Almost finished....

I have been a little slim on my posts lately, just finishing up the last few quilts for Christmas. I hate to run too close, so I only take in what I feel I can get done by Dec. 10. Then if I am running a bit late, that will give people plenty of time to get bindings on, maybe ship to a loved one. So that's why I have been out of touch with my blog. Anyway that's my story!

Here's one that I just finished, quite a lovely scrap quilt for a Florida customer.

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater!

I thought this was too cute not to share. A friend's daughter sent her this pic, and I guess before this I never knew squirrels ate pumpkins. This guy sure kept coming back for more!! And he looks like he's had plenty to eat...

Almost famous!!

I am proud to announce my patterns are now being carried by Quilter's Warehouse. Now I don't have to worry about the PayPal and the shopping cart thing, it's all on them. Take a look, they are great to deal with and very professional.

http://www.quilterswarehouse.com/storeitems.asp?bc=VQS

Vote for me!!

I promise not to raise taxes for the average middle income American Quilter, lol.

Seriously, AQS is having an online quilt contest and I would appreciate you talking a look. Here is the link..

http://www.americanquilter.com/

If you look near the top you will see a drop down for "Shows and Contests" then click on the "Online Contest". You can then look at all 15 pages of quilts and vote for your favorite, or look to the lower right hand corner and search for quilt #1073. A vote for me is a vote for American Quilters everywhere!

Seriously though, the top prize is a trip for three (two people and a quilt, lol) to Paducah next March! I wanna win so bad it hurts. And honestly, this quilt, "Paradise Found" is perfect for this kind of format, as it is very graphic. Take a look, and thanks!

So done!

I am finally done with my guild's photo disc, a DVD that took about 50 hours to edit, arrange, set to music, burn, print the discs and ship. But it did help with revenue, so I am glad about that! It was my first experience doing something that involved, and as most things it was an interesting learning process. If you want to know ANYTHING aobut powerpoint, just ask, lol.

Coming up for air...

Since the Prairie Star Quilters Guild wonderful show, I have been working on a slide show of all the photos. Over 650 (!!) photos to edit, crop and organize into a 320 slide presentation. We are selling them, and hopefully that will make up some of the shortfall from our lower than expected attendance. I guess everyone is thinking hard about spending their pennies. Anyway I got Second Place in the wall category, and many of the quilts I quilted for others ribboned also, including my friend Chris' quilt EEs Flower Garden, pictured here also. She beat me for first place in the wall category!

In for a penny...

Well, I raised my hand at the wrong time again... Not really, this one was my idea totally. I am making a photo DVD of our quilt show which was last weekend, and because I am a stickler for detail, it is taking much more time than I ever imagined. Here is a photo of the disc design. It has been very time consuming, but fun at the same time.

Ah, some rest for the weary!

This weekend was Prairie Star Quilters 2008 Quilt Show, and I am pooped! It was great, though. Totally worth all the work. You can visit us at www.prairiestar.net and see what it's all about! We have great speakers and workshops, and lots of fun activities.

One of my jobs over the weekend was to take pictures of all the quilts, I am making a photo disc and it will take some time to edit and compose the slideshow. If you are interested in having one mailed to you, you can email me from the link on the Prairie Star site, just click on "Order a photo disc"

They should be mailed by mid October to arrive by Halloween. I am very excited about the project!



"The Postcard" by Mary Beth Clark won "Best of Show"

Finally redid the sewing room

My sewing room upstairs is often times "out of sight..." So after much thought about how I wanted things organized, I finally dug in and got it done. Keep in mind when looking at the photos, this room is a scsant 9 X 11, so everyhting must be stored vertically. However 2 walls in the room are shorter, as it is a gabled room. I had to hunt long and hard for the right sized shelving, etc.

Inspiration stikes!

I was finishing up a couple of quilts for the upcoming quilt show, September 26th and 27th at the Prisco Center in Aurora. Inspiration struck and these two gals got the super-duper treatment!

This first one is all batiks, very nicely laid out, and I believe this client just started sewing. Really nice result. The quilting is fern-like feathers, and squiggly lines and really shows off the diagonal elements, don't you think?

