on WRAL!!

http://www.wral.com/lifestyles/goaskmom/blogpost/9331333/

Check out the link, WRAL's blog about mom's businesses etc. :-)

block swap nine patch

I own a hinterberg frame and voyager long arm machine and I've gotten lots of help from a yahoo group since I got the machine, well a while ago we started a block swap group and have done a few swaps already.

This time we did a simple nine patch, I made mine as part of leaders and enders with other projects, PLUS I cut my squares from left over binding strips, we were supposed to make 30 blocks, 15 of each dark and light X's, well I was on such a roll that my two piles ended up with 85 or more each, so since I was the hostess I figured I'd add more blocks to each person's blocks and send them back with also an EQ printout of this layout, seemed like they really liked it, two people made tops already with the layout, once add a large border around, and now here's mine.

accuquilt blazing star quilt

I finally finished the blazing star quilt too!!

 it's hard to see but I did dense feathers and lots of ruler work, phew that took a long time

This is the quilt that will be featured on the wral blog video :-)- well me quilting it.

 a look of the back

calendar quilt MARCH

I finally finished MARCH wall hanging. Again I did needle turn with all the pieces.

Simple machine quilted large flowers and leaves all over with a blue variegated thread, don't really LOVE the design, but it's okay.

mushkit pillow

 Okay, so I'm taking a chance here, this is actually a birthday gift for my mom at the end of april, I'm hoping she doesn't see the pics, she doesn't read my blog, so..... well she's a big girl, she can act surprised even IF she saw pics...

My mom loves cats and I saw the VEGGIE cat patterns and had her pick her favorite which I then ordered.

it's really a wall hanging but she wanted a pillow sham instead and measured a pillow she had already and it was just a smidge off from the pattern, so after I made this and figured out how to do the back and sewed it all together, I went around and sewed 1/4" or so around the edge all the way around, I think it will look cute with the edge once it has a pillow in it.

here's details of the quilting.

portfolios and owls

I have owls and portfolios coming out of my ears!!

I've had a lot of fun though!

 These two owls are gifts for friends, purple one for tomorrow. I bought a little wooden frame with mini markers in it, they fit perfectly in the mini pocket!

 I changed up the look of the covers this time, the purple is just charm packs, the pink it a solid piece with a flower ironed on- I didn't stitch around it though, but quilted it in a funky way, it's still cute without the flower...

 3 portfolios for PES craft show next month.

The 5 x 7" pads were actually hard to track down, I first saw a 5 pack at target and bought one when I made the portfolios for my kids, then this week I wanted more, drove to target NOT there, drove to walmart another day and NOT THERE either, then last week I went to the pharmacy and guess what!? they have plenty of them and for the same price and the pharmacy is in town, so EASY to get to...

 such a cute little gift for my daugther's friend tomorrow

 These two were given to two special girls this afternoon for their party, they loved them.

All 4 together one last time!

Quilt for CCCC

 I think I've mentioned I got a teaching job at the local college.

CCCC.edu.

anyways, I'm teaching the yellow brick road pattern over 6 weeks.

I bought these fabrics and hurried to finish up a sample for the college to display.

Sure enough too yesterday I got their little booklet in the mail about summer classes and my class is in there!

hope enough people sign up. 

I already have ideas for another class too, a block SAMPLER quilt, and I JUST put fabrics in the wash for a display quilt for that, maybe I'm jumping the gun here, so many quilts so little time...

Matching portfolios to the owls

Two weeks ago we went to VA to pick up a truck for my husband, a few days before I had gotten a fabric order from connectingthreads.com and I also bought a pattern/ kit with these cute little portfolios ( the kit wasn't THESE fabrics) though these are all from Connecting threads also....

Anyways I made two different portfolios for my kids as a surprise for the 6hr car ride. They loved theirs.

Two of their friends have a birthday in about a week,( two girls) and their brother had one in january, he had seen the owls a while ago and told my son he'd love to get one, so I made him one for his birthday, plus a little toy.

So now the girls are having a birthday they HAVE to have some owls too, so I made matching portfolios as well, I think they will love them.

Here they are opened, I had a somewhat hard time finding these little drawing pads they are 5 x 7, walmart doesn't have them but target does, so I got a pack of 5 and I've made 3 portfolios so the other one is in that one ( plus two for my kids)
It's a really cute and pretty easy thing to make and here I following the pattern for 3 FQs and cutting the front into strips, but it also suggests using charms or whatever you want!
My kids school is having a craft show in april, I'm helping plan it, but I'll also have a booth there, I want to have little stuff like this, because I'm sure most don't want to spend $$$ on quilts right now... well I'll bring them still but little stuff like this might sell, how much would you pay for a thing like this? and the owls?
I've sold the owls for 15-20$ I'm thinking about 15$ for the portfolio but I don't know.

