So Now I'm Making Bowls

So now I've started making bowls. These are clothesline bowls made using the book "It's a Wrap". I'm really having a great time and will now be starting my next one. They are very easy, just a little time consuming to wrap the fabric around the clothesline. I finally figured out that it's a lot easier and less boring to sit in front of the TV and wrap a whole bunch of clothesline before sitting down at the sewing machine. The sewing part goes really fast. I loaned my book to someone so I couldn't remember exactly how to end it but it's ended in any event.

Retreat Gifties

Two Wacky Women is hosting another retreat in just a few weeks. Marilyn (the other Wacky Women) and I got together and made these for all of our guests. We managed to find the zippers at a swap meet for very few $'s so the trick was finding fabric that matched or at least coordinated with them. I lucked out when I found this cute Robert Kaufman fabric that has thimbles all over it. We added the lavender for contrast and Wa La, cute little coordinating sets.



The pattern for the notebook cover is still available on the Two Wacky Women website. They are very easy and make a great gift.

A Great Day or a Workshop

Today was my Quilters By the Sea guild workshop. We were a small but mighty group today but we had a great time. Our guest was Sylvia Davis and the workshop was stained glass. This is the small top I made. It of course is not finished yet, I will be adding a border and will then quilt it. But it the mean time, I think it's pretty darn cute.

Here's a group picture of some of the others.

Enjoy,

It's A Giant Easter Egg!

It's hard to believe that it's almost Easter. It seems like just last month that I visited with my sister Melinda and my niece Christina in San Francisco, but in fact it's been an entire year. My sister came to California for a visit so I flew to San Francisco from where I live in So. Calif. Whenever we get together we try to work on a project or two. We've made quilts, bears, decorated clip boards and on and on.

Last year I had purchased a really cute table runner pattern from Monica's Quilt and Bead Creations in Palm Desert California, so that turned out to be one of our projects. Off we went to Joann's and bought various fat quarters and some off the bolt pieces of Easter fabric. Then we headed back to Christina's to make three table runners. We made half-square triangles, flying geese and simple strips and put them together every which way. We only had one sewing machine but we each managed to made one for our dining room tables. They each came out really cute. As my sister and I aways say, the same but different. So here's mine.

I love having a variety of table runners. It's a simple way to change the look of my dining room as the seasons change.

Enjoy!

Quilted Charity Quilt

As I told you before, my friendship group had a challenge using a paint chip as our color pallet for a quilt to be given to charity. I made the quilt a while back, but waited to quilt it at the "Quilting in the Pines" retreat last week.

After practicing on small quilt sandwiches, this was my first attempt at an actual quilt. I first quilted in the ditch to form a grid that would stabilize the entire quilt as I continue to free motion quilt the rest of the top. I quilted big loops in the round portion of the drunkards path and spiky things on the other side. I then quilted a figure 8 design in the first two and last two borders. The middle border was quilted by practicing leaves and loops.

Overall all I'm pleased with the results. I know someone will love it, but for now I'll be happy to get rid of it. It was never my colors so I'm happy to send it on it's way.

I'm Back! And I'm Machine Quilting!

I'm back from a wonderful quilting retreat in Cambria, California. This retreat was focused on machine quilting with our regular sewing machine. I have quilted a lot of quilts on my HandiQuilter but have only quilted a few things on my good old Pfaff. I was skeptical that I would be able to do anything that would look half way decent. Well I was surprised! I still need lots of practice (as you can see) but I'm determined to keep at it, and with practice I'll do better.




A big thank you to Frances Moore for her patience, she is a great teacher.



So here's my mini quilt show:













Above are my practice samples.







Remember my 81 patch? Here's the quilting.






Here' my disappearing nine patch. It's hard to see the quilting but here is a closeup.



I guess it's still pretty hard to see but there are loopty loops in the stars, stippling in the white and leaves in the border.

I also quilted a charity quilt, but I'll save that for next time.