Trunk Show at Allatoona Quilters’ Guild

I gave a trunk show at the Allatoona guild this morning.  I had a great time, showed a lot of quilts and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

I am not sure how many quilts I took but there were a lot!  It is amazing that there are a lot more that I didn’t take but left at home.  I have a lot of Halloween and Christmas quilts since I usually make one of each for the holidays each year for the shop.  That adds up to a lot of holiday quilts.

I also had a number of Bonnie Hunter quilts, several made from Sweetwater fabrics and others from my yearly Las Vegas trips, plus others that I just couldn’t resist taking along to share.

Melinda

Getting Ready for a Trunk Show

The Allatoona Guild asked me to be the program for tomorrow so I spent some time this afternoon sorting through my quilts and deciding which ones to take.  Every time I do this, I am amazed at all the quilts I have.  I wish I had kept better track of all the quilts I made over the last 23 or so years.

It should be fun.  I always love the first meeting of the year – seems like we have a clean slate with the new year.

Melinda

Michele Made Me Do It!

Michele sent me a photo from Sears last week and this morning I gave in and went to look at it.  While it is sold out, they will have it in a week.

I plan to use it in my longarm studio to hold all the stuff that goes with the machine.  There are drawers for thread, rulers and all the other stuff!

Michele also has a question that I said I would share and see if anyone knows the answer.  She works on a lot of old quilts and this one came to her over the weekend.  Neither of us have ever seen this pattern.  Any ideas?

Let me know if you have any ideas – I will be working on the NYD quilt.

Melinda

Update on Design Wall

Here is what my design wall looks like today.

I got questions yesterday about what fabric I am using.  Here it is.

I am loving the blocks that I am making.

Here are my next 10 leader/ender bowtie blocks. These are 261-270

Melinda

Design Wall Monday–June 17, 2013

My design wall looks very much like it has the last few weeks.  Now that the quilt show is over, I am almost finished with the work of Quilt Entry.  I have about 20 quilts I brought home last night that have to be shipped back to their owners and I will be finished.

Now that the work is almost finished, I should be able to get the quilt finished.  I still need nine more houses.  At the show, I bought a roll of Kaffe greens that I will be using for some of the houses.  Tonight I have to go to a basket class.  Our teacher is not able to continue teaching due to other work requirements, and I am trying to find out if it is something I can teach.  Guess I better make a few before I can tell.

For more design walls, go to Patchwork Times.

Melinda

Update on Zig Zag Quilt

I made a few more blocks of the zig zag/chevron quilt.  I am sewing the blocks together in fours and will then worry about getting it all together.  It will be way to large for my design wall. I am sewing zigs and the zags will happen when I start sewing the four patches together.

My Pfaff went in for a spa treatment and is happy to be back home and sewing again.

Melinda

Finished Projects for 2010 and 2011

Finished Projects 2010

• Black and White Nine Patch Surprise
• Black and White Quilt
• Candle Mat for Swap
• Changeable Cover Bag
• Cheap Trick Schnibble
• Click-It Bags for Allatoona Guild
• Dazzling Dog Quilt
• Doll Quilt for Allatoona Swap
• Embroidery Quilt for Swap
• Five, Ten, Twenty 12 Days of Christmas Quilt
• Five, Ten, Twenty Pastel Quilt
• Flannel Wacky Devine Nine Quilt
• Fruitcake Wacky Devine Nine Quilt
• Gone With The Wind Quilt
• Halloween Wacky Devine Nine
• Home for the Holidays Christmas Quilt
• Letty's Bag
• Letty's Bag for Tote Swap
• Letty's Little Bag
• Magnolia Lane Quilt
• Needle Case for Swap
• Oilcloth Letty's Bag for Michele
• Origins Quilt
• Pillowcases (6)
• Selvage Kindle Cover (2)
• Selvage Pin Cushions for Blog Readers
• SSCS Gift and Ornament
• Winter Tote Bag for Swap

