Weight Loss Week 1 – The Start

April 23, 2012March 19, 20133 Comments

I am going to be blogging about my journey to lose weight over the next few weeks and months. Feel free to follow along if you need inspiration to get healthy and lose weight! It’s somewhat related to quilting in that in order to live long enough and make all of the quilts I want to, I need to be healthy and fit!

I’ve always been active and have run several marathons, half-marathons and triathlons. But, the more I started devoting serious time to my quilting, the more I was eating. Quilting can be a sedentary pursuit and all of a sudden I’ve realized I’m about 35 pounds overweight and my cute clothes don’t fit anymore!

Jason and I started watching the “Biggest Loser” television show and it’s inspired me to get back on the exercise bandwagon and begin a solid fitness routine. Here’s my “before” picture.

I’m going to start with this week with these tips to lose weight and keep it off.

1. Work out with friends. I’ve realized time and time again I cannot do it alone. Because I’m so busy with my quilt business and my family, I rarely have any “girl” time. My time with my fitness pals in the early morning before I start my day provides that outlet for me.

2. Get to bed early! This goes along with #1. It’s easier to work-out first thing in the morning if I’ve gotten a good night’s rest the night before.

3. Keep a food journal. Another thing that works for me is keeping track of what I eat, my exercise routine and counting calories. The act of writing it down holds me accountable and really discourages me from mindless eating.

So here’s to a healthier life!

Leaning Tower of Precuts

April 5, 2012March 19, 2013Leave a comment

I just had to share this cute picture with you. It’s my younger son’s job to help me unload boxes whenever I get in a new fabric delivery. He likes to make it fun by building towers out of all the Moda bundles that arrive. At least you know your precuts are in good hands!

The Lorax Quilt

March 30, 2012March 19, 20133 Comments

My mom recently made this cute Lorax quilt from a Robert Kaufman Dr. Seuss kit she got from me. One of the special privileges of being my mom is that she gets first dibs on anything I have in the shop! It took her less than a week to make, from start to finish.

Here’s a detail showing the allover stippling she used to complete the quilting. She tweaked the pattern slightly so that the filler blocks would be complete checkerboards.

The kit actually comes in two different colors: “Bright” and “Earth”.

Mom made the quilt for my sister’s new baby boy!

Green Deviled Eggs Recipe

March 17, 2012March 19, 2013Leave a comment

Today is National Quilting Day AND St. Patrick’s day. So that means I should be making some green quilts, right? Well, I did make something green today, but it wasn’t sewing. I made my favorite little finger food for a church social activity tonight.

Deviled Eggs are my specialty – the thing I bring to any potluck because they are easy to make and cheap! They are sort of old-school, but hardly any one makes them and everyone loves them! Our theme for the evening is green food, so I just added a little food coloring.

Here’s the recipe, more or less: 1 dozen boiled eggs, dash of paprika, squirt of mustard, glop of sweet relish, a few table spoons of mayo, and food coloring (optional). I’m not exact, but everything is to taste – just keep it on the dry side; too wet & it’s more like egg salad filling.

First, boil the eggs but peel off the shells before you dye them. A few drops of green food coloring added to boiling water with a teaspoon of vinegar does the trick.

Green Eggs - Hold the Ham!

Next, cut each egg in half, scoop out the yolks and mash up with the rest of the filling stuff. For extra greenness, add a few drops of green to the filling. Looks like pistachio ice cream! You could even cut the eggs in 1/2 before you dye them so the entire egg-white turns green.

For travel, I like to put my eggs in a dish with little ovals that hold each one separately. It doesn’t have a lid, so I just put toothpicks on a few random eggs and cover with plastic. Yummy!

Color – Not Just for Fabric!

March 1, 2012March 19, 20132 Comments

My running buddies and I took a break from our usual training last weekend to race in a super crazy 5K called the Color Run. Here are the before and after shots:

Before

After

During each 1/2 mile to 1 mile of the race, we ran through aid stations where they sprayed colored powder on us as we ran. It was all safe and washable but boy was it a crazy mess!

Hmm, now that mess of colorful threads and fabric scraps all over my sewing room floor doesn’t seem so bad!!

Teach a Child to Sew…

February 4, 2012March 19, 20133 Comments

And she’ll become quilter for life! I helped my daughter make her first quilt last summer on my Bernina. For Christmas, she got her very own sewing machine – a little Janome. Today we finally set it up and started teaching her to sew on her own.

I want to teach her the basics first, so we practiced loading the thread, winding the bobbin, and threading the needle. She got the hang of it quickly, and it’s just the right size for her.

I wanted her to practice straight lines so she sewed on pieces of lined paper for awhile. She had a lot of fun with that and picked it up very quickly. For our next lesson, we’ll practice on fabric and I’ll let her rummage through my scrap pile. We had a great Saturday afternoon!

More Beautiful Road to California Quilts

January 27, 2012March 19, 20132 Comments

This about wraps up my journey on the Road to California. If I had enough time and no other obligations, I could have photographed all the beautiful quilts I have seen! Hmmm, now what am I going to do THIS weekend??

This quilt is an absolute Super Star as it’s name implies. Made by Marilyn Badger of St. George, Utah it contains lots of sparkling crystals that are hard to see in the photo.

