Thread Tales From A Scrappy Quilter

A dear friend "loaned" me this top to practice on.   Doodling on yards and yards of muslin gets expensive and I'm serious, ANYTHING done on muslin just seems to look gorgeous!    I've had this for a few months now and it finally came up to the top of the stack.   Planning this out, I knew using thread that matched each block would be ideal or a variegated that stood out from each block would have worked too.  This would also mean that I needed to find a backing fabric in my stash that could handle lots of starts and stops plus brown, green and blue thread.  I could not believe I had all 3 colors in So Fine and even had enough backing fabric in a perfect fabric for the back. I love the top and wanted to do something that emphasized the stacked look of the blocks.   Feathers would have looked great but I wanted to do something different.  I found a pattern I thought would work well in Sue Patton's book QUILTING Possibilities...Freehand Filler Patterns.  I copied h

After almost 2 months of nothing on the frame but an 18" piece while waiting on parts/service, the rep was out here Sunday evening and we hopefully have things "squared" up the way they should be.   First on the frame was this little quilt earmarked for donation for local needs like our women's shelter or teens phasing out of foster care.   This was a fast and fun quilt, all freehand.  3 basic leaf shapes were randomly quilted on the brown blocks and the alternate block was quilted with a simple fern type leaf that I love to stitch.  I ended up quilting a basic leaf shape in the rails with little orange peel ovals in the center.    The high/low contrast just did not speak to me and I found nothing in my inspiration photos that used a similar block.  I thought a dart/egg approach would work but discarded the idea because I could work so much faster w/o any template work on this one plus that high/low contrast really would not showcase the effort.  The borders were sti

Now back to a word about me and quilting, so much family stuff going on lately!   Still a big event that Mick needs to write up and post, maybe next week.   Our family stays busy... A few weeks ago, our guild Country Road Quilters hosted one of the most amusing and inspiring quilt teachers that I have seen in a long time.  Mark Sherman visited with us and presented a trunk show on Thursday night and the following day held a workshop demonstrating his methods for machine trapunto - all done with a walking foot on your DSM.   You can see one of his award winning quilts here .  The quilt is huge and the photos do not do it justice!  If you ever have an opportunity to attend a lecture or workshop, do yourself a favor and GO.  It is so refreshing and humorous hearing events from your own quilting life coming from a man that has been a stay at home dad taking care of the kids and juggling a creative outlet while his wife was the major bread winner.  Here are a few pics of my project and of

Quick update from the hotel room.  Just wanted to share some pictures of what we have been doing with the family that could not make the trip.  We currently are staying a few days at Wilderness at the Smokies indoor water park hotel.  Enjoying a suite package deal for all of us to stay together.   Quickly, some pics w/o notes cause we will get on the road soon for some sightseeing.

Mick enjoyed a fun filled educational day with a group last week that organized a snorkeling swim with the manatees!   Mick and Dad headed out to our favorite campground, Manatee Springs state park and from there drove to Crystal River and Homasassas Springs for Mick's field trip.  Brandon and I joined them Friday evening after school for a nice weekend in the woods. Here are a few pics of the highlights! Back to our campsite.