Christmas Lights

I finished my Christmas Lights quilt, a Bonnie Hunter Mystery, that was published in 3 issues of Quiltmaker magazine.  It's a beautiful, colorful quilt.  I used a different setting than the one that Bonnie published.  Another quilter on line suggested several alternative settings and I chose to use one of hers.. I still need to quilt it.  I have never done any hand quilting, but my husband and I are going to be wintering in Fairhope, Alabama, and I won't have my sewing machine, so I might use this as my first hand quilting project.
Have you ever participated in a Virtual Quilt Show?  Want to see what's involved and how to participate?  Visit this website and join in the fun: 
http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/2009/12/virtual-christmas-quilt-show.html

Christmas Lights Mystery Blocks

I have been working on Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt "Christmas Lights" that was published in the last 3 issues of Quiltmaker magazine. All of the blocks have been finished for several weeks. I have been mulling over the setting for my quilt. The Cozy Quilter has provided several interesting settings for these blocks. I'm sure I will use one of these settings. I really like both settings 2 and 3, but I'm still debating which setting to use. Check back here in a few days, and I should have a picture of my quilt in its final setting.

Carolina Crossroads

This afternoon I finished piecing my Carolina Crossroads quilt which is a pattern designed by Bonnie Hunter and is found in her book, Scraps and Shirttails.
The quilt top is made from 100% cotton shirts which I have found at thrift shops, rummage sales, garage sales, etc. It's a great way to make something useful without having to spend a lot of money on fabric.
There are over 2700 pieces in my quilt which measures 77" square. It was a fun quilt to make. Now I will have to wait until I visit my sister in Wisconsin, so I can quilt it on her long-arm machine.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Park City Girl is having a virtual Quilt Festival which is a lot of fun. Bloggers from across the world are posting pics of their favorite quilts for all of us to view and appreciate.
The Park City Girl, Amy, who's blog is here is hosting an online quilt show for those of us who can't get to Houston this week. Actually, she's hosting it for those who can get there too! It's not a competition. What you do is choose one of your quilts and show it and tell its story on your blog, put a link on her blog and that's all. Then you can follow all the links for an amazing on-line quilt show. Oh yes, and there are prizes too, which I think are won in a draw.

My favorite quilt of the year is Jacob's Train quilt that I made in May for my newest grandson, Jacob Scott. Since he is now enjoying the quilt, I don't have it to take more pictures. The quilt was made from a kit by Fons and Porter. It took 5 months to get the kit because it was on backorder month after month. I had almost given up on getting it when I finally received an email message telling me it had been sent. In the long run, it was worth waiting for!
I used machine applique to put the train pieces together, and there were lots of little pieces on each train car. The smoke coming from the engine stacks is small rickrack and the train tracks are a larger rickrack. I wish I had taken some close up photos of the individual train cars for you to see. Oh, well... I think if you click on the picture, it will open in a larger size so the details can be easily seen.
Now click on the bloggers quilt festival button in my sidebar and visit other blogs that are showing their quilts.

Thrift Shop Shirts

It has been quite some time since I've posted anything on my quilting blog. That is because Steve and I have been on a 6 week trip to Oregon. While we were traveling, I didn't have my sewing machine; therefore, I didn't get any quilting done. However, I did visit thrift shops while in the Portland area. Goodwill had such high prices I didn't buy any shirts, but I did find several large pieces of fabric for 99 cents each. I quickly bought those.
I hit the jackpot at Value Village where everything with a purple tag was on sale for 99 cents that day. I found 9 very nice cotton shirts. The best thing about shopping in Oregon is there is no sales tax. So, my 9 shirts cost me $8.91. The total full price would have been $57, so I feel very good about having gotten a real bargain.
I didn't just shop thrift stores while in Portland. I also shopped at 2 wonderful fabric stores. Both of them are huge! The Mill End Store in Beaverton was great. I was able to match several fat quarters for a table topper that I intend to make. I found some great black print background fabric, too. The other fabric store was Fabric Depot in NE Portland. That is the biggest fabric store I've ever seen! It is several acres of fabric and notions. They were having a big clearance sale outside while I was there, and, of course, I found some great bargains on backing fabric. I love to find quality fabric at low prices when I'm looking for backings. Don't you?

New Year's Mystery Quilt

I made my first mystery quilt in the early days of the new year. This mystery was designed by Ann Smith over at the Yahoo group Fabricaholicsanonymous. It was a fun project to make. The blocks could be arranged in a variety of patterns. After playing with several different settings, I decided on this one. I really like it!
To add to the fun of this project, I took it along to my sister's house a couple of weeks ago and had my first experience of using her longarm quilting system. I quilted the entire 76"X76" quilt in about 3 hours using a meandering pattern. It sure was a lot of fun and very rewarding to finish in such a short period of time. I love doing the piecing for quilts, but am less enthusiastic about the quilting of them. Quilting a large quilt on my shortarm Elna is arduous for me.
Today I will finish sewing on the binding and the quilt will be ready to give to my mother-in-law for her 93rd birthday in August.

Quilted Purse

This morning I went to the quilt discussion group meeting at our local public library. It was an enjoyable time. Everyone brought something to show and talk about - either a work in progress or a completed project or a favorite quilt book.
One of the ladies had a quilted purse that I admired. I knew that I had a purse pattern which I bought about a month ago and hadn't started, yet.
Our discussions also included talk about invisible thread. Since I have never used it in a machine quilting project, I decided to try it this afternoon on a quilted purse.
Here is a picture of one of the purse panels that I quilted onto cotton batting. I really like the quilted effect that is given by the invisible thread without the thread showing. Since there is a variation of dark, medium and light fabric, the invisible thread was perfect for this project.
I have probably already mentioned on this blog that I do not have a digital camera, so I often use my scanner to take pictures of sections of my projects. One of these days, I'll get a digital camera so I can take proper pics of works in progress.