Happy Halloween!!

I came home from the Parent's Weekend and all that fun and was SICK!!! Yep! and we had all the kids coming over for dinner and pumpkin carving. I sucked it up (like moms do when they are sick and the show must go on!) and made dinner. Amanda made the scrumptious Pumpkin Pie Cake and we made it through the night. Here are some carving picks, Grandpa changing the poopers cuz everyone was up to their elbows in pumpkin guts, and the finished Jack-o-Lanterns!
Trick or Treat!!!

From Drop Box

Tiffany's Quilt

Sorry to have left you hanging as to what was happening to Tiffany's quilt, so here goes.

It's a really cute patriotic quilt and she is getting it done as a special gift for her DH who is retiring from the Army. So she wanted to get some Embroidery done on it to commemorate her hubby. Not my favorite thing to do, but I must. So I pull out the embroidery module and slap it on the machine. Get the border all lined up and in the hoop. Spell out each line (some twice cuz I screw up) and embroider 3 lines. Get everything squared up and on the machine.

Then begins the quilting! OK so this is the easy part. Well, the quilting of it is, getting to the machine so I can quilt sometimes isn't so easy. But it must be done by Thursday or at the latest early Friday morning.

It's almost done, but I have a Church Quilting Class coming over Thursday evening. I have to stop early and get set up for that, and then go back to quilting. I'm not quite finished and the ladies arrive. We have class, it's winding down and some are almost done so I go back to quilting on Tiffany's quilt. I've been noticing all afternoon that my machine is sounding a bit rattlely. I spent some time in the afternoon oiling it all down, so I know that's not the problem. However, it continues and is pretty annoying, but the stitches look good and I keep pressing forward. Then the machine comes to a complete STOP! No budging it. So I go to bed and hope that in the morning it will decide to work.

Friday about 5 AM. I get up and the machine works. Well, for a bit and then it begins stuttering and sounding like it's not sure it's going to work. Almost, like a car running out of gas. Then it STOPS and there is no getting it to move. So, I have to go get ready for Parent's Weekend and prep myself to tell Tiffany her quilt is NOT done!!

On the way to Provo, I call Jen, the A-1 Dealer in the area. I give her a description of what was going on, and she tells me it's the motor-brushes. So she says she'll order some for me. Well, we're still waiting and then she's coming to help me get them installed. Tiffany is gracious and says No Problem. When I get the machine fixed and the quilt done. I'll post a picture!

Friends are Flowers

My Friend Niquie bought a Mary Engelbreit panel and was going to make me a "Friendship" wall-hanging. She actually bought 2 panels because she knew that she would want a "Friendship" wall-hanging too! That's how we are, we just can't stand for one of us to do something and not have it ourself. So we came to the conclusion that I'll make one for her and she'll make one for me! Of Course they'll be a like, but that's good cuz we'll know that every time we look at it our bestest friend has one exactly like it hanging in her home reminding her of our "Friendship"!

Here's what it looks like now, and to justify the cute ME tin that I showed earier I did buy it cuz I knew I could use the FQs in it on my friendship wall-hanging. Plus I've bought a few more! I can't wait to work on it again. It's gonna be so cute.

Your Opinion Counts!

Be sure to come over and check out the New Blog and let me know what you think! All comments left on the New Blog through November 15th will be entered into a drawing for a FQ Pack! I'll post a picture soon!

BYU Parents Weekend

So, I was supposed to get a quilt done for Tiffany by Thursday (10/23) evening to deliver on Saturday when we would meet them in Salt Lake City for Witchapalooza! We were heading out on Friday morning to Parent's Weekend at BYU! See below for pictures of our weekend, and see tomorrow's post for what happend to Tiffany's quilt!!!

From Collages

We had a great time. We went on a expanded golf cart thing for a campus tour. The 2 boys were so embarrassed and hoped no one they knew would see them. Then we went bowling for free at the Wilkensen Center. Most importantly we FED them every chance they could get. Then Saturday morning Bob and I hiked to the Y on the mountain (I didn't get a picture from the valley!) Let me just tell you moderately strenuous means heart-palpitatingly HARD!!! Then we went to a tail-gate party at the Alumni Center and then the Football game. We had FUN!! We left the game early so we could meet friends at the Witchapalooza at Gardner Village.

From Collages

A New Blog in Town!

I can't believe I'm doing this, but I've started another blog! CRAZY! I can hardly keep my family fed and run to Provo every weekend let alone start another blog. But yes, that is what I'm doing!

The new blog is called "Basically Quilting". Why? When I already have this quilty blog already? Well, I've been teaching a beginning class on quilting and I've found that I keep forgetting to say something in this class, and another thing in that class. So I've decided to create a blog so that I can post all the helpful hints and Quilting basics that keep popping into my brain at the wrong time, mainly when class is OVER!!

