Lucky Me

Annie over at Annie's Quilt Orts recently had a giveaway to celebrate having 100 followers. She decided to pick a 13th name for a second winner - guess who was Lucky 13. Whoo Hoo!

I follow Tonya's blog also and have followed along as she was writing her book and creating some of the quilts in the book. I have really wanted this book.

So do you think I should make this quilt first...

Or should I start simple with this little quilt...

Oh I'm going to have fun with this book. Thank you Annie!!

I finished the panel. This is the back: tension looks good, stitches look even (I am SO glad I got the stitch regulator), and it doesn't look like I quilted rows (which I was really worried about).

The hardest part was the last 4 inches of the quilt.

I'm pleased with the results, but I still need to take more baby steps.

PIQS

The Pacific International Quilt Show is BIG. Over 500 quilts from local, nationwide and international quilters, and over 160 vendors. The imagination and creativity of quilters astounds me every time. Below are a few of my favorites.

I love dragonflies.

This iris quilt was very large.

Wouldn't you love to see this mosaic in your entryway. This was also a very large quilt.

This was one of my show favorites. Very dramatic colors and design, I really liked the mix of traditional with contemporary. My picture doesn't show it very well but there is a bird quilted in each of the fly geese and throughout the quilt.

What I thought was fantastic is the large bird is created with thread, no piecing or applique.

And then it's back to reality...lol...I've loaded a panel that looks like a pieced quilt on to the beast.
I want to do in the ditch, some curves, a few different fillers in the blocks, maybe pebbles in the border (ha! like I could do all that on my first quilt on the beast) - getting back to reality again, I am going to meander from edge to edge. I have two of these panels, if I do okay on this one maybe I'll get a bit more adventurous with the next. I have to remind myself that baby steps are good.

I'll post more quilts from the show later this week.

I'm So Excited

I've decided practicing frame and machine quilting on muslin is BORING.

Last Saturday I had my aunt Roberta and Jayme sewing blocks while I ironed and cut (I don't think my aunt has used a sewing machine in 40+ years). I've been piecing backs, making binding and adding borders this past week - I've actually done a little bit of sewing every day this week. I'm excited about quilting again. I now have two panels ready to quilt and three small donation quilts that just need their final borders added.

And I'm really looking forward to putting each quilt/panel on the frame to quilt.

But not this weekend. This weekend I'm going the Pacific International Quilt Show in Santa Clara, CA. I'm so excited. Nancy, Dawn and Stacey are going with me. Stephanie is meeting us there. The girls are gonna have fun! I'll have lots of pictures when I get back.

Have to show pics of the boys...Obba and Fred are my official quilt testers...

Obba testing the softness of one of the donation quilts. Soooo soft flannel charm squares from Moda in nice guy-like tweeds, plaids and herringbone prints. I like petting this flannel as much as I like petting Obba (don't tell him that).

Fred inspecting Nancy's layout of her Kaffe snowball quilt on my design floor, he moved a few around for her.

Sigh, it's so nice living with two handsome helpful guys.