Day and Night

Oh Eleanor Burns you have done it again. I had so much fun putting her new Day and Night quilt together, and seeing the designs emerge as you work on it. The special ruler comes with the book, which I particularly loved. You can save the extra pieces after cutting out your blocks and get a "bonus" table runner size quilt too. I added some hand dyes to come up with this little guy!

Speaking of hand dyes. I have a truck coming today with 110 yards of fabric on it for me to start dyeing. I can hardly wait!  :-)  I've been working on dyeing some color wheels and creating colors, and hope to have some photos up real soon. It's been a busy time in the dye tub!

Wow

This past week was one of the best quilting weeks I have had in quite some time. I spent the week in Estes Park at the CQC (Colorado Quilt Council) bi-yearly quilt show.  A friend and I went up early, took our machines, and had a sew in prior to the show, then took some fabulous classes. If any of you are scrap-a-holics like I am, then Debbie Caffrey is the instructor you need to find a class with. She is the author of Noodle Soup, Can of Worms, etc. WOW is about all I can say about her. She gave us the most incredible class I think I may have ever taken. The pace was fast and she threw things at us a lightening speed, but you had time to catch up and were able to with ease. We all found ourselves hanging on every word she spoke, so it was a delightful class to take. I am so movitated now that I have heard her that I want to never come out of my sewing room. If you love 2 1/2" strips, you need to check out her books and her web page.

debbiescreativemoments.com     

Another great class I took, was with Karla Alexander. It's not the first class with her for me. She is a great teacher and has one of the most freeing and fun ways of sewing curves I have ever done. Actually you cut free hand cut the curves too. If you have followed my blog you have seen my "Bent Out of Square" quilt posted last year, and yep, she's the one who thought up that beauty.  This time I took her Arboritum quilt class. We made leaves and inset them into the blocks. It all looked very difficult, but you can't believe just how easy it really is.

These are the blocks that all of us did during class. I don't think there was 1 of us, who didn't marvel at how easy they were to do. I can hardly wait to finish up more of these fun little guys! Oh yeah, this is what all those pieces were cut for that I posted last week. :-)     You can see more of Karla at   http://www.saginawstreetquilts.com/.

Like I didn't have enough on my plate with these, I was in a class once I got home yesterday at my LQS. Mariners Star! Those Quiltsmart patterns sure do take the "difficult" out of everything. I am well on my way to finishing up a 54" square quilt in just 1 day! Yea haw, I love those kind of projects. But with so much on my plate, I don't know what to tackle first!!!  Decisions Decisions!  :-)

Next Project

The dyeing is done and the pieces are cut for my next class. Actually I have 3 classes in the next few days. This should keep me off the streets for awhile. Can't wait to get started on these.

Blazing Stars

Here is my project from last week. Pieced, quilted and bound in a week. That is a record for me anymore. It was so much fun to see come together I just couldn't stop. Of course a weekend of thunderstorms, tornado's, hail and generally miserable weather made it nice to stay indoors and sew. This is a Kaye Wood design. I love the finished product, but I am less than enchanted with the $20  Star Maker ruler we had to buy to make it. It was way over priced to begin with, but then the center of the ruler is cut out???? I am sure there is a reason, since she has a multitude of patterns that utilize this ruler, but the hole in the middle catches on your fabrics as you move it and make for a big mess. Your cutting on bias edges as it is, so you don't want any movement, but good luck on that, with this ruler. No talking bad about Kaye, but give me a break!  :-)

The end is definitely worth the means for this quilt. I adapted my borders a bit. I didn't have enough of my hand dyed fabrics for it, so I pieced a row. Nothing like being able to adapt your needs. That's why I love quilting.

This week, I am going to be quilting quite a bit so hopefully I will have some new fun things to show you soon. Until then! Keep on stitchin!

Dyeing for Class

The weather is so nice that I have been slaving away in the sun dyeing fabrics.


This is for a class tomorrow. With all the projects that I have started it seems silly to start more, but I am an addict, and have signed up for classes every other week for the next couple of months it seems.  After all, can you really have too many projects started?????    :-)

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Here are the pieces, cut and ready for class. I can hardly wait to show you the finished project. It's a beauty!

Just today my husband asked me just what I was going to do with all the quilts I have made. He said they were all over the house as it is, and I am making more.  He suggested a garage sale with them. ARRRRGH! Men, what do they know!  :-)

Another Great Swap

I was so delighted this week to find this incredible table runner in my mail box. The Quilted Table Yahoo group again swapped table runners and I am the very proud recipient of this wonderful runner. Little did my swap partner Kim know that in my past life I was a crafter with a company named Calico Bunny Patch. Or did she know how much I love lime green and bunny rabbits. It was like she knew me all along. If it couldn't get any better, then she sent along a wonderful quilted string wallet, a Mary Englebreit journal and the Candy Cane Lane quilt book which I have been eyeing at the store lately. Why was it that I didn't by it when I saw, it but kept looking it over every time I came across it???? This all seems so strange to me. I guess life does work in mysterious ways. I've heard that if you sit and listen you will be lead down the right path. Hummm there must be something to that...  Kim your a doll and I will cherish my wonderful treasures for years to come. Thank you doesn't even begin to be enough to say! The Quilted Table group has been one of my best internet finds. From the moderator Sharon to everyone who I have swapped with in the past couple of years, your all the best of the best!

Okay so much for the sappy stuff. I do have a little story to share with you this week. I never talk about it, but my "job" (that allows me to support my quilting habit) is a customer serviced agent for an airline in Denver. I work at the ticket counter. It's a pretty stressful job and we do tend to take the brunt of every ones tempers over many things that are truly out of our control. Yesterday I was checking in a gal who had a bag that was over weight. The additional fees are very costly, so she started taking things out of her bag. She pulled out a big notebook of her teaching information to carry on with her, but it wasn't enough to get the bag under 50 pounds. She then looks at me and tells me, well that does it, I am going to have to take my "ANUS" out of my bag. I was shocked to say the least as she pulls this big plastic teaching aid out of her bag. We both started laughing so hard, the tears flowing. It was truly the funniest thing I had ever seen. She tucked it in her carry on bag, and said I am going to have some fun with the security screeners now and happily trotted off towards the security lines laughing like no other! It was the bright spot of my week needless to say and possibly the best I have come across in the 15 years I have been doing this. Talk about taking lemons and making lemonade. I know she didn't want to carry on all that extra weight, but she sure was going to do it with style and humor. I sure do wish I could have followed her to see how security reacted! 

 Hope you have a surprisingly happy week!