Umbrella Project

This is one of my latest projects. I was looking at blogs on other sites and came across this one about recovering an umbrella. Well, I just happened to have an old umbrella that I wasn't going to use again and this is the result of my efforts. Amazingly covering an umbrella is a two to three hour project. It is fun and my friends are in awe...

Christmas in July

This is my latest project. It is a kit I found at Keepsake Quilting. This little quilt should look great on the wall of a children's room at the Cancer Center. The background is made with blended squares on a fusible grid and then stitched. The gold trim is glittery gold piping. The rest of the tree is raw edge applique. I still have to quilt the top and add the finishing touches--bows, crystals, etc. Angels will grace the tree. It is going to be a fun wall quilt because it has very interesting items found in the dark squares.

New Project

I am working on a small Christmas wall hanging. It is a kit that I purchased from Keepsake Quilting. The background of the quilt uses a blended technique with a decorated Christmas tree in the middle. I have the background finished and am working on the Christmas tree. You'll see a photo in a day or two.

Last evening we planted two Knockout roses that my DIL found on a 70% off sale. They were in a gallon tub, so they are very large with plenty of blooms. They are looking great after a brief shower this morning.

We are heading for Colorado later in the month, so yesterday I smoked four chickens and have them frozen. Today I smoked a pork and a beef roast. It came out of the smoker a while ago and we had a delicious sandwich.

I am headed back to my "studio" to work some stitching magic!

Home Again

Thursday morning almost before the sun was shining, I left with Roxane and Helen to go to the Omaha Quilt Show. We had the booth set up by 3pm or so and headed out for a little lunch. The show opened at 5 pm. I demonstrated the Bohin chalk pencil, three-pocket bag, and cell phone bag make with s quiltsmart panel. We sold all of our stock of pencils and three-pocket bags. It is such fun to talk with quilters and learn what they are doing. Friday was especially long as the show opened at 9 am and closed at 8 pm. The quilts they had hanging at the show were very nice. They said the attendance was better than last year. Our booth had lots of quilters in it most of the time. We got back home about 10 last night.

We saw houses surrounded by the high water in places. Highway 75 was the only one open into Omaha from our direction. It was a fun three days.

Nouveau Fleur Quilt

This is my embroidered quilt from Vicky Lawrence's book Garden Nouveau Quilts. Anna Aldmon from Texas digitized the original hand applique pattern. I was fortunate to test the digitizing for the Art format and stitched this quilt on my 830 machine. Vicky works at the Overbrook Quilt Connection, my local quilt shop, so the shop has kits with the fabrics similar to the ones used in the book. I used the original green fabrics and then used batiks for the flowers. The top was quilted by Kathy Smith from Burlingame and she did a great job with it. It is a beautiful quilt and I am quite proud of it!

Quilted Bowl

This fabric bowl is the project for June's Bernina Software Sampler. The design is printed from the software on a piece of fabric with the printer. Then you can design the stitching to go with the flower with the embroidery software. Then it is just a matter of stitching out the design on the printed fabric to enhance the flower. It was a fun project. Now I will have to see if I can design a flower bowl with my own photo.

New Embroidery CD

This is a small table runner that I have stitched to try out the designs on "Hop to It" by Laundry Basket Quilts. The designer is Edyta Sitar. The designs come in most formats and are 5.5" to 8" square. I have chosen the largest size. This is going to be a birthday gift.