Sewing Technique Class

At the request of The Wooden Spool in Excelsior Springs, MO, on July 24th, I will be teaching a class in which I will share my secrets to my sewing/piecing techniques.
My Mother began teaching me at the age of 9 years old, how to sew and she purchased me my first Singer sewing machine (which I still own). All it did was straight stitch and zig-zag, but boy did it help me turn out of lot of my clothing. In High School, I made pretty much all of my own clothes.
As part of my learning to make those first garments, I ripped out a lot of seams that Mother did not think was good enough...especially seams where I was trying to match up plaids! It didn't matter if the plaids were off a 1/16", if they didn't match up...out came the seam.
But all of those hours of agonizing over doing it the right way, carried over into my piecing of quilts and to this day all of my seams line up perfectly and my seams lay flat. It may take me a little more time to turn out of quilt top, but my Mother will be proud!
After the class in July, I might be convinced to share some of my techniques with others. Stay tuned.

2009 Spring Patchwork Party

Well, after 14 months of procrastinating, I finally finished the spring version of 2009 Patchwork Party.
I had seen this quilted at Quilter's Station in Leavenworth, KS in either January or February, 2009 and absolutely feel in love with it. You would purchase a block from each of twelve quilt shops from across the United States and then choose the finishing kit from the shop that you wanted to complete your quilt. The center of this quilt is what caught my eye and I just had to have it. It is again, out of the norm of my taste in quilting fabric, but this one had to be added to my stash.
Well, after purchasing the first block and finding out that the blocks where made from templates....not my favorite...and I was soon wishing I hadn't started this project. But I continued and had the 12 blocks quickly put together and then the quilt was put away as I had other quilts I had to get done for one thing or another.
April 30, 2010, I attended a quilt retreat and took the Patchwork Party quilt with me to start putting together. Yep, I spent the entire quilt retreat piecing. Got it all done except the last floral border which I got sewn on first thing this morning. It is beautiful, but I am really worried that my oldest granddaughter will be here in a few weeks for a visit from South Dakota and decide it has to be hers. Cassi is very partial to pinks and browns! Well, Nana will just have to wait and see.
But needless to say, I am very, very happy to have this quilt pieced. I think I will be taking it back to Quilter's Quarters to have them quilt it. I do want to have it custom quilted in order not to destroy the beautiful center.
Happy Mother's Day to All!!!

2010 Northland Needlers Quilt Show

Well, we are now just under 5 months until the 2010 Northland Needlers Quilt Show here in Gladstone, MO. The show will be September 17-18, 2010 at the Gashland Presbyterian Church on North Oak Trafficway.
The quilt show committee has been working hard for months on the show behind the scene activities, such as securing vendors for the show, securing sponsors, working with the many wonderful volunteers, getting the Opportunity Quilts made and getting all of the wonderful miniature quilts that will be donated to support a local charity through a silent auction.
We are also excited to have a lot of new vendors participating in our show this year including, but not limited to, Ann Hazelwood, nationally known quilt appraiser; Linda Everhart, internationally known quilter; The Wooden Spool Quilt Shop (Excelsior Springs) and Pigs In A Blanket Quilt Shop (Weston). The local Bernina dealer will also have a booth at the show!
As we get closer to the show, I will try and update you with additional details.

2010 MSCS Quilt Challenge

After months of worrying about what I had done to accept a challenge to participate in designing my own quilt....it is completed!
The quilt shop that initiated the challenge sent us a pattern to make the blocks for six consecutive months and the only rule was we had to use the background and floral print in each block. They also would send us various other fabrics each month with the block pattern and it was us to us whether we chose to use them or use other prints. Over the six months, I had used what I was sent, but then by the time I received the sixth block...the fabric choices didn't look good together. So, back to the drawing board and I ended up remaking three of the blocks trying to give some color consistency.
The rest of the challenge was to complete the quilt with our own design, get it quilted, bound, labeled and it must be at the quilt shop in Minnesota by May 1st.

I am so happy to have this project behind me and can tell you I won't do this again when I have so many other commitments hanging over me.

Once again, I requested a local quilter by the name of Angela Walters to do the quilting. I must admit that I was blown away when I saw the quilt as she made each block stand out on its own. Angela, thank you for helping me complete this special project.

I will post one final picture of one of the blocks so you can see the quilting up close.

Quilts for Silent Auction at 2010 NN Quilt Show

As many of you know, I haven't posted in awhile. So I thought I would show you a couple of the quilts I have been working on. These are two miniatures that I will be donating to the silent auction at the Northland Needlers 2010 Quilt Show that is coming up in September. The Northland Needlers is a Quilt Show comprised of two local quilt guilds (a daytime guild - Northland Quilt Guild and a nighttime guild - Nitetime Needlers). I belong to the nighttime guild and am co-chairperson of the nighttime committee.