So visit the new blog, leave your comments, add your tips, or ask a question and I'll try to find the answer, and links to where I find out great info and tips on quilting!

Sewing with Amanda and Nora

For Christmas I gave my DD Amanda one of my sewing machines, rotary mat, rotary cutter, sewing table etc. . . . Guess what? She comes here to sew. She brings along my sweet Grand-daughter Nora, so I'm deciding it's a good thing.

Amanda and Nora came over the other day so we could start our Aprons.

Another: I Love Moment

Sorry, just had to share again ;o)!

I really LIKE! I tried to not use the other L word again. I Like pre-wound bobbins. (I need to reign in my exclamation points, too. It's hard but I will try.)
I get my pre-wound bobbins from Superior Threads. Yep, you can order them online. The mongo big ones are M size bobbins and I use them in my Long Arm machine. Usually these ones are filled with Bottom Line. My favorite color is Taupe. It seems to go with so many colors and blends really well. The smaller L size I'm trying out for the first time in my Bernina Artista 170 and they are working extremely well. These bobbins have cardboard sides and you have to test them in your machine and see if they work best with or without the cardboard sides. You can peel off the sides and the thread doesn't fall off the spindle. I don't know how they do that, but they do. In my quilting machine, I leave the sides on. But in the Bernina I took the sides off because when I put the bobbin with sides on into the bobbin case and pulled on the thread tail, the thread didn't pull smoothly out of the bobbin case. (When I went to take the picture, the bobbin got stuck in the case! Classc sign that you need to take off the sides!!) So I took the sides off and VIOLA! It worked terrifically. It is SO nice to not have to wind a bobbin when one runs out! I just drop in a pre-wound and I'm off and sewing again. Especially on the quilting machine. Those bobbins are so big that it takes some time to get them wound, and I would rather spend those minutes QUILTING!!

Yeah!

Two new Followers! Hi Janette and Andrea! I'm so Glad you want to join in on the fun. I just might have to come up with some sort of drawing for my Followers! Hmmm. . . . I'm going to start thinking on that. What FUN!

String Quilt

Mary will be so proud of my quilt group! The Utah Quilt Guild participated in an amazing service project this year. We made and collected over 1,000 quilts this year for the Quilts4Cancer project. These quilts and blankets will go to children with cancer. It was so amazing to see tables piled with so many quilts and to know that they are going to such a wonderful cause.

I'm happy to say that our Going Pieces Group spent an afternoon putting together 2 string quilts to donate to Quilts4Cancer. Unfortunately, I can't find the pictures!! If I find them, I'll be sure and post them. Sorry no pictures today!

I forgot!

I forgot to say HI and thanks to my 2 followers! It's something new that Blogger is doing and I've become a follower of several other bloggers. I thought it would be fun to see if I could get anyone to follow me! Wouldn't that be something?

So Hi! Amanda and Rachel, thanks for being part of my little following!

My Sparkly Clean Windows!

My Quilt Studio is in the basement. (I had a hard time typing in Studio and sometimes I have a hard time saying it, but if we're going to think of ourselves as professionals we gotta do it!) So back to the STUDIO! It's fabulous that it's a walk out basement and I have above the ground windows at the side. However, the much less than fabulous fact is that the sprinklers hit my windows and I was noticing a couple weeks ago that they were so covered with Hard Water build-up that I could hardly see out of them. Bummer I didn't get a before picture, but trust me it was GROSS!

Thanks to Hubby, who wanted us all to come help in the yard Monday night I got my windows clean. He might not have been too happy that I had my own agenda and wasn't quite following his agenda but, I grabbed the bottle of Lime Away (YEA we had a bottle in the house) and sprayed it all over my windows. Scrubbed them a bit, and squeegeed them CLEAN!! They are so clean that I can now see how dirty the inside is. I even left the screens off for the winter so that they don't block all the glorious Sunlight.

I'm a WINNER!

I WON! Well it's a consolation prize, but that's OK, I love it and am excited to make a wallhanging from this pattern. They chose 3 winners from everyone that commented on their Lizzie B Cre8tive blog and then they let the "losers" pick any pattern under $10 from their web store. So I picked this one!! Wasn't that amazingly nice of them to make everyone happy!

To answer the Ric Rac Quilt question: it was designed by Karen K. Stone and you can get her book at Amazon or Electric Quilt.

And the Quilt Hangers are called "Hang-ups" and I purchased them through Keepsake Quilting. I purchased the 1 3/4" ones, and they come as a set of 4.

Fat Quarter Decorating!