2011 Finished Projects

• "Lime Green is a Neutral Color " Wallhanging
• Aprons for Quilt Show
• Bright Flannel Wacky Devine Nine
• Click-It Bags
• Composition Book Cover
• Easy Peasy Grommet Bag for Christmas Gift
• Hometown Neighborhood Quilt
• Jovial Christmas Quilt
• Kaffe Magical Slice and Dice
• Lime Green Hiding in Black and White
• Name Tags for Quilt Show Committee
• Potholders for Swap
• Red and Aqua DNP
• Table Runner for Swap
• Turning Twenty
• Watermelon Quilt
• Zipper Pouch

I just wanted to clean up my sidebar and still keep track of what I have finished over the past couple of years.

Melinda

First Quilts

Bonnie Hunter is talking about first quilts over on her blog.  I made my first quilt when I lived in Australia in the early 90’s.  I didn’t know a lot of people since I was there working mostly with men.  I decided that I wanted to learn to quilt.  I went to the local patchwork shop and signed up for a series of beginner classes.  Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that the teacher was the worst teacher in the history of quilting.  There was only one way of doing things – her way or else.  She wouldn’t allow you to choose your own fabrics since of course, she knew best.  At least that was her story.

We made 12 inch blocks by hand.  Here are a few of them.

There is only one thing you can say about these blocks – they are ugly!  I didn’t like them at the time and I don’t like them now.  I think we were supposed to make 12 blocks but I only lasted through 7 of them.  I still have some of them.  I don’t know why I don’t just throw them away.  I will never make more of them or use them for anything.  I have a plastic box with the rest of the fabric still in it.  I need to go upstairs and get rid all of it.

After this miserable experience, I was still interested in learning to quilt so I went to another patchwork shop and found wonderful quilters and teachers.  Here is the first quilt that I actually finished.

The photo is of the quilt folded up at my son’s house in Sweden.  It is wearing out but has been used and used and loved.  It was a quilt as you go log cabin and I made it in red and blue – can you tell I was somewhat homesick at the time I made it?

After this great experience, I can’t even imagine how many quilts I have made and how much difference it has made in my life.  I teach quilting, I work in a quilt shop, I have a longarm quilting business and most of my friends are quilters.  I belong to three guilds and spend part of every day playing with fabric – what a great life.

To see more stories of first quilts, go to Bonnie’s blog here.

Melinda

Kids Camp

We had a group of 7 young quilters at Tiny Stitches this week. They each made a snowman quilt using the snowball block – how appropriate.

Here they are with their finished quilts.

One of them was unable to come on the last day so there are only six in the photo.

Very cute and very proud.

Melinda

Review of 2010

At the beginning of 2010 I decided that I was going to post every day on my blog.  I missed one day when Comcast was having problems and I was too lazy to go to the library or coffee shop to send my post.  I kept thinking that the internet would come up at home and it didn’t until the next day.  I do feel good that I almost accomplished my goal.

I made several quilts during 2010, several purses/tote bags and many little projects like pillowcases, Kindle covers, Candle Mat, Mug Rug, and a few small quilt projects.  I also made a bunch of Click-It bags.

I taught a lot of classes.  I had more than 40 new quilters complete my beginning machine piecing class and really feel good about helping create that many new quilters.  I taught a purse class every month and for the first time taught at the Georgia Quilt Show.  I also taught at a seminar in Las Vegas – teaching a quilt that I designed.

It would be hard to pick my favorite project of the year so here are a few of them.  First is my Gone With the Wind quilt that I made for shop hop.  I have had offers to purchase this quilt but since I made it in my mother’s memory, I have decided not to sell it.

Next is the quilt that I designed and taught in Las Vegas.  It is called Nine Patch Surprise.

Here are some of the tote bags I made.

As you can tell, I love the Letty’s Bag pattern by my sister Robin.

Here is my favorite Christmas quilt I made this year.  Because of Christmas in July I make one or two Christmas quilts a year. The second one is another favorite.

