A Glorious Reading Pillow

This pillow makes me smile.  It is a Designs by Juju design and is titled Be a Unicorn 2. I did have to combine two designs and then add the name.  I found the fabric through an online search for unicorns and rainbows. It will be a Christmas gift for a friend's granddaughter.  I think she will love it.

Elvis HIghtop In-the-Hoop Zippered Bag

Elvis shows his face in this hightop tennis shoe.  This is a project that is almost entirely in the hoop, including the zipper. The bag is fully lined, has thin batting, and has no visible seams on the inside. I did change the star in the original design to an "S" for the person receiving this bag.The directions are excellent and I only had to stitch the lining closed with hand sewing. The zippered bag is approximately 5.5" x 7.5" and can be ordered from Disorderly Threads. She has many other designs but I only purchased the tennis shoe and the sewing machine. It was a fun project.

Top Border

This is the top border of the Chelsea Gardens quilt that I as testing. The birds are beautiful! Anna Aldmon makes machine embroidery with multi-hooping so easy. You would think this was completed all in one sitting but it was five days of work. I did have to plan which color each bird was before I started. I am anxious to receive the rest of the patterns for this quilt.

Chelsea Garden Side Border

Anna Aldmon is at it again. She is the digitizer for the Nouveau Fleur quilt that I stitched in greens. Chelsea Garden is a Pat Campbell applique design that will be available for machine embroidery in October. Anna asked me to test the border designs. This is the left side border. The border also runs across the top and has the same design on the opposite corner. The quilt has 25 designs that are eight-inch circles. You can see some of those designs on Anna's website. Anna's directions are the best I have seen. This border has six-hoopings that are well-planned and easy to stitch. I am anxious for this pattern to be completed.

It's Wild!flowers Again

These are the six embroidered blocks that are in Wild!flowers by Smith Street Designs. I first saw this quilt in an Arizona quiltshop. It is the first embroidery quilt that I truly fell in love with on sight. You can see my quilt here. Tomorrow at the local quilt shop I will be teaching the techniques needed to make this quilt to a class of seven. I know they will really like making this quilt and lead them on a non-stop journey into embroidery.

More Wild!flowers

I will try to get a picture of the entire quilt when it comes back home from Houston. Right now it is in the pack of quilts that are headed to the Quilt Festival for the booth of the Overbrook Quilt Connection from Kansas. My job this year is to mind the store while others are enjoying the festival!!

Last Sunday the quilt was on display at The Charles Curtis House in Topeka. Charles Curtis was the vice president for Herbert Hoover. He is the only vp who had a native American mother. The display was a quilt show and tour of the house to benefit two local charities.

I did show the quilt to my local quilt guild and to my Bernina sewing group earlier this week. It really is a beautiful quilt and much more colorful than in this picture.

Bloomin' Flowers is pieced!

The picture is not the best but Bloomin' Flowers has been pieced. I waited for the wind to go down so I could take the picture outside and I lost too much of the sun. This quilt is by The Stitch Connection and the blocks are intense embroidery and applique. Some of the blocks have up to 40 color changes. I had to put a small table beside my sewing cabinet just to hold the 40-50 spools of thread I used in the quilt. The pieced second border really is a great addition to the quilt. After quilting this top, this quilt will be exquisite.

I'll try to get a better picture tomorrow.

Small Flower Quilt

This sixteen inch quilt was made to be given to another quilter in an exchange. The center is machine embroidery and applique called "Bloomin' Flowers" from The Stitch Connection. I have used their patterns for several quilts. The border technique is a bias folding method that I saw in Paducah. New Leaf Stitches has several patterns that use the method. I enjoyed meeting the designer and seeing her patterns.

Today I am working on the heart quilt. Yesterday I spray-basted the layers and today is quilting day.

Everything Baby! almost quilted

The top was pieced last week and today I started quilting it. It really is a nice baby quilt with lots of color and interesting designs.

I hope to get it finished tomorrow. I still have to design quilting for the border but I may just use some small ducks, lambs, and rattles for that.

For those of you who are weather watchers, it is cold in eastern Kansas. We have had maybe a scant inch of snow today. The ice is south of Kansas in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.

Sunflowers

Today I have been working on the small sunflower quilt from Lunch Box Quilts. I started with the small sunflowers that are a combination of embroidered petals and appliqued petals. I wish I would have changed the background in each of them. The medium sized sunflower was applique. The large sunflower had applique petals as the first round. Then the second round are dimensional petals that are sewn in the hoop, cut out, turned, and sewn down in the center. I really like the dimensional look of the large sunflower. I wish I had some batik for the outer border to really make this 21" X 24" quilt shine. I think I will wait to see if the quilt shop wants a different border before layering the quilt and finishing it. It was fun to make.

The more embroidery I do, the more I would like to have another machine for sewing.