Sewing day

 While I was on retreat in Jan. we decided we needed a sewing day before our next retreat, so planned one for March. We met on Saturday, bright and early and sewed and chatted through the day. Pat had her center all put together for this sampler, but was unhappy about the stripes on her border so spent most of her time recutting them and taking the old ones off. It is so gorgeous! She has the woven border ready to put on, so it's just a matter of time until she has a finish!

Diana worked on a Miss Tess baby quilt and brought this one to show us. She also brought her two finished Zigzag quilts...she made these for twins and used the same polka dot fabric for each, coordinating with the pink and purple so they will be able to tell them apart.

She also brought her finished Spiderweb Stringpiecing quilt for show and tell.

Dianne got her Against the Tide Mystery quilt finished. It's not as light as it appears in this picture, you can see the light from behind showing through. It's hard to get good pictures of larger quilts in the classroom!

She also got her border sewn on her Miss Tess quilt. She found a black with small white polka dots that seemed perfect and mirrored the black and white polka dots in the centers of the shapes.

Here's a close up so you can see the dots!

I worked on my red and white challenge quilt. I like it so far.

Awhile back, Carole emailed me from VA that her daughter loved the Circle and Spin quilt she saw on my blog and wanted her to make it for her.  I believe it was for a wedding gift. I received an email the other day with a picture of the finished quilt...it's so beautiful! I love it when people send me pix of quilts they've made with my patterns!

My daughter and I did a little thrift shop shopping yesterday...she found a rocker/recliner that looks like new so snatched it up after we determined it would fit in her Kia Soul. I didn't find anything, but that's ok since I don't really much at this point. It's always fun looking though!

Zigzags are always fun!

I always love it when I get to see a quilt started in one of my classes after it is sewn together. This Zigzag quilt was started in my Nov. class and is almost completed....Pat wants to add one final border. As you can see, it's big enough for her to hide behind!

Last night's beginning piecing class went well, and everyone got some blocks finished. I DID remember to take pictures, and will post them tomorrow.

I am teaching Miss Tess tomorrow...there are still a couple of spots open if you want to spend the day piecing this beautiful tessellation quilt.

ZigZags = great fun!

 I had such fun during yesterday's ZigZag Quilt class. You might think that all of the blocks would look the same with different fabrics, but these quilters were very creative! Here I showed them how you can make a zigzag using the same color all the way across.

 Getting started!

 Diana put her two color blocks on the wall....

 then I turned them around to show them the optical illusion. Now the blocks look like rectangles! She liked this so much, she decided to keep them this way when she sewed it together.

 We were all drooling over Jan's fabric choices...she had lots of strips sewn together by class end!

 Dianne put hers on end, and decided she would alternate them by starting and ending with a half block every other row. I can't wait to see this one finished!

 Diana's first 2 rows sewn together. She is making this for a baby quilt...

 Two sets in Rose's color way.

 We use every available surface to hang our work. It's inspiring to see what everyone's colors look like as the blocks come together.

 Ann's first two colorways look awesome together!

 Rose got some blocks made with all three colorways finished before class ended.

 Kathy is using brights...it's hard to tell in the picture, but her backgrounds both have dots. The blue has very tiny dots.

 Tari used a batik background to showcase her teal and purple fabrics. She got three rows assembled.

 Ruth used combinations of cotton pinks and batik pink/burgandy blends. Simply gorgeous!

 Pat used Civil war repro fabrics for hers, using one background and two zigzag fabrics like Tari did, but decided to mix them up in the blocks. It was a hard decision! We made lefts and rights out of each fabric choice so that she could see it. We quilters are very visual people, aren't we?

Here's mine! It will make a great baby girl quilt! 

I need to finish writing some patterns I've been working on today...but I would like to get the baby quilt on the frame too...the baby is scheduled to be born on 11.12.13. Do you think I'll get it finished?

Happy Sunday!

Busy busy baby quilt...

I finished sewing the blocks together on the Lotus baby quilt yesterday. I  love the colors and patterns! This quilt pattern is fast and easy to make. I made a couple of versions last year...one out of batiks. Now I need to get a backing fabric and get it ready to quilt.

I also spent some time on class prep stuff.  I had cut some samples using the ZigZag ruler during the demos I did at Cut Up and Quilt in Sept.  I will be teaching that class next month and I want to have as many visuals as possible, so I sewed some of them into squares. I'm not going to sew them together right now, they are more fun to play with this way. Then I got some strips ready for a demo for class.