Chocolate purse

Time for a new purse!!

I bought this pattern online, can't remember where right now, anyways I went to JoAnn's and saw thise CUTE chocolate fabric and I was SOLD, I matched up 3 more fabrics and a zipper and made this in maybe 3 or 4 hrs...

Nice and study and not too big

with a zipper and pockets! love it!

OWLS tutorial

I'm having a HOOT making these owls!! they are great little birthday gifts....

anyways, I figured I'd post a tutorial on them, they are pretty basic though :-)

If you want more tutorials or step by step pics let me know, I know there are LOTS out there, so I don't want to do it if no-one is interested....

Here it goes.

I got the Fons & Porter Nov/Dec 2010 magazine and inside were these cute WOOL owls, but I don't like wool and don't have any, but have lots of scraps of cotton, so I figured I'd do a fabric version.

On page 84 is the patterns to trace out.



 First I started off with a pack of RICKY TIMS stable stuff, gotta love that STUFF!!

It's a stabilizer that's part paper part glue and fibers, the pack is 8 1/2 x 11 so you can stuff these pages thru the printer too! I didn't do that, I traced all the body parts onto a sheet ( exept the body and bottom- I made paper templates for them)

 Then I cut out the pieces

Now the fun part is selecting the fabrics, I usually start with the body fabric first, then from my charms and other scraps I match up fabrics for body parts.

 I start off laying the pieces on the fabrics stacks and piling them up

Then with a glue stick and the wrong side of fabric side up, I glue the pieces to the fabrics and trim approx 1/4" al the way around

 

After trimming down the pieces I just lay them out to make sure I like what I see, now is the time to change something if you have to.

I then sit and needle turn appliuque all of them- in front of the TV, or watching the kids do karate etc.

 I now pin the backing piece to the front , right sides together and notice the 3" on the left where I double pinned. I don't sew over that part, it's for turning it inside out- not part of the pattern- since the pattern is for wool.

 It's hard to see, but I just sewed 1/4" all the way around back stitched before and after the hole and didn't break the thread, just lifted the feed dog and moved down....

 the hardest part is really the bottom, it's much smaller than the opening, so I pin and pin it all the way around, I marked with a pencil the 1/4 way around on the bottom piece and let the body pleat a little and used my applique pins since they are tiny!

once they are sewn together, I turn them inside out and use this wooden skewer type stick I got to make the ears pointy.

Stuff with fiber fill and add a piece of cardboard. CEREAL box is great to cut up.

Now for the pin cushion I used the template in the magazine for a little pouch and added rice to that for weight, but I don't do that when they are gifts for kids...

Here are 4 owls all ready!!

art studio

Uhh, lots of "wierd" and cool things have been happening.
First I had this interview setup for WRAL ( our local TV station) for a lady from their BLOG dept. come and talk to me about being a mom that works from home etc. about my quilting, though she had to postpone it until next week because she has a sick baby at home :-( but I can wait....

Then this weekend I got a phone call from a local art studio in siler city, NC.
This coming friday march 18th they are starting this artist walk for chatham county and she wants to display some of my quilts for me and possibly sell some for me too. So I've jumped right on that!! I dropped off 10 quilts at the studio earlier today.

I also just finished a quilt top for the class I'll teach at chatham county community college in may, so I have to finish that soon and get it over there to display before signups start hopefully.
I hope this class will be a success, I already have another quilt in mind to teach for another class.
The first "gunie pig" class is teaching VERY basic quilting using the yellow brick road pattern.
For my 2nd class I'm thinking a sampler quilt, teach basic, cutting, triangles, curves, templates, paper piecing, accuquilt Go! etc....
PHEW so many quilts so little time
Oh I also have a few gifts I need to finish soon.

Block swap

In January at my local guild meeting, I won these blocks!! they were a bit tricky to make and I only made mine last minute the night before PHEW~~

Now the "problem" was that everything was at an angle and all the blocks had to be trimmed down.

After that I knew that the yellow strips would NOT match up, so I used EQ6 and designed it again with sashing and this little corner triangle.

I really love how this turned out, I have the blue fabric for a border already cut, I have searched high and low for the yellow golden fabric to make a tiny yellow border first, but couldn't find it, so now I have to decide if I should made a small white border and then the blue or just the blue, the blue on the blocks are all different, mine is a blue on blue fabric..... I don't know. well the meeting is thursday, I want to bring at least the top to show :-)