Thanksgiving Vacation 2011

The time since MQX West has just flown by!

While I haven’t decided on a specific design yet for my wholecloth quilt,  I have, completed two customer quilts.

 

I’ll be working on finishing a third one today.

I’ve been on vacation for the past 10 days, and I’ve certainly enjoyed it!  There was a lot of driving involved, which I don’t especially enjoy, but this view sure took my breath away!

My brother flew from New Hampshire to Montana to visit my mother the weekend before Thanksgiving, so I decided to join them.  We made our own Thanksgiving dinner early, each of us choosing something for the menu that we wanted to include that we loved from holidays past.  It was a very nice dinner and I even made turkey noodle soup out of the leftover carcass.

We also went to the Cat-Griz game, where the highly favored Cats got trounced.  This is a big deal since my brother is a Montana State University alum, and my mother is a University of Montana graduate.  I wore my neutral Bronco orange and blue stadium coat and cheered for both teams.  I went to MSU for a year and would have liked to see them win, but it was dang cold and I just needed to keep warm so cheering for both teams was the best way to do that! 

When I got home I spent a lot of time with my husband, including getting the carpets cleaned and going out for breakfast.  Two of the dogs got groomed, and Gizmo got his first dental.  Poor guy, he’s down to 11.5 pounds and needed some pain medication that evening.  I’m happy to report he’s doing much better now and has even submitted to being brushed without too much fuss.  The vet said to start feeding him some wet food to try to get some weight on him and I think it’s already starting to work.

We were also fortunate to have  friends over the day after Thanksgiving who showed me how to make authentic Malaysian curried chicken.  It was delicious and now I’m interested in finding more Malaysian recipes!

Of course, all of this running around means I haven’t been in the quilting room much.  Before I left I started straightening up and working on getting the batting rolls hung under the longarm.  I still need to complete that project to my satisfaction, but at least I was able to start on my customer quilt before I left.

While working on my customer’s quilt yesterday, I realized I am running out of backing, one row away from finishing!  And this is a huge back!  I know I measured and fussed with it a lot beforehand to make sure this wouldn’t happen.  I have a TON of extra backing on the sides, but the back is about square, too, so I think what happened is that I wasn’t skimpy with where I started the quilt at the top.  Of course, it’s a king sized quilt, and I’m not about to unroll it just to find that out, at this point!

I basted down the middle of the border to stabilize it, and  I’m going to have to find some fabric to secure to the rest of the backing so I can attach it to the leader and finish this row.  This isn’t exactly how I wanted to spend my Sunday morning!

While I’ve gotten a lot done during this time off, there are still items on the list.  I supposed that’s the way it will always be, as long as we are living life.  The trick, I think, is to make the quilts you really want to make a priority, not just the obligatory or “easy” quilts.  It’s in the doing that we achieve that satisfaction and increase our skills.  The love always shows.

MQX West 2011–Summary

Overall, I had a great time at MQX West!

I got to catch up with friends, and made some new ones!  Candi from Washington, who’s been quilting for customers for a year and has done over 200 quilts, and Mari Lee Seei, from Off The Edge Quilting, who sells those wonderful pink long arm rulers!  She was so delightful, informative, and inspiring with the versatility and amazing designs she’s come up with for her rulers!  I bought the new Frill ‘em Up set, which is a  baptist fan variation, the Gimme Frills line ruler,  the 4” Chain O’ Hearts template… and now I want them all!

I took one hands-on class from Judy Woodworth, and had a wonderful time.   Here’s the practice piece I brought home with me:

It was a real confidence booster, especially when Judy told me I was doing a good job!  I’m going to put the piece back on my machine and keep practicing until it’s all filled up.

I took a feather class from Linda McCuean, and while the technique wasn’t new to me, I got inspired to make a whole cloth quilt!  And, of course, it can’t be a small lap quilt, like the sample she showed us in class, it has to be a king sized quilt!  I bought a bolt of 108” wide fabric, batting and thread to go with it, and have been working on a design, mostly in my head at this point.  When I got home, I decided that it should have a flannel back, rather than cotton, which I had originally intended.  So, I need to get some flannel, but I don’t have to hurry at this point, I can keep my eye out for the right piece while I design and practice!

Today, I’ll be working on a comfort quilt with my lunchtime quilter group, and then back to finish my customer quilt.  Oh, what a short weekend!

New Thread!

I got 4 cones of Aurifil longarm thread at MQX West in Portland last week!  I’ve been wanting to try it for a long time, especially since I use it exclusively for piecing.

One of them is a new color, a beautiful autumn, rusty orange!  I got it specifically to do a wholecloth that I was inspired to make while taking a feathering class from Linda McCuen.

I saw the technique she presented about 3 years ago, so the class itself wasn’t new information, and I’m very comfortable with the technique.  She showed a sample in her class, of course, and it’s just beautiful!  It got me to thinking about how I could do the same thing.

While I was visiting a wholesale store in Portland, I purchased a bolt of 108” wide cotton and a couple layers of batting to make a king sized whole cloth!  I’m really excited about it, and I can hardly wait to start!  After I got home, I started thinking I should back it in flannel, so I need to find an appropriate wide backing.

