Christmas Gift

Every since moving to the country, I have been asking for a goat and a donkey.  My husband says no, no, no.  But I NOW HAVE A GOAT!!!  Granted, he is not real but he is cute, cute, cute.  My nieces, Paula, Pat, Pam, Phyllis and Teresa gave me this goat:

I can't put him outside in the cold so he is right at home in my kitchen. 

Do you ever have a day where you should have stayed in bed????

Wednesday was that kind of day for me.  I am putting together a wallhanging for my grandson's first grade class.  Each student colored a square and all I have to do is put them together.  RIGHT!!!  Their colors are red and blue and had some fabrics.  But then I came up short on the blue for the border, so I'll just make a little evening star block to go in the corners.  But my borders measured 4-1/2" finished.  No problem.  Yeh, right.  To do the star some the measurements were in 1/16ths. So I'll just cut the border down to measure 4" so that will be easy to do.  I get the stars made and the borders sewn on but then I don't have enough of the blue fabric for binding and I don't have enough red fabric for binding so I have to combine the two.  Well, here is the quilt -- all finished:

On this same day, I decided to quilt a little on my quilt.  I quilted a row and felt underneath.  OH NO!!  Tension woes!  It is now like this waiting to be unsewn!

I called Nolting after trying for hours to get it adjusted.   Dan is so patient!  He said it sounded like backlash and to check my backspring.  Well, I have three bobbin cases and only ONE of them has a back spring!!!  Now it is sewing perfectly with that bobbin case.  So I have loaded Debbie's Pie in the Sky quilt and it is ready for me to work on this week.

Life is good when the longarm god is smiling!

Works in Progress & Finished Quilt

My hunter's star is put together.  When sewing the borders on, I found these great little quilter's cloths pins to use instead of pins to pin the borders on. 

They are so tiny but they work great!  Can't even remember where I got them.
Here is the hunter's star while I was working on it:

It is now ready to go on the longarm.
This is my niece's quilt from Edyta Sitar's pattern.  Love it!!

One of my large quilts -- did I say large???? -- 108 x 114 -- is on the longarm now.  These are a couple of pictures so I will remember how I did the center where the egg and darts meet and how I did the corners.  It will be awhile before it is finished.

Have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Few Quilts Finished

My nieces, Paula and Pat, made these cute tulip quilts:

The above is Paula's quilt.
Below is Pat's:

Two crib quilts for Barb:

And Debbie's pillow:

Pretty neat quilts!!!!

Practice Piece to Spruce up my LA room

I had made this dresden plate wall hanging months ago and it was just waiting to be quilted.  I took Kim Brunner's class on Craftsy and decided to practice her dahlia technique.  Here is the finished product hanging in my longarm room:

Close up of dahlia quilting:

And a few more pictures (of course, I added a couple of ghost roosters since I have roosters everywhere)

Sorry the last one is blurry.
Another in the "finished" file!!!

Quilting Gadgets/New Project

My husband tells everyone that I have every gadget that pertains to quilting (and he might be, well, nearly right). I had bought a line of fabric several months ago and wanted to do a carpenter's star with it.  I have been playing with my EQ to design it.  But I am a longarm quilter and really wanted some space to show off my quilting so I deleted the star in the middle so I would have some open space.  And then --- I bought the Accu Go Cutter and the Rose of Sharon die.  So I progressed from the open space to an applique Rose of Sharon block.  These are the EQ designs I came up with (minus the applique):

I have EQ Boutique Rose of Sharon, so I printed off 10 blocks:

Then I used my Go Cutter to cut 9,999 half square triangles -- well, it did seem like 9,999, but there wasn't quite that many.  After these were sewn, I had this pile:

After pressing:

And one sample block:

To make the appliques, I used the Go Cutter again but instead of fabric, I used this product by Ricky Tims:

And a glue stick.  And startch.  And a small paint brush.  And the appliques were ready to be placed on the block.  I used my light box for placement:

So, yes, I do love gadgets!!!  I have got to say the Go! Cutter made the half-squares so easy!!!  There was really only 120 of them.  This is my 2013 projects -- I should say ONE of my 2013 projects.. 

Two Quilts Finished

This is my BOM for the guild completely finished!!

I used Ricky Tim's method of sewing the binding on with the piping.  The binding is wider than I like so make some adjustments the next time, but I really like his method.  He has a great DVD GRAND FINALE which shows his method.  I also used Sue Pelland's method to make the piping.  Check her out at www.suepellanddesigns.com
Our guild did a Christmas tree skirt usingOmnigrid's 9 degree circle ruler.  I didn't want a Christmas tree skirt, so this is my table topper:

This was fun to do using charm packs.



BLOCK NO. 12

TRIPLE STARS

Fabric 1 (gray):  Cut four squares 2-1/2"
                          Cut four squares 3" (to use in bias squares)
                          Cut four rectangles 2-1/2" x 4-1/2"
Fabric 2 (green):  Cut four squares 3" (to use in bias squares)
                           Cut sixteen squares 2-1/2" (to use in flying geese)
                           Cut four squares 1-1/2"
                           Cut four rectangles 1-1/2" x 2-1/2"
Fabric 3 (red)  Cut two squares 3" (to use in bias squares)
                            Cut one square 2-1/2" (center square)
Fabric 4 (gold):  Cut two squares 3" (to use in bias squares)
                            Cut four rectangles 2-1/2" x 4-1/2" (flying geese inner star)
Fabric 5 (white inner star points):  Cut eight squares 1-1/2"

First let's make the bias squares.  Get out all of the 3" squares.  You will make eight bias squares like this:

And four like this:

All of the bias squares should measure 2-1/2" unfinished.
Now we will make the center star block which should measure 4-1/2" unfinished.  Make four flying geese using the connector square method.  You will use the rectangles from Fabric 2 and the squares from Fabric 5.  You will make four of these:

Sew the inner star together to make this:

Now make the remaining flying geese using the connector square method.  You will need four geese using Fabric 2 2-1/2" squares and Fabric 1 rectangles:

Now using Fabric 4 rectangles and Fabric 2 2-1/2" squares (again, you need four of them):

Lay our blocks out and sew together into this:

A few quilts & a tree & a dog

How's that for a title?!??
Here's Barb's halloween quilt.  A few pumpkins, spider webs and sunflowers:

And another of Barb's:

And here is the tree - a beautiful black gum in our backyard:

And our dog, Bruta.  Isn't he a happy mut!!

Have a great day!!