Georgia Quilt Show

Tiny Stitches is at the Georgia Quilt Show. This is being put on by the same people who run the Sewing Expos around the country. They have it here in Georgia in the spring.

One of the quilts that I quilted for Jan is in the show. I was disappointed to see that her name was the only name on it, but she did give credit to the Sharyn Craig for the design and Karen Kay Buckley for the applique inspiration, as well as me as the quilter in the description in the program.

This is the first time that they have had an actual quilt show. We are vending and went last night to see Marianne Fons speak about "Why we Quilt". She is a very good speaker and except for the air conditioning being so cold that we were freezing, we had a great time.

Here is a photo of me, Marianne and Maetha (the owner of Tiny Stitches). We set up the booth yesterday and it is a lot of work. I managed to take a tumble in the parking lot but except for a scrape on the elbow and much damage to my dignity, I am fine.

I forgot to take photos of the booth but will do that today before the customers come in. The Quilt Show is in Gwinett County, about 35 miles from home but because of the long days, we are staying out here at a hotel. The show is open for three days and we will take everything down on Saturday night.

This is a great quilt that was shown during Marianne's presentation last night. It will be in the next issue of the magazine. Great quilt!

Finished Beginning Quilt Top

Karen brought in her beginning machine piecing quilt top over the weekend. She made twice as many blocks so ended up with a nice sized lap quilt. All her fabrics are batiks and she has wonderful color choices.

She also brought in a top that she made for her grandmother's birthday. It is folded in quarters so is a nice large quilt when unfolded.

This started out as a stack of 10 inch squares that she made into 1/2 square triangles and then set paying attention to the darks (medium) and lights. Very nice and I am sure that grandma will love it.

Purse class tonight - will try to get photos of the projects to share later.

Another Customer Quilt

As I reported yesterday, I have been busy with customer quilts. This is a beautiful king-size quilt made from Saturday Sampler blocks from a local quilt shop. The first few photos are of the back of the quilt.

This first one is a corner block - from the back.

Here is a setting triangle
This is one of the alternate blocks that are a white on white fabric between the star blocks.

Here is one of the stars, showing the yellow sashing.

Here is another star block. They are all set on point.

In this view, you can see part of two star blocks and two alternate blocks.

Here is one of the alternate blocks. I used a circle ruler to do the center of the block and then did the rest freehand. I really like how the blocks turned out.

In the setting triangles, I did a 1/2 circle. The two inner borders are feathered and a floral allover is in the last large border.

I hope my customer likes it as much as I do.

Guild Raffle Quilt

I think I have talked about the ECQG raffle quilt before but it is now becoming a reality. Here is a cell phone photo (please excuse the fuzziness) of the quilt. The center of the quilt is a Lori Smith pattern but the border was designed by the owner of one of our local quilt shops.

Here is a close-up of the border. Looks very nice, doesn't it.

The quilt shop - Red Hen Fabrics - moved to a new location and decided to mod- podge the mock-up of the quilt. They then mounted it on the side of their new building right by the front door.

Here is the block that I made. Somehow I didn't get a photo of it completed before I turned it in. It has 81 pieces in a 12 inch block. At least you can see the colors well in this photo.

Tickets are being printed now and we will give it away at our quilt show in September of 2009.

Back from the Missing

I have been busy working on customer quilts. Here is one that I finished late last week. It was a Saturday Sampler from several years ago and Diane personalized it for her family. It turned out great! I was able to do a custom quilting job on it and it was a pleasure to work on.

Here is one of the summer blocks. It was a calendar quilt that had a different block each month. I think this watermelon block was for August.

Here is a pumpkin block. I think it must have been November because there is a witches block for October.

Here are some of the filler blocks that Diane made. It was kind of like putting a puzzle together and she did a wonderful job.

After she picked up the quilt, I got an email saying how much she love the quilting I did on her quilt. Made me feel great!

