Well, I keep saying to myself that I will update the blog. Then promptly forget! Shame on me! I've done a lot since the last post!

Let's start with a customer quilt. I did Paula's Calypso quilt for her own use. It's her first quilt & did a very good job.  She helped me with adding the quilting designs to the blocks & then I quilted it.

Each of the striped blocks had a different sea shell & the solid blocks we put palm trees into. Came out great.  She's entered it into our guilds quilt show next month. Hope she gets a ribbon!

I also did a custom quilt for some trucker friends of mine. Their daughter just graduated High School & is of Indian decent, so I designed this quilt for her.

I just did a simple stipple to quilt it, as I didn't want to detract from the overall design.

Then, I got Hearts Abloom quilted.  But, I was quilting on black & I had done the design & didn't know how to transfer it over to the quilt.  I found somewhere on the internet to use water soluble Solvy, the heavy kind, to transfer over the design, quilt through it & soak it to remove the Solvy.  To test the theory, I made a vest.

I think it came out just awesome!

Then on to the quilt since the experiment worked!

I still can't believe I made this!! It looks like one of the more experienced quilters out there did it!  Here's some detail of it:

Will have to finish in next post.

Playtime this week! My Pastor & his wife just adopted a little girl from China. They had adopted a little boy from Korea previously. I decided to welcome little Sophia with a quilt. But, I didn't want big brother to feel left out, so I made him one too. Their room is done in Oriental, hence the cranes.  But, couldn't leave Mom & Dad out! So I made them a wallhanging!

Well, I must be on a roll lately with finishing up UFO's! Here's 2 I've finished!
The first is my Grandmother's Flower Garden. I started it in March of 2011. This was my truck quilt that I was working on while being loaded/unloaded & any down time I had. There are 3,979 1" hexagons in this quilt.  29 months later...it's in one piece!

The next one has been a work in progress even longer. I started this one in 2005. I wanted to do a Baltimore Album type quilt, but not like anyone else. So, I designed Blooming Hearts. The inspiration came from a photo of something similar that was awarded a ribbon post houmous. I hand appliqued the entire quilt. In the blank squares & the setting triangles I'm going to quilt feathered hearts. Still unsure about the outer border though!

I've also done a few other things, but will post later. Til then, Happy quilting!

Ok, it's been a month since I've updated the blog. But I've been busy! I got all 7 charity quilts quilted for the guild, but that pile seems to grow instead of shrink! There's 10 more to be quilted! But I did get some quilts pieced in this last month, as well.
Some friends of mine ordered a Queen sized quilt for their daughter's graduation. Since she's a direct descendant of Pocahontas, & they live in South Dakota, I'm thinking Indian. As luck would have it, my BFF, Judy, sent me a panel for Christmas that just fit the bill nicely. Now to make it bigger! I'd already downloaded the free pattern, Daisy in the Cabin, from Pam Bono's site. The eagles in it were perfect for the sides, now for the 4 corners! I decided on the Bear Paw block, but subtle. This is the finished top.

I used the same colors in the eagles for the borders, but thanks to Judy's suggestion, I put a small piping between the borders & the main body of the quilt to make it stand apart. Here's how it looks.

I did get some other things done, but have to take pictures to share later.

Sometimes I do swaps with others here on the internet. I like to send/receive little notions from time to time. This latest was a pincushion couples with a needlecase. We can all use more of these in our quilting lives!  Here's the needlecase

Then there's the pincushion. I've been wanting to do a Cathedral Window quilt for eons, so decided to test the waters with the pincushion. Here's both sides

These are going in the mail today. I sure hope both recipients like them.

I told ya'll I'd be back shortly!  Here's Naomi's Kaleidescope quilt, just off the frame.  Fixing to give it to her today.

Now I can get back to sewing my own for a few days. Naomi has another one for me to do, but isn't quite done putting it together yet.

Well, beat me with the wet noodle! I hadn't realized it's been more than a month since I'd updated the blog! Guess I should update the March list, even tho I posted thruout the month. I did get my list finished, except the curtains...matter of fact, it's still on the list of undone! April saw a bunch of new stuff started. I now have two...yes two! Judy Niemeyer's patterns going together. Everyone (or so it seems) at  the guild is doing Desert Sky. I didn't particularly like that final pattern, but one of the gals was doing it more like a New York Beauty & I really liked it, so am doing something similar. The other one is Bird of Paradise, one of her older patterns. I have everything cut out now & awaiting assembly.  I also got a light bulb moment on a UFO that's about 6 years old. I started a lonestar quilt & had titled it "Texas, America's shining star", but my imagination & talents didn't match for quite awhile, so it got put up. Along came an applique pattern called "Liberty". It is the head of a bald eagle. So, I decided to put it in the lower right corner of the lonestar & put the lonestar in the upper left corner & do something else around the rest of it. I sent this idea to another longarmer. A few weeks later, she emailed me telling of her conversation of me putting the eagle in the middle of the lonestar! OK, lets take a look at it that way. WAY COOL! Now I just had to figure out the rest of it!  Think, think, think......jumped off the internet & saw my screensaver! There it was! The new name for the quilt??  "All gave some....some gave all"  Sorry, no more details, you'll have to wait for the reveal on this one!!
I also saw mechanical problems with Queenie in April. Her stitching got all out of whack & after talking to the tech, we ordered a new "Y" cable to the encoders. Sure enough! I had a broken wire to the forward/backward encoder, causing her to skip stitches & make for some really funky looking stitching! All this on a Queen sized Eleanor Burn's Nite & Day quilt that I wanted to put in the Terrell quilt show!  It took me 4 full days to get the stitching out of that quilt! Now it's back on the UFO pile for now.
At guild, we had decided to do these little thread catchers to go into the goody bags for the TAQG rally in July. We only need 500 of them! So, I headed up the gals to sew them. I did 25 of them & may have to do more to fill in the gap of others not doing theirs. They're quick & easy to make, so not a problem there.
I've finally gotten to get back to Queenie. My good customer, Cheryl, sent me 2 quilts to be done & I just finished them. First is a scrappy from the Quiltingboard mystery series.

The next one is a paper pieced one that she made for her new granddaughter. I had a fun time quilting it! I love it when Cheryl says "do your thing & make it pretty"!

Well, that's the latest from my playroom! Stay tuned for more later as I have another customer quilt going on Queenie tomorrow!