I was lucky enough to come back to have 4 customer quilts to do, so while I’m working on those I’ll be modifying the design we saw in class to work with a king sized quilt.  Since I’ve never done one before, I’m wondering if I should pre-wash the fabric?  I always do on my pieced tops.  And I’m wondering if I should pre-mark before I load?  That seemed to be the consensus in one of my other classes, but they were talking about the chalk marks (I can’t believe chalk wouldn’t come off during the loading process!)

If anyone has experience making a whole cloth, I’d love your input!

MQX West - First Half of Day 1

I've had my first class at MQX West 2011, the first time this machine quilting expo has been held on the west coast.  My class was called Lions and Tigers and Templates, Oh, My! taught by Kimmy Brunner.

First let me say, Kim Brunner is a really good teacher, and I would encourage anyone to take a class from her.  She is patient and clearly repeats her information when she's asked and I liked her very much.  The class is very well organized and the flow of information worked really well.  Kim obviously enjoys teaching.  I've been reading her column in Machine Quilting Unlimited, and she touched on the subject of using templates in that article, so I was familiar with some of what she covered, but it was good to have that reinforced, and then hear new materialo in conjunction with it.

The room, though, was not  setup properly for this presentation.  There were 2 rows of tables for students, holding approximately 12 people, but there were at least 60 people in the class.  That meant that everyone else had to try to work on the drawing handouts on their lap, using the notepad that they were supposed to bring to class.  To say the least, this was not a good first impression for the organization of the show.

The Awards Ceremony and "sneak peak" of the vendor mall will be tonight.  I'm a little disappointed that the vendor mall isn't open during the day because I was planning on using this time to go shopping, especially since my friends are taking classes. 

So, while I was waiting to take my first hands-on class since I first touched a longarm, I went to a local burger place, Burgerville, for lunch.  Blackberry shake was absolutely wonderful, the half salad, while flavorful, was too small, and so I had to order a sandwich to complete my meal.  I got the crispy chicken sandwich and ended up taking off the breading (I didn't realize it came with that) which included a smattering of barbeque sauce....which also needed removing.  I think I've experienced all that Burgerville has to offer me.

I'm really looking forward to the hands on class...Exploding Texture and Background Fill, with Judy Woodworth.  I really want to expand my free motion repertoire and think this class will help.  I'll let you know!

Happy Friday!

Have I mentioned how much I love piecing with Aurifil thread?  It always amazes me how long a spool will last, it's almost shocking when it's finally gone!

I stayed up way too late last night trying to get a block done for a comfort quilt.  Of course, I’m not making just one block, I have to do some production piecing!  Now I’m wondering what I’ll do with the extra blocks!  Hmmm…  Anyway,  I’ve got to pick one more strip of fabric to add to it and then I’ll post the finished block.  It's really cute!

Part of what took so long is that I'm also making this into a tutorial so I can post it on my website as a free download.  I’m inspired by people like Bonnie Hunter and Mary from MaryQuilts.com, they do such wonderful work and are so giving with their patterns, talent, and time.

I took today off work to get some chores done, but the Quilt Guardians need a walk first.  So, on with my day!

Vera’s Family Heirloom

This is the quilt that I was working on last week.  I’m really glad I went with the Variety panto on it, instead of Brocade!  Anne Bright converted the digital patterns for me to paper, since I don’t have a computerized system.  Wasn’t that nice of her?

Now that this one is finished, I still need to quilt the “practice” quilt I made so that I didn’t make a mistake on this one!  Sort of backwards, huh?

I’ve decided, though, to turn it into a showcase quilt and do a few rows of several pantos so I can show customers how they will look stitched out, and then I won’t run into this problem again.  Now I just need to decide if I want to use my Winline bamboo batting that I’m dying to use, or go with a cotton poly, something that would probably be used more often by my customers.  Such dilemmas, eh?

I probably won’t get to it in the next couple of weeks, though, because I am going to MQX West!  I’m lucky to have family in the Portland area, so I’ll be staying with them and it just turns out that my uncle will be turning 70 at the end of that week!  They are going to have a family reunion of sorts, so I need to get a different project done to take with me.  Better get sewing!

Oh, and just for the heck of it…I gotta share a photo of Hunter and Gizmo….they just need to learn how to relax!

Testing a Quilt Pattern

I decided to test the quilting pantograph pattern that my customer picked for her quilt on a quilt top of my own.  I’m just not convinced that it’s right for her quilt, because it is really open and airy.  If I chose the wrong design, I’ll be picking stitches…on someone else’s quilt no less… and I really don’t want to pick stitches!

So, I created a quilt top out of some leftover 10” blocks (I also cut some new ones) that had been used to make a top using the 10 Minute Block method.  Talk about a stash buster!

I have to say, I wasn’t very pleased with it to begin with, but I think it’s OK now.  I am excited to quilt it to see how it turns out!  I’m not sure what color of thread to use, though, so that’s another decision.  I think I may use a leafy green fabric for the backing, and while it doesn’t really go with the design overall, it’s…THE…BACK!  OK, I think I’m all settled now, and the perfectionist in me may let go of it after all..

I’m also thinking I may do 2-3 rows of the initial panto to see how it works, and then switch it to another panto; that way I’ll have a “sampler” of sorts to show my customers so they can see the actual quilting design and have a better idea of what they are choosing.

So, until my customer quilt is finished, the pink and white quilt is on hold.