Guild Last Friday

We had a great guild meeting last week. Our speaker was Jan Krueger, who is a friend of mine from the Mary Ellen Hopkins seminars in Las Vegas. I first met her about 10 years ago when my Sister and I started going to the seminars.

Here is part of the crowd at the beginning of the meeting. Since we are having such a gas crisis here in the South, I wasn't sure how many people would be able to come. I was pleasantly surprised that we had a good sized crowd.

Here is Jan emptying out her suitcase of quilts for her program. She talked about Log Cabin quilts and all the different ideas you can use when making a "simple" log cabin.

Here are some of Jan's quilts. The diamond one I made several years ago in Las Vegas. Mine is one of my many UFO's. I think I have the top finished waiting for borders.

One last picture from Guild. This is Ben with his landscape quilt during show and tell. This is a beautiful quilt.

We had a great time with Jan. Next month will be Mary Sorensen. She will be the last speaker of the year.

Beyond Beginners

Last night was the monthly Beyond Beginners class. There were three students who come each month. We are working our way through Pat Sloan's book called "I Can't Believe I am Quilting Beyond the Basics.



Here is Stephanie's quilt from last month. The lesson was about putting blocks on point.

She used the same fabrics for this months project.

Lorie is making a beautiful fall colored quilt. Here are two of her blocks.

Here is part of the border of Lorie's quilt. She did a great job on making sure all the points are there.

I thought it might be fun to show a workspace during class. This is Barbara's.

This is Barbara's table runner from last month. She quilted it herself and did a great job.

Instead of making last month's project that taught putting blocks on point, she took some Saturday Sampler blocks and put them on point. We talked about possible borders so she can get this one completed.

Here is the start of her blocks for this month's quilt. She got quite a bit done and should be able to finish on her own.

Allatoona guild today

Today was block of the month day at guild. I decided to take my machine and sew but didn't actually work on the block (row) of the month. I showed the tote bag that my sister made for me a couple of days ago. It is folded up in the picture on the left. The center one is the one I made today for me and the one out of M&M fabric is for Mary. She did help with her bag by doing all the pinning and measuring.

Mine is full of stuff from the quilt shop now. Since it is our 16th birthday of the shop, we are having 16 days of specials. Today's special was 16 FQ for $16. I tried to stay away from them but didn't make it.

Pillowcase Class

I taught a pillowcase class tonight. I always have a great time teaching pillowcases. In the class time each student makes at least one pillowcase and sometimes two. The way I teach it, I make a pillowcase to demonstrate how to do it. This time I found some blueprint fabric to make a pillowcase for Paolo, who is an architect.
I like how it turned out.


Karen was making pillowcases for her granddaughter. She used this cute fabric with letters all over it.
Karen then made a second pillowcase using Halloween fabric - candy corn in blue and and then again in black.

Karol made a coffee pillowcase. In fact, she actually make two but I only got a photo of one of them.

Linda drove a long way to class and got stuck in traffic so she was about a half hour late but was able to catch up quickly. Her pillowcase is made from batiks. She got another one partially made and will be able to finish it in just a few minutes at home. It was her first visit to the shop and she seemed to have a lot of fun - as did everyone else.

Patsy made a Christmas pillowcase. She only made one tonight but will be making a lot more for a nursing home so each resident will get one.

Can you tell I love teaching!

Nine Patch Blocks from Swap

I have belonged to the Quiltbuddies Yahoo group for many years now. Each year we do an anniversary swap and this year it was 9 inch nine-patch blocks. The only rules were that they were to be scrappy and the dark goes in the corners and middle, with light in the other areas.

It is hard to believe that this group started 10 years ago and that this is the 10th anniversary swap. I have not participated in all of the swaps but do have blocks stuck away from a couple of them. Any way, I decided to join this year. We each made 2 blocks for each person and we ended up with 30 people sending in blocks, so I have 60 of these blocks to work with.

I am thinking of cutting the blocks in quarters and putting them back together for a charity quilt. I think it will be a lot more interesting quilt than I was afraid of when I thought about large nine patches. I will play with some of the blocks tomorrow to see how it looks.