all over long arm quilting feathers on customer's quilt

I just finished quilting a customer's quilt with all over feathers.

This was a kit/pattern called barefoot in the park

you can buy the pattern here

I actually emailed Canton village Quilt works and asked her for a close up picture or a link to the feather design, she sent me a link to a panto design and I just looked at it and made my own FMQ version :-)

here's the feather's close up

now this was a cool quilt, it's reversible! so I tried my best to measure both top and backing and lay the top in the middle so the borders would be pretty close to centered, which is very tricky when you have to mount it on a long arm frame, it may just be an inch off, but that's okay :-)

I also took some video and posted on youtube

since this was FMQ, sometimes I did a loop echo thing around the side of a feather to get to another starting point and then started another feather design, this way it looks more random and doesn't look like a long feather "snake".

I did finish blocks #1 for the bubble gum quilt, still haven't made much more for the craft show though, which I really SHOULD!!

what are you working on?

have you ever tried FMQ feathers?



little bits here and there

Yesterday I chaperoned my son's class to Old Salem NC, it's a cute little town or street where they kept everything like it was in the old days and the employees are all dressed up to match and talk about how people lived back then etc.

You know when I saw this! I had to take a picture :-)

also came home to a package of nice fabrics I ordered the other day.

The floral and white is for the charm quilt I'm planning, using a pattern and charms that I won at the last blog hop, the black dots is for my blue strip blocks, the red, well I am always low on red fabrics and I needed 4$ to get free shipping at fabric.com so I added that for my stash

ALSO I received these two NEW books from cheryl lynch, one is for me and another is to give away- but not yet! so keep your eyes open, in a few weeks I will talk more about this

thursday I worked on the pastel bubblegum quilt, all the pieces for the top are cut out and I am half way done with block #1 (diamond in a square)

I also received a customer's quilt in the mail, have to get started on that soon, my husband would say NOW! so that I can get some money to pay off my fabric purchases :-) isn't that always the case??

here's another update on my 2012 list

#1 welcome to the hive-turned into a pillow DONE!

#2 lotus quilt- DONE!

#3 blue flower table runner- DONE!

#4 pumpkin star pillow- just needs to be stuffed and sewn together

#5 red mini star table topper- top done and ready to quilt DONE!

#6 Bunny table runner- DONE!

#7 Connecting threads KIT fabrics- all blocks are back!

#8 giraffe wall hanging - still working on needleturn applique, mommy giraffe almost done

#9 pineapple black and blue quilt- giving these a break now

#10 Blue star quilt- lots of blocks done

#11 Pine tree BOM- MARCH is done

#12 Next Stitch STAR- top done waiting to be quilted, binding made, backing cut

#13 snowmen table runner- DONE!

#14 Elenar Burns star Go! die- pieces cut for a scrappy look- SCRAPPED! added pieces back on shelf

#15 aqua owl- DONE! and made a pair of hotpads too for a neighbor

# 16 geese in a ring- DONE!

# 17 Bonnie Hunter ORCA mystery - top done- skipping the border

# 18 Little twister blue- SCRAPPED

#19 green, red, yellow flower quilt- top done, just taking forever removing the papers

# 20 small embroidered trees (4 blocks) - DONE!

# 21 spring swap blocks- got plans but no background fabrics ordered yet

# 22Making memories embroidered panel- needs to be made into a cute wall hanging

# 23 black, red white asian quilt- ready to be quilted, found red backing

# 24 color block swap- top is done, done and quilted!

# 25 fall leaf blocks swap- top done

# 26 Baby gingham dog boy quilt- DONE!

#27- a doll apples quilt- DONE!

#28(jan 2012) need to quilt 2 donation quilts- done and mailed off

#29(jan) batik pastel kit won at quilt show - block #1 half way done

#30 (jan) wonky block- mailed off DONE

#31 (feb) jelly roll quilt- DONE!

#32 (feb)5 x 1yards of beige/ black batiks- DONE!

#33 (mar) won 9 march BOM from pine tree guild- make into quilt top

#34 (mar) batik quilt for McCalls - DONE!

#35(mar) another quilt for McCalls- top done, binding and backing ready

#36 (mar) Round Robin swap - May done and ready to mail out

#37(mar) Dr seuss baby shower gift- DONE!-missing label

#38 (april) blue strip pieced blocks - block done and black fabric arrived

#39 (april) won a pattern and two charm bundles- matching fabrics arrived

Of course I really want to work with the new fabrics or work more on the pastel quilt and work on the customer quilt, but I should also be starting some owl pot holders for the craft fair, now a week away!!

getting some owls ready and more snap purses

I've been busy this morning.

