A Finish . . . .

It seems like all I've done is pack and unpack a suitcase this spring. Last weekend my husband and I popped out to Las Vegas to celebrate his birthday, but I'm home now with no travel plans until the middle of August, look out sewing room I'm moving back in.

I was able to squeeze in one very important finish in the few days that I have been home and not packing or unpacking.

My daughter adopted a dog and her first request was for a quilt. That's something we do in our household, make quilts for our dogs. Cooper inherited Simon's Quilt (Lifetime Quilt #33) so it had been awhile since I made a dog quilt.

Choosing the fabric was easy, this fabric had just been released,

Max & Whiskers by basicgrey for Moda.

So I bought a layer cake and started thinking about the perfect pattern, something easy, (it is for dog after all) and something that would show off that adorable fabric. I wanted the dog, paw and bone prints to be easily discernible.

The first thing I did was cut the layer cake into fourths. Then I separated the fabric into groups of colors, blue, white, yellow and orange, and black and brown.

Then I put them in different combinations on my design wall until I came up with a design that appealed to me.

In the end I went with this around the world pattern. I also cut the blocks down to 4 1/2 inches so the top would finish at a nice even 36 inch square quilt.

And here it is all quilted. My quilter went with twice the batting and stitched in the ditch to create this puffy pillow look.

Plus she added some extra quilting to the center 9 blocks, they lay a little flatter, to create a little nest in the middle of all that fluff.

This quilt is in the mail, on it's way to Tucker. Hopefully I'll bet a great picture of Tucker sleeping peacefully on this quilt, and not a picture of Tucker in a room filled with stuffing and shreds of Max and Whiskers everywhere, time will tell, it could go either way!

This is Lifetime Quilt # 73,

is named Tucker's Quilt,

has 81 pieces ( a new all time low)

and finished at 36" x 36".

I enjoyed hearing all about the French General quilts that have been made and fabric that has been bought or will be bought, it's nice to know I'm not the only French General fan. I find it very fascinating that Kaari Meng, aka The French General, is not a quilter! She sure has a knack for designing great quilting fabric.

I'm such a fan of my French General fabric, I don't throw away the scraps, I keep every little bit that doesn't get into a quilt, any other scraps either find a new home or get tossed.

Now for the winner,

Ginny Worden,

you are the winner of the pin cushion, French General tote and notebooks.

Ginny had this to say about the French General fabric

Does buying French General fabric count ? Can't seem to get past fondling it.

Congratulations Ginny, and I've been known to fondle some of my FG fabric too!

Wednesday, I"ll have a Wild Air update, hope you can stop back by!

Read more

Last Leg . . .

This is the last post on my vacation out west, which was a month ago! Where does time go?

I was lucky enough to attend Spring Market.

Anything I have to share is old news, and if you've yet to see any pictures of market hop on over to Sherri's blog, A Quilting Life, or Sandy's blog, Textile House. They both had a great time and got some wonderful pictures. I was able to meet up with Sandy (it's always fun to meet a fellow blogger face to face) but Sherri and I never could get our phones to work at the same time, we only exchanged voice mails, not hugs.

Market is a wonderful experience, I found the amount of talent and inspiration under one roof overwhelming. If you ever get the opportunity to go, you must!

The highlight of my market tour was visiting Monique's booth, Open Gate Quilts.

I was able to see all the quilts that are in Monique's book Fat Quarter Winners. What a treat.

The quilt I was most interested to see was Crazy Eights, the pattern that I made using red and black prints. Monique went scrappy with her background fabric for her blocks where I went with one background fabric. You would not believe the difference that makes in the look of that quilt. I always find it fascinating to see the same pattern made with different fabrics.

Monique also had some new patterns at market, and this is one of my favorites,

Secret Garden!

I've been looking for my next applique project and this just may be it! I'm thinking of either adding some pieced blocks to go in between the applique blocks or keeping the center as is and surrounding them with pieced blocks. Somehow I want to supersize this project from a wall hanging to a quilt.

After Market I went to Pasadena to visit my daughter and we stopped in here

The French General's Shop, located in Los Angeles, California.

I was not allowed to take pictures inside the store, but it had a very interesting assortment of goods; some buttons, jewelry, ribbons, candles, fabric, paper products and much much more. A fun shop to lose yourself in with a very friendly staff. The tea kettle is always on.

I did get to drool over the French Generals fall line of fabric,

the store had a limited amount of Panier de Fleurs on hand.

If you read this blog very often, you know I have a thing for blue, for avoiding blue, but the blue in this line is gorgeous and goes great with the red that's also part of this family of fabric. When I saw the entire family, I immediately pictured a quilt made of only the dark fabrics, no lights. I think the contrast in colors would make an amazing quilt. I mentioned this to someone who had also seen this family of fabric and she said she pictured a quilt made using only the lights! So start saving your pennies, I suspect you will want to make more than one quilt from this fabric.

I think I promised to pick up a little sumpin sumpin on my trip for a giveaway,

how about a colorful pincushion (no I didn't make it)

and a French General tote with a couple of notebooks?

To be eligible just leave a comment on this post, any comment will do, but I am curious to know if you have made a quilt using any French General fabric,and if so how many, I'm up to 4 and counting!

I'll announce the winner on Monday.

Read more

Details, Details . . .

I've gotten some emails asking for more detail on a few pictures I've posted and since I've done very little sewing as of late (what can I say, it's summer) I figured this would be a good time to pass some information along to everyone.

I took this picture at an amazing shop called American Quilting in Orem, Utah.

The pattern name for this quilt is Barn Railing.

And it's in this book,

Gone Crazy by folks at the The Buggy Barn.

I should have provided this information when I blogged about it, the store deserves the mention and the quilt designers deserve the credit, I'll do better in the future.