I almost forgot – I finished the dog quilt this year.  It is another favorite.

I am looking forward to finishing up a lot of UFO’s in 2011.  Happy New Year to all of you.

Melinda

2011 UFO’s

I have decided to join Judy’s UFO Challenge for 2011.  I have lots and lots of UFO’s but finally decided on 12 to list for the challenge.  I tried to do a UFO a month during 2010 but only managed to finish three of the ten I listed.

I have repeated some of them for 2011 but others I decided to pass on.  I still want to get them finished someday but have decided that if I didn’t work on them in 2010, I apparently didn’t really want to finish them badly enough.

Here are the projects I want to finish this next year.

1 – Scrappy Bargello

This one is a scrappy bargello that I made in a class with Bonnie Hunter a couple of years ago.  The top is finished but needs borders before it can be quilted.

2 – Jelly Roll Quilt Along

I completed all the blocks, got them sewn together but still need the borders and quilting.  Can you start seeing a theme here?

3 – Three Sisters

This is a quilt I started many years ago and although all the blocks are made, they are not completely put together.  More than half is done and it would take very little time to finish this one.  Of course, that means borders and quilting.

4 – How Does My Garden Grow

I made this quilt during the Allatoona Retreat earlier this year.  It actually has the borders on it but needs more flowers cut and fused, then stitched down before it can be quilted.

5 – Log Cabin Stars

This one is actually finished – at least the top is.  I need to find a backing for it and get it quilted.

6 – Floral Log Cabins

This one has all the blocks made and put together.  I need to decide if it needs a border, find a backing and quilt it.

7 – Dear Jane Row by Row

This was a round robin from several years ago.  It has a slight problem since the bottom two rows were about 2 inches longer than the previous rows.  I took them off but I need to figure out how to fix it so it lays relativity flat.  Of course, it then needs border and quilting.

8 – Stack and Whack Fans

I took a class from Bethany Reynolds and made these fans.  The fabric is not great since I purchased it at Joann’s.  I was unemployed at the time and money was tight.  Only about 1/2 the blocks have the fan appliqued on the background but it looks like everything is there.

9 – Southern California Shop Hop Quilt

This is probably not technically an UFO since it isn’t started but I want to get it made.  I love this fabric that was unique to the Southern California Shop Hop two years ago.  The pattern is BQ2.

10 – Fall Border Round Robin

I found this quilt top earlier this year and could hardly remember it.  It is a fall quilt, with leaves and fall colors – not really my type of quilt but the top is done so I should get it finished.  I did buy fabric for the backing earlier this year.  After I purchased it, we decided to make kits for another quilt and needed the fabric I purchased.  I returned it and bought another leaf print which I then put somewhere safe – hopefully I can figure out where that is when it’s number comes up.

11 – Glorified Nine Patch

This is another class project from a class with Sharyn Craig several years ago.  I have several blocks completed, many other nine patches made and a hand drawn layout along with the bright print for the borders.

12 – Thimbleberries Flannel Quilt

This one needs a couple of borders added to it before it can be quilted.  I really don’t like it but it will be good for a charity quilt so I would like to finish it so I can donate it.

I really hope I can keep up with the UFO Challenge – I would love to have all these done by the end of 2011.

Melinda

71 Quilts Donated to the Acworth Police Department

At our guild meeting yesterday, we had representatives from the Acworth Police come to accept the quilts that we have been making as part of our community service over the past year.  In addition to the quilts, the guild made more than 400 pillowcase to donate to kids with cancer in the local hospitals.

If you look close you can see the police officers in the back, holding quilts.  They sent five officers to pick up the quilts and it was fun to see the smiles on their faces as they looked at the quilts.  This meeting is always one of the best of the year.

Melinda

Final Class–Beginning Machine Piecing–Morning

Here are all the wonderful students from the morning class with their quilt tops.  Everyone got their top put together and started on the borders. 

It was a great class and I am looking forward to the evening class in a few minutes.

Melinda