 ( my kids have half a day at school, so I may not get much done the rest of the day)

I have 3 owls ready to stuff!

and I made 4 more snap bags.

I do find that the snaps don't close 100%, I guess that's normal!??

they are still useful and cute :-)

Now I have a question for you!

Non-quilting related.

Do any of you have a memory foam mattress that you sleep on? and how do you like it?

we have a regular spring mattress and after reading for a long time now that you should get a new mattress every 7 or 8 yrs and how much body fluids and dead skin gets into the mattress, I'm totally grossed out.... otherwise there's nothing wrong with our mattress, it served us well. it's just OLD!



Butterflies, snap bags and round robin

Yesterday I finished a customer's quilt.

this cute butterfly quilt :-)

My customer mailed me this quilt and it had some cute butterfly fabric, so I HAD to FMQ long arm free form butterflies all over it.

it's easier to see the butterflies on the back, even though I used a light purple thread as well

Now I broke down and bought a metal measuring tape at lowes then looked up a great tutorial here

on making these snap bags, they are fun and a SNAP to make, I'm going to make more for the craft fair on May 5th at PES.

I also received a Round Robin block in the mail yesterday, all the way from france :-)

I can't show much, since it's a secret but I played with EQ7 again and came up with this border and paper pieced it, it didn't take long since it wasn't very big and only one block with 4 sides, so no biggie.

here's another update on my 2012 list

#1 welcome to the hive-turned into a pillow DONE!

#2 lotus quilt- DONE!

#3 blue flower table runner- DONE!

#4 pumpkin star pillow- just needs to be stuffed and sewn together

#5 red mini star table topper- top done and ready to quilt DONE!

#6 Bunny table runner- DONE!

#7 Connecting threads KIT fabrics- all blocks are back!

#8 giraffe wall hanging - still working on needleturn applique, mommy giraffe almost done

#9 pineapple black and blue quilt- giving these a break now

#10 Blue star quilt- lots of blocks done

#11 Pine tree BOM- MARCH is done

#12 Next Stitch STAR- top done waiting to be quilted, binding made, backing cut

#13 snowmen table runner- DONE!

#14 Elenar Burns star Go! die- pieces cut for a scrappy look- SCRAPPED! added pieces back on shelf

#15 aqua owl- DONE! and made a pair of hotpads too for a neighbor

# 16 geese in a ring- DONE!

# 17 Bonnie Hunter ORCA mystery - top done- skipping the border

# 18 Little twister blue- SCRAPPED

#19 green, red, yellow flower quilt- top done, just taking forever removing the papers

# 20 small embroidered trees (4 blocks) - DONE!

# 21 spring swap blocks- got plans but no background fabrics ordered yet

# 22Making memories embroidered panel- needs to be made into a cute wall hanging

# 23 black, red white asian quilt- ready to be quilted, found red backing

# 24 color block swap- top is done, done and quilted!

# 25 fall leaf blocks swap- top done

# 26 Baby gingham dog boy quilt- DONE!

#27- a doll apples quilt- DONE!

#28(jan 2012) need to quilt 2 donation quilts- done and mailed off

#29(jan) batik pastel kit won at quilt show - cut out most pieces for the mail part of the quilt, not enough fabrics! yikes, so have to make it smaller

#30 (jan) wonky block- mailed off DONE

#31 (feb) jelly roll quilt- DONE!

#32 (feb)5 x 1yards of beige/ black batiks- DONE!

#33 (mar) won 9 march BOM from pine tree guild- make into quilt top

#34 (mar) batik quilt for McCalls - DONE!

#35(mar) another quilt for McCalls- top done, binding and backing ready

#36 (mar) Round Robin swap - May done and ready to mail out

#37(mar) Dr seuss baby shower gift- DONE!-missing label

#38 (april) blue strip pieced blocks - block done and black fabric ordered

#39 (april) won a pattern and two charm bundles- ordered white and matching border fabric



Ugh! I've been sick

My Last post mentioned that my son had the stomach bug tuesday with throwing up and "D", well I got it thursday! NO FUN... especially being pregnant.... woke up with it thursday morning at 3am and pretty much puked hourly until 11, then just rested the rest of the day and friday.

thursday I didn't eat anything at all, friday I only ate a little, my stomach is still in knots but I'm 99% better.

