mind more than a little quilting time and I was able to get some of that in this weekend.

I quilted this simple little baby quilt with a panto called Dragonfly Pond and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. 

You can see the pattern better on the back.

I sewed all my leftover strips together for the binding.  I’ve never done that before, but I think it worked.

I saw this quilt on the back cover of a quilting magazine at the beginning of the summer and fell in love with it.  I e-mailed the fabric requirements to Rachel at The Old Country Store and a week later they were in my mail box.  Now usually, I don’t start something I buy right away – it has to age, sometimes forever, but I was anxious to get this one started and I finished it today.

I used a panto called Paisley Playtime on this one as the centre fabric is a paisley (although you certainly couldn’t tell from this picture).

 

Again, the quilting shows up much better on the backing.

We’ve had a gloriously hot summer, but yesterday we had a dramatic drop in temperature.  The jeans and sweatshirt came out today, but I’m not ready to put my sandals away just yet.

Appliquéd Angel Puppy Quilt Top

Thought I’d better pop in here and let you know I’m still alive.  My Mum has been in hospital for the last couple of months so my life seems to be on hold.

Things aren’t going to get any better, so I need to learn to deal with it – enough said.

I did finish the top of my embroidered puppy angel quilt and I’ll share the pictures, since I don’t have anything else to show you.  I don’t think there is much going around in my brain either that you’d want to hear, so it’s going to be lots of pictures for this post.

I like my colour and fabric choices more in some of these than others.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it and I don’t have a clue how I’m going to quilt it, so it will probably have to age for a bit while I ponder that.

It’s August??????

Bon Jovi was absolutely amazing – best concert I’ve ever been to.  Kid Rock opened for him and then Bon Jovi played for 2 1/2 hours straight. We were on our feet from the minute he came on stage until he left.  When Jon smiles, my heart just melts – he’s so damned cute!

I made this quilted panel for my friend Onalee for her birthday.  An unusual gift to give in July, but at least this way she will have it for the Christmas season.  She loves little cartoon mice so when I saw this, it had her name written all over it.

I quilted it with metallic thread and I must admit I was nervous as I’ve never used metallics before.  Tilly handled it like a dream and I had absolutely no problems.  Onalee loves a bit of bling, so I embellished it with crystals.

I’ve been working on these appliquéd embroidered blocks.

I have 11 of them done – just one more to go then I think I will alternate them with some 9 patch blocks and make a little quilt out of them.

I don’t know how people have their embroidery machine going on one table and manage to get anything done at another.  These little guys had about 30 thread changes each so they seemed to demand my full attention.

This & That

I’ve been really busy lately, but nothing much blog worthy has been going on.

Sandra and I went to see Miss Saigon on Saturday at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto.  We’ve both seen Miss Saigon before but I’m not sure where my head was the first time I saw it, but I enjoyed it much more this time.  I didn’t remember much about it, except the helicopter, and I also didn’t remember it being so sad.

After the theatre, we went for dinner at Tundra.  Some high end Toronto restaurants participate in what is called Summerlicious where there is a prix fixe menu so us poor folk can enjoy some of the finer dining available.  The food and service was excellent! 

Leo has gone fishing this weekend so Ben, Molly & I have been holding down the fort. 

I got my Birthday Presents top put together and it’s now in the pile to be quilted.

I also got this very old UFO finished and I’ve just embroidered a label for it.

The floral fabric in this is one of the first fabrics I ever bought for my stash.  Contrary to popular belief, it didn’t come from the 70s.

I’m not sure how much quilting is going to be done in the next couple of weeks as I have lots of other fun things planned and I also have a date with Bon Jovi next Tuesday – I can hardly wait!!!!

It Must be Monday

Life threw me another curve ball this week.  My Mum is in hospital with cellulites in both legs and a rash all over her body which they believe is an allergic reaction to a pain patch she was on.  Her legs are so sore and of course the infection has increased her dementia. 

I did take my bag class on Friday anyway, and came home with this:

I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into the fabric I used as I just threw it together late on Thursday night.  I’m really pleased with it though.  It’s fully lined and stands up beautifully on it’s own.

Now I’m working on a quilt called Birthday Presents by Atkinson Designs.  I’m really liking how this is going together.

Pictures are wonderful – I now see that I need to change the first block on the second row – there isn’t enough contrast in the two fabrics.  This isn’t the final layout – I have 42 blocks to make so they are just going on my design wall as I finish them.

A certain little someone had her first birthday on Saturday.  Happy Birthday Molly!

First Day of Summer

It’s a beautiful day here and Ben and I just got back from our daily walk in the park and around the neighbourhood.

Speaking of Ben (nice segway) he was complaining that he hadn’t been in my blog for quite some time, so I need to rectify that.  Here’s my baby.

Now, I can’t put in a picture of one baby without the other, so here’s Molly.

The reason her nose looks so funny is she was sniffing some lillies in a flower arrangement and got the stamen dust all over her nose!  Silly girl!

Not much to show this week in the quilting department.  I did get my McKenna Ryan piece finished and put some crystals on the light bulbs and the bows around their necks.  They don’t show up very well in this picture.  This is another of those pieces that I liked a whole lot more when I bought it than I do now. 

I forgot to tell you the best news of all.  My Mum’s house sold a few weeks ago with a closing at the end of July, so that will be another load off my mind.

Lee & I are taking a class this week to make this bag.  I’m sure we could have figured it out on our own, but the class was only $10 so it should be a fun day out.

Hopefully, I’ll have the finished project to show you by next week.

Busy Times Around Here

I’ve had another productive week on the quilting front.  I made a couple more curved appliqué pieces.

I intend to donated these to our local Humane Society and if they like them, I’ll make some more as I really enjoy doing them.  I have LOTS of dog and cat fabric and this is a cute way of using some of it up.  They are time consuming but what in quilting isn’t!

I’ve also had this small panel in my stash for ages, so thought it might like to see the light of day.

I have no idea how I’m going to quilt this so I’m open to any and all suggestions.

Yesterday we attended the wedding of Kim’s son.  I’ve worked with Kim for the past 15 years and watched her boys grow up.  Here are the proud mother & father of the groom.

Kim’s dress was absolutely stunning and fit her like a glove.  Since everyone loves to look at a bride, here are the happy couple – Jeff & Mary.

Leo & I decided we’d try and take one of those ‘hold out your arm and take a picture’ of the two of us.  Sandra & Darren do it all the time.  Here’s our first try:

So we tried again:

Leo kept telling me it was because I was too short – yea, right – just because there’s almost a foot between us!  So, after about 10 of these attempts, we tried it this way:

Today is my Mum’s 88th birthday and we’re all going to meet at the residence and help her celebrate.  Let’s just hope she knows who we are today.