Quilting Vickie's Star, pieced by Donna Dowell

This is my first time putting something on 'YouTube' by myself.  It's titled "Quitting Vickie's Star" if you want to find it there.  So, yes, I misspelled the title and don't know how to fix it. I also just got the new HTC Evo phone by Sprint (LOVE IT) and I took the video with it.  I'm learning new stuff all the time!

This quilt was made by Donna Dowell of Springfield, Colorado.  She took a Block of the Month class at Justa Stitchin in Springfield CO.  They did a paper pieced quilt from Carol Doak's book "Mariners Compass Stars..".    It's a beautiful quilt!  We chose a design by Anne Bright called 'Swirling' and I used Citron Green thread by Perma Core. (I buy it at this warehouse.  Talk to Lenard @ 801-756-6016 if you want to order from them).  She also used a beautiful Batik that is the 'Signature' Fabric (so they always have it in stock) from a quilt shop she came across.  The store is called Kapaia Stitchery, in Lihue on the island of Kauai. I couldn't find a web site, but you can Google their name and get directions. If you look closely you can see the Sea Turtles and Coral patterns stamped into the Batik.  It's really stunning!  Sorry about how loud the machine is on the video.  I'm used to it.  I usually have 2 machines running and an air compressor (off and on) all day long.  When I turn everything off at the end of the day I get a little 'ahhhhh' moment to hear the quiet again. :-)
  Thanks Donna for sharing your quilt with us!

Signature fabric for Kapaia Stitchery in Lihue Hawaii

Summer's CRAZY!

Summer has been a whirl of events for my family and business.  As many of you know, my mom has been suffering an illness (undiagnosed!) for the last several months and it has become critical this summer.  She has lost almost 100 lbs and we don't know why.  The doctors are baffled and she's had several surgeries and many hospital stays and yet she continues to not be able to eat.  So....that has taken its toll on our family.  The kicker this summer was when my Hard Drive 'broke'? (do you say that?) and I lost ALL the info off my computer for the last year and a half!  I cried for several days.  However, I have a wonderful neighbor who installed a new hard drive and has helped me restore as much as possible, which wasn't really all that much.  My e-mail also took me 3 weeks to figure out how to acess (the guy who did my web site, doesn't work there any more and I had to track him down to find out the 'secret' to getting into my e-mail).  Also, we've seen an increase of business this summer which suprised me because...well, you know...it's summer. Anyway, it's been difficult to do as much of my own piecing as I enjoy.  But, I wanted to show you 2 quilts that I did around the beginning of June.  They are the same design and almost the same quilting.  I made the quilt with the red border first and used Anne Brights 'Sail Boat Border Set' from her 'By The Sea' March 2010 special. (I LOVED IT!), and I used her 'Ocean View b2b' for the inside. 

 This is all for the quilt with the red border.  I really liked the quilt, but the red border didn't show the cute Sail Boats on it. so I made another quilt and bought the blue border with the express purpose of having the quilting show up.  So I chose a dark blue with tiny white dots.  And, I think you'll agree, it turned out wonderful!!  The Red Border quilt was donated to my daughter Jourdan's swim team fund raiser, and there's a picture of her diving off the blocks (I'm so proud!) The quilt she's laying on is one of my "Uber-Ezy" quilts with Flannel for the batting.  We've enjoyed using it this summer as an easy picnic quilt.

More "Uber-Eazy" Quilts

This is the same quilt as the FREE quilt I'm giving away this month.  The difference is that the borders are 6" and not 8".  I quilted the quilt first then added the applique and RicRac while it was still on the machine.  I used Janet Platt's "Quick Points Ruler to make the 1" Prarie Points in yellow fabric.

I sewed the Prarie Points into the binding.  The centers of the flowers are the really large buttons (they cost $2.50 out here!) but I thought that they were well worth the effect.  I backed this quilt in Minkie too of course!

