Happy Holidays!

I've been a busy bee this year, and I needed to update the most recent publications for some more of my quilts from 2012.  Here it is, Dec 21st, the date we were all doomed to die at the end of the world, and lifes keeps ticking on.  Not that I was ever worried about the Mayan calendar!  LOL!  There have been many sad events in these last few weeks but I believe in hope for the future, and continued strength to endure, even hope and faith to push us forward, to enjoy the God given days ahead. 

I also wanted to spread some Christmas cheer and some of my favorite Christmas surroundings with love to all, and especially my family and friends. These are just a few of my favorite things.

  To finally finish a wool project--priceless!

 

 

And our little dog Peanut under the tree.

A quilt for the wall, and a treasured cross stitch from my daughter many Christmases ago that I just love.

Music boxes and

homemade decorations from years past. 

Even a new tree topper we call Larry, Moe and Curly!!!

 

I will post the last quilts and magazines of the year in my next post.  Somehow work just doesn't seem to belong today.  Have a wonderful Holiday Season!

Is it Fall yet?

 Well, the heavy monsoons we had this year really made an impact on the Las Vegas valley.  This is a view from our back yard as the huge storm that flooded so many parts of the city rolled into our area, in the southwest part of town.  The storms are over now, and the crisp cool evenings and early mornings of Fall have arrived.  It is so wonderful to walk the dogs and be comfortable!  My husband and I decided to celebrate the Fall weather with a new purchase, to give us hours of exercise and entertainment that we are already enjoying, new bicycles! 

My new Specialized bike has 21 gears which we need because we live on a mountain and all the streets in the area are hills!  Talk about a workout.  But I'm like a kid with a new toy and so excited to be able to just jump on and ride whenever I want.  It's comfortable too, which is a bonus.  No more being housebound from the summer heat!!  This is my favorite time of year.

Well, Fall also means that Fall Market is in full swing, and believe me, the quilts are cranking out every few days.  I'm busier than a one armed paper hanger to say the least.  I'm having the best time though, with the new pattern designs and quilts from the new fabric lines that will be revealed in Houston.  I have a sneak peak for you of one that I finished that is going into a magazine next spring.  It is an RJR line called Cold Spring Dreams and I just love the contemporary look using florals! What do you think? 

Here's a close up of the quilting, just having fun with a contemporary design.  Can't show you the whole thing yet, but you get the idea!

 

Fall also means sprucing up the yard and the house, so we potted plants in the yard and painted indoors as well as adding new cupboard doors to the kitchen!  Never a dull moment around here for sure!

 It's been a fun ride through summer and now it's time to get out the quilts, holiday decorations and ease into a new season.  Peanut thinks sleeping on quilts is the only way to go!

Have a great week, pull out those unfinished projects, and finish just one!  Your dog will love you for it! 

We have blog tour winners!!!!

Drum roll please, I have a first place winner, using random generation drawing, number 134, and her name is Karrie S!!!   Karrie wrote "I love your tree skirt! It is so beautiful!" Congratulations Karrie!  You will be contacted in the next week or so by Quilter's Newletter to obtain your mailing address to ship your beautiful Fat Quarter bundle from Maywood's Snowfallen collection!  Yay!  I just love it when someone wins a prize!

I have also picked (using the random generator) a second and third place winner.  Second place is Karen, number 60 in the comments list and she wrote " Love the Tree skirt, and colors.. Great blogsite too!!  Karen I will contact you for your address so I can send you the magazine issue as promised!  Oh this is fun.

My third place winner was randomly generated for number 2!  That is Celcelia who wrote, "I love this tree skirt! I've been wanting to make one for myself, but haven't found one I like. I really like yours, especially the fact that I don't have to match points. :) Thank you for the chance to win."
I'll contact you as well today for your address so I can mail you your new magazine. 

Thanks to all of you who visited my blog for a chance to win.  Don't forget there are more tours after mine so you still have a chance to win!  Stay with it--you just never know when your number will come up!

Ok, so I have to share more quiling stuff with you this morning.  I just finished a traditional quilt I designed from RJR's Incense and Peppermints line by Robyn Pandolph that will be available soon!  A couple of weeks ago, I went to a wonderful class with Kim Diehl, and I have to admit she is one of my favorite teachers!  I learned a whole new way to applique using several techniques I've used before but put together in a whole new way.  I love it!  So I had to make some applique blocks of course, plus a few yo yo's and I just shipped the quilt yesterday!  So exciting!  I'll share some sneak peak views for you here.

