Lessons

I spent Sunday afternoon at a friends house teaching her to sew.  She got a sewing machine for Christmas a couple of years ago and has played around with it a little.  She wanted to make curtains for her guest room and she wants to make some throw pillows and whatnot for around the house.  She had tried another teacher that she found online and it didn't work out well.  The person that was teaching her before had never done piping, and seemed a little overwhelmed with the pattern my friend was using.  Finally after a few lessons, they agreed it was best if they both moved on!  So, off I went on Sunday totally looking forward to afternoon with her.  She has three of the most adorable dogs, and they were a huge help.  Here's McTavish being a little pouty because we wouldn't let him sew on the machine (okay, he really just wanted on Susan's lap)

We accomplished quite a bit, and she made me the most WONDERFUL goat cheese quiche with hash brown crust for lunch.  YUM!

Alfie, well he just slept in the other room  escaping the camera and Muttley got really bored with the whole process.

I got an email from her this afternoon that she had finished both panels today and had discovered another oops from the previous teacher.  She had cut out the wrong pattern pieces for the valance so Susan has to head back to the store for more fabric.

It was such a fun afternoon and it was another sign that I am moving in a positive direction towards teaching.  I find it extremely rewarding and exciting.  I am scheduled to teach again at City Craft next Sunday, but we are waiting to see if the class fills.  So far there are two people signed up and that won't be enough to justify the class.  I really hope it fills.  I'm sending positive vibes out and picturing it full.  I really believe in that universal law of attraction.

Speaking of, I started a new eCourse yesterday.  It's called Flying Lessons by Kelly Rae Roberts.  We are two days into the course and I'm pretty impressed so far.  It is a five week course and you can still sign up for it.  It is geared toward starting a creative business and being successful.  Kelly Rae has a very successful art business.  I love her collages and paintings.  A friend of mine had told me about her last year and she also was the one that told me about this eCourse.  I was a little hesitant at first, but I'm really glad I signed up for it.  This year has really been amazing so far.  I started this blog right at the end of 2009 and began to journal about a more creative life.  Many doors have opened up in a short time and most important of all, I have met some really amazing people in the last five months.  People I would not have know about if I hadn't started blogging.  I have learned a ton of new techniques and really spread my creative wings in my quilts since then as well.  I think I have completed more projects in the last five months than I did in the last several years combined!  Time to head off to bed, tomorrow it's back to the ol' nine to five......

Ahhhhh.......

I'm feeling very relaxed and happy tonight.  I went to the 1890's House in Cedar Hill this weekend with my fellow officers of the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild.  What an amazing group of women!  We had an absolute blast.  It always amazes me how many wonderful people I have met through quilting.  The type of person that is drawn to quilting seems to have a big heart and a joy for life.  I have found this to be true in almost every quilt guild or group I have belonged to.  And I have been quilting for over 10 years, so I have meant a significant number of quilters over the years.  This particular group of women have become dear friends in an amazingly short amount of time.  We come from all walks of life and range in age from 26 to 51 and we just spent three straight days together talking non-stop, laughing til we cried, eating and sewing. None of us wanted to leave on Sunday.  I got a lot done over the weekend too!  I finished the May block for my virtual quilt bee New Kids on the Block.  And I finished this quilt top.  It was a kit I purchased several years ago and promptly put up on the shelf.  I think it needs a border and then I just need to layer it up and quilt it!  A very productive weekend.

I finished this quilt a couple of weeks ago and it has gone off to it's new home.  The recipient seemed to be very happy with it.  It was a wedding gift for a very dear friend.  I had a lot of fun making this one.  I love how the channel quilting turned out.  I pieced the back with leftovers.  Too fun!  I think it's a very happy quilt, what do you think? 

Note To Self.....