Lara of the Lazy Organizer blog has been asking for decorating help on her blog, and I was wondering if any other quilter's do what I do and decorate with their Fat Quarters!! LOL.
I fall for beautiful colors all stacked together in a neat tower and tied up in a ribbon! Lot's of other quilters must be suckers for them too or else we wouldn't find them at the Quilt Shops! I get them home and I don't want to break up such a cute package. Especially if it's all stuffed in a cute little Mary Engelbreit tin and tied up in cellophane!! So I usually let them decorate my Quilt Studio. At least for a couple years!
I just have to add, since I am linking this to Lara's blog. Although my three year old is not as adept as her daughter is to helping with the household chores, he did fold a pile of dishrags today for me!! He likes laundry day, but that for him usually entails playing in the bucket of laundry detergent. Today, he unloaded his brother's laundry from the dryer for me, too! No it's not folded, that's big bros job. I do love my older kids doing their own laundry; I don't like them leaving it in the washer or dryer when I decide it's time for me to get my laundry done. I've tried to make up a schedule and assign us all a day, but it just never works. So I guess I get to put up with the laundry in the dryer, but if I train the 3 YO to unload it for me it won't be so bad!!

Command Strips

Tired of hearing about things I LOVE? Well, I do love these sticky little strips. They are made by 3M and called Command. You probably have seen them on TV commercials to hold hooks, but now you can get them with hook and loop tape on them, just strips alone, and a few other varieties. Right now, I use the Poster Strips in my quilting. Really! I guess they're not directly involved in my quilting. I have them holding the cutest little snake light on my sewing machine and because I have several machines I can just pull the tab and it comes UNSTUCK and I can stick it onto my other machine if I want to. I bought my cool little light from my friend Kim who was smart enough to buy several when she found a deal on them!!!
I also use these stickies on the back of my cool Quilt Hangers. Instead of pounding several holes in the wall and being stuck with them in that position "forever"! Well at least until I decide to patch the holes, which in my case would probably be forever. So we're back to where we started. I put these stickies on the back and when I want to change to a wider or narrower quilt, I just put the wooden hangers on the quilt spaced apart where I want them, then I put the stickies on the back of the hangers and stick them to the wall! Viola!

Happy Ric Rac Quilt

I'm LOVIN' sewing the blocks on this Ric Rac quilt. Even though mine probably won't have any ric rac on it. I try to get at least 1 sewn each day. There are 32 blocks so it's gonna take me a bit to get it done. I hope to get it done and be able to enter it into the HMQS Quilt show in May.




Here' a block I was trimming. Then you turn it over and tape it back together. Karen suggested that we get colored "Scotch" tape to put it together because you can't see where you've taped it with the clear tape and you don't want to overlap the tape because you eventually have to sew through the tape. So I began scribbling w/a sharpie marker on the tape before I use it. I pull out about 18" of tape and scribble then roll it back up and tear off pieces as normal. Now I can see where I've put tape! Yea!

I LOVE my Iron!

I was sewing at a friends house and she let us use her commercial pressurized steamer. It was fabulous. One push of the steam button and POW everything was lying flat and beautiful. That one was EXTREMELY expensive. But I was in love with it! So I began searching online and found this cute little pressurized steamer by Shark and I love it. It was a lot less than my friends, but it works great. I love that I only get steam when I want it. I can press the seams and get them pretty much how I want them. Then I hit the button! I don't burn my fingers with the steam any more.

Cute Aprons!

So Amanda invited me to join her at a local quilt shop to look for flannel. How could I resist???? She's not much of a quilter and I'm trying to convert her!! My brainwashing plan worked!

We found some cute fabric to make the Four Corners Apron by Vanilla House designs. I can't wait and I better get on making mine because it's Halloween fabric! Guess which fabric is going to be the outer edge and which is going to be the inside.

Amanda's Cute fabric. Guess her outer and inner?

Aunt Neata's Quilt

My Great-Aunt Neata asked me about a month ago if I would quilt this quilt for her. Of course, I said YES! She said she'd like to see it done before she dies. YIKES. Nothing like a little pressure. She is 91, but in pretty good health so I'm pretty confident she'll be sticking around for awhile, but I just couldn't take the "what-if" something happened. So I pushed it in front of a couple of customer quilts. She still crochets and sews. She gave my mom a beautiful afghan when they visited a few weeks ago. I hope I can still do my quilting when I'm 91.

I basted the quilt to the zippers just inside the edge of the prairie points and let them flop over the edge. I tried to make sure they were lying flat when I rolled them up.

I hope I trimmed this right for her. I folded the prairie points toward the quilts and went a 1/4 past the edge of the quilt, just to make sure she'll have enough to turn over on the back and stitch down.