Hard-sewing quilters!

The Garden Window Sampler Club had an extra class this month and what a great surprise to have them all bring their finished quilt tops Monday night to show and tell! Judy's is above, I forgot to have her peek out so we could see whose quilt it was.

They all did a great job. This is their second sampler quilt, they have been quilting for about a year.

Marilyn had worked on Gathering Around during this club, and she brought her quilted quilt to show...I was fascinated by the quilting on this one. The use of the black/white thread made some interesting designs as the triangles wove in and out of the black.

Dorothy started a month later than the others, hence the extra class. I had given her the last block of her quilt last month so she worked on getting the setting triangles in place and started to sew together her diagonal rows.

Carolyn and Judy brought their Turning Cartwheels quilts to work on the on point setting as well. This was a new technique for them so it worked out well that they could bring them and learn how to do it.

Carolyn

Judy decided she didn't like the fabric she had cut for her setting triangles, so is going to rethink them, but sewed her rows together without them for the time being. How many times has this happened to you? Many times I get a fabric that I think will work perfectly and then it doesn't. We can't always foresee every nuance of color and how it will play with the others. 

Judy

All in all it was great fun an I look forward to helping  most of them start a new sampler next month! 

Sewing with friends...and other catching up

 I can’t believe that I have been MIA for a week. It’s been a busy, but enjoyable week of work, classes and family.

 I spent last Sat. sewing with a couple of friends. Dianne worked on her Turning Cartwheels quilt…it is looking so good. She just needs to decide on a final border.  I saw her again on Tuesday night for Sampler Club and she had started on the pieced backing.  I love her floral fabric!

 I worked on some samples for my demo tomorrow at Cut UP and Quilt last Sat. and then finished all of the blocks for the new sampler (as yet unnamed). I spent Sunday sewing the blocks together. I auditioned several fabrics for the borders, and have decided on the two in the picture. Now to get them on!

 Both Sampler Clubs went well and here are pictures from both nights of classes. It’s fun to put the blocks on the design wall and get a preview of how the quilts will look. The students are not making the same quilts. Some are and some chose to make a different quilt design. That’s why there are so many different blocks from only 2 clubs. So it’s fun and busy for me!

 My daughter and I spent the yesterday with family in my hometown, so it was a wonderful Thanksgiving. I haven't decided if I am going to go shopping or stay home and sew. I would love to get the borders sewn on the new sampler so sewing might win out! Are you shopping today?

Turning Cartwheels again and again

Caroline's blocks

I taught the class on the Turning Cartwheels quilt on Saturday. This is the quilt I designed for the Henry Glass Desire to Inspire Challenge. This is a fun challenge where you submit pictures of couple of your finished quilts. If they choose you to participate, they send you fabric and you design something to make out of that fabric. Since you have limited amounts of different fabrics, it's a challenge to come up with something that fits the type of fabrics as well as the amounts you were given.

Gretchen's blocks

You can see everyone had great fabric choices so it will be fun to see how they progress.

Laura's block

Judy's block

I don't have time to take on every challenge I see, but I was really glad that I participated in this one. I feel like it helped me grow as a designer as well as a quilter. Plus now I have a gorgeous quilt too!

Dianne's blocks

And the winners are....

Thanks so much to everyone who visited my blog this week to help me celebrate Fade to Pink's publication in McCalls Quick Quilts magazine. The winners are:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Kelly Parker won the 6 fat quarters on the Turning Cartwheels post.

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

Vicki chose the Peas in a Pod pattern and will get the Circle and Spin pattern as well.

Congrats to the winners!I have notified them so when they send me their addresses, their prizes will be mailed.

I am spending the day sewing with my retreat friends so I hope to get lots of sewing and gabbing done. What are you working on today?

Turning Cartwheels with Henry Glass (dare I say giveaway?)

Turning Cartwheels

Last year I heard about the Desire to Inspire Challenge on the Henry Glass Co blog. It sounded interesting... you send them some pictures of some of your work and you might get a chance to design a quilt with their fabric. If chosen, they send you fabrics, give you a deadline for completion and you have to design something out of those fabrics. Sounded like fun to me...who doesn't like surprise packages of luscious fabrics coming in the mail? So I sent in my info and recently they contacted me to see if I was still interested in being a part of the challenge. Of course I said yes and anxiously waited to see what they would send me. 

It was exciting when the box arrived, I couldn't wait to open it. Inside were these gorgeous florals from the Flower Girl collection by Margot Languedoc.  

I loved the colors and the prints she incorporated in her collection. I started to think about designs that would showcase these fabrics as well as the Folio blenders that came with them.

I spent a lot of time working on a design, experimenting with several block combinations. The floral fabric seemed to be a modern version of the classic floral while the yellow had a really modern feel. I knew I could fit a few of the Folio blenders in somewhere. So I played with the design off and on for several weeks in EQ, trying to come up with something modern yet classic.

Flying Kite and Axel

One of the challenges in making this was designing something that used the amounts of fabric that I was given. I spent many hours figuring which fabrics could work where, as I was given more of some fabrics than others. I finally decided on the Flying Kite block and designed the Axel block to connect them.

I won't bore you with all the hours of cutting and sewing, so we'll fast forward to it on the design wall! Crooked, but there! I had chosen the small floral for the setting triangles and so I was very happy when I got them on the wall with the blocks to see how they looked. I could have used the yellow too, but the floral seemed to bring out the colors of the other fabrics better and had a fresher look.

Turning Cartwheels on design wall

As I worked on finishing the quilt top, I tried to figure out what to do for the back. I kept wondering how the blue paisley would look with the yellow print, so I decided to make a 27" block using it for the back. Here it is on my design wall with a 12" block for comparison.

Oh yea, loving this! I used more of the yellow print and then a white solid to surround this block and make it large enough to back the quilt.

Now to quilt it! I loaded it and used my favorite panto, Leafage by Keryn Emmerson.

As I was trimming the batting after quilting, I realized that I had a helper!

At 58" x 58", Turning Cartwheels will make a great table cover, throw or wallhanging.

It was fun to take part in this challenge. I feel like I have learned a lot as I worked my way through the process and I would encourage anyone who likes a challenge to go to the Henry Glass blog and inquire about the Desire to Inspire Challenge. Plus you can see Turning Cartwheels and the blog post about it.

Go visit and tell me what you think! I might be getting a little carried away with celebrating, but I don't care! You can't celebrate too much, right?  I'm going to do a special giveaway if you comment on this post about my challenge quilt. I have some untouched fat quarters that are just begging to be sewn into a project. Leave a comment on this post to win these gorgeous fabrics. No rafflecopter this time, just comment, but please please please leave an email if you want to be eligible to win. 

   You can still enter the other giveaways here and here until Friday night.

Hide and Seek anyone?

I found Smokey in the middle of the quilt sandwich while it was ON the quilting machine.

Do you have helpers like this? 

Conrad ...always helping

These are my cats on quilts.....Head back to Pets on Quilts....