Do NOT store your fusible batting in your Texas attic!  I'm just saying......when you pull it out of the attic and try and remove it from the plastic bag it came in.....it's pretty much fused into that sausage roll it came in.   And there will be no unrolling it into a nice flat queen sized batting. ....and you will have to madly rush to the store to buy another one so you can finish the quilt that you want to give to your friend by next Friday.   So, the next time you stock up on batting because the store had them all 20% off....find room under the bed to store it in the nice air conditioned part of your house.....IF you live in a state where your attic becomes hotter than your self cleaning oven.  

I know I should have taken photos of the whole comical process....and the mess I ended up with because I was just sure if I was slow and careful I could get the sucker unrolled.  Maybe next time.....oh wait!  There better not BE a next time.

But, I do have pictures of my hexagons.  I started this little project about 4 years ago and then it got placed in a nice little box on a nice little shelf.  I started reading a blog recently Texas Freckles and remembered how very fun they are to do and got them out again.  I have been dragging around a little pencil case with me filled with the papers, fabric, needle and thread and have completed quite a few more.

I have had this "thing" for many years for the 30's reproduction fabrics, and saw a kit at a quilt show one day.  It had all of the fabrics already cut into little hexagon shapes and the paper pieces.  So, it quickly became mine!  It is being done in a "flower pattern".  When I was a little girl my grandmother had one in original feedsack fabrics and I loved the pattern even then.  I have always known this pattern as Grandmothers Flower Garden.  I think this quilt has around 1100 pieces in it making up around 80 "flowers"  I have 8 flowers done, but in the last couple of weeks I have completed the hexagons for 2 more flowers and the surrounding cream hexies for several more.  It truly is addicting.  Texas Freckles has some great tutorials on her site and has started a Flickr Group "quilt along".  I've jumped on the bandwagon.  And, this project will qualify for the little challenge my husband issued at the first of the year.   If I can get it done that is.

I finished the quilt I posted about last week(yes, this is the one I had the batting emergency over!)  I'll post pictures of it in the next couple of days.  And....I am signed up to teach another class at City Craft.  I'll be teaching the Quilted Pillow class again and we are working on a "Little Quilt" class that I'll be teaching there very soon.  I'm SO excited!

Starting a New Quilt

What a weekend!  I found time to start on a new quilt.  It is a surprise for someone I know, so I can't say much about it yet.  I'm using some charm packs of Amy Butler Love,

and putting them together in strips like this

I got the idea from a posting by Oh Fransson on Sew Mama Sew found  here.  Her pattern is a baby quilt and I need a throw size for this gift.  So, I did not have enough charm packs to do it exactly like Elizabeth did, so I am modifying the pattern to make the size I need.  More to follow as it develops.  This is a GREAT pattern to use your charm squares!  It would make a quick, but VERY cute baby quilt.  I have all of the rows stitched for my bigger quilt after just a couple of hours at the machine.  I think it's going to be very cute.

The next very exciting thing about this past weekend was that I taught the second class in my two class series on Beginning Quilting at City Craft.  We had so much fun!  There were six ladies in the class and everyone got their pillows done.  With their permission, I have posted pictures of everyone's pillows.  Isn't it cool how different they all look, even though they all used the same pattern?  Just goes to show, fabric selection is key.  I think they all did an amazing job in picking out their fabrics.  None of these ladies had ever quilted before and a couple of them were very new to sewing.  I'm so impressed with their results.

What do you guys think?  Pretty impressive for a first quilt project, huh?  I had so much fun teaching this class.  I would just love to find a way to teach full time.  It made it very hard to return to my office on Monday morning and sit and crunch numbers all day long.  I am a firm believer in the philosophy that if you want something bad enough, you can make it happen.  So, I'm going to busy building a plan to make that very thing happen.  I have the beginnings of an idea bubbling around in my head and I just need to put pen to paper...Don't know when or how, but I think if I throw it out there to the universe and do the legwork, it will return to me in the way it was meant to be.......we'll see.......

My First Virtual Quilt Bee Block

Yeah!  I finished my first block for the NKOTB virtual quilt bee.  All of the members are new to the virtual quilt bee world (quilt bee "virgins"?)  So, it will be off in the mail tomorrow to Amy of Did I Say That Out Loud?