One little side note of the joys of being pregnant too, is that if I sneeze or cough I have to cross my legs because otherwise I pee on myself, so it was no fun standing in the middle of the night hurling AND peeing on myself.....glad it's over now. :-)

Okay on to some FUN stuff

During last week I did manage to make 4 portfolios for the craft show coming up

I got the pattern from Connecting threads over a year ago I think and just love these!

Last night we made home made pizza! ( you can tell I'm feeling better)

This is before...

and after, it was yummy!

I also had my husband take a picture of me (with stains and all on my shirt)

yesterday my in-laws also came to visit, they come about once a month and this time only gave me a day notice, so I had to quickly clean all the bathrooms and air out the house, I didn't think I was contageous anymore, but can't have them getting sick

My MIL brought me roses because it was earth day ( have no idea why! she's never done that before, but they are pretty!)



Lotus Quilt is done and more wonky house blocks

I posted on the wonky Bee blog yesterday when I got the last block in the mail (I'm still missing mine)

But they look so cute! ALL of them

Here's one I got the other day.

and one I got yesterday

Aren't they all cute lined up like that?

and one of the ladies sent me these 6 blocks as a bonus, I had thought about using them in the other quilt, but now I think I'll do something different, not sure what.....

AND with my son home sick from school today, we just hung out in bed pretty much all morning and later I watched TV and worked on the last of the binding on the lotus quilt!

The outer border I did an echo around the applique parts, then did a big leaf vine all the way around, from the top applique I worked to the right and down and stopped at the corners and then the opposite on the bottom applique.

the purple border I did a dense mini leaf vine or flame, inspired my Leah Day's flames, but it could look like a fern leaf or some sort of skinny leaf too, so I thought that would fit!

The skinny white border I did my popular bubbles :-)

Now the blocks were hard to quilt, first because I appliqued on the drunkard's path parts so it was VERY bulky on some part and not on others, so the needle had a tendency to jump....

I quilted a curve from corner to corner on the corner blocks and a similar curve right outside the drunkard's path curve, then jumped in and did curves on the center green, I also did curves on the HST on the alternate blocks, then decided to do a straight line on the dark purple, which I DON'T like now, but oh well....I stuck with it and it's okay.....

the back was pieces from two different left over fabrics

now look at this! I got smudges on it, probably from the car ride sunday, uh oh..... so I need to throw this in the wash now, I don't think it's oil, it looked like black dirt.

a few close ups of the quilting on the back.

hard to get the camera to focus on white fabric.

I actually kept the same distance but focuses on the patterned fabric and held down the button on my camera until the green square showed up on the screen that it focused, then moved the camera over to the while part and pressed down the button all the way to take the picture

here's another update on my 2012 list

#1 welcome to the hive-turned into a pillow DONE!

#2 lotus quilt- DONE!

#3 blue flower table runner- DONE!

#4 pumpkin star pillow- just needs to be stuffed and sewn together

#5 red mini star table topper- top done and ready to quilt DONE!

#6 Bunny table runner- DONE!

#7 Connecting threads KIT fabrics- all blocks are back!

#8 giraffe wall hanging - still working on needleturn applique, mommy giraffe almost done

#9 pineapple black and blue quilt- giving these a break now

#10 Blue star quilt- lots of blocks done

#11 Pine tree BOM- MARCH is done

#12 Next Stitch STAR- top done waiting to be quilted, binding made, backing cut

#13 snowmen table runner- DONE!

#14 Elenar Burns star Go! die- pieces cut for a scrappy look- SCRAPPED! added pieces back on shelf

#15 aqua owl- DONE! and made a pair of hotpads too for a neighbor

# 16 geese in a ring- DONE!

# 17 Bonnie Hunter ORCA mystery - top done- skipping the border

# 18 Little twister blue- SCRAPPED

#19 green, red, yellow flower quilt- top done, just taking forever removing the papers

# 20 small embroidered trees (4 blocks) - DONE!

# 21 spring swap blocks- got plans but no background fabrics ordered yet

# 22Making memories embroidered panel- needs to be made into a cute wall hanging

# 23 black, red white asian quilt- ready to be quilted, found red backing

# 24 color block swap- top is done, done and quilted!

# 25 fall leaf blocks swap- top done

# 26 Baby gingham dog boy quilt- DONE!

#27- a doll apples quilt- DONE!

#28(jan 2012) need to quilt 2 donation quilts- done and mailed off

#29(jan) batik pastel kit won at quilt show

#30 (jan) wonky block- mailed off DONE

#31 (feb) jelly roll quilt- DONE!

#32 (feb)5 x 1yards of beige/ black batiks- DONE!

