Thread Tales From A Scrappy Quilter

I have had a blast this week with a dear "quilty" friend from Iowa.  She found a super low price on airfare with Allegiant Air - Yeah Allegiant!  We've held our own little shop hop checking out the quilt shops in our immediate area, sampling some tasty food, enjoying the evening air by the pool and holding our own little mad dash sew-in trying to get a project completed while we were together.  We also scheduled some time for a little pampering at my favoriate spa, "Face The Day" and we spent one entire day at a quilt show in Jacksonville.  Beautiful quilts on display.  Vendors with oodles of things to tempt us.  Both of us did show great restraint on our purchases but my mind is still racing thinking about a few things that I really should have bought....  We got the cutest little quilty charms that slide onto a bracket that attaches to the back of any pin (The Pin Peddler was the name I believe), some beautiful batiks, patter...

Packages have been received and I can now show you another project I worked on.  Quilted Notebook Covers! The brown and green one was made first and is mine.  I just quilted in a grid but the floral one was free motion quilted around some of the flower motifs and I really like the way it turned out.  Inside on the left you have space for pens, on the right (you can see detail better in the lighter green one and gee that reminds me of the post below with my dark purple!) you have slots for business or appt. cards and then above that is a little deeper slot to tuck notes or paperwork. I really like this pattern and now want to modify this or make some little "clutch" style bags similar to this.  I love touching the quilted fabric so this is just a perfect extension to quilting for me and to get my hands on quilts even more through out the day LOL! I was making my cover when it was announced on the online group we were hosting a "Back to School" exchange. ...

We were given an optional project to stitch out a meandering feather over fleece to make a lap quilt/throw.   The fleece is supposed to be forgiving, letting any messy stitches melt away leaving just the dimension to hightlight your quilting design.    I loved the teachers example and could not wait to get started on mine.  The plan was if this one worked out well, it was going to be a gift for DGD#1 and then I would make a 2nd in a different color for DGD#2.    I purchased a wonderful deep, dark purple called Blackberry.   Hubby planned on taking the kids off for a fossil dig and leaving me with an afternoon free to quilt.   They were out the door @ 11:30 and my fleece was already loaded on the frame the day before.  I was ready to QUILT! Gosh did I find out I was NOT ready.   I found this fantastic thread that was a perfect match, thinner weight which is what you want on a regular quilt for doing things ...

I've run out of practice space!    I am taking an online class  with Suzanne Early on MQResource.   The class started 3 weeks ago and I have been drawing, drawing and drawing but this week was the first chance I had to load some muslin and start stitching those feathers.  Whoa, that's another beast.  Just when I thought I was making progress with my drawings, now stitching and they are a mess.  Missed backtracks, touch and goes, potato chips, hot dogs, hanging bananas and most likely a few that have never even been named.   But by the end of my small section of muslin, I felt I had made progress.  Suzanne reminds us that she has had years to perfect her work and we should not expect to be perfect in just  a few weeks.    We have 100+ in the class, some are 2nd time around and believe me those people that are posting their work from that 2nd time group are getting it.  If they needed 2 X's and ...

I did it!   I got this one finished.   A long time as a UFO (unfinished object), then last spring/summer I finally brought this one back to the top of the stack and determined how I wanted to set these rows and completed it.  Then the deployment to Hawaii and everything boxed back up again.    This is the 1st top that I have quilted on my new longarm that deals with blockwork, designs to complement the actual blocks as opposed to an allover design.  Lots of wiggles, wobbles and wild backtracks in my freehand work but a great learning experience and this top is DONE. More about the Row Robin.  This was done with an online quilt group  back in 2004/2005.  5 of us in a group and several groups were formed.   We each chose a theme/color scheme for our projects and had about 6 weeks to work on  a row for that person and then the project moved to the next person on the list with a new project coming to us. ...