What a week!

I taught FMQ at Papanana today and had a class full of WONDERFUL students! If you are ever having a bad day, or the news of the world gets you down, I recommend going into a quilt shop.
To quote my mother, my face hurts from smiling! My next FMQ class is April 27 at Sewingly Yours, and I am looking forward to just as much fun, sharing my passion.

Here are the balance of the mini quilts I finished this week:

 Sweet Spring Table Runner 20" by 30"

 Basket Block wall quilt 20" square

Close up to show the straight line FMQ on the setting triangles. I love how this turned out!

Wall quilt featuring Flea Market Fancy and Grand Hotel fabrics

20" by 20"

There is another quilted, but not yet bound. Maybe tomorrow!

These quilts will be for sell by Taproot Artisans in Harmony, NC. The hubs and I were out that way about a month ago and stopped in to see what was in there. The shop is in an old mercantile shop with large grahic barn quilts hanging outside. As we looked around, the proprietress, Janet and I were talking. She asked about my quilts, I showed her the blog, and she invited me to produce some work to sell. Why not? I adore making these little quilts. They go fast and allow me try different things.

Taproot offers classes in painting your own barn quilt (in a variety of sizes) as well as doing barn quilt tours in Iredell County, so it seems a natural fit. I hope they sell!

The organized stash

Jenny at Squawk That posted about her fabric stash, and how her taste has changed since she began quilting. She also writes about the enormous fabric collections quilters have and what can happen to them over time.

It is tempting to amass fabrics, new collections are released all the time and the marketing makes them look irresistible. That's marketing's job. I can see the temptation, and I have experienced stash envy, but I am not a collector. I like to use my fabric stash. I do experience trepidation before cutting into my beauties, but I just love cutting them up and stitching them together with new fabric friends, watching them transform into a new form!

My current stash, 1 yard and greater. Wrapped on boards and arranged by color.

I like to have enough fabrics to play with, and my taste is evolving, so I make it a priority to use my stash. Maybe I use them for gift or donation quilts, if I have fallen out of love. Or I might use them as FMQ practice/therapy (I MUST quilt for sanity!), but I have really focused on using them. It just how I am.

My FQs, sorted by color and in baskets.

So, if I love a pattern, I buy 2-3 yards. Since my Color Theory class, I have been rounding out my stash with specific color families and for these I am buying a yard. I had been buying charm packs and entire collection FQ bundles, but I am trying to use the ones I have and focus on larger pieces of fabric, just how my quilting habits have evolved.

And my husband has promised, they are not going to stop making fabric any time soon.

Sweatshop tour, part 1

I spent part of the long weekend doing some long-awaited cleaning/sorting/organizing in my sweatshop. No, no "before" pictures! I do admire the gorgeous "done" studios I have seen, but I have opted for practical and thrifty for the time being.

Here is the view from the door:

 My sweatshop/studio is the "bonus" room over our garage. Great square footage, and while I love the roof-line ceiling, it makes arranging a bit of a challenge. Cheap #1: My Dad took our old kitchen table and added longer legs (and a shelf) to make my cutting table. Amazing how the extra height really makes a difference to my back.

On the right side of the door, is my design wall. Cheap #2: It is made of white flannel, which I pieced and tacked to the wall.

 The left side of the door: this corner features some neat artwork, a Scherenschnitte (cut paper) of a quilter, which was a gift from a friend; a cross stitch piece of a quilt that I purchased at a charity auction; and my autographed Heather Ross print.

Close up of the cute print:

Under the artwork is a short shelf: I keep my templates in a file holder on the top. I have my fat-quarters on this shelf, solids together, prints & batiks together, all arranged in ROY G. BIV color order. Besides being a very fun and therapeutic activity, this also shows me that I am drawn to the red and orange color families, with very few greens.

 Around the corner on a taller shelf are my yardage cuts on the second shelf, with projects bundled together on the top shelf.

This is it for my stash. I have seen much larger stashes (hoards!) but I have really tried to keep the buying to a minimum. I like having projects sorted and bundled together, makes it easy to move to the next one and gives me a new project to look forward to. Stay tuned for the next part (if you dare...)

Late summer eye candy

My son, his sweet GF and I visited the beautiful Reynolda Gardens on Labor Day. The late summer garden is spectacular and inspiring!

These fronds are ENORMOUS!

Passion Flowers grow wild here in NC. This one was along the driveway at my MIL's house.

