Busy day

I had an old quilt that someone had given me. It had that dirty yellow grunge on it, so I used some "Restoration" to wash it. I soaked it for 30 minutes in the washing machine and then spun out the water. Then I soaked it overnight and washed it the next day. Some of the fabric was frayed so I decided to make some stuffed animals from the quilt. I used a simple pattern that has just two pieces. They are quick to make and look great.

Today I have been working on a sweatshirt with a cat design. I have the cat, tabs, and pocket finished. Tomorrow I will work on the facings.

Last night was a fun night. I went to the KU basketball game with my son, wife, and granddaughter. We had such a great time. Our seats were in the fourth row behind the KU bench. We saw the unveiling of the 2008 NCAA Champ banner before the game--that make the whole auditorium rock! I enjoyed watching new players starting to become a team.

Machine Embroidery Lesson

Today Elaine and I went to Topeka to the Bernina dealer for T-N-T 2008 or embroidery tips and techniques. The class was taught by Kevin, a Bernina educator. He was quite knowledgeable about the machines and the techniques, but his delivery was hard for me to attend to for six hours. There were a lot of colorful, maybe off-color, statements between him and the more youthful members of the audience. We sat with three other ladies at the machines to complete the embroidery techniques. One of my tablemates and one at the next table were friends and spent a great deal of time talking very loudly to each other. My ears are not as good as they were when I was younger, so I have to listen carefully to hear someone at the front of the room. It was fun to meet some new embroidery friends, see Joan and Suzy--old friends, have a few times during the day to check out new fabrics and patterns, and get some new embroidery ideas.

I enjoyed knowing more about the Bernina 640 that was at our table, found out some new techniques, and learned about several new-to-me products--like 606 a permanent spray used in machine applique and aquamesh plus. One new idea was to embroidery the tops of tall boots. The secret is to find a boot that has a zipper the goes into the arch area so the top can be flattened for embroidery and the bottom of the boot must be held during embroidering. One of the patterns used on towels was a mola design. They looked great on the towels. One suggestion was to do test-stitchouts on felt because it is so cheap and if it distorts, the design needs some work. We did get a CD of the three embroidery projects. One project was started with fabric paints and then had embroidery added--it was only a discussion project because it takes 12 hours for the paint to dry. I would rather have had a hand-on project.

It is always fun to have new ideas to think about.

Fabric Postcards

I have been working on postcards for an exchange. I am a couple of weeks late for the exchange but will have them completed tomorrow or Saturday. I was going to do a small landscape of the Flint Hills in fall but it just did not look like I wanted. Then I thought about using the beautiful trees that I have in the yard or the ones I took as I went to Overbrook this week. In the end, I decided to use some special fabric I received from a quilter friend that was printed for the central Kansas shop hop. The fabric is a soft green with sunflowers in the background and Kansas symbols and shop hop towns printed on the fabric. I know they are not works of art but I really like the fabric. I'll show you the cards when I have them completed.

Sewing and Sewing

Last week at Bernina sewing group our project was a kitchen towel with prairie points. I brought the project home to make. It will make a nice small gift for someone.

I have been busy for a couple of days with making Christmas presents. So I am sorry to say you will get no clues and no pictures for a while because my grandkids may be reading my blog. Most of the things I have been doing are either embroidery or serging. I love both.

One of the tools I have been using is electric scissors from Black and Decker. It is my tool of choice to cut around pattern pieces. I am cutting up an old quilt and they make the task very easy. I bought them for $10 at Lowes last year. They usually go on sale after Christmas.

Learning Day

Friday was a great day. I went to a quilter friend's house to help her feel more comfortable with machine embroidery and machine applique. She had admired my Wildflowers quilt that is machine applique and has the pattern for it. We spent the day putting her machine through its paces. She has a Bernina 630 and I have a 440, so some of the time was figuring out the correct symbol to touch on her machine. We had a fun time learning together and sharing our current projects. She has a couple of quilts in the works and I showed her one of the Christmas presents I am making for grandkids. She also has Designer Plus V5 and we played with it on her computer so she would have the basic skills to start designing.

Great friend, great lunch, great day.

Sample for the Quilt Shop

I just finished a sample for the quilt shop in Overbrook. It is one of the patterns that we purchased from a designer at the Houston Quilt Market. She designs under the name of Lunch Box Quilts. It is an easy quilt to make and great for a beginner. I forgot to take a picture of the one I made, so this is one from the front of the pattern. There is also a large bed quilt.

At my Bernina dealer, I purchased a 20 inch fuzzy bear that can be embroidered. So that is going to be my next project. I have some special icons that I want to use with each of my special friends. I'll get a picture before I wrap them.

The weather has turned cold and blustery here in Kansas. Winter seems to think it can just roar its way into our lives. Arizona is looking better each day.

Home from the Houston Quilt Show

The doors are opening and the crowd is starting.

Thanks to a wifi system that wouldn't work at our hotel, I have not had the ability to connect to the Internet since last weekend. I have a few pictures, but we were so busy that I was not able to get pictures that show the true picture of the crowds. The aisles were packed with people from early in the morning until closing each day. We would arrive at the convention center at least an hour before the show started. This gave us time to restock the Overbrook Quilt Connection booth and then have time to visit other booths to check out their wares.

There were 20+ rows of vendors of every variety. All major sewing machines were represented. Many quilt personalities were there, including Ricky Tims, Eleanor Burns (we also saw her at a local quilt shop purchasing fabric), Mark Lipinski, Jenny Haskins, Nancy Zieman, and others I missed seeing. One of the hot sellers at the show was a mechanical chalk pencil from Bohin in France. It is so easy to use. Look for it at your local quilt shop. One of our big sellers was the Quilt-a-Card, which I demonstrated. It made people smile when they saw how easy it was to make a unique card. You can order them from the Overbrook Quilt Connection. Our booth had many quilts and patterns from Vicky Lawrence of Prairie's Edge Patchwork. The quilt shop has many kits for her patterns. Her Mountain Lily pattern was our best seller.

Sharon Shamber, once again, won top honors at the quilt show with a red and soft brown quilt. The winner of the thread quilt category was an embroidery quilt that had a small amount of quilting but was mostly embroidery. The lace design around the edge came from Zundt.

One of the cutest displays was this shirt at the Rowenta booth that was made with 25 yards of pink fabric.