Thursday, April 28, 2016

Going, going, gone.......

Just wanted to pop in to let you know that I am all packed and ready to go.  Retreat #1, here I come!!!

My sewing room hasn't looked this neat in a long time.  Of course, it is all packed up and ready to load into Sharon's truck.  I am taking it all with me.  

I did want to tell you that I tried out my new light that I bought at the quilt show the other day.  


It's NOT a gimmick!!!  I was pleasantly surprised.  It worked great for my night time hand stitching.  The light covered a large area of my stitching and it was nice and bright.  

Check it out here.  Beam n Read  
This shows a lot of uses for this little number, but for me....it works just as I had hoped it would for my stitching on dark fabric in the evening without ALL the lights on in the house.  

So, that's all I have for ya today.  Hopefully, if all goes well, I will have plenty of pictures of my work and will share a lot of pictures of everyone else's work at the retreat.  

See you when I get back!

Monday, April 25, 2016

Can't go to a quilt show without......

No, you can't go to a quilt show without buying something.  I don't need fabric.  In fact, I tell myself I am on a fabric diet, but if you turned in your ballot at the show, you got something off the door prize table.  So I picked up a fat quarter bundle for Christmas.  


Yes....it's going into the stash, but at least I didn't have to pay for it.  

What I did buy was this reading light that I thought might work wonders when I am stitching in the evening.  Ya know....these old eyes just aren't what they used to be.


It hangs around the neck and the lights are LED.  I am hoping to appease my DH by not having every light in the house on so that I can see at night to stitch.  We'll see how this works.  I will let you know.  If for nothing else, I can use it for reading.

Then there was this intriguing pattern with all the hardware in it.  It's a collapsible .....whatever you want it for.....threads and snippets garbage can, tool holder, notions holder, etc., etc.  All you needed to add was a fat quarter and some iron on pellon for the inside.  I bought the small one, but it comes in other sizes.  


Well, I couldn't wait.  I found some fabric in the stash and since it said it would only take an hour, I thought I would whip it together.  

Well, I don't know if it took an hour or not as DH (who is soon to be retired  and this could become a problem in the future) wanted me to go to Walmart's with him.  So, I dropped the project in the middle and came back to it an hour or two later.  Anyways, I can see getting quicker and quicker at it.  It really was simple.  

Here it is all complete.  


What's nice about it for traveling, the pop-up wire inside collapses and you can close it up for packing it up. There is an elastic loop that wraps around it and keeps it pretty flat.  


I can see making more of these.  You can find them at 


One other thing landed in my shopping bag, too.  

I tried to resist as they are really pricey, but since I won Best of Show, I made a last minute decision to treat myself; and I do mean last minute as they were already packing up their booth!  If you have ever tried DOVO scissors, you will know what I mean.  I have this thing for scissors anyways, but these were just adorable and they cut just sooooo fine!!!  They make me smile just thinking about them.  


Well, that's it for me.  I am sure if this were a bigger show that my purchases would have been a whole lot more, but I am happy with what I came home with.  Even got a quick fix on making the little pop-up container, so that was a plus.  

First retreat is coming up, so hope to get a lot accomplished at it and have lots to share with you, too.  
Have a great week!




Saturday, April 23, 2016

My original intent......

I planned on posting tonight about all the lovely quilts that I saw today at my guild's quilt show.....
Quilts From the Attic, and I will but first I have to share this. 

I put one quilt in the show.....my Beyond the Cherry Trees. 


This was a Viewer's Choice only show for all categories. 

I took Best Applique


and.....

I, also, took Best of Show!!!!


I am so excited and so thankful!  I am still pinching myself.


Ok....there were plenty of other lovely quilts in the show, so I will show you the ones that were favorites of mine, but my pictures just don't do them justice.





You can see I love black quilts with bright colors.  




Always love Christmas. 




Loved the dimension on this one.  



This New York Beauty was one of my favorites.  



Always love quilts with French General fabric.  


Loved the quilting on this Geisha. 




Loved the leafy quilting on the two previous quilts.  Funny how when you become a longarmer you tend to look at the quilting and forget to look at the quilt.  



This was a paper pieced log cabin!



I have always loved owls.


The quilting on this bargelo intrigued me.  




Lots of beautiful New York Beauties.  

The next two are my friend, Sharon's,  Bonnie Hunter quilts.  I still can't imagine doing all those little pieces, but they sure turn out beautiful! 




There were plenty more quilts and lots of vendors to keep you oohing and ah-ing the whole time you were there.  

Sure hope I will be able to sleep tonight being on Cloud Nine and all.  :D




Sunday, April 17, 2016

McTavished pumpkin......

Got downstairs to the long arm and decided this one was going to get done today! 


This is my li'l twister pumpkin.  

The original plan was to do McTavishing on the background and then just stitch some "spines" in the pumpkin (I figured probably about 8 would do). 

I started out with the McTavishing on the black areas.  



Now, mind you....I had to do this in the dark as I couldn't see the black thread on the black background.  So, instead I used a side light to highlight the shadows of my stitching.  

If you are a longarmer and might be interested in a side light, you can find Jamie Wallen's instructions here on how to make one.  

After completing the black, my original plan was just to put in some spines in the pumpkin, but I was liking how the McTavishing was going (even though it takes a looooonng time to do this), so I changed thread color to orange and did the pumpkin in McTavishing, too.  



Again, I could not see my stitching, so I continued sewing in the dark with the side light.  

I then did the same with the green stem in green thread.  

All this quilting makes for a very stiff quilt, but that's ok since it is a wall hanging and will hang very straight.

Here's the fun backing I used for this quilt, too. 


So the quilting on this little quilt top is done. 



 Just need to bind it; and I have plenty of the backing to make a sleeve for hanging for next Halloween.  

Thanks for taking a look.  



Saturday, April 16, 2016

Rethinking my decision...

Retreat #1's project is all cut out.....


and here are the solids that I chose......but.....

I am just not happy with the purple.  I think it is too bright and I knew it when I bought it but I wanted to be done buying and get it cut out.

But......I kept thinking and thinking ....that  purple just isn't right.

So...today I went out looking for another purple.

I found two.  

Which do you like? 

The lighter?


or the medium?


I ended up cutting out the medium, but I am still torn. 

So....I will be taking the lighter purple with me to retreat in case I change my mind again.  

I will have to come up with a sewing idea with all the purples that I just cut out.

What's really bad is that I couldn't get out of the quilt shop without picking up a neat fabric that names all the quilt shops that sell Moda.  I just love this fabric.  It'll be fun to see how many quilt shops I recognize.  


Now ...help me out with this.

I was cleaning out my mom's sewing tin and came across two of these.


What are these?

I know I must have one, but for the life of me, I can't remember what they are for.  I even started going through Joann's 50 some page list of notions looking for it.  I wasn't sure if it was for sewing or knitting.  Any  ideas?

Ok.....back to getting things done in the sewing room.  

Michigan quilters, take note

  Come see us at our first Quilter's to Quilter's sale.   Don't know what that is?  Well, it will be 28 quilters/vendors selling...