And yes, since I was at Reynolda Gardens, I ducked in to visit Gina at "The Little General" and took home some Tula Pink and Denyse Schmidt!

quilt related

I have some travel for work for a few weeks. I did an up-&-back to our NYC office yesterday for a meeting. It made for a very long day, but the meeting went very well and I had time to get by The City Quilter.

Got these goodies for our TMQG upcoming summer block swap!

I so love my iPhone and its camera!!!

Another completion (I am on a roll!*)

*But that will come to a slow down! I am traveling for work this week, so no sewing! 

I did complete this lovely quilt before leaving town. I call it "Fa Lalala" after the Layer Cake I used, "Fa Lalala" by French General. 

Measures 64.5" by 92".

I free-motion quilted on my Baby Lock using Affinity 50wt cotton thread.

I had ordered the layer cake earlier this year, then found the print I used for the border on sale. It happened to be by French General also which meant all the colors blended nicely. The inner border is from my scraps, it was left over from the backing of my king-sized Christmas quilt; the lattice is Kona Snow, which I keep and use for many things!

This is for my son's bed. For next year, I need to make a Christmas quilt for my guest room.

Next up for me are 4 baby quilts (3 for my nephew's brand new triplets(!) and 1 for a co-worker's new granddaughter), my second Asian-inspired wall quilt, and some patriotic blocks for my TMQG meeting in December! The busy-ness for the Holidays is upon me.

I have been very bad.....

I visited Karen Gray Designs for the first time on Saturday.

It was a gorgeous autumn day, I had been running errands. Barnes & Noble, Michaels, JoAnn Fabrics. Checking out what was new and different, not looking for much, some new magazines. 

Ran into some of my TMQG peeps at JoAnn. (Hi Anya and Sarah!)

Sarah mentioned Karen Gray was having a sale.

Now, I was just on my way home, and as a drove near the Reynolda Road exit, I thought I would drop by, see if they were still open. Check it out.

Oh, boy, my first visit, but certainly not my last! I am already looking forward to may next visit!

A bright, cheerful shop. Karen was so nice and friendly! And yes, a SERIOUS sale on excellent fabrics!

And I bought stuff:

Dog and Cat-fabric choices

Since this quilt is for the Stokes County Humane Society, fabric featuring dogs and cats seems quite appropriate! I have purchased cute fabrics through the year, so when I started this quilt I pulled all my pet stash together.

This dog fabric was first. Who can resist those soulful eyes?

Then I found the cat print at Mary Jo's. Love the detail!

The background of the center is a fun and funky dog print I bought at a quilt show.

The applique is a black batik. I machine stitched the edge with black cotton thread to blend in.

My sashing is a cut paw prints fabric I have had for a while, and I used this brown-multicolor batik for the top and bottom border. I like the formality it gives the quilt. It came together very quickly. Next up, basting and quilting!

SummerWind-COMPLETED!!!

This baby is done, and she rocks! I present "SummerWind":

The center star and the multicolored border feature my hand-dyed fabrics along with a few batiks. 

The star was created using a pattern I found in Simply Charming Collection by Moose on the Porch Quilts.

I  designed the border and highlighted it with a running feather-loop in both the multicolored border and the black outer border.

I knew I wanted really heavy FMQ (Free Motion Quilting) in the white (negative) spaces. But to balance the quilt, I needed to stitch the center with a close, but not too dense stitch. So I did these curves with in each square.

Each white triangle has a feather surrounded by filler stitches. I am trying to define my style, so instead of doing a more traditional feather stitch, I tried to go more realistic. And I like it! 

Each white corner contains filler stitches: spirals, pebbles, loops. Just full of shapes I enjoy stitching.

The name comes from my favorite Frank Sinatra song: "Summer Wind".

The summer wind came blowin' in
From across the sea
It lingered there to touch your hair
And walk with me

Adding to the stash

Seems so many quilters in blogland are trying to de-stash. Well, not me! I really never have just randomly bought fabric, not since I figured out my quilting style. What's my style? Well, I like to shop with a project in mind. I have several projects on my mind at the present, but until I finish the king-sized quilt I am working on, I will not allow myself to start anything else!

Back on the subject, adding to my stash. 

I have made small additions this week. First up, I visited Dragonfly Quilt Shop this week after a customer meeting. The shop was so cute and the ladies working there were delightful! They have a large window-filled room for there classes and lovely selection of fabrics. I bought the cute Charms, FQs, a pattern and some Dr. Seuss fabric to use as a backing.

Next, Tammy and I were walking this week and discovered that the little quilt gallery (Sew Welcome) near our office has started carrying fabric. They have a nice selection of FQs so I bought these for a T-shirt quilt I have on my to-do list.

