What's on my frame?

I have a couple of friends that start out every phone call and email with, so what's on your frame.   I love that they are so supportive of my business and me.  Since I had a couple of those calls today, I thought I would take a picture and share with everyone.

Hmmm, that looks like another Theresa quilt.  :)  This one has much larger blocks at 11 inches finished.  And it's twin size.

I just love the tree fabric.  I don't think you can see the quilting.  I am using light blue thread on the top and bobbin.  And the quilting is called whimsy or loops.  This one will be coming off this afternoon and her crab quilt will be going on.  

Theresa's Quilts

I finally got chance to upload pictures from my camera.  Not that it is hard, I just need to actually have the camera and my laptop in the same room.  The first picture is of the Christmas Tree quilt.  Before you think that she can't take a picture, I went through and colored over the faces in Paint before I upload the picture.  I am kind of funny about the idea of putting peoples pictures on the web without their knowledge.

The second quilts is for one of her friends.  It had a very straight line feeling, so I had to stop that and put swirls on it.  Yes I know I have issues... 

She is doing a great job!

Quilting with Friends

My friend Theresa came to NC to visit me last weekend.  She is the one that I taught how to cut 6.5 inch squares in January.   I quilted 3 quilts for her in the spring.   She brought 4 more quilt tops with her this time.  She has taught herself to do half square triangles and has been designing her own tops.  Just wait until you see the crab she designed in Excel.  It is just too cute!  And she made the most adorable Christmas tree quilt which has family pictures on it that she printed on fabric.  

I showed her how to add borders and gave her some tips to help her with piecing.  We also made a quick top while she was here.  I quilted 2 of the tops and have 3 to quilt and send to her.   She was here less then 72 hours.   It was a busy weekend, but we had a blast! 

Back to work!!!

I have been busy since returning from Houston.  I picked this quilt up on the way home from the airport.

It is a wild quilt with lots of fun and happy fabric!  I wanted to do something on it that would not cause excess movement.  So I decided on Continuous Curve.  I used Lakeside Quilt Company's Triple Play ruler.  It makes curves easy because the hopping foot is following the inside of the curve instead of the outside like it would be on a circle.  I did have to switch over to a larger circle for the larger curves in the large squares on the quilt.  I have a really cool circle set by Off the Edge that has multiple sizes of circles.  

Here is a close up of the continuous curves:

It ends up making a large orange peel design.  

Here is close up of one of the blocks:

I used a lavender thread that matched the dots in the khaki background fabric on top and a royal purple to match the backing in the bobbin.  We used a Dream Company's Black Poly batting.  This is the first time I have used this batting and I have to say it really surprised me.  I did not expect it to feel so soft.  If I had not known it was Poly, I would have thought it was cotton.  It also shows great stitch definition.   

If you would like to see the quilt in person, it will be in Wish Upon a Quilt early in November.   They have Brandon Mably's fabric line and  kits are available for this quilt.  

Quilt Festival

These are not the best pictures in the world, but I wanted to give you an idea of the size of Quilt Festival.  The convention center is HUGE and it is crowded with quilters!   I took these pictures from the second floor through the big round red framed windows that look down on the convention floor.   I was shooting through the glass of the window, so there is an issue with reflections, but I think you can get an idea of the size and crowds.  The first picture is of the food area.  This was Thursday afternoon at about 1:30PM and there are very few seats available.  What you don't see are the huge lines of people waiting to order.   Trust me the lines were long, I just did not take a picture of them.

The next picture is of one of the rows of the vendor mall.  It does not look as crowded as it feels when you are down there.

Want to see what the rest of the floor looked like?  Well the next picture is what is to the right of the 2nd pictures.

It is kind of hard to see, but there is a beige wall at the far end.  All the beautiful show quilts are on the other side of that wall.

If you get a chance you should go to Houston.  The classes were awesome, the vendor mall was terrific and there is not a adjective that is good enough to describe the quilts!  

Hope to see you there next year!

Finally home!

I finally made it home yesterday.  I had a lot of fun in Houston at Market and Festival.  Of course, getting a couple days of with my nephew was great as well.  With the exception of my husband, my whole family was in Houston at my sister's house this weekend.  

I have to say that the bus system for Quilt Market worked extremely well.  We stayed at the Doubletree so we used the bus a lot.  The quilts in the show were beautiful! 

I was only at the Festival vendor mart for part of Thursday.  I really don't like crowds and it is CROWDED!  Mom and I had gone to preview the night before.  My sister came down to do the show on Thursday so we went back with her.  Next year I may just go to the preview night. 

