WQI Meeting in Madison

Yesterday I went to Madison, WI to the WQI Meeting. WQI is our state quilt guild. It is a great group of women & men. We had two lecturers Louisa Smith and Mary Stori. Both were awesome.

Louisa Smith talked about her One Patch Plus book. What an interesting concept! She has three steps to this process. One is Color - she starts with a color/quilt source. Two is the design - the quilt top and three is the theme which is embellishing for her. She uses four different types of design. They are not your normal shapes...they are kites, curved kites, curved diamond and half clam shells.

Mary Stori talked about Penny Rugs. I learned a lot about them and how to make them but unfortunately I am allergic to wool so not something I will be making but I can use some of the concepts.

I showed two of my mom's quilts at the show and tell. One was the quilt I gave her at Christmas and the other is a block of the month I finished, had quilted at Patched Works (it is so great the way it turned out!) and hand stitched the binding finishing the binding late Friday night.

I also went to Mill House Quilts in Waunakee. I had never been there but it is a great store. I really liked it and ended up buying some Christmas fabric! I can't wait to decide what to do with it.

Happy Stitching!

Happy 4th of July

Yesterday I had seven of my friends come over and sew with me at my house and I had such a good time. I decided to cook for them so I made Chicken Salad, a pasta salad and taffy apple salad. Some people brought candy, others brought snacks and yet others brought dessert...you get the picture - lots of food and quilting.

I started off by making this really cute wall hanging for my Mom's cubicle at work. I should say the piece was all put together...I bought it at Scrapfest so all I had to do was put a backing and batting with it and quilt it. Wow - she will love it for work.

I also put the binding on my Mom's birthday quilt - queen size and now it's time to hand sew the binding down. I also made up two backings for two other quilts so they should be ready to go. I'm just trying to get it all done and quilted right now. So much to quilt, so little time.

Happy 4th of July!

WQI Meeting

I went to the Winter meeting of WQI (Wisconsin Quilters Inc.) and they had Nancy Prince speak about thread painting in the morning and then Maxine Rosenthal and Joy Pelzmann speak about one block wonders in the afternoon.

I found Nancy Prince's very inspirational! Her work is beautiful and I found myself purchasing her thread painting book so I could learn more about it! I have done thread painting before but I learned more about it that was helpful. I started to read the book today at lunch and well I have learned more already. Maxine and Joy were very entertaining. They brought quite a few quilts and it was interesting how they cut the fabric up and put it together in a Kaleidoscope or cube shape.

They also had a UFO Challenge and they showed pieces that were completed that had been started at a previous WQI meeting where they took a workshop. Some of the items were stunning.

January Accomplishments

Wow I didn't get a lot done but I did get 2589 points for Waun-a-Quilt!

Rocky Mountain High - Pieced blocks, added a border and pieced a back
Folded Wreath - Cut binding and hand bound
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town - Added borders
Winter Quilt - Pieced backing and quilted
Pink Ginko Leaf Quilt - Pieced backing and quilted

So it doesn't look too impressive but at least I was able to keep track of it this month! Thanks Waun-a-Quilt! Hopefully February will be better...I did start the Pie crust topping for my pin and top stitched it! I also pieced my binding and ironed it yesterday!

Thread Painted Iris

I took this class quite a while ago and had told my Mom that when I finished it she could have it. She is pretty excited about it! I think she even knows where she will put them. I don't know where the left over fabric is to bind the quilt so I think I am going to try to find more or if worse comes to worse I may use black fabric so it will look like a frame.

This quilt was quite fun to make and I really enjoyed thread painting. I would like to try thread painting again. I do have another of these pictures so that I could thread paint a second one and I could then finish it for myself....so in theory this sounds like a good idea but in practice I wonder if it will ever happen! I would love to have one of these for myself but again it's a really nice theory! I have so many other projects out there. Once I finish this one I will have completed about six on my list.

Once I finish quilting some of the other quilts I could bind them while watching TV! Now there is something I really need to do...one of these days I will hopefully get a couple of these done!

Tonight I might work on ironing the pieces for a pie pincushion! I will be making a blueberry pie pincushion. Soon people will think I have a pincushion collection. My friend Sherry made me a cupcake pincushion, another friend Wendy made me two pincushions...one is a tea cup and the other is on a pedestal. I also made some chick pin cushions with Jen at an Open Sew at my friend Wendy's church where there was an open sew day. Once I finish my pie one I will have to round them all up and take a picture of them.

You Better Not Pout...Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

Friday night I went to an Open Sew Night at PW (my local quilt store). I worked on this wall hanging...You Better Not Pout...Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. I love this quilt and can't wait to finally quilt it. Again I'm not sure how I am going to quilt it. I might just quilt around the appliques and around the various borders. I had to cut down the main portion, cut the borders, and sewed them on.

This is all I worked on ... I was having fun being social. Prior to going to PW I went to dinner with two of my friends...Sherry and Sue. We went to Baker's Square. I had my favorite .... Chicken Stir Fry Pita. February 23 was National Pie Day.

The Two Projects I Worked on at PW New Year's Eve

Here are the pictures I promised...

...the first one is Folded Fabric Wreath. I took it back in 2002 and had part of it completed. I decided to bind it in the teal color and it is now ready to be put on the wall or be used as a table topper. I started this one in a friend's class and it turned out so nice. It is a "winter" wall hanging. I am planning on hanging it in my bathroom next Christmas as we are having our family over.

The second one was a class called Rocky Mountain High which I took at a local technical college again in 2002. I only had to finish the piecing that goes in the border and then piece the border and sew it on. I now have to quilt it and I really don't know how to quilt it...any ideas? I am so happy that I am getting a lot of my UFO's either pieced and/or quilted. When I looked at what I had I came up with 60 quilts. There could be more in my storage shed but these are the ones that I have here. Hopefully I will get some more done on Friday when I go to my local quilt store for an Open Sew evening. Wish me luck on getting some of those UFO's done...I'll need it!