I just love it when an applique block comes together!  Kim's method looks hand done, but in the end is stitched on by machine. 

You use freezer paper templates, but instead of ironing the waxy side to the wrong side of the fabric, you glue stick the center of the paper side to the wrong side of your fabric.  Carefully trim around your template leaving a 1/4" seam.  The sides of the freezer paper will be loose, so use small scissors and keep rotating the edges in your hand while you trim.  Then the fun part begins.  Lay your piece right side down on a hard pressing surface, and using a small iron, (I perfer the Rowenta iron) press the edges to the waxy side of the freezer paper!  Fabulous!  You need very few snips to inner corners--like ONE-- and none to the outer curves!  On outer corners press over one side, then the next and then using a dot of liquid basting glue, tuck under the point carefully and press to set the glue. 

Now it's time to lay out your pieces.  Fold an inner crease corner to corner on your background square to give you placement registration marks and work from the bottom pieces to the top.  Put tiny dots of glue along the pressed over seam allowance only, and press in place!  This holds all the pieces in place so you don't have to make your background block larger.  This eliminates trimming your block to size after the applique is done.  By the way, I have always used bias bars for any stems, they work wonderfully!

Sew the edges of your applique pieces, one layer at a time under the sewing machine using a tiny zig zag stitch, setting about 1.0 width and 1.0 length, using a cotton thread in the bobbin and a monofilament thread on top.  One swing of the needle goes on the outside edge of the applique, the other into the applique.  You will stop and turn frequently so a hands free system on your sewing machine works well (a knee lever to lift the presser foot).  Well, I couldn't stop there so I made a pile of yo yo's and sewed them on (this time by hand) for the flowers! This was the most fun I've ever had with applique!  It's usually so time consuming, and this was a pleasure to work on.  I highly recommend all of Kim Diehl's books where she gives much more detailed instructions to the process, and some beautiful quilt designs too.

It's amazing to me what just four applique blocks can do to add interest to a quilt.  You'll be seeing a lot more applique work from me in the future! 
Have a great day and keep quilting!!

12 Days of Best Christmas Quilts!

The new issue of Best Christmas Quilts 2012 from Quilters Newsletter is in quilt shops and bookstores now!  You can also find it through www.quilt andsewshop.com both in hardcopy and digital editions.  At $9.99 it's a great value because it has more patterns than most books at half the price. 

For the second year in a row, I just happen to have another project in this wonderful Christmas issue!  It is probably my most favorite class I have ever taught, and a favorite pattern.  It's called Holly and Ivy Tree Skirt, and also is known as my Spiral Tree Skirt! 

What I really love about this pattern is that it looks so complicated, yet it is so easy to make and there are absolutely no points to match!  The secret is the use of a 9 or 10 degree wedge ruler that is 24" long to cut your wedges out of a strip set.  When the ruler is placed at an angle on the strip set it automatically makes the fabrics "spiral" around on the tree skirt! 

Leave a comment on this blog post before 11:59 p.m. MDT tonight (August 29th) for a chance to win
this beautiful prize of Fat Quarters of Fresh Fallen Snow from Maywood! 

VERY IMPORTANT!!!!  Please include your eamil address when leaving a comment so that you can be contacted if you win!  There will be one winner at random for the Fat Quarters, and I will also give
away an issue of this magazine for a second and third prize!  Again, leave your email so I can contact you.  It may not be Christmas in July, but August works just as well!  I'll announce the winners on August 30th.
Thanks for stopping by, and keep quilting!!!

Busy, busy, busy!

The new year has turned out to be one of the busiest ever for me.  Amidst the flu in our household, first my husband for over 2 weeks and then me, with a trip to the ER and several Dr's visits I think I'm finally getting back to normal!  What a relief to feel human again.  I swear I will never miss a flu shot again!  During all this I had 2 cataract surgeries which turned out to be a huge success and now I only need glasses for up close work, and that means REALLY up close work my friend!  Here I am with my friends at a fun stitchery retreat about 2 weeks ago and it was a wonderful day off!  From left to right my friends, Pat, Tina and myself.  I'm quilting so much these days that doing cross stitch is a new form of fun and relaxation!  Right outside the windows was a beautiful golf course and we had a great time.