And this binder . . .

I picked it up at Staples! They have the best stuff for quilters, ruler organizers, pattern holders, cool post its and note pads...they act like they're some sort of business supply store, but don't be fooled, that big box store is full of artsy and fun doohickies and the closest thing to a quilt shop that I have in my town!

And finally,

Every now and then I mention that Cooper goes to doggy daycare . . .

here's my good boy, sitting up straight, minding his manners and paying close attention to someone or something at daycare. (Rumor has it that Cooper is really the class clown and this was just a lapse in what is normally a very active day for him.)

I hope your summer is off to great start . . .

Read more

Virginia's Star Quilt . . . Finished . . .

Remember this project? Of course you don't, I hardly remember this project!! The last time I blogged about my Virginia's Star Quilt was February 14th!! (here)

So to refresh your memory, Virginia's Star Quilt is a pattern by Lori Smith for From my heart to your hands Quilt Designs. It's a great pattern that provides detailed instructions for making this quilt in several different sizes.

I got my center star blocks all done then decided I wanted to change the border.

So I added this checkerboard/9 patch border, but ran out of fabric. That's the last time you heard about this quilt.

Luckily for me, a friend had this exact kit at her house and offered her border fabric to me so I could finish my quilt.

So I finished up that black and tan border, stood back and looked at my quilt and thought, "oh no, that's not good." I thought the black and tan blocks overpowered the star blocks, to the point where you didn't really notice the star blocks at all. What a disappointment!

So at this point I'm trying to decide what to do, go back to the border that was with the pattern (maybe that Lori Smith knew best!) or go ahead and add the final border of scrappy half square triangles and hope it all worked out in the end.

I decided to stick with my plan and add the outer border to that black and tan inner border.

And miracle of miracles, somehow those scrappy half square triangles evened things out, somehow they toned down those black and tan squares. What a relief!

This is Lifetime Quilt Number Seventy,

finished at 54" x 66"

and has approximately 1,436 pieces.

I had a few scraps setting on my sewing table when I was all done and thought maybe I could use them for something.

And came up with this little mug rug, it finished at 6" x 6".

Read more

Merrily I Shopped Along . . .

After I wrapped up my two Carrie Nelson classes, sponsored by the Corn Wagon Quilt Company, I had a little time to visit some Salt Lake City quilt shops. So armed with a map, Garman, and list of 15 area quilt shops, I hit the road, my primary goal, to visit as many quilt shops as humanly possible in the course of 24 hours!

But before I could start my shopping spree, I had one little errand to run, to drop off Carrie at the airport, Carrie was heading back home.

So when Carrie asked if I could drop her off at the airport I was happy to do so. Since Carrie didn't mention which airport, the first thing I did was research airports in the Salt Lake City area. There were two, one boring airport with commercial jets coming and going all hours of the day and night, the airport where I picked up Carrie at the beginning of the week, and a municipal airport with rows of biplanes stored under carport type structures in a huge grassy field.

Well that was an easy call, I figured Carrie would prefer to head home in one of these.

I could just picture Carrie riding in the back with the wind blowing her hair, a scarf flying behind her back and Carrie talking to the pilot the whole trip. Well let this be a lesson to you, when someone asks for a ride to the airport, you don't get to pick the airport, THEY DO! Guess I missed that chapter in my Emily Post Etiquette book, luckily for me I was able to get Carrie to the airport of HER choice in plenty of time for her flight.

That's my story and I'm sticking with it, click here for someone else's take on my choice of airports.

I don't know this to be a fact, but I would be surprised to find an area that had more quilt shops in a hundred mile radius than Salt Lake City. In the span of a mere 100 miles I found 15 quilts shops, 15 amazing quilt shops. I was able to visit ten of them. Do you realize that I've never visited more than 10 different quilt shops in an entire year, yet, in the course of 24 hours I looked, shopped, swooned, and walked through 10 quilt shops! I can drive 100 miles any direction from my house and am lucky to hit 2 shops.

All the shops were friendly, encouraged me to take all the pictures I wanted, and even suggested bakeries, restaurants and ice cream parlors for little pick me ups. The raspberry stuffed iced sugar cookie was definitely worth the stop.

So here are a few random pictures that pretty much summed up my amazing day.

Is there anything better than a red and cream churn dash quilt?

Quilter's Haven was a just that, a wonderful quilter's haven.

I ran across new fabric companies, Riley Blake is huge out there, and new pattern designers.

Look at this adorable display of Schnibbles patterns, all pinned to an ironing board.

Material Girls was packed with patterns and fabric,

everything amazingly bright and cheerful.

This pattern is called "The Red Cross Quilt" by Geoff's Mom Pattern Company.

Naturally I like the colors of this quilt, but I was also drawn to those wonky stars.

This quilt shop, Pine Needles, was in a very interesting area called Gardner Village. All sorts of specialty shops are now housed in buildings that were once part of a mill town. I had to cross a covered walking bridge to get to the quilt shop and passed a bakery, candy shop and housewares shop on the way. You could spend all day shopping at Gardner Village.

I have no idea what that fabric is, but I love it, and the dog.

It was easy to pick out Piper's Quilts shop from the street.

And I arrived just as Lynette Anderson started putting on a trunk show.

All her quilts were amazing. I have a whole new appreciation and love for applique projects.

So that's the high points of my day of shopping, and it got me to thinking, if the Salt Lake City area can support that many quilt shops, there must be more quilters per capita in Salt Lake City than any other city in the world, or maybe just the US or maybe just Utah, but for sure, there must be many many quilters out there.

One post left of my vacation, yes, I did make it to Market and the French General shop in LA!

Thanks for stopping by,

Read more