Too Hot To Quilt

Thanks for stopping in today. It's been so hot this week,
I sure hope you can feel the cool breeze of my fan.
I finish quilting this small quilt in the wee hours of morning. Now I can just sit in front of the fan all day while I sew the binding on.

The pattern is called Crazy Eights, you use 8 fat-quarters.
To quilt the body I used the Giant CL Template called Water. I use this template quite a bit to meander with.
The Borders were added as an after thought, just so I could try out doing Deb Levy's Circle Borders using the CL.
Deb has free and paid videos on the MQS forum.
To view this videos you must be a member but it's
well worth the small yearly fee.

By the way I usually don't make such ....quilts but I'm determined to start using up my stash of fabric and batting pieces. These ugly quilts make great PPP quilts for the Long Arm and to PPP using all the tools I've invested in.
Thank you for taking a peak today, come back soon.

CL Template Holder

Good afternoon, I'm glad you stopping by.

I'd planned to go and pick berries at my folks today but I was called in to work instead. So now I have a bit of time on my hands and thought I'd blog etc for awhile. I tried posting a picture on the APQS forum of the Lid Holder I use to store my CL templates but had trouble with the Pix, I don't feel up to retrying it right now it's just too hot outside and inside to deal with the stress if it doesn't work again. I'm just not good at resizing pictures, I always end up with a cropped picture part, instead of the whole picture. Anyway here's a picture.

Stop in Again anytime.

2 New Quilt Tops

Hello, Thank You for stopping in today.

I promised I'd post these Tops. The first quilt is called

Bento Box Updated. I made it using the Kit I bought last weekend at the Sandy Quilt Show. Makes a nice size lap quilt

60"x75". I won't be able to quilt it until I find the backing fabric. Part of the Quilt is batik fabric so that's what I'll shop for. I'll quilt it on my Long Arm either freehand or using my Circle Lord tool. Either way I plan to do a E2E swirl Pattern.

The 2nd quilt top is called Crazy Eights.

It's made using just 8 fat quarters.

I wanted it just a bit larger than 36" square so I used 9 fat quarters. my quilt is 46"x54" with borders. The original pattern doesn't have borders and originally mine didn't either. But then I watch a primier video by Deb Levy offered at the MQS forum. Can't say enough about how much I enjoy and learn by watching these videos at MQS. So I added the narrow border just to try out Debs Circle Border Design. The best part is that the design is done using a Circle Lord Tool. I love my Circle Lord. And I learned a new way to use it by watching the video.

Thanks for coming by, stop in again soon.

My Present Arrived

Hello everyone, Thank You for visiting today.

Yesterday I received a present to myself from Full Line Stencils. Talk about fast service.. I'd just ordered these a few days ago. I've never used this line of stencils before but always wanted to try them out. I've heard really good things about them. I Can't wait to try them. I'll let you know later what I think, I'm about ready to load a new quilt. I'll show you my next PPP quilt top in my next post. Plus I'll show you the Quilt Top I just finished piecing.

Have a great day and please stop in again.

Retirement Quilt

Now don't get too excited, unfortunately it not my retirement, at least not yet. I made this quilt for Mary who was my back up at work. We'd been a team for a several good years. She's been gone for a few weeks now and I miss her already. Good people are hard to come by and so far the fill- ins have just been that... fill ins. Enough about real work. My blog is meant for the good times.

Back to the quilt. It's an all flannel quilt, the fabric is a rose pattern by Maywood. Mary's lucky to get this one, as this is my favorite all time fabric pattern to date. I machine quilted it on my long arm using a Circle Lord giant pattern board. It's a nice sized lap that hopefully will keep her toasty this winter. Anyways have a happy retirement Mary. Hope you have a bit of time to sew. Best Wishes.

Quilt Show N Berries

I went to the Quilt Show in Sandy Oregon. Although it was a very nice show I noticed a difference this year. There didn't seem to be as many quilts displayed as in the past. I also noticed more of the quilts were quilted E2E vs. Custom. Again, there's nothing wrong with E2E as a lot of E2E is really beautiful and exactly what the quilt calls out for. I'm just more interested in custom work, I'm always on the look out for something new or different that I haven't done before. Needless to say I didn't take pictures, but I did spend a little money!! I just can't resist buying quilt kits especially if I love the fabric, the pattern has great LA Quilting potential and/or the price is right. So my purchase of the day was the kit pictured. I'd never done a Bento Box quilt before and I've wanted to. This is the new Updated version. The show sample was quite nice plus the kit met all my buying requirements.
After the show I went to my parents farm. I picked 2 containers of marionberries. Oh they are so
big n sweet! Then on my way home I dropped one container off at my friend Myree's.
Would have been a perfect day, except in the back of my mind I knew I had to go to work today.

