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...

This months ATC challenge was round and round - we had to use circles on the card. I decided to play with my paintsticks by making a circle template from freezer paper and a circle punch and just started stenciling. Tonight I tightly quilted around each circle, painted the edges instead of sewing. On one of them I rubbed some paint after I quilted. Kind of outer space looking. I've also been working on another Scrap Therapy quilt - I have 1/2 the blocks done. I don't like to show pictures until the quilts are finished. This week I have been very thankful for a very boring life . The people I work with have had a lot of drama in their life - drama I wouldn't wish upon anyone. Two of them are dealing with abuse - one friend very seriously injured. It's a sad situation. I wish I had a magic wand to help but all I can do is pray for them. What happened not only affects them directly but the whole family. Due to their privacy I won't say more. But to end my post on a h...

During the day I am a bookkeeper for a medium sized shopping center. Recenlty the CFO of the company gave me the title RKQ. He dared me to put it on my business card. I didn't and won't but what I did was put it on my work email in big letters after my name. I got so many comments and laughs from that. It started when I was telling him I was taking another day off and he asked if I was going somewhere fun and before I had a chance to answer he goes, "wait, it's another quilty thing, huh?" The answer of course was yes and then he laughed and came up with this title. I'm pretty proud of it. He appreciates the art of quilting. I have made him 2 baby quilts for each of his daughters when they were born. He always asks me questions about what I'm working on and I appreciate that too. Tonight I finished a purse for myself for the 4th of July holiday. This pin tuck purse is so easy to make and I love the look. I think I might need to get the bigger size as this...

Had my Friday night "party" at the local quilts store. We call ourselves Cutthroat Quilters because we are a full class and we won't allow any new members. (Mostly because of lack of space.) See my friends blog http://sew4real.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/cut-throat-quilters-were-meaner-than-hell/ = she explains it so well with a lot of humor. So Friday night I finished hand sewing a sleeve on the back of quilt I'm submitting to the Kings Fair and I machine quilted and bound the Spool quilt here. This is another Scrap Therapy quilt. And then on Saturday I had to clean house because my in-laws came for dinner - it was my father-in-law's 79th birthday. Sunday had my husband and I shopping at Lowes for tile. The back of my wood stove (converted to gas) fell down and cracked so I have to remake it. I wanted to get some design to look kind of like a quilt block since this is in my studio, but the stuff I really wanted would have cost me over $100 for just the tile for a 1...

My fiber art friendship group, Loose Threads, will be featured at a local art gallery. Tonight I had to send a picture of one of my quilts for the show and I chose this one. For the last 7 months our group met once a month and each of us had to take a turn teaching a new technique. With the new technique, we had to make a small quilt. I chose to do a journal with my quilts with "Things I Love". This month was a bleaching technique and obviously I love flowers. The back of each quilt has a scrapbook type page printed on fabric explaining why I love what the front shows. This one says I love flowers but only in quilts because I absolutely can't grow them.

I've entered quilts in the local quilt show but I've never entered a quilt in a local fair--but because of pressure from a guild member, I will be entering the above quilt in the Kings County Fair. This is another Scrap Therapy quilt--one of my favorites so far. I love the bright colors and even though I used over 1,000 2 inch square in the border alone, I still have boxes of scraps. How can that be? Here's a close up of the quilting. I custom quilted it as well on my home machine. Got the okay from my mother-in-law for a retreat at the beach house in July. Always a good time.

Why is it the moment I lay a quilt on the ground to pin or to take pictures, my dog Walter feels the need to sit on it. I finally finished the yet-to-be-named Asian Salsa pattern quilt and the minute I got it to the ground, there he was. Instead of fighting him to get off, I decided I might as well let him be in the photo. The colors in the photo don't really do this justice. The golds are fabrics with gold in it - actually all the fabrics have gold running through it except for the middle black area and the inner border. Later this afternoon I'm going to Fresno to see the show Wrinkles. They come around every year and a bunch of us quilting girls go to the matinee and then out to dinner. If you're not familiar with Wrinkles, it's a review type show and every actor/singer/dancer involved is 60 years of age or older. I hope I can move like some of those ladies at their age.

and I'm thrilled. I have been enjoying browsing all the blogs on their site for weeks and it has inspired me to start my own blog to share my work and the work of some of my friendship group friends. Thanks quilterblog for your site and I hope I can do it and my new blog friends justice.

The Common Threads Quilt Guild that I belong to had their big reveal night - we reveal our mystery quilts, the challenge and whatever else that needs to be revealed for the year. This year our challege was a yo yo challenge. You had to have at least one yo yo on your quilt. The talent in this guild is absolutely amazing. Here are a couple pictures of our guild's challenge quilts. I'm not sure who all the quilts belong to because I was on the stage when we were all holding them and I couldn't see everyones. Mine is the all green one. I should count how many yo yo's I made. This is from one piece of fabric that I bought at our guild's white elephant sale last December. My friend Deolinda won Viewers Choice with the body quilt. The funny part of her quilt was when she was holding it up - it looked like her head at the top of the quilt. My friend Anna Koelewyn also won something with her oriental florals. It was beautiful and her quilting was spectacular. Sara Kelly won...

This is my pastel Cherrywood Fabric quilt which I custom quilted. It took me almost 2 nights to mark the quilt and more than a week of evenings and a weekend to quilt it. It is one of my favorite quilts now. I even used thread that Cherrywood Fabrics had made to match their fabrics. I also finished the Cabin Fever block of the month quilt. This block of the month program is from Pinwheels, a quilt shop in New York. I signed up at Road to California in 2008. It was a 14 month program and I have to say that they planned this well and gave you plenty of fabric for each month. Each cabin has a different log cabin block. Each house was paper pieced. It was fun but I'm glad it's done. It's a very masculine quilt and my husband really loves it. Notice I haven't mentioned the Asian Salsa quilt yet - not done yet. Hope to finish soon. Guild meeting tomorrow where we will reveal our mystery quilts and have our challenge competition. Can't wait to see what everyo...

Didn't finish quilting the Asian Salsa - not even 1/2 way through. But at least I started it. Tonight I kept turning around to watch a movie I had DVR'd, The Nannie Diaries. I even cried a little. I did finish the Scrap Therapy ( http://www.scrap-therapy.com/index.html ) quilt top yesterday though, so at least that's off my list. I plan on doing a simple swirly all over pattern for that so once it's pinned it should be done quickly.

Today I am going to finish this quilt, well maybe not finish, but I do plan on pinning it to finish it. Still not sure how I'm going to quilt it, but hopefully will be inspired while I pin. This quilt was made from the guild's latest workshop called Asian Salsa taught by Don Linn. I will also finish piecing the latest Scrap Therapy quilt, Runaway Thread. I would like to get the pieced borders on by the end of the day. The rows for the borders are done, they just need to be put together and then put on the main piece.