I guess it's time to catch up on the blog.
A very dear friend of ours was diagnosed with stage 4 Breast cancer. What do quilters do? Make them a quilt!

We're meeting for lunch this next week & I'll be giving it to her.  Complete with a bag to carry it in  when she goes for treatments.

I sure hope she likes it, 'cuz I sure do!

Where does the time go?  I've been busy, that's for sure!
Here's a couple of quilts for a customer that I just did.

Just a little freemotion playing!

I liked that one so much that I made one for myself, only smaller.  It's going to be in the quilt show this year.

I named it "Black Tie Affair"

Well, I've been busy these last couple of weeks.  Here's a baby quilt for a customer.

Then, I had been over at Virginia & we were going through some stuff that had come with her longarm (she bought it at an estate sale) & ran across picture from a quilt show in 1997. One quilt really caught my eye. A Bow Tie. In studying it, discovered it was the 10-minute block! So I came home, went through my charms & made this...........

I decided to give this one to our newest Grandson, due in October.

Well, here's some more on the Carpenter Star.....Final will come tomorrow, as it's almost finished!

I know, beat me with a wet noodle, I've been neglecting my blog!  Here's a pic of the girls with Floyd. He'd just gotten home.

Aren't the the most precious little girls??

I've been busy working on a Carpenter Star quilt for our upcoming quilt show in October. It's 84" X 84".
Here's the border & sashing.

More to come!

Well, ya'll know we got the girls just a few weeks ago. They apparently weren't socialized at the breeders & have had a hard time being around people, but we're progressing alright. Housebreaking has been trying, but I think we've finally turned the corner on that one & it's almost done. Still having a little mishap once in awhile, but for the most part, they're there.

Here they are helping Mom in the office. Great help they are, huh?

I did finish the other 2 9-patch tops. I was having so much fun playing with those 2 pieces!

Here's the light one. A little ruler work, a little stencil work. Came out interesting.

I did a little crosshatching on this one. It doesn't show up very well on the dark fabric, but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to do. I like it anyway.

I have Black Tie Affair on Queenie right now. Stay tuned to it's outcome!

Well, I've been a little sidetracked from quilting this past week. We lost our beloved Duke the end of January & have been dogless since then. We knew we'd get another dog, but weren't ready just then. We finally decided the time was right to get another one. We decided to get a Sheltie. I grew up with them & know their traits, etc. Floyd said yes to the breed. Being as we're no longer spring chickens, we grew up with Lassie on TV. All the kids of our era wanted a Lassie. So now we have her! Plus her sister, Lola! They were born January 10th, so they're 5 months old.  Here's a pic of the girls!

Lassie's in the front, Lola in the back.  Aren't they just the cutest??

Well, I finally got around to quilting those 3 9 patch tops! Here's the 1st one done. I had so much fun doing this little red & black one!

On to finishing the other 2!

Whew! A whole month since I've posted! Where does the time fly!
Did Guild, had a super presentation from Brenda Jaske on "How to become a Blue Ribbon Quilter". She always does an awesome presentation.
Right after Guild, my friend, Judy, & I headed out to Irena Bluhm's home in Celine, TX for a one day retreat on the longarm. I actually got to spend a little over a day with Judy & enjoy some quilting together instead of over the phone!  The retreat was terrific! Irena's hospitality was fantastic! We took 2 classes on retreat day. In the morning we did a class on feathers & the afternoon was on background fills.  The day just flew by! We learned a lot & I think we gained a little weight too! Every time we turned around they were offering us food, drinks, whatever we needed.  If you have the chance, take a class from her in her home. It's well worth the time & money!
I have been doing a little quilting. I just did 14 quilts for charity! Yes, that's right....14!  Here they are...

All ready to take to guild & have someone else do the bindings.

Here's the Texas flag section............

Now to trim & bind it & it's done done!

Woohoo! The POW/MIA quilt is finished!  Here's the full quilt...

Here's close ups of the top part of the flag....

and the POW/MIA center....

continued in next post...............

