Pointless Quilter

I am very fortunate to have in-laws who own a little house in Cambria, California. It's a two bedroom, two bathroom place with a trailer in the back that we call the third room. We can get 8 people sleeping there, but the problem we have is where to quilt. This is the latest set up we've had. Pictures were taken by Adena, who is in this photo. To the right of Adena, sat me and my friend Kathy. To the left and behind Adena sat Sheila, Rita and Anna. Sue came with Sheila for 2 days but she did hand work and sat on the sofa. We had to remove furniture to get all of us and our stuff in. Here are some of the tops that we worked on or finished. Adena finished this block of the month top. She added blocks to make it this size. Sue brought us some goodies, actually her new husband snuck those in her suitcase with a love note. Sheila working on a log cabin heart quilt. Rita finished (mostly) a kit quilt that uses a panel. Can you believe it. It's beautiful. This is our "desig...

Oh, it has been so hot here. Over 100 degrees since last week so I'm off to Cambria where the temps will be in the high 60's. I'm going over with some quilting friends and we plan on sewing, sewing a little eating and more sewing. A lot of our friends are going to Long Beach for the show, but some of us knew if we went we'd spend too much money so we decided to use our stash instead of add to it. I'm bringing enough projects to keep me busy for 2 weeks. Just couldn't decide what to bring to work on. Plus, I just finished the top of my challenge for my friendship group - just needs to be pinned and quilted - I even have the binding ready to go. I'll do that when I get home. I'm sure I'll have few more tops ready to be quilted when I get home on Sunday too. Since I promised myself I wouldn't post pictures of quilts until they were quilted, this is a pictureless post. Keep cool!

This is a quilt for a friend. Hopefully she isn't reading my blog. I can't give it to her for a few weeks. I need to show and tell it at guild in August and I haven't made a label yet. I plan on embroidering labels during my mini retreat in Cambria in 2 weekends. This is a pattern from Buggy Barn's Certifiably Crazy book. They made it from wool but I thought wild patterns would be interesting. If anyone has any name ideas, I'd be more than happy to hear them. That is one thing I am horrible at doing.

Here's a close up of the quilting. I can't believe it. I got a call yesterday from friend who was there and said I got a Rosette (I'm assuming a big ribbon) for Best of Show, Machine Quilting. I also get $10. Woo Hoo! So excited. This is the quilt that won the ribbon - it's a Scrap Therapy quilt. Who would have thought it could win a ribbon. The outside border took over 1,000 - 2" squares - it wasn't hard when you use the Small Scrap Grid by Quiltsmart. You iron them on then sew the seams one way, snip the cross seams and then sew the seams the other way. If you want to check out Scrap Therapy, their website is http://www.scrap-therapy.com/projects.html Our local quilt shop, Thimble Towne has a class every month to work on one of their projects.

Finally! It's not that it was hard, it was just a matter of finding the right time to work on it. I did the work outside and when it was over 100 I had no desire to go outside to work on it. I like the look. Clean and simply and a little quilty looking. Pretty proud of myself and a big thanks to my husband for making the frame to set it in. Got the 42 blocks done for my friends quilt and the first border. Now I just have to work on the piano key border, and quilt it. Sounds easy, doesn't it? This Friday is Cut Throat quilters. Hope to get little projects done - like the guild's block of the month and maybe cut out and start my next project. Now I just have to decide what I want to work on next. I have so many choices. Oh, I finally got on to the Road to California website at 12:30 am and signed up for Pat Blair's painting with ink class. Her stuff is amazing. I have some oil painting background so this sounded like fun. Her website is www.pattsart.com if you want t...

I got my confirmation in the mail yesterday (but only got mail this morning from the box). I am going to take Elly Sienkiewicz Baltimore’s Iconic Clipper Ship class. Many new and different techniques to learn - “paint” with fabric, advanced layered appliqué, Unit appliqué; Ultrasuede Appliqué; Reverse Appliqué; dimensional flowers (of cloth or ribbon); theorem – stenciled or pen-shaded sails or ocean waves using oil pastel-stenciled into foaming caplets. Embellish with ink work and thread, or outline the top deck with a prim, straight line of bead embroidery. Now let's see how lucky I get with classes at Road to California. I'll know that on Tuesday.

Finally, something finished to put on the blog. This scrap quilt was quite easy--and because of the prairie point border, I think it makes this a little more unique than my other scrap quilts. Still need a name for it though. I've already started a new quilt for my friend who's had some trouble (the one I talked about a blog post or two ago). It's the Churndash quilt from The Buggy Barn's Certifiably Crazy book. It's made of wool in the book but I'm making mine with cotton fabrics. I won't say more because I think she sometimes looks at my blog. I'm hoping it will go together quickly. This weekend will be busy - today was a trip to Thimble Town Quilt Store because they had their big sale. I bought fabric for the quilt I described above. Tomorrow I go to the Lemoore Park 4th of July celebration in the morning/afternoon to help sell our guild's opportunity quilt tickets and help with the great little quilt sale. And then in the evening I'm off to...