This quilt is a crib size.  It needed something more so after I quilted it I made a Lazy Dazy applique flower.  I used "Heat-n-Bond" just around the outside edges of the applique and ironed them onto the quilt.  Then I used variegated DMC floss (3 strands) to stitch a large "Blanket Stitch" around the outside of the applique.  I then used a "Chain Stitch" down the center of each petal and leaf to help secure them better.  Around the yellow center I used a new product called "PomPom Baby" from Riley Blake.

In order to put the PomPom Baby around the outside we sewed the binding onto the back (instead of the front like you usually do) and hand sewed the binding to the front and included the PomPom Baby in with it.

Another quilt I did using the same design, but doing something slightly different with the corners of the border.  This Black quilt is done as simply as possible.  I used black minkie for the back of this too.  This gives the quilt a lacy look.  For all my Scalloping I use "Easy Scallop" by EZ Quilters.  It takes a fraction of the time that any other method that I know of. 

Have a great day quilting!!

FREE QUILT GIVAWAY!

I am having a drawing for a free quilt for the months of April and May! I call it "Uber-Eazy" because, face it, I couldn't have made a more simple quilt. The Scalloping on the edges is what make it so pretty. The finished quilt is "55 x 70". I backed it with "Minkie" which is really "Cuddle 3" by Shannon Fabrics, Inc. I like to use the plain flat minkie because it really shows the quilting in a relief form. It's also softer than anything! For the quilt top's fabric I used Riley Blake Designs' "Ivy Trellis" by Gabriella Hunter in teal. It was quilted using Anne Brights' new design from April called "Tristin". The approximate value of this quilt is $185.00.

The winner will be chosen from the invoices (or quilts done) during April and May. For a Instructions on making this "Uber-Eazy" quilt yourself go to Tutorials

"Back in the Saddle"

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to keep up with my Blog. Well, it's May and I'm finally getting "Back in the Saddle" again. I guess I'm mostly afraid of doing this because I'm not really much of a writer, and the thought of having anyone read this is more than a little frightening. So, excuses aside, Here's what I've been up to.

Mary Cowan, of "Mary's Cottage Quilts" brought me a quilt last year that I fell in love with. It's called "Boston Creme Pie". We struck a deal where she pieced it and I did the quilting. It's been touring around the U.S. with her "Trunk Show" for the last 6 months. Now it will reside on my wall in the shop forever! I keep looking and it while I quilt and it makes me so happy to see it there.

I used Anne Bright's "Wonderland" design set to quilt the blocks and borders.

Well, it's taken me 2 hours to do this much, so hopefully I'll get faster.  I actually have a lot to write, but I'm so incredibly slow!  Stay Tuned for more!

In The Beginning...

In September of 2003 I wanted to have one of my first quilts quilted professionally. I found out that it would cost around $75.00 to have it done. Being a person who likes to figure out how to do it myself instead of paying someone else to do it, I started looking around at the different longarm quilting systems. I was very impressed with the HQSixteen(it cost a lot more than the quilt, but when you're trying to 'save money' what are a couple of 0's???) I also liked the Gammill Classic Plus, but I wasn't going to be greedy. I went to my husband, and trying to show him what a great deal the HQSixteen was, compared it to the cost of the Gammill. My poor husband, thinking that both longarms sounded ridiculously out of our budget, uttered the words that I think he has regretted many times over, "well, if you're going to buy anything you might as well get what you really want." I KNOW he was being completely sarcastic, but I took him at his word. I figured out how to get a loan and bought my first longarm, a Gammill Classic Plus with a wonderful 12' table, hydraulics, lots of thread and patterns and for my $75.00 quilt. I have since bought two more longarms, these being the Statler Stitchers (which have revolutionized my life) and have kicked my poor sweet husband out of our 3-car garage so I could turn it into my quilting studio/shop! I won't even tell you how much more I've now spent on quilting, but suffice to say, I am a true quilting junky. I now quilt full-time from my home and enjoy every quilt I do. You might ask if I get all my own quilts done. The answer is "of course I don't" they are always the last to be done, but I try to get at least 5 or 6 quilts done each year. My family enjoys all the quilts that they have received since that fateful day my husband unwittingly opened the door to the biggest venture of my life.