This next one was a mystery quilt that a good friend did, and it left alot of fun empty spots for quilting. I know she likes feathers, so feathers she got!

Busy, busy beaver!

I am so busy lately, but I like it. Especially when I can keep the stressful feelings at bay. When I feel like things are getting a bit hairy for deadlines, etc., I just take a deep breath and take an ACTUAL look at what I have have going, and when it has to be done. It's never as bad as I think it may be.

So here's the latest, a very nicely pieced panel in the middle, and multiple borders of varying types. I did much stitch in the ditch that doesn't really show, and then some detail in the panel, and then some other quilting to enhance the design. I like how it turned out, and so does my client. Unfortunately, I just realized I took many detail shots and forgot to get a whole shot and now the client has it! Oh, well! You can see the detail closer by clicking any photo.

Now I know....

Since I am a designer myself, I always like to give credit where due, and when I posted this rose quilt on one of my other chat sites, I got a hit from the author of the pattern. Small world eh? Anyway the book is by Deloa Jones and her book is titled "Scraps Organized to Perfection" She says there are 11 other patterns in the book, I may have to get one myself...

Roses are Red...

This is a quilt I just finished for a client. She had made it quite a few years ago and was just getting around to getting it quilted, so she didn't remember the name of the pattern. Cool, huh?

Another new pattern....

I am excited about this new pattern (quick and easy which everyone loves) but also one of my "convertable" patterns. You can make multiple settings and 2 sizes all from one pattern, so it's a good value! It's called "Split Decision" because it's a split 9 patch, and because you have so many choices (decisions) on which way to set it once the blocks are done. See what you think!




Here are other options, but the list is endless...

Latest work....

July has been my crazy month. I was vacationing in upper Minnesota until the 8th, then the Batavia Quilt Show (I got Mayor's Choice Award!) So now things have settled down a bit. I have a few new patterns ready to go, and plan on redoing the pattern portion of my website to reflect my new pattern covers, WHEW!!! Here is a quilt I just finished for a client, I think it is very cool, and the thread was a perfect choice. See what you think...

Helping HELP

I do volunteer work for HELP (Home for Endangered and Lost Pets) as I mentioned before, and today we have a booth at the local "Swedish Days" festival in Geneva. My friend Chris is going with, and I am wearing my Kitty Cat costume that I wore for Halloween a few years ago. Normally it's too hot for something like that, but today I will give it a try. If it's too hot later, off it comes! I will post photos of the setup in a few days.

Hmmm, over a week without a post. I never kept a diary as a child either. We'll have to see if this will work.

Anyway, horrible storms today. We lost power for about 6 hours, and LLOOONNG hours they were. No quilting, no sewing, no laundry. Just some catching up on quilting magazines that I haven't had the chance to thoroughly explore. LOVE Quilter's Home! That guy (and I use the term loosely) Mark Lupinski is a hoot. He is coming to my local quilt shop next year, and I will be the first one in line!!!

"How About a Nice Hawaiian Punch?"

Here is my quilt for my Priority Alzheimers Auction. It will be some time before it shows up, I have another one or two on the works. these small quilts are auctioned off to raise research money for Alzheimers.



My grandmother who practically raised me suffered long and horribly from this disease, and it breaks my heart to see people suffer from it, so sad.....

Another Friday

The Bunnies have grown, I hope the rest are okay......

SOOOO windy today, I went to Walmart and saw a woman running full speed after her shopping cart. Between the 60+mph gusts, and downhill nature of the parking lot, oh I wish I had my camera.

Anyway, more quilting today on the "bedspread" I have to admit I am getting bored with it-it's just so big! But only a couple more hours today. The pic you see are a couple of the bunnies, eyes open and very alert to everything around them. I hope the other ones are okay, nature has a way of letting things run their course....

Tomorrow some volunteer work with H E L P (homes for endangered and lost pets) and you can see what they are all about at http://www.helpinganimals.org/ I serve as an adoption counselor and have made a raffle quilt (see the pic) for the annual dinner in October.