Lastly, my Mom went to Batiks Etc (maybe our very favorite quilt excursion!)on Friday and brought me this pattern.

Can't wait to start it!

Saturday at a Quilt Show!

(squeal of delight) I spent this gorgeous Saturday afternoon in Statesville, NC at the Quilting and Needle Art Extravaganza. And did I have fun! I went with my Mom, our friend Kim and her lovely daughter, Casey. Four chicks out for a day filled with laughter, beautiful colors, inspiring patterns and delightful vendors. 

This is the 3rd year of the show and it seems to have settled into the Civic Center nicely. It started as a way to get a lot of the local brick-and-mortar quilt shops together under one roof to stimulate business in this rural area.

Judging by the crowd as well as the the lines at the registers, we quilters were doing our part to stimulate this little bit of the economy!

For me, it was a great way to add to my stash as well as fill in some specific projects. I bought this group for a specific baby quilt:

And these lovely batiks just had to come home with me.

It was a perfect day!

Reconnected...and a big finish!

Whew, had to get a new modem! Done and installed, obviously!

And my big finish?

Why, my Christmas Quilt. My KING-SIZED Christmas quilt!

I am calling it "A Few of My Favorite Things". Anyone name the musical origin of this song?

The pattern is "Slide Show" by Atkinson Designs, love her patterns! The focus fabrics are from "Figgy Pudding" by Moda. I fell for this group last year and still love the retro colors. 

I quilted it in a loop-de-loop on my Mom's Gammill. Got this beauty done in 3 1/2 hours! Love how it looks on the bed.

Developing a quilt, part 1

Since I am in the quilting phase of another quilt (for dobbygirl!) and that is not easy to document, I decided to create a few posts about the ways I develop my quilts and what inspires me. I hope you find it entertaining!

Method 1 - Or what happens when I fall head-over-heels for a print!

 See that big poppy print? That's what did me in! I love bright poppies, I love seeing them grow in the medians where the DOT plants them en mass. I have tried to grow them, but have no luck. Still, they captivate me. I saw this collection of prints and ordered the fat-quarter pack. In the Spice colorway. You see, I also love orange. Now I mean, I LOVE the color orange. It makes me happy. I have an orange chenille chair in my den. 

To me it is optimistic, warm, happy. It catches the eye. And what is opposite of orange on the color wheel? Blue. So the combination of orange and blue creates energy. When I received the fabric, I loved it even more! So, with the vague idea of an orange and blue quilt, I have been collecting fat quarters. See those orange dots? That is my all-time favorite Amy Butler fabric. I have been hoarding my last pieces of it and this is the place for it. So what's next for this quilt? Well, I have vague ideas for the design. I have even made a couple of sample blocks.

But I haven't decided yet on the pattern. I have also been scouring the 'net for more fabric. This one will be a beauty!

Scrap management

Okay! The scraps have taken over!

I have to do something with them!  I can't toss them, but they are overwhelming me in their current state!

I am going to spend some time organizing them, and whipping them into shape. I am pressing and cutting them. 10" squares, 5" squares, 2 1/2" by 12 1/2" strips and 1 1/2" by 12 1/2" strips.

After I get them all cut, I am organizing them by color. Too OCD? Maybe, but I hate the mess and clutter. And this makes them look like the pre-cut kits, and makes them easier to store. And since I have to keep the house "show-ready" it makes my studio neater as well. And it is a good break after all the quilting I have been doing.

A little eye candy

A color wheel of marbled fabric in the Sewingly Yours booth at the Not Just for Quilters Shop Hop in the J. E. Broyhill Civic Center, Lenoir, NC tomorrow and Saturday. I got a sneak preview (but no shopping) this afternoon during the set up time. If you are in the area, this is an awesome opportunity to get quilt stuff from over 10 vendors!

My sweet Pepper. She is so funny, she just flops down. Sarge will circle 3 times and then gracefully fold down, Murray grans, sits, then slides his front paws until he is lying down. But Pepper, she just flops! I have always loved that her face and head are triangles. And the was she furrows her brows always gives her a quizzical look. She is a sweetie, but then all 3 of my hounds are!

Dad drove up today to help me take the dogs out while the agents open house went on. It was crazy humid, but not too hot. We took the dogs to some trails nearby and strolled and talked. He is doing so well. It is amazing to think how close we came to loosing him not that long ago. Thanks again to everyone for their thoughts and prayers on Dad's behalf. They worked!!