ICU – Do UC ME? by Birgit Schueller of Germany. Imagine my surprise when I saw a photo of this quilt in a magazine just a few days ago, then went to California and walked by the real thing hanging up in the show! These quilts are all award-winning magazine-worthy quilts. I am in total awe of these quiltmaker’s talents. They truly inspire me. Notice the sparkle!

This quilt was amazing on both the front and the back. Click to see closeups of all that gorgeous colorful quilting!

The Magical Mermaids Castle was made by Claudia Pfeil of Germany.

This fun bright quilt is called “American Woman”, made by Jo Ann Blade & Kim Diamond of Sedro Woolley, Washington. I think it’s simply fantastic. During the quilt show, there was a vendor selling bright “quilty” shoes similar to those depicted in this quilt!

There was gorgeous quilting and embellishments galore in this quilt. I simply couldn’t get enough! This one is titled “Jewel Box”, by Cheri Meineke-Johnson, quilted by Linda V. Talyor of Corinth, Texas. It contains over 20,00 Swarovski crystals. Amazing!

Last, but not least, this was probably one of my favorite quilts of the show, “Ms. MacDonald Had a Farm.” I love how the quiltmakers used different printed fabrics to get the dimensions and details they wanted. There are lots of bright and colorful Kaffe Fassett fabrics in the piece, and it’s “sew” fun to see them being used this way! This quilt was made by 12 ladies of the Hanging by a Thread Quilt group from Chehalis, Washington. It was quilted by Bonnie Keller and Audrey Prother.

What a week in quilts! I only hope that some day, I could achieve this level of workmanship. All pictures were taken by me at the Road to California show. They are for personal use only, and of course, can be the source of much inspiration!

Thread Painting with Nancy Prince

January 23, 2012March 19, 20133 Comments

I took 2 fabulous classes at Road to California.

They were called “Alpine Rose” and “Thread Painting is as Easy as 1,2,3”, both taught by Nancy Prince. She was an absolutely amazing instructor and I’m addicted now to her techniques. I bought her book “Thread Painting with Style” and am thoroughly enjoying reading it. You can visit her website NancyPrince.com.

She made her classes both personable and fun and I learned something that I never thought I would try. It’s basically free motion embroidery and embellishing with thread.

On the first day’s class we learned how to fill in a floral design completely with thread and make a stand-alone embroidery design. The techniques were comfortable to me since I do a lot of free-motion quilting and machine applique. This was the next logical step and I can’t wait to combine it with my current work.

Be sure to click on the pictures to see them closer up. Nancy showed an example of how shading really changes the look of a piece. It was amazing!

Nancy loves to combine her thread painting with beautiful landscapes which she paints or prints onto prepared for dying background fabric.

Next, we learned how to make trees and bushes. By simply following some guidelines, we were able to make very realistic-looking trees.

Her classes were well organized and included kits with the backgrounds all ready to go. At right is Nancy’s quilt that she based our second day of classes on.

Below is a tree canopy that I thread painted and some shrubbery that fellow classmate Kathy made. Kathy was one of the first quilting students I ever taught years and years ago. It was fun to meet up with her again in class!

Road to California Wrap-Up

January 22, 2012March 19, 20131 Comment

I attended the Road to California quilters conference this past weekend and it’s probably the most quilting fun I’ve had in my life! I attended some amazing classes, viewed many outstanding quilts, did some fun shop-hopping, and hung out with my good quilting buddy, Judy. All pictures shown here were taken with permission of Road to California staff & artists and are for your personal enjoyment only.

The first stop on my journey was to visit with Dr. Bob of Superior Threads. I signed up for two thread painting classes so I had to make sure I had enough supplies. After this weekend, I am head over heels for these threads. I placed an order for more and will soon be stocking them in my shop. My favorites? MasterPiece cotton 50 weight for piecing and shiny 40 weight tri-lobal polyester for machine quilting and embroidery.

Here are some pictures of a few quilts that just made my heart sing! The quilt below is titled “Life in Holly Ridge”, made by my teacher for the weekend, Nancy Prince. I’ll go into more details about her wonderful classes in my next post. This quilt had the most amazing embroidery and thread painted details. Each of the figures was individually constructed!

The picture below shows Cindy Needham’s quilt, “Infinity”. My friend Judy took a fabulous machine quilting class from Cindy who also happens to be an educator for Superior Threads.

It was fun for each of us to take different classes then tell each other what we learned!

While walking the show, we could hear the sounds of beautiful harp music playing by Bronn Journey. What a serene and peaceful way to view the quilts!

He and his wife Katherine make beautiful music together. With her voice and his harp, you can hear a sampling of their music on their website at http://www.bronnjourney.com.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend and I can’t wait to do it again next year. Be sure to read the next two posts coming up about the rest of my weekend!

Fat Quarter Folding Party

January 14, 2012March 19, 2013Leave a comment

My mom came over for a visit yesterday so I put her to work! She’s a fellow fabric-aholic like me which means she loves to fondle fabric just as much as I do. My daughter wanted to get in on the act, too – so we set up an assembly line of folding, stuffing and labeling hundreds of individual Fat Quarter Singles.

To protect and organize the fat quarters, we bagged each one individually. Now they are ready to pop into the mail for the next customer who wants them. Don’t they look yummy?