#33 (mar) won 9 march BOM from pine tree guild- make into quilt top

#34 (mar) batik quilt for McCalls - DONE!

#35(mar) another quilt for McCalls- top done, binding and backing ready

#36 (mar) Round Robin swap - mailed

#37(mar) Dr seuss baby shower gift- DONE!-missing label

More house blocks and blue strippy quilt

Spring Break is over and I'm back to normal.

It's nice having a quiet house again, not that, of course I love having my kids and husband home, you know what I mean :-)

Meanwhile I've been getting more mail!!

Not sure if I showed these top two yet or not, in the same package as the top house with the flower, were 6 blocks that matches, so now I'm really THINKING about this house quilt, we'll see what I come up with :-)

Now I have 10 house blocks plus 6 black ones. (I haven't made mine yet either)

Everyone did a really great job!

I will take a picture on the design wall later, once I get the last one and make mine :-) 

And you know you are a crazy quilter when you get excited over cardstock shapes that came in the mail! LOL well I AM!!!

I have downloaded these polyhedra shapes and I can use these to match up with the cardstock and make fabric balls. ( I also got some pentagons for flowers for quilts)

Now of course I needed another project!!

I got some muslin from my neighbor the other day and this was the plan!

so I started sewing strips to 6 1/2" muslin squares with a black 1 1/2" strip of black in the middle.

I have hardly any blue scraps left now!! awesome :-)

this is a sideways look of the layout, I really like it, it's fun!

Now because I'm out of any more blue scraps, I redesigned the quilt, also to make it bigger and I think I'll get some black fabric and use for sashing and a solid border instead, what do you think?

now the size will be 47" x 61" instead of 40" x 52"

with the sashing I COULD make the sashing a little thicker and the border wider too I guess.

here's another update on my 2012 list

#1 welcome to the hive-turned into a pillow DONE!

#2 lotus quilt- done quilting and attached binding by hand to the back

#3 blue flower table runner- DONE!

#4 pumpkin star pillow- just needs to be stuffed and sewn together

#5 red mini star table topper- top done and ready to quilt DONE!

#6 Bunny table runner- DONE!

#7 Connecting threads KIT fabrics- already mailed. recv'd 10 blocks back

#8 giraffe wall hanging - still working on needleturn applique, mommy giraffe almost done

#9 pineapple black and blue quilt- giving these a break now

#10 Blue star quilt- lots of blocks done

#11 Pine tree BOM- MARCH is done

#12 Next Stitch STAR- top done waiting to be quilted, binding made, backing cut

#13 snowmen table runner- DONE!

#14 Elenar Burns star Go! die- pieces cut for a scrappy look- SCRAPPED! added pieces back on shelf

#15 aqua owl- DONE! and made a pair of hotpads too for a neighbor

# 16 geese in a ring- DONE!

# 17 Bonnie Hunter ORCA mystery - top done- skipping the border

# 18 Little twister blue- SCRAPPED

#19 green, red, yellow flower quilt- top done, just taking forever removing the papers

# 20 small embroidered trees (4 blocks) - DONE!

# 21 spring swap blocks- got plans but no background fabrics ordered yet

# 22Making memories embroidered panel- needs to be made into a cute wall hanging

# 23 black, red white asian quilt- ready to be quilted, found red backing

# 24 color block swap- top is done, done and quilted!

# 25 fall leaf blocks swap- top done

# 26 Baby gingham dog boy quilt- DONE!

#27- a doll apples quilt- DONE!

#28(jan 2012) need to quilt 2 donation quilts- done and mailed off

#29(jan) batik pastel kit won at quilt show

#30 (jan) wonky block- mailed off DONE

#31 (feb) jelly roll quilt- DONE!

#32 (feb)5 x 1yards of beige/ black batiks- DONE!

#33 (mar) won 9 march BOM from pine tree guild- make into quilt top

#34 (mar) batik quilt for McCalls - DONE!

#35(mar) another quilt for McCalls- top done, binding and backing ready

#36 (mar) Round Robin swap - mailed

#37(mar) Dr seuss baby shower gift- DONE!-missing label

#38 (april) blue strippy scrappy quilt, blocks done

I really need to start some portfolios and owls etc for the craft show.



more picture fun, EQ picture tutorial and quilting

As you know I love playing with EQ7 and yesterday, playing with both photoshop and EQ, I emailed Electric Quilt - when in doubt email EQ!!

and guess what?? they DO have a color picker in EQ, where you can insert a picture and use the picker and either find a color that matches that or a fabric...