Well, here's a couple of finishes for you.
The first is a collaboration between Virginia & myself for the upcoming TAQC Rally Day Silent Auction. She found this top amongst all the things she acquired with her new longarm. I brought it home & did the quilting on it & she's doing the trimming, binding & hanging sleeve. Hope we gain a few $$ with it.

Then I made this cute little baby quilt for some friends of mine's about to be born grandson. They wanted a monkey, so out came Morty!

Now to finish the POW/MIA quilt for them. Will post soon on that one.

Happy quilting!!

TADA! I can use the Mondo bag! It's finished! Of course, it would have been done sooner had I read the directions right. Had to do a little unsewing! But, it's done & off my UFO list. 

My UFO list that I made at the beginning of the year is dwindling! WOOHOO! It's not even the end of April & I'm 1/2 way finished with it! But, the few that are left are big ones, so they're going to take awhile!

Here's the Mondo Bag:

This must be the week of finishes, 'cuz I feel like I've accomplished a bit.
First, I got this nice wallhanging quilted, binding on & all the hand stitching done.

Then I got this Quilt of Valor quilted & returned to a customer.

Now I have to finally finish that Mondo Bag so I can use it!

Well, after showing ya'll the Carpenter Star, I promised to show the mini version. Here it is! It measures 10" square!!  Hope ya'll like it!

Well, I'm FINALLY done with this quilt! What a pain in the you know what it's been getting it done. The pattern for the blocks came from Missouri Star Quilt Co. Jenny did a tutorial on it not long ago. It's called the disappearing pinwheel #2...churn dash style. The block was pretty easy to construct, but the fabric I was working with was all donated poly/cotton blend, so it stretches a lot. GRRRR! Then I just couldn't bring myself to work on it. I just didn't like it. I finally figured out why, too. It was too dull! Even though it's all blues, it's Civil War blues, which just don't appeal to me. As I said, they are just too dull for my taste, I like vibrant, stand out colors. I made this one for the local Precinct Watch Program to raffle off at the County Fair this week. What a time for Queenie to go down too! I had to go over to Virginia's & "borrow" Miss Mabel to quilt it. Got it home & got the binding all done today. Ready to deliver tomorrow. I hope we raise a lot of money with it.

Well, the house is empty now. Chance is with his mom & Dusti went back to Idaho with her mom & Aunt Denise when they came down to pick up the last of Janel's stuff out of storage. They got into home this morning safely. Now it's my time to spend as much time as I want in my studio doing all things quilt related.

I was over to a friends house the other day & she showed me some pictures that had come with her longarm that she had purchased. The deal she got was unbelievable! Cloth, books, partially done quilts, plus the longarm! Anyway, back to the pictures. We found them in amongst the things & they were of the Tyler quilt show 20 years ago. I found a couple of pictures of a quilt that peaked my curiosity to make & as we dug further, came up with a partially done block. It was the 10-minute block that I just gave the girls to do in February! How ironic to see that the block has been around that long. Anyway, I said I could make that quilt out of my stash. So, I came home & made it!  Here it is....A Black Tie Affair!

And here's a closeup of the center ties. All the ties are black, but the center one has red in it & the surrounding ones are all textured.

This is just the top. Wait til you see it totally finished!

What's more fun than quilting? Nothing, you say? How about a girl's day out going to a quilt show? Yesterday I did just that. There were 4 of us total in our car that went to the Tyler Quilt Show. Had a marvelous time! The theme this year was "Not your Grandmother's Quilt", and needless to say, they sure weren't! Some were simple easy designs, but the quilting! It was over the top!  Here's a couple that really showed that quilting makes the quilt!

I didn't get a close up of the spinning stars, but they did feathers in all the white areas & a simple curves in the pinwheels, then bling them with crystals in the center. Absolutely stunning. Just goes to show you that a simple scrappy quilt can be dressed up with some great quilting!

If you're considering showing your quilt in a show, get with your longarmer & let her play with design to compliment the quilt. Yes, you're going to pay more for the quilting, but so worth it to get that coveted blue ribbon!

I've had a little play time this week. I've been dying to do another Carpenter Star quilt, so during lunch break at guild Monday, I ran over to Sew & Sew & picked up some fat quarters & a little more cloth. Didn't spend a lot, but look what I made out of it!

