Flower Fairies Bag and Pillow

January 30, 2012January 25, 20122 Comments

Take a look at these nifty projects fellow sewing enthusiast Gwen just made:

She ordered the green Flower Fairies and Fairy Frost fat quarter combo from me plus a little extra of the green Fairy Frost. Isn’t this bag simply adorable? She used Penny Sturges’ Big Bag pattern and adjusted it to fit the size she wanted.

She made the tote bag and matching pillow as a gift for her daughter in law who’s favorite color happens to be peridot green.

Gwen loves to make bags and totes as gifts for Christmas, birthdays and weddings. They are fun and quick to make and really let you show off some pretty fabrics. Way to go, Gwen!

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!

Oh, The Quilts I Have Seen!

January 25, 2012April 15, 20125 Comments

Last but not least in my Road to California excursion, I want to share with you just a few pictures of the many beautiful quilts I was able to experience. Of course, there is no substitute for seeing them in person. The details, exquisite quilting and gorgeous embellishment can only be hinted at here. I encourage you to attend as many quilt shows as you can and look for inspiration wherever you can find it! All pictures were taken by me and posted with permission of Road to California for personal enjoyment only.

This is called The Gossip Garden by Debbie Martinez of Hobart, Indiana. I absolutely love the mouth pieces. It reminds me of a fabric I have in my stash! Debbi states, “There are many ways gossip circulates and there are many symbolizations of gossip in this quilt.”

This quilt, Bright Baja Bugs, was part of a youth exhibit of quilts all made by students aged 8-17. I’m really partial to fun, bright quilts. How fantastic to get a jump start on creativity so early! This one was made by Jordan Phillips from California, age 14. My husband drove a Baja in high school, but never one that looked like this!

Although you cannot see all the wonderful quilting in the picture, this quilt really spoke to me. It was heavily quilted and hung perfectly straight. It took over 120 hours just for the quilting! This is absolutely what an award-winning quilt should be. It’s entitled, “Dresden’s Dilemma” by Deborah Poole and Sharon Del Pino of Shelley, Idaho.

I thought it was very interesting to see the same quilt design interpreted in two different color schemes. These were both fantastic and all of the individual designs were done with machine embroidery using Sarah Vedeler’s digitized designs. The bright one, “Bedazzlder” was made by Lisa Sipes of Colby, Kansas and the muted one, “Go! Be Dazzled” by Sandy Lawrence of Phonix, Arizona.

This quilt took my breath away! It’s called “Venetian Menagerie”. Yes, it’s all one quilt depicting a menagerie of exotic masks and oddities seen on an evening stroll in Venice by quilt artist Melissa Sobotka of Richardson, Texas. She made it from batiks with fusible applique. My kind of quilt!

I should be able to post the rest of my Road to California quilt pictures in my next blog entry, so stay tuned!

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!

California Dreamin’ Dress

January 20, 2012January 17, 20124 Comments

Here’s another beautiful project made by customer Pat P. from Australia for her granddaughter, shown here with permission. I love how the bright colors in the dress echo the botanical garden around her. Australians are wonderful quilters and seamstresses!

Here is a closeup shot of the dress, using California Dreamin’ fabric by Jenean Morrison for Free Spirit. If you are “sew” inspired to make something similar, you are in luck as I just put that collection on sale for a limited time.

Here’s what Pat had to say about creating this dress, ” I made the dress because all you can buy locally are dresses which are are the same as each other. This was economical and fun to make.

“The materials went together so well and were just perfect. I used my bias binder to make the strips down the front. The fabric was so easy to sew and did not crease and I only needed a small amount of each fabric. I added some fancy buttons and little daisies. My grand daughter is 8 and still loves girly things.”

Ok, this seriously makes me want to venture out of my quilting comfort zone and try something new!

Flower Fairy Panel Quilt

January 17, 2012January 17, 2012Leave a comment

I just love it when customers send me photos of quilts they’ve made with my fabric! This Fairy quilt comes from Debra in Australia and I’m showing it here with her permission.

Isn’t it lovely? She used one panel unit of the Periwinkle Flower Fairies from Michael Miller and surrounded it with coordinating tone-on-tones and some patchwork.

Here’s what Debra had to say about her quilt, “I made the quilt for a family friend’s 11 year old granddaughter. I decided on the fairies and the colours because they represented colour, warmth and love of life. The frames around the squares were different sizes. This quilt was a real challenge and I really enjoyed making it.

“I have always sewn and knitted my children’s clothes. I got bored with sewing, knitting and crocheting and decided to make a quilt and I haven’t looked back since.

“When someone wants a quilt, I try and take in all that I can about the person, because to me this is important in deciding what pattern and colours I will use.”

Way to go Debra!

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?

My work is done for today – now I can go play!

New Year’s Hike

January 11, 2012March 19, 20131 Comment

It’s January and I’m already behind on my blogging. It’s a good thing I didn’t make any kind of resolution about that!! We had a wonderful holiday full of family and friends. To kick off the new year in a healthy way, we took a hike with our friends to the top of Calico Hills in beautiful Red Rock Canyon.

Janice and I have been friends for nearly 18 years and we still feel and think of the other as the friend we met in our 20’s!!! She has one daughter the same age as mine and our husbands are great friends, too. We loaded up the crew and took them all up the mountain on a clear January morning. It was unseasonably warm and our spirits were high.

Janice is about as passionate about photography as I am about quilting and she snapped this family picture for us. Here’s to a great new year!

Funky Monkey Scrap Quilt

December 27, 2011March 19, 20134 Comments

My sister adopted her second baby boy this past summer and I couldn’t be more thrilled. His nickname is Jacob-Monkey so of course I had to make him a Funky Monkey quilt!

I started off with one of my favorite patterns which I’ve named Baby Bricks. I cut random scraps of 3 1/2″ x 7 1/2″ rectangles in a coordinated color scheme. My sister wanted green and brown so I combed through my stash of fabrics that would fit the theme.

Once the top was done, I felt that it needed something more. So I took one of the larger themed monkey fabrics depicting playful monkeys on scooters, with pogo stocks, hoola-hoops and more! I made my own iron-on appliques using light Steam-A-Seam 2 on the back side of the cream monkeys.

Then I appliqued them randomly on the top. I stitched around the edges of the monkey patches and randomly stippled the rest of the top. It turned out rather cute, don’t you think?