If you have EQ7

here's what you do.

(sorry I'm not good at the "print screen" thing so I'll just write what to do)

1.Click the camera icon at the top "work on image"

and import your picture and modify or crop it as you want- you don't have to crop it if you just want to use the colors in it to pick from.

Add picture to sketchbook

2. Go back to work on quilt and click the icon on the right column that says insert photo.

-it looks like a tiny picture with an arrow on it, mine is the 7th from the top. If it's not there click the little arrow at the way bottom and ADD the button.

Now insert the photo into a block- here I did it with a center block with borders around it, but it really doesn't matter

3. click the eyedropper on the right, THEN on top top lowest bar ( I think they called it the graph pad- I never knew that was the name) but on that bar are 5 different color pickers or eye droppers, click the 3rd one called "find matching color" OR the 2nd one called "find matching fabric".

Click on a part of the picture you want to find the color or fabric for and it changes back to the paintbrush and just "paint" something on the quilt.

(you don't have to plan it all now, just paint somewhere so it registers in the paint palette and then go back to the eye dropper and click another part of the picture) I like to stick with around 6 colors or so. TRY IT!

Now this is a picture of a homemade cake my mom sent me a picture of from Denmark- some of you know that my mom and I like to tease each other and send pictures of yummy foods that each other can get in Denmark or here, aren't we mean? lol

This sample is the solid color version

Now you don't have to start over to do the fabric version, you can just click the magic wand and select, MATCH to fabrics and one CLICK over the quilt, it changes it to fabrics.

The magic wand can also change the colors/ hue or do random things, it's a fun tool sometimes :-)

I think I told you we all went to the ZOO on wednesday with some new neighbors, I took this picture of the giraffes

So with the same layout as above I picked colors in EQ for the quilt and it's some nice earthy colors

then I just picked a random ohio(?) star block and made another quilt using the same colors

here's another update on my 2012 list

#1 welcome to the hive-turned into a pillow DONE!

#2 lotus quilt- done quilting and attached binding by machine to the front.

#3 blue flower table runner- DONE!

#4 pumpkin star pillow- just needs to be stuffed and sewn together

#5 red mini star table topper- top done and ready to quilt DONE!

#6 Bunny table runner- DONE!

#7 Connecting threads KIT fabrics- already mailed. recv'd 8 blocks back

#8 giraffe wall hanging - still working on needleturn applique, mommy giraffe almost done

#9 pineapple black and blue quilt- giving these a break now

#10 Blue star quilt- lots of blocks done

#11 Pine tree BOM- MARCH is done

#12 Next Stitch STAR- top done waiting to be quilted, binding made, backing cut

#13 snowmen table runner- DONE!

#14 Elenar Burns star Go! die- pieces cut for a scrappy look- SCRAPPED! added pieces back on shelf

#15 aqua owl- DONE! and made a pair of hotpads too for a neighbor

# 16 geese in a ring- DONE!

# 17 Bonnie Hunter ORCA mystery - top done- skipping the border

# 18 Little twister blue- SCRAPPED

#19 green, red, yellow flower quilt- top done, just taking forever removing the papers

# 20 small embroidered trees (4 blocks) - DONE!

# 21 spring swap blocks- got plans but no background fabrics ordered yet

# 22Making memories embroidered panel- needs to be made into a cute wall hanging

# 23 black, red white asian quilt- ready to be quilted, found red backing

# 24 color block swap- top is done, done and quilted!

# 25 fall leaf blocks swap- top done

# 26 Baby gingham dog boy quilt- DONE!

#27- a doll apples quilt- DONE!

#28(jan 2012) need to quilt 2 donation quilts- done and mailed off

#29(jan) batik pastel kit won at quilt show

#30 (jan) wonky block- mailed off DONE

#31 (feb) jelly roll quilt- DONE!

#32 (feb)5 x 1yards of beige/ black batiks- DONE!

#33 (mar) won 9 march BOM from pine tree guild- make into quilt top

#34 (mar) batik quilt for McCalls - DONE!

#35(mar) another quilt for McCalls- top done, binding and backing ready

#36 (mar) Round Robin swap - mailed

#37(mar) Dr seuss baby shower gift- DONE!-missing label

I also received cardstock pieces from paper pieces.com so I'll probably start on some fabric balls.

I'm also planning a blue strippy quilt with muslin behind each block, my neighbor gave me some muslin yesterday.

OH and I forgot to say another neighbor gave me a whole quilt top last week, it's all pieced by hand, I'll show a picture of that later