It turned out 84 1/2" square. But wait til you see it quilted!  I had enough left over to make a mini one! I'll post a picture of it once I get it all together.
Happy quilting!!

Well, Chance has been home on Spring Break this week & so we've been doing a bit of spring cleaning, both in the house & the studio. Sure nice to get everything put back in their proper places!
I did get some sewing done. I got all the blocks for the Rose Log Cabin finished. Here is a picture of the center of the quilt as it's on the design board.

I know, I have to finish the circle quilt! It's in it's final stage now, so should be showing it off soon!

In the process of cleaning up, found the tote with all of hubby's old jeans. So, for 3 days I did nothing but bone them & cut into blocks. Out of 9 pair of jeans, I came up with 179 - 6 1/2" blocks & 18 9" blocks with the pockets! Amazing how much material you can get out of a pair of jeans!

Well, here's the beginnings of a quilt that's going to show. The pattern is Rose Log Cabin by Deloa Jones. She's known more for her longarming techniques rather than pattern design, but I really liked this one & decided to do it for competition, locally.

This is the very center of the quilt. There's 4 blocks in the center, total of 36 in this queen sized quilt. I have all of these done & am working on the 44 green ones that are the alternate block. I'll post more on it as it progresses.

Well, for those that don't know, I was elected as Second VP for our local guild this year. As 2nd VP, my duty is to run the programs for the guild. Our outgoing Program Director & I did a little survey to see what interests were like & try & give the guild programming around that.  One of the things that was of interest was using color on the quilts. i.e. colored pencils, paint, inks. I've been following Irena Bluhm's work for some time & have done a piece or two of her works, so during the time that weather didn't permit me to work in the studio, I did some samples. I was able to quilt them pretty quickly, then brought them into the house to do the colorings. Here's 2 of the samples:

The blue one was done with Inktense pencils. The red one was done with plain colored pencils.

If you've been following my blog, then you know my favorite place on the internet is QuiltingBoard.com. PaintmeJudy periodically does a mystery quilt. Well, we got the final clue yesterday for the current one. It was originally designed to be square (sort of). I decided to make mine oblong, so the final step wasn't fitting to the final outcome.  But, here's mine. All pieced, now in the que for quilting.

This will go on my very large dining room table.

Disregard the circle one, there will be more about that one at a later date.

Well, here's a funny story! See this panel?

It was part of my Christmas present from my friend, Judy. I couldn't find it amongst all the fabric she sent me at Christmas time & she ordered a 2nd one that was sent directly to me. A couple of days ago I was working on the circle quilt behind this panel. First of all, I couldn't find the black fabric. I went searching the studio for it. In my search, I came across the panel. Oh! There it is! I'd forgotten about it. Judy had decided that we would make them into wallhanging for each other & do a Christmas in July exchange. OK, move this further up the "to do" list. I set it aside & continued on my search of my black fabric. I found it & proceeded to work on the circle quilt. I had pulled some fabrics out for the border & started cutting. One of the fabrics was a dark green batik which needed ironing. When I opened it up to iron, what did I find? The original missing panel! Yep, hiding inside another piece of fabric! So, I called Judy to give her a good chuckle. I asked her what I was supposed to do with this 2nd panel. Her immediate response was "Send it to Deb!" Now we're cooking with ideas. What we've come up with is a round robin with the three of us. The first person will design & make the wallhanging for their own sewing area. Add block, borders, whatever. We have 1 month to accomplish this. Then we mail to the next person who will quilt it. (All 3 of us have longarms.) Also have 1 month to accomplish this. Then the 3rd person will embellish it in a months time & send it back to the one who started it to keep.  With 3 very creative minds, it's going to be interesting to see how all three of these come out! Stay tuned for the ongoing saga!

As promised, here is #3 of the nine patch quilts:

Here's the "bones" for it:

And here's the fill in design:

Stay tuned for the final looks of these 3. I think I'm going to have fun stitching these out!

Here's a couple of Lisa's student works.

I think I'm on the right track with my designs.