Then I cut some demo pieces for the Central Park class this weekend, and got the paperwork ready for the Starflower Cascade class. Teaching classes is more than making a model and showing up for class...there's a lot of prep work involved. I like to show variations on patterns too, if I can, so that people get some other ideas of what to do with the same pattern during class. Especially if they are buying a specialty ruler. Those rulers make our lives easier, but they add up! If you are going to use them multiple times, they seem like a better buy.

ZigZags gone rogue

 I have been working on a baby quilt design, and decided to try out some zigzags thinking it might make a cute border. I wanted them to be more versatile, so I cut up one set of strips like the directions, and then cut up the other set of strips just the opposite. If you look at the 2 sets of rows, you can see the difference. It still looks basically the same when laid out like this.

But you can rearrange them so that you end up with zigzags that are the same color, which I thought I might like for this quilt.

I think it would make a cute border, but the colors aren't working for the quilt I'm working on....back to the drawing board!

A label really finishes a quilt...ok, maybe now I'm bragging...

I needed to make a label for another quilt this week, so I made one for Zig-Zag as well. Over the years of quiltmaking, I have been terrible about making labels for my quilts. If it's a gift, I try harder to get it done, but it's just one more thing to do and doesn't always get done. Sometimes I have handwritten my name and the date on the back...that's better than nothing, right? So I've been trying to do better with labeling and it's fast and easy printing them out on printer fabric. This time I put a narrow border of the backing fabric around the label as the printer fabric is stiffer and harder to sew through. So if I'm bragging, I apologize...but it sure feels good to have it sewn on and really finished!

Officially finished!

I headed out to Cut Up and Quilt last night after work to pick out a binding for the Zig-Zag Quilt. I tried out several of the fabrics I used in the quilt and decided on this one. It has lots of color, including the pink and orange and thought it would make a pretty finish to the quilt.

Since it's a smallish quilt, it didn't take long to cut and sew the binding together, with a little help of course!

After I finished, I took it outside to take some pictures. I wasn't happy about the color in the pictures I took the other day, as the lighting in the house isn't always right for pictures. 

The colors look pretty true in these pictures. I like the way the binding fabric pattern and colors "wave".

It looks good with the back too. It's a great feeling to get a quilt completely finished!

Lovin' this ZigZag...

I started quilting the Zig-Zag quilt after I got home from the Farmer's Market yesterday. It went pretty fast and before I knew it I was finished.

I used the Mini Chaos panto, which is a fun, interwoven pattern. The black lines are the ones I was following, the red lines are the row below and above. So it's fast to quilt across, but you aren't getting as far down the quilt each time as you do with some pantos since the pattern dips back to the row before.

Once it's finished, you don't see the ups and downs as much, but I like the movement. I used white So Fine thread, which quilted up beautifully.

The back of the quilt....sort of looks like worms crawling across!

I got it all trimmed and ready to bind, with a little help from my friend! I don't have enough of any of the fabrics left to bind it, so I have to wait until tomorrow to get some at Cut Up and Quilt after work.

 I'm thinking about using the border green or the dark pink and orange from the zigzag background. What do you think?

Now to quilt Zig-Zag...

 I got the Zig-Zag Quilt backing sewn together and the quilt ironed and prepped last night so I could get it loaded this morning. The bobbins are wound, it's all loaded and ready to quilt. I have plans to go to the Farmer's Market with my daughter this morning, and then I will see if I can get it quilted. I'm using Mini Chaos, which has a long, zigzaggy type pattern to it, so I hope it works.

Yesterday's anniversary extravaganza at Cut Up and Quilt went so well and was so hectic that I didn't get any pictures!  One of the other demonstrators took a few, so I will post when I get hers.  Lots of quilters came out to help them celebrate. There was delicious cake, and drawings for prizes.There was lots of good response to our demos, and they kept us talking!

We had a nice rain this AM and the weather has cooled down a bit...expecting a high of 84 today. Sounds good to me!

Ta da!

 The quilt top is finished...now to get it quilted. I took some closer shots of it so that the gorgeous fabrics would show up better.

 The first days of school have been going well, and I am mostly ready to open! I will see a lot of the kids in the next few days as they come in by class for a brief orientation and have a chance to check out a book. Next week I will open for normal hours and checkouts and see the younger kids for storytime. It's funny that after just a few days back, it seems like I was never gone. Happy Friday Eve!