Pointless Quilter

My art quilt group, Loose Threads, met tonight.  We were a small group as Sara is up north taking care of her son who needs all the prayers you can spare, Barbara Sawyer's son was in an accident in Fresno so she had to head up there to him (I don't think he was injured - I didn't get any more details) and Grace Hoya was out of town.  So Karen, Anna, Janice and I had a meeting and we had a lot of fun.  First off here are some of the projects that we shared. Karen Taber made this for Janice's birthday which was last month. Janice made this for a raffle or prize.  It's beautiful in real life with glitter paint and glitz. I finished this top but probably won't be quilting it until next year. My Vintage Moments center finished - hopefully will be done with this top this weekend.  We had some wonderful Dutch Apple Pie and ice cream in honor of today (November 16th) being National Dutch American Heritage Day. It was my birthday month which meant that t...

Our guild is having a Christmas potluck and auction on December 1st and everyone is asked to donate a basket or something to donate.  I wanted to create a unique basket and thought of a Basket of Baskets.  Some fabric baskets made by a friend, a basket quilt pattern and fabric to make the quilt, and some candy and an ornament with a quilt basket on it.  I'll keep looking around for some other "baskety" things.  Here's a few of the things that I put together so far.  My friend Diane made some baskets but I don't have them yet. Basket ornament Fabric basket Basket quilt pattern and enough fabric to make the top.   I'll take a picture of the basket of baskets before we give it away. Until then I'm working on my own basket quilt and must get started on my homework for the Vintage Moments class.  And Christmas gifts.  Need to 1. figure out what I want to make and 2. make it.  Now that it's finally getting cooler and fall like I'...

I hope to be in Houston or on my way at least because next year I'm going.  (Can't do the market thing but definitely the show.) Thursday night I finished the latest Whisper Quilt (which I can't show) and yesterday I requilted the first one - I painted on the first one and it was absolutely horrible.  I took pictures and sometime next year, you will all see them.  So far I love each and every quilt I've made for this challenge. This is what I've been working on today.  I started this quilt started at the spring retreat in Cambria where I got all the bottom of the baskets done and at the last retreat I finished cutting out all the parts and started ironing them on.  A couple Friday's ago I finished ironing all the pieces on so today I started the button hole stitching.  It's tedious but this will be a beautiful summer quilt.  It's a free pattern from Moda Bake Shop.  Of course I'm making it bigger than the pattern calls for so instead of 12 b...

Made 5 "in the hoop" phone holders - one for my mom, one for each of my sisters, one for a girl at work and one for my sister-in-law.  I also made 6 labels.  2 are shown here, 3 I can't show because they are for my Whisper Challenge quilts and one was still stitching when I took the picture.  I got Bernina embroidery software version 6 at the PIQF show and was afraid to load it in case it caused me problems.  I had problems all week copying stuff from my old laptop to the new so I was really afraid to load a big program like that.  It has so much to it that I believe I will need to take classes on how to use it all.  I couldn't figure out how to even delete part of a design.  But I adjusted and made it work. On Wednesday, the Loose Thread ladies came to my house.  It wasn't a "whisper challenge transfer" month, but we did have some birthday gifts for Janice. Barbara Sawyer - 1 of 3 hexie balls for Janice (2 not yet made) Sara Kelly made t...

In the form of my grandson and quilt show loot! First, my grandson's first birthday was today.  Guess what the theme was? My step-daughter and her mom did a great job - there was cookie monster stuff all over the place.  Kids with blue fingers and mouths all over too.  The photos in the back were done by their friend who is a professional photographer.  He also did their wedding photos.  I hope to be ordering some of those soon. She made a big cookie monster cake for Jack to eat.  He was not all that impressed.  He looked at it, he looked away and wanted away - maybe it was all the people standing around him and singing.  Here's a picture and a little video. And then great-grandpa cleaned and put a new mane on this wonderful horse.  He made this for Kelly on Christmas right after her first birthday (She's 27 now).  Now it belongs to Jack.  And Jack liked it although he will need to be supervised as he is still a little unstab...