I will try to post a picture of the crowd in the next couple of days.  I took a picture looking down on the vendor mall Thurday afternoon. 

Now, back to work.  I have several quilts that I need to do in next couple of days.  :) 

Longarm Classes

I have just finished up two days of longarm classes.  Yesterday I took a class with Gina Perkes.  It was awesome!  She was talking about things that can inspire longarm designs and different ways to fill quilting spaces.

Today I took Quilting within the Lines with Pam Clarke and a class on running a longarm business with Linda Taylor.  I really learned a lot in Pam's Class.  I am sure I will be ordering some of her templates to play with.  I did not really learn anything new in Linda's class, but I still really enjoyed it.

Quilting is a small wonderful world!

I got to see a couple of my mom's friends while at market.  Colleen and Chloe from Toadusew and Cathy Messner a fellow longarmer that has done some quilting for them and was here to help them out it their booth.   It was nice getting to see all of them again.  I even got to see a couple of quilts that Cathy quilted.  :)

Hi from Market!

Have you ever wondered what Market looks like.  I took this picture last night after sample spree.  There were still vendors busy setting up their booths.  I was trying to get a shot of the length of the vendor mall.  I had an issue with the glass reflecting the red frame of the windows. 

 Here is one of one of the rows.  

I stopped by to say hi to Mary Corcoran and Janice Pope.

Look how cute Janice's booth looks!


Yesterday was a busy day.  We left our hotel at 8AM and got back to our room at 10PM.  Luckily we looked at our class list, because we thought our class with Eleanor Burns was on Sunday, but it was at 8AM this morning.  Yikes.  


We took a class on Eleanor Burn's Day And Night quilt.   She is a hoot!  The quilt is very graphic and fun.  It is also easy.  We were out of the room by 9:30 and we all had completed at least one block. 


Then vendor mall opened.   It is so much fun just walking around and looking at all the quilts.  I have also been doing research on batting.  Pellon has a new black batting that feels really nice.  I want to get some to play with.  Mom had to trick me to get a hold of the sample, I was walking through market rubbing it because it feels so good.  


I visited the APQS booth.  I miss my Millie!  I even sat down and played on the George.  OMG, even I was able to free motion on it.  Wow!

Houston, Here I Come!!!!

I have packed the 3 Christmas Wreath quilts up as they will be traveling to Houston in my carry on.  I just can't get myself to check the quilts.  Logically, I know that TSA is not interested in my quilting, but I really want them to get to my customer.  I can't wait to see the reaction to these quilts. 

All I need to do is finish packing my clothes.  Then get a good night's sleep and off I go to the airport.  :)

For anyone that wants to set a drop off date for their quilt, I will be checking my email throughout my trip.  My voicemails are emailed to me so I will return those calls as well.   I will be talking several Longarm classes while I am there and I am sure I will have new ideas to share!

I am taking my camera and will post pictures a couple times while I am gone.  I will try to get a picture of Janice Pope in her booth to share with you.  I am really excited for her and hope that she gets loads of orders while she is there.  Cathy McKillip has assured me that she will be talking to the fabric companies, so it looks like my credit cards will continue to be in danger when I walk into her store.  I am sure she will order all kinds of goodies for us to love on while she is there. 

I am sure that I will run into other local ladies while I am there.   I hope everyone traveling has safe trips, that we have fun while we are there and that we have lots to share when we get home!

Three Down...

Woo Hoo!!! I finished Christmas Wreath #3!

First here are a couple of pictures of #2.  The only thing that is different from #1 is the borders.  I quilted holly leaves in #2.

Here is the back that shows the border.  It is really hard to see on the front of the quilt.

Now for #3.  I decided to do an all over in the center part of #3.  I love seeing how the quilting really changes the look of the quilt.  #3 looks so different from #1 and #2, but I still like it.

Here is a close up of the quilting on the front of #3.

And here is what the back looks like.

Now I need to decide what to do on #4, #5 and #6.   :)

Two Down...

I finished the second Christmas Wreath quilt Wednesday evening.  I have enough room to load the third onto the same backing so I did.  I am almost finished with it as well.  The first 2 were custom, the second is more of an an all over with 2 border treatments.   I can't stop my self and I did SID both of the borders on all of the quilts.  I just really like the way it looks and it does a good job in stabilizing the quilt.  I am going to load a tablerunner on next and then a different Christmas wallhanging.  I just need a break before attacking Christmas Wreaths 4, 5, & 6.  

I will take picture of #2 & 3 when they come off the frame.  I don't think that #1 and #2 will look different from each other from the front.  Since the thread matchs well you really can't see what I did in the borders on the front of #2, but it will definately show on the back.