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.

Well, I promised more of those 9 patch quilts. Here's #2.

And here's the bones...

And here's some of the detail....

Of course, this isn't the final product, stay tuned for what it ends up looking like!

And here's the additional designs for it:

I'll have to post the other 2 in individual post. It seems I can't add them all at once.

What's kind of funny about all this is that Lisa Calle just did a teaching engagement in NJ & she posted some of her students works on Facebook.  Guess what the quilt top looked like? Yep, the same as mine!  Here's one of her student's works:

It looks like I took the class! But, I did mine a couple of weeks ago!  I'll post another one tomorrow,

Well, it's been awhile since I updated the blog, but due to bad weather keeping me out of the studio, there really wasn't a lot to post! Now that the weather has improved, I can get back to doing something!

While being out of the studio, I did some quilting related stuff. Like design the quilting on 3 mini quilts. They're @ 24" square & all made out of left overs from other quilts. Hurray for me! Here's one of them.

And here's the "bones" of the quilting.

Well, we're off & running with the new year. I've been pretty good at keeping up with what I had planned for the daily trip to the studio, except the weather has gotten in the way! The cold, coupled with the wind, has prevented me from being in the studio for any length of time due to the fact the wind has forced cold air up under the studio & my feet have gotten way too cold!  But, I've been getting things done!  I've been working on those leader/ender scrap quilts & have made a nice dent in 2 of the projects. I'll post some pictures when they get to the finished stage.
I have a sad note to add today. Yesterday we lost our beloved Duke. Poor little guy was almost 16 years old, blind & has been going down hill the last couple of months. He really took a nose dive night before last with a seizure. He came out of it scared & crying most of the night. Yesterday morning he went into another seizure & it just kept on. I hurriedly got dressed & got him to the Vet just as they opened up for the day. There was no alternative but to have him put to sleep. It was a pretty tough day yesterday. He's been my constant companion 24/7 for the last 7 or 8 years. What's funny is that he was my hubby's dog, but he chose to be with me in the truck the last years I was driving & retired when I did almost 2 years ago.  Now he's in doggy heaven with his sister, Candy, that we lost just over 3 years ago. I sure do miss him & her, but we still have the purr girls to keep us in fur!

Rest in peace buddy! Mommy & Daddy miss you!

Treadle machines

The other day when I dropped off those first quilts of the new year, my customer & I were discussing treadle sewing machines.  My BFF just acquired 2 of them & I was interested in one. Come to find out, she has 3 of them!  I took the serial numbers off of two of them & inquired to Singer about them. One came back as having been manufactured July 22, 1014 in Elizabeth, NJ. It's just about to have it's 100 birthday! And, better yet, it works beautifully!  My customer is in her mid 70's & is looking to get rid of some of her stuff that's taking up space...including these machines! I may be getting a treadle here soon. Don't really know where I'm going to put it, but I'm not going to let it sit & just be a piece of furniture, I want to use it!
Question...do any of you have treadle machines that you use??

Well, we're off to a good start this year! Two customer quilts done!

The first one is a bargello, the second is a One Block Wonder. Just some simple quilting made these two stand out nicely.

Well Happy New Year! I hope everyone enjoyed their ringing in the new year last night with their favorite person! I was asleep at the stroke of midnight & hubby is in Oklahoma delivering! Nothing new for us, I think we can count on one hand the amount of times we've been together on new years. That's trucking life for ya!
Today is Wednesday, which means it's Queenie's day. Good thing too, I have 2 customer quilts to get on & off her pretty quickly. Both are lap size, so won't take that long. Naomi knows I turn her quilts around pretty quick & these will be no exception!
Tomorrow is Trim Thursday. However I don't have anything to trim! But I do have a couple that need binding, so those will be done on Friday.  Guess tomorrow will be a scrappy day or a Queenie day, or both!
I'm also having a friend over today. Diana used to own her own quilt shop here locally, but closed it several years ago. Then she had a baby, who's now old enough for school, so she's getting back into quilting. It'll be fun to have someone to play with for a few hours!
Everyone take care, relax & enjoy your day! I know I will!!