When I first saw the design of this block, I thought it would be so easy, peasy!  Nope!  It was pretty challenging to try and calculate the sizes of the blocks adding in the charcoal border and getting the whole thing to come out to 15".  It took me a lot longer than I thought it would.  I spent a good portion of the Saturday Sew (the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild event) that I went to yesterday.  I had a blast though, I love a good challenge, don't you?  And speaking of a blast, we had so much fun at the Saturday Sew.  There were 10 of us this month and I would say we all got quite a bit accomplished.  I hope if you are a member of the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild, you'll come join us at the next one.  We don't have it scheduled yet, but discussed some possible dates in May.  I'll post a date here and on the guild blog as soon as we have it firmed up.

I never told you all about finishing the Black and White quilt.  It's done and off to it's new owner.  She seemed to be really pleased with it.  It was going to be a gift for her daughter.

I had a lot of fun making it and I got to use the new machine to do the quilting and it did a fabulous job!  I love that new sewing machine.  We are already getting to be quite good friends.

A Break in Sunny Florida

I have been in Lady Lake, Florida since Thursday and having a blast.  It was a much needed break before I hit a very busy season at work.  I am feeling very rested and relaxed and so, so grateful for my husband's family.  We came down here to celebrate my father-in-laws birthday.  The siblings all got together and signed him up for a flight in a TX-6 WWII plane.  We held the surprise in tact until we arrived at the hanger!  The "surprise" gods were with us, there was an ad for an air show in the paper the night before the flight for that very day!  So, we had rented a big 10 passenger van and off we headed.  He was so surprised when we arrived and told him that he was the star of this air show.  I'll be posting more photos of this great day on my Flickr Account.  We did go on to the air show mentioned in the paper and the Thunderbirds were flying.  It was quite exciting to see that as well.  All in all, one of those days you will never forget.  The weather was just gorgeous!

I believe GK's dad had the time of his life.  As we were pulling up at the hanger, he commented "oh, flying in one of those is on my bucket list"  Little did he know he was about to cross it off the list!

GK's family is so fun and they have welcomed me into the fold like I was always here.  I love each and every one of them.  In the midst of all the celebration of the flight, they had planned a cake and special dinner to celebrate my birthday!  Check out my cake!

What a great trip it has been.  We laughed, we cried, we bonded......we played bocce ball, did a little archery, watched a polo match, and ate tons of great food.  This afternoon, it is back to the airport and back to real life.  I'm ready, it's been a wonderful break but I am so blessed to have such a dream life that I'm ready to get back home.  I am teaching a beginning quilt class on Sunday at City Craft and I'm so excited about it.  And the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild is having a Saturday Sew this Saturday.  You can read about it on their webpage.  I'm such a lucky girl.....

So much to tell you

I cannot believe it has been so long since I posted.  I have TONS to tell you.  But, I will not cram it all into this one post.  So first off, the Babylock found a new home.  I posted her up on Craigslist on Sunday night and she was off on new adventures on Tuesday morning!  I wonder how she's doing?  I hope she's happy. Here's the weird thing.....the girl that bought her had the same name as a dear friend of mine.  When she responded to the ad, I thought "now why is Lizzie being so formal, and I didn't even know she sewed!"  And then when she showed up at my house to take her on a test drive, she had a friend with her named......MICHELLE!  Parallel Universe and all that crazy stuff!

So, last week I took this class from Karen K Stone.  I love her work and have been dying to take a class from her for a long time.  She does New York Beauties, and some really cool paper piecing techniques.  Here is what I learned while I was there.  It's not the whole thing, it's about half of a spiral (I have more to sew)

More will follow after I finish it.  I don't think I'm going to make a whole quilt out this one, but I do think it will make an awesome pillow for my sofa.  Here is another students work.  And I really want those scissors!  I have this "thing" for scissors.  I just love them and have quite a collection.  But I always want more.....

So, enough for now.  But I have to tell you it feels SO good to be back in blogland!  I have missed you all so much.  I have been keeping up with you on your blogs, though.