The pattern for this quilt is from Fig Tree & Co. and the pattern is called Jelly Girl .  It was pretty easy but due to either my seams being inaccurate or I measured from the outside of the jelly roll strips and they measured from the inside (you know the pinked edges), the triangles around each hexagon were too small.  Luckily I had enough of the light to cut more. So what does one do with the incorrectly cut triangles, well I added the pieced border (that is not originally on the pattern).  Also luckily I bought some matching solid 5" strips when I bought the jelly roll. Here's a close up of how I quilted it. And at guild last week a few ladies asked me how I finish off my bindings so I thought I would try my hand at a tutorial.  It's not a video, not ready to do that plus I usually sew in my pajama's and you don't want to see that.  Click on the tab above to check it out. Will be having a busy weekend.  Friday night is Party Party Party at the...

Tonight was the Open House for the Common Threads Quilt Guild's "A Stitch In Time" show at the Kings Art Center.  I have 4 pieces in this show.  And....yep - I sold my Dresden Plate quilt already.  And a friend of mine, Carol bought another friends quilt (Diane Mitchell's).   This is what you see when you first walk in. To the left is Grace Hoya's, center Sara Kelly and Mary Jane Loya on the right.  Bowl by Grace too. Some members chatting   MaryAnn Wlaschin -Just love this sweet little thing. What a soft and pretty vintage sheet quilt by Jodie Bissig Some more friends enjoying the show.  (Debbie and Larry Van Fossen on left, Debbie's mom and Mary Jane Loya.  If you're in the area, check the show out.  The info on the Kings Ar Center can be found  here.   Superior Ice Cream is only 2 blocks down (within walking distance and there is a quilt store probably about a 1/4 mile from the center as well.)

The I Spy quilt I have made for my grandson for Christmas and it also fits the Material Girls' challenge to make a quilt using a hexagon is finished! Thanks to all my friends who contributed fabrics for the blocks.  I hope he and his mom will love this.  I quilted a little note on the bottom with his name and love from his Oma. I did a lot of house cleaning this weekend and even got my Halloween decorations out.  Here's a couple little vignettes.  My table... A shelf in my quilt room... and a corner of my sewing room.... I have one more quilt pinned and ready to go except I feel like working on Janice's birthday quilt--she wants something - anything just not bigger than 11 x 14.  So, I have a few ideas knocking around my head and I may get one idea on fabric.   Thanks for looking and have a great week.  Guild on Thursday and I have a few for show and tell this month.  

This little baby was made with the left over fabric from my Dresden plate quilt.  I used almost every last piece I had -including scrappy strips for the binding.  All I have left are a couple of 3.5" squares. I spend the weekend in Pismo Beach with my 11 of my Material Girl friends.  Didn't take one picture.  I pieced the above top and also finished another fall quilt using Fig Tree's Jelly Girl pattern.  Also got a few more of the Dream On baskets ironed on.  We had beautiful weather, lots of good food and great fun.  We got to see our friend Janice's house in Los Osos (she just moved over there) and Sue who lives in the area came to sew with us a few days. I have two more quilts pinned and will post once I get them completed. Thanks for looking.

Tonight my art friendship group met (Loose Threads) to exchange our whisper quilts.  But since we can't show what we made (until the big reveal next year) we exchanged Sara's birthday strips.  She asked for 6" x 30" (or about) strips for her birthday with the theme cracked.  She even made one for herself. Anna made the one on the left and Sara made the one on the right for herself.   Grace made this for her. Karen's piece - this is hopscotch. Here they are together I showed mine on the last post.  What an interesting theme and what great pieces.  Sara's had a wonderful quote - I should have written it down - maybe she'll post it in the comment section.  You might be able to read some of it if you click on the picture. Then last time we met we gave Karen her fairy quilts for her birthday, but Anna hadn't finished hers. Here's what she made her.  She used an ornament for the fairy - quite impressive.  Karen loved it Anna as di...

What a pleasure to work on my favorite color combinations - a little table runner for the Common Threads Quilt Guild's Little Quilt Raffle. If it looks familiar - I made something very similar to this for myself last year. Then at the last guild meeting I won the Block of the Month blocks.  There were 14 blocks but this setting only needed 12.  I skipped adding 2 blue blocks because they wouldn't go with this border fabric I found in my stash and they were about 1/2 smaller than the rest of the blocks.  This will be donated to the guild's Charity quilt committee for some little girl. Now on to a little art piece.  Sara - don't look past this part as this is your birthday piece that you will get Monday night.  This is a Loose Threads Art Group birthday gift.  Sara wanted 6" x 30" strip with a theme of cracked.  This is supposed to be a sidewalk with weeds growing in the cracks.  The only thing I could think of  that would work.  I tho...