The label to the left is the label that I embroidered and have put on the two quilts I am donating.

The quilt to the right is called Civil War Legacies and the pattern called to make the quilt up in plaids. Well, since I am not a big fan of plaids and have all of this Thimbleberries fabric around, I made this little quilt up from 1-1/2 and 2-1/2-inch strips in my stash.

The two miniatures were pieced by me, of course, and then a local quilter (Angela Walters) quilted the quilts for me for free. She wanted to do this because she knew that I was donating the quilts and the money raised from the auction is going to support a local charity that our quilt guilds like to support - Synergy House.

Thank you Angela, as always, your quilting is outstanding and some lucky winner of these quilts will have a treasure.

This little quilt is called "A Tisket A Tasket" and is a Thimbleberries pattern by Lynette Jensen. And for the ones that don't know it (are there any of you?), I am a huge Thimbleberries fan.

Again, Angela Walters quilted the quilt for me and her outstanding work helped to complete the quilt.

I also had to add some embroidery work to a couple of the baskets and I must admit, it is very cute. If I hadn't already committed myself in donating this quilt, I would be adding it to my huge inventory of quilts. But a promise is a promise!! lol

My hopes is that some of you reading this blog will be enticed to come to our quilt show in September and bid on the quilts. Remember, the money raised goes to a good cause.

Thank you for stopping by to read what I have been up to. I will be making another post later today and will unveil the quilt I designed for a Thimbleberries Challenge.

Embroidery Filled Weekend

This last weekend of January has been filled with experiences using my new Bernina 830 embroidery module.

My first introduction to making my own embroidery designs was about this time a year ago. My dear husband bought me a Janome 350E which I really enjoyed, but then this past fall I upgraded to the Bernina 830. This is a sewing machine, embroidery machine and a quilting machine. It didn't take me long to get the hang of the sewing module, but working with the embroidery module was another thing. I have only had one hands-on lesson from the Bernina Sewing Center here in Kansas City, but I have taken a couple of webinars. What I am learning is that I still have a lot to learn! lol
I had been asked by an online group that I belong to...to make a special quilt label for a dear friend that has been very ill. With this request, I had to learn to incorporate lettering into a design, but it took some time to figure out how to add multiple lines of text. Well, now I am a pro! (NOT!)

Once I completed this request, it was then on to making a Thimbleberries name tag which we were challenged to do at our last Thimbleberries monthly club meeting. Well, since I am also a member of another online group, the "ThimbleBees", I wanted a bee on the name tag. What do you think?

The embroidery projects didn't stop there. I also used the lettering techinques to create hand towels for my daughter and daughter-in-law with the initial of their last names. That accomplished, I then wanted to add a little extra to a miniature that I have made for our local quilt guilds 2010 Quilt Show this next September. The miniature was one of Lynette Jensen's designs, a Tisket A Tasket, from one of her pint-sized quilt books. But the little baskets looked a little plain and I thought some embroidery work added to them might help to increase the bidding price for our silent auction. So, off to embroidery websites to find the perfect flower design for the tiny baskets. Once again, I chose a Lynette Jensen design. Not wanting to fill every basket, I had to decide which baskets to fill and it made the most sense to place the design in the two center baskets.

Next weekend, I will be teaching a class at one of our local quilt shops, The Wooden Spool, and won't have time to spend in my sewing room. But the best part of my weekend will be getting to spend time with my Aunt Margaret and my cousin Cherry. More about that to come.

2009 Black & White BOM

2009 was a year of the BOM's (Block of the Month). I had ten separate quilting projects going and now we are three weeks into 2010 and I not only have several of the quilts completely pieced, but I put the final stitches in the binding of one of them today.

The first Saturday of each month in 2009, I got up early and drove about 30 miles to get to Leavenworth, KS to arrive by 8:30 AM for Quilter's Quarter's BOM club. To participate in the club, in January 2009 I paid $5.00 for the January block and purchased all of the background fabric for the entire quilt. Then starting in February, I would take th previous month's completed block back to the quilt shop and get that month's block pattern and fabric for free. Well, I didn't always make it back on the first Saturday for my free pattern and fabric, but I think I only had to pay for one or two.

Then, of course, I had to purchase the finishing kit and the backing. This sounds like a sweet deal, but I still have about $250 invested in this quilt by the time I had it quilted.

I think what most of my friends will tell you, is that this quilt project is definitely "outside my box". Why? It isn't Thimbleberries. But I love it! Hope you will too?