Hump day!

I remeber we always used to call Wednesdays that. Once you got past Wednesday, the worst was over. Well, since I started working from home, almost anyday can be hump day. I try and get errands done during the week when no one is around, and sometimes work on the weekends. So the whole work week thing is kinda blurry.

Today I am doing a HUGE quilt that's not really a quilt. It's this fabulous Moda print and ONLY that, and I will do something simple, But it's 120X106, so that's pushing the limits of my table. I also have an little Priority Alzheimer's quilt that I am going to quilt on my DSM (domestic sewing machine) For more information about these fabulous little fundraising quilts, you can go to my website and click through at the bottom of the homepage to Ami Simms' website and efforts to fund alzheimer's research. Bless that woman!

Funny little bunnies...

I did get a good picture of the bunny nest in the backyard, right outside the back door. I am hoping our feral barn cats don't find them, Momma has them hid pretty well. And I think her instincts were good to put them close to the house, as the cats don't like to get too close to the house. I think there are about 7-8 babies, and I think you could put two in the palm of your hand.

Today is pretty quiet, I loaded a new quilt for another Chris, also a friend. Today I also discovered that the quilts that I am trying to sell at the Sister's Outdoor Quilt Show in Oregon are online now. You can see them all previewed at www.sistersoutdoorquiltshow.org

We have had a bunny nest just a few feet outside our back door and today they started venturing out of the nest. So cute! When you get close enough, they start popping up like little jack in the boxes, 'cause they think Mommy's home and they are looking for a meal. I will try and get a picture soon.......

Orange Peel!!!

Today I am teaching one of my favorite classes, Orange Peel by Hand. I don't do many things by hand, but this is one I enjoy. Maybe because it does not require intense concentration, just a determination to keep going with it. I always have one in the works and keep it in a large zip-loc bag so I can grab it and go anytime I want. It will keep me company in the van on the way to Minnesota in a few weeks.

Chris' projects....

Well, here are a couple of items belonging to my good friend Chris. She really does amazing piecing, but just can't quilt to save her life. She wouldn't get mad that I say that, she freely admits it. So you see here a table runner, front and back, and then some shots of a fabulous wallhanging that I really spent more time on that I would have, were she not a good friend. I think she will love it!

What's up for Thursday

So, I am told that in order for a blog to be a sucess (what is success in blogging anyway?) you must BLOG! I guess it has something to do with crawlers looking for stuff, so there needs to be alot of stuff!

So here is my first attempt at posting pics. I already tried to do the slideshow from my webshots, and that didn't work. I guess I will have to find a nine year old to help me figure that out...lol.

Here is a quilt I have just finished. The first is my new pattern "Tidal Wave" It employs invisible machine applique, one of my favorite techniques to teach and also use. I am especially happy with how the quilting has shown off in the negative space.

I will make a new post for some other finished pieces....

Starting the process, my first blog.....

Well, I debated for quite some time about doing a blog. The main argument against is time, and my long cultivated inability to type very well or fast. It's a 50 years+ thing, unless you made a career as a secretary, right? Anyway forgive any typos you may find, and you WILL find them.

I am not quite sure what direction this blogging thing will go. My intent is for it to be primarily a journal of my quilting experiences. Without going into a lot of history today, I will say that I am evolving as we speak. I am up to about 8 quilt patterns, and the hope is that if I can increase that number to 20 by next spring, I will get a booth at market in Pittsburg. But it is very expensive, and I will have to be able to justify the expense. So we'll see.

Today I am working on 2 quilts (small) belonging to a friend of mine, and I will post pictures in a day or two. She will be happy, as I have had them for a bit. My evening will consist of continuing work on a new pattern design by cutting it out and getting ready to construct it. It is a bright and black (one of my favorite colorations!) and makes pinwheels in one of the settings.

If you look at my early patterns they have the ability to be set many ways so you can make the quilt your own design. Sort of "YOU BE THE DESIGNER!"

I think I will sign off now, and play with the look of my blog for a bit. Let me know what you think!