Baby Booties

I have been busily sewing Christmas presents but I can't put any pictures up yet because I want these presents to be a surprise! So... pictures will come after Christmas. But, one of the girls that works for me, Heather, just had her baby today. She was born at home and I was invited to attend the birth. What a precious, exciting time.

I found a pattern for these adorable booties and had to try my hand at felting, never having done it before. I crocheted them with wool yarn and then just put them into a little cloth bag and threw them into the washing machine with hot water and a little soap (and a pair of jeans to help with the agitation) and voila! Aren't they adorable? I hope they fit!

Fall Mini Quilt Exchange

I finished my fall mini quilt exchange quilt. It turned out very cute. I'm sending it off tomorrow to my swap partner. I hope she likes it!

I started this quilt at Bear Cabin thinking I would just make a one block quilt. But after finishing the first block, I loved it so much that I made 3 more blocks.

I toyed with the idea of making them into one big quilt and then make one more for my mini quilt partner. But, when I got home, I realized that I needed to make a couple other small quilts for other friends and ended up making 4 small quilts and quilted each one different. I love ALL of them!

Bear Cabin 2009

Well, Bear Cabin was so much fun, again. Carol is the best host and makes everyone feel welcome and cared for. We did alot of sewing, alot of laughing and alot of eating! Julie and I got there Thursday afternoon. We both have to work half day so we weren't able to leave as early as everyone else. After saying hello to everyone, we set up and started sewing. Here are a few pictures of the activities around the room.

It's a wonderful place for sewing. The light is wonderful and the atmosphere is friendly and warm. The weather was beautiful.. just a little chilly but sunny and perfect. We took Maggie for a couple of walks out in the forest to stretch after sitting for too long and Carol fed us 3 wonderful meals a day (Carol is a great cook!). Who could ask for more?!?Maggie, Bear Cabin mascot

I will put pictures up soon of my projects at Bear Cabin this year!

Finished Double Wedding Ring

Tada! A finished quilt... It's hard to see in this picture, but I quilted it with random 6" circles. It's not one of my all time favorite quilts, but I like it... Now, on to something different!

This Thursday I'm off to a quilt retreat! It's one of the things I look forward to all year. It's a beautiful house with a room built on just for quilting and overlooks a pine-filled valley. The owner prepares wonderful food and pretty much waits on everyone hand and foot. Three and a half days of nothing but sewing, laughing and good friends. Can't wait!

Double Wedding Ring WIP

I'm in the process of making a double wedding ring quilt. I've never made one before but I've had the Shar Jorgenson templates for years. I finally dug them out and decided to just do it. But I didn't want to use traditional colors. I sat down with the Electric Quilt program and started picking colors. I decided I wanted it to be orange and torquoise, but it needed another color.. so I picked... PURPLE! So.. I designed this quilt.

Ok... I like that. So, I cut out the pieces and started sewing them together. This is what I came up with.

Ugh... nasty. The mellons are too small to put orange there and I didn't want to have to remake all the mellons in a different color.... So, I thought... what if I make the whole background orange. So, I cut again.. and came up with this.

Ok.. maybe a little better so I sewed it together... after I took out the lighter orange blocks and mixed them all up a little better and took off the last row so it's only 5 rings high. Now what to do with the border? I knew I didn't want to do binding around curves so I machine appliqued the whole quilt onto a border. My EQ design looked like this. Not terrible... So, I sewed it together. It's on the quilting machine now and almost done. I'll post a picture of it soon! (I wish I'd done a torquoise border instead of black.. it looks a little Halloweenish)

My Quilts

My Flickr page has 117 of my quilts. You can see them here. They are quilts I've made over the last 10 years or so. Looking back at all the pictures of the quilts I've made, I realize that I have made very few quilts for 'no reason'. Each one has a story and a reason it was created... be it a gift, for a gallery, a project challenge or a personal challenge. So I actually own very few of my own quilts. Oh, don't worry. I still have PLENTY of quilts in my house! What quilter doesn't?!?

Mini Quilt Exchanges

Another blog site that I've been following is called Quilting Gallery. The lady that runs this blog organizes quilt exchanges. So if you sign up for the exchange, she pairs you with another quilter somewhere in the world and you make a small quilt for her and another quilter that signed up makes a quilt for you. I've been doing this for a couple of exchanges and have been very pleased with the quilts I've received and my partners have liked the quilts I've made. The first exchange was a Springtime Quilt Exchange. This quilt went to a lady in Netherlands named Corry.

I received a quilt from a lady in Bangkok, Thailand. Here is the cute quilt I got from her:

The next exchange was called Good Ol' Summertime. I sent this quilt to a lady in Canada named Michelle.


Now I've joined another exchange called Fall Inspired Quilt Swap. I already have a design in mind but it doesn't have to be done until the middle of January, so I have time to perfect it... :-) How fun!

Quilting Bloggers

I've been following several quilting bloggers for awhile now and enjoying the posts to see what other quilters are doing and how creative and talented quilters can be! Today, while snooping at blogs, I found a really beautiful quilt technique that I'm going to try as soon as I get a chance (which means after I finish the umpteen other projects I have going on at this moment). The lady that creates these wonderful quilts is Geta and she lives in Romania. Here is a picture of one of her quilts.

Gorgeous! You can see her blog here. Once a month, this generous lady offers a giveaway of one of her quilts! You can sign up for her giveaway here. You can go ahead and sign up, but I hope I'M the winner!

Greetings!

I have been quilting for about 20 years. Wow.. that sounds like a long time when I see it in writing. When I started quilting it was difficult to find nice fabrics like we have now in quilt stores, so my first quilts were sad.. to say the least. My first quilt was a sampler (of course) and it was pink and blue (of course). It has never been quilted (because it was ugly and the pieces were cut with scissors so not very precise and the fabric was polyester!) So, even though it was a quilt not to be terribly proud of, it did inspire me to want to make more. Now, these 20 years later, I am still inspired to want to make more different, beautiful and creative quilts. I hope to share my love of quilting and my quilting processes in this blog. Enjoy!