New Circle and Spin

I have been working on the mystery quilt, but it wouldn't stay a mystery for long if I worked on it Saturday with friends, so I started a new Circle and Spin quilt for my youngest daughter that day. I have been collecting asian fabrics for this one, in fact she picked some of them out herself last summer while we were on vacation in Seattle. I got a good start on it Saturday, and worked on it some more last night. I love the richness of these fabrics and the variety of color. Hope it is not too busy for her.

Reunion of sorts

When we were on the quilt retreat in Feb, Kim offered to have a Spring Fling retreat reunion at her house in March. Of course, we jumped at the chance to get together and sew all day! So yesterday, even though the day started out with snow, we packed up all our stuff and went to Kim's.

Kim had made a quilt as you go runner, so some of them wanted to try that. Cutting is always the first step,  after figuring out what to cut. I started a Circle and Spin quilt for my youngest daughter.  I have been collecting asian fabrics for it for a long time. In fact, she picked some of them out when we were in Seattle last  summer.

We all wore our Quilt! shirts, except for Pat...as someone messed up her order and hers hasn't come yet.

Kim has a beautiful house! we had figured out the menu for lunch at the retreat and all brought parts to make it. We also spent some time yesterday planning our next retreat.

We had a great time, though we missed Dianne, who was sick and wasn't able to come. It ended up lightly snowing most of the day, but the temp was high enough that it just melted on the roads. 

Mystery Quilt

I have been working on the design for a new mystery quilt and you won't believe my bad luck.  I didn't have any fabric that would work for it so had to go shopping!  I haven't made anything but scrappy quilts for awhile and didn't have any fabrics that had enough yardage for this one.

 This is what I came up with. I got it all cut and started sewing it yesterday.

It was nice out yesterday and Smokey went outside. She loves it outside but I was surprised when I went out  and found her sitting in this pot.

New quilters are so much fun!

 It is always exciting to see the new quilters with their first quilt. Thursday night was the night we layered, tied and basted. So they had finished sewing their borders on since last week.

These ladies went home Thursday night with their quilts layered, basted and partially tied....next week...the binding!

Paperwork...

Is a quilter really supposed to have paperwork? Seems to go against the grain a bit, but that is what I have been working on all morning.

I did get the Spinning Hexagons quilt quilted and bound yesterday. I like it a lot, and it's a great size for a tabletopper or wallhanging.

I used a tie dye fabric for the back, and ended up quilting the last foot or so as well so I can use for another project as well.

The ladies in Beginning Quilting are layering and tying their quilts tonight. They had some finishing work to do on their tops after last week's class, so I am anxious to see some finished tops! Maybe some pix tomorrow!

Several people inquired about purchasing the Mexican Star pattern I used in my class. This is not my pattern, I purchased them at Quiltinghorizon.

Quilt tshirts

Over the past year, we (at school) have ordered shirts that say Read. across the front. Simple, yet really cool, specially since the shirts come in a lot of different colors. So I thought it might be fun to see if they would make shirts that say Quilt! I found out they will do any word as long as they have an order of 12 or more shirts. The shirts are very reasonable as well, so I started collecting orders. They came the other day.

They have long sleeve shirts and bags as well as short sleeve Ts in lots of fun colors. 

The bags come in purple or black. 

It should be fun to see people wearing them in class...I will try to take some pix of that too!

Class and a week off!

Had a great time at the Mexican Star class yesterday...the ladies got a lot done on their quilts and we had other quilting friends popping in all day long.
This quilt is small, sized for a wallhanging or tabletopper.

The colors chosen were all so pretty and the stars show up well!

This one is so springy....we're ready here in Iowa!

I want to get some cleaning done today as I am off work at school all week for spring break. I have some plans with friends a couple days, and hope to get some quilting done. I do have 3 night classes this week as well.

I have been working hard on the patterns for the new sampler, Spiraling Out. I am almost finished, just 2 left to write and then check them all over for accuracy. It starts Monday night, but I only have to have 2 ready for Monday! 

Still catching up...

I am still trying to get caught up on everything. I worked all day yesterday on patterns for the new Sampler, Spiraling Out. Had to recreate the EQ files since I had forgotten to save them (had to install a new harddrive a few weeks ago). I am missing some of my other EQ files, but I have most of the important ones. I also wrote the patterns for 5 of the blocks, so that is a good start. I still have to write about  8 more. I have been working on other class paperwork today, but hope to get a couple more done later. I realized I don't have a good picture of it either, as the top is finished. So need to do that as well.

It's a looooong list.....

Catching up

 I have been busy catching up..getting stuff loaded back on my computer, working on paperwork and quilts for my classes. Sometimes I feel like I will never get caught up. Since I put a border on the Jigsaw Puzzle quilt that wasn't on the pattern, I felt like I needed to write a pattern for the border and how to fit the missing puzzle pieces into it. So that 's what I did tonight. So I can cross that off my list!

The picture above is the back of the puzzle quilt...it is a little heavier than normal, like a sportswear fabric, but I love how it looks and I didn't have any trouble quilting it. Next on the quilting machine is the Spinning Hexagons that I made while on retreat with friends. I am anxious to get it finished too. It won't take long as it is table topper size.