In the meantime, I've had quite a few quilts going in magazines so far this year, and one last fall that I can see I failed to tell you about!  So I've add the latest magazine covers to the right of this post, and here are just a few of the quilts I made for them.  The latest is just now coming out, with a wonderful spread by Mc Call's that I'll share with you!  These were a ton of fun to make, and really very easy!

Simple quilts used my version of a zig zag quilt.

Fons & Porter's Easy Quilts for Summer of 2012 is a darling little girls throw.  Sorry I can't get the picture to rotate properly!!

I had a bonus quilt in the Fons & Porter Love of Quilting May/June 2012 that is beautiful Robyn Pandolph fabric by RJR.  This one was quilted by Tami Bradley.

One of my favorite quilts that I made last year went into the April/May issue of Quilt Magazine.  This one is paper pieced, and a Benartex line called "Bold and Beautiful"

I quilted this one with a contemporary design and the blocks were paper pieced.  I love to combine traditional patterns with contemporary fabrics.

I can't believe I got so far behind in my posting!  It has been such a busy year, so I hope you don't mind if I just catch up the work I've been doing all at once for you to see!

This one is called Flowers for Odessa, an RJR fabric.

Right after quilting in this picture, and the overall pattern in the smaller pic.

This Starring Kitties was in the last issue of Mc Call's quick quilts.  A fun and easy project with a border print.

LASTLY, the cover for last fall's Best of Quilts for Christmas issue by Quilter's Newsletter.  I was so excited about this cover!  The quilt used this Quilting Treasures panel print of Christmas Trees and has always been a favorite for me.  Easy paper piecing but it does take time with the border. 

Ok, now that's it!  You can see I've had a lot going on, but I hate missing out on blog time with all of you and searching through all my favorite blogs too.  Now there is also Pinterest on the web so what is a body to do?  So much wonderful information for all of us out there just full of inspiration!  I have so much to show you and share, but I think I better save it for the next post!  I should be posting more regularly again and the world is full of more than I can possibly do that I want to do!  But I have some fun upcoming projects to share, of modge podge on an old suitcase, spray painting a new file cabinet and my sewing room is looking mighty different these days!  I'm also working on a really cute Halloween cross stitch that I'll be sharing soon.  Hope you are all having a great year so far, and I hope to be back soon.  Thanks for not giving up on me---and keep quilting!!

False Spring in January!

I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday Season!  We had a wonderful time, seeing family, being involved with holiday festivities and enjoying ourselves in general.   Of course the quilting didn't stop for long, and I can't believe I'm already designing for the spring lines, but life never stops and I can't believe how fast the time is flying by!  It has been beautiful weather here this week, in the 70's and it really feels like spring, but the plants still know it's winter.  Our warm days will be gone soon, but it's been a pleasant surprise!  Actually it makes me miss my home, the California coast, sitting by the beach.  A far cry from the high desert!  I found a picture that really inspires me!  I love the tranquil feel, the warm sand at your feet and balmy breeze on your face, the twinkle of the sun's reflection on the water, always moving, always changing. 

OK, so wake up, it's back to reality and I have some fun quilts to share!  This quilt will be in Quilt Trends magazine this year, it's a line called Odessa by RJR Fabrics!  I love the colors and the large floral.

I've been busy making cupcakes and ice cream! 

I just finished quilting this quilt for RJR, a beautiful new line by Robyn Pandolph called Lansdown Road.  Here is the finished quilt with a scalloped border.  It will be out as a kit soon.

I've found a new color range that I normally am never drawn to, but I saw a wonderful Smilebox slide show on The Quilt Show recently showing some gorgeous quilts in the browns.  I really am inspired to try something like this, as it's totally out of the box for me!  I even have to go BUY some fabric in the browns and neutral tones.  Darn! 

This is a picture of one of those quilts made by Emily Meier, in the Mystery Wheel design, also know as a Winding Ways block.  I just have to try it this year!  I think it is so beautiful in it's own subtle way.

She matched those points so perfectly!

I am also working on a personal wool project that I've just begun.  I saw this image of wool stacked up along the wall, and it's almost as pretty as some of our sunsets!  I love wool, it's so rich and soft, gives a whole new dimension to a project.  I love it when fabrics and color inspire a new idea.   Just a great reminder to enjoy each day as it comes, and put everything into it that you've got!  No fear, no regrets.  Keep Quilting!