Life Got In The Way

Yep, life has gotten in the way of being able to do any Long Arm quilting lately. Although, I was able to make another set of pillowcases since my last post. Plus I happily used up some of my stash doing so. The Fabric has cats plastered all over it. No wonder it was in my stash, I don't know why I bought 2 yards at the time except, it is cute fabric. I'm not really a cat person but my DH is. Maybe I'd planned to use it in a quilt for him? If that was the case now he can sleep on it instead of under it!
I won't be doing any quilting today as I'm going to a Quilt Show out in Sandy Oregon put on by the Sandy Historical Society. I'm rarely able to go to shows or events due to a rotten work schedule. But I do try and make this one and the one in August down at the beach in Newport Oregon. Both are worth the trips.
In some ways I'm glad I didn't get to quilt this week because I found Carla Barrett's Blog. On her blog she has some very nice practice motifs with diagrams for us beginner Long Arm quilters. Lucky me I happen to have a practice quilt on my rack now that is only 1/2 finished. So I'm thrilled I'm going to be able to try them out right away. So hop over to Carla's blog if you haven't been there yet. Thank You Carla for helping us newbee's out.
Have a great day everyone.

Still PPP

I'm still PPP on my Turning Twenty, Again quilt, that's pinned to my rack. I can see, I do need lots more PPP's on my feathers, pebbles and everything else. Although part of the reason it looks bad is my thread doesn't match. I did this on purpose hoping to master tension along the way beings I'd plan to use all kinds of thread. My Ima really loves Yenmet Matallic thread, I'll try superior later. I bought some Sulky at Market I want to try also. I plan to try all my odd (ones I haven't used before) threads at some point on this quilt. I'm going to use Sew Fine in the bobbin with all the threads, this way I have a base in which to gauge the tension settings to.

The picture with Crosshatching is my first ever attempt at hatching. I used my new crosshatch ruler set-up by Westalee Designs that I ordered form Quilters Rule. I like the ruler.

I found a U-tube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLnrC9yo8tY about how to make a sausage Pillowcase, the one with the enclosed french seams.I already had the kit but no instructions. It was very Quick N Easy. I think I'll be making more.

Now I'll spend the rest of the day PPP my feathers and a new fill I found called 3's N' E's. I'd seen this fill before but always thought it was a computerized fill. Sew happy to find I just might be able to do it, cuz for now I don't have a computer. Have a Great Day!!

The Cat lost her Hammock

Whenever I had a quilt pinned to my rack, I would usually find that the cat had used the quilt for a hammock. To solve this problem I bought Artist Canvas boards that were the width of the rails. For my Gammill Premier I bought 24x36" boards. Now when I'm finished quilting for the day I lay the Canvas boards

on the rails over the quilt.

Poor kitty no longer has a hammock to sleep in.

Thought I'd share this with other cat owners who's

kitties love sleeping in a hammock also.

Next Up

I've decided that I need to practice doing Feathers and background fills. I also want to use some metallic thread here and there. Wish me Luck, I've used "Yenmet" and "Superior" Metallic thread on my Long Arm with sucess, but at the time I only quilted a small area. I belong to the MQR forum and Adam showed a sampler quilt using the Turning 20, Again pattern. At the time I thought it ended up longing great and later I'd do the same. So now that I was looking for something to do... low and behold in my closet of quilt tops I found this "Turning 20, again" quilt. Having so many different size areas, it should make a good sampler, although I'm not sure it will end up being a quilt to show off. I really don't care for the fabric plus I'm using muslin for a backer. I'm using muslin so I can easily see and adjust my tension for the different thread combo's I plan to use. I'm not afraid to dink with the top or bobbin tension although I 'm still learning the in's and out's of the Long Arm tension beast. Well if I want to make progress today I'd better sign off for now.

Circle Lord Sampler

Here is a lap size sampler quilt I did using the Circle Lord.

You can do millions of motifs with this gadget, now I wished I'd noted which template I used to create each of the designs. Live N' learn they say. It's an easy tool to use and sew much fun. Wish I had more time to play. I'm still trying to decide what to load next.

Finished, What's Next?

Today I finished quilting this quilt for a customer of a friend of mine. I really like this pattern and the fabric she used. I'm really happy for the opportunity to quilt it, as the pattern is one I really wouldn't want to piece myself. One of the beauties of being a Long Arm Quilter is that you get to admire and quilt other peoples beautiful quilts. Ones that you yourself might never have the time nor the experience to piece. Most of the time its a Win, Win situation for the Piecer and Quilter alike.

In returning this quilt to my friend I saw some new fabric and an autumn panel that just arrived. I really don't need a panel nor do I need any more fabric...but I couldn't resist. although the panel should be good practice on the LA, and I have visions about what to do with the beautiful rose wide back fabric...I see a new Bedspread and Pillows... so stay tuned.

Now, What to put up on the rack next? I have a Flag Quilt, A couple of Turning 20 Again, 2 Log Cabins, 3 House Calls and a least 20 other completed quilts to choose from. I really want to practice my feathers and SID, but then again I just bought a New Autumn Panel that lends itself to some really neat quilting opportunities. So once I make up my mind.. I'll will show you next time what I have decided to do.

On to Quilting

Now that Family, Pets and Home introductions are out of the way, I can begin to focus my blog on quilting. That was the main reason I started this blog in the first place. My family is a little bored with my hobbies, they just don't get as excited as I do about my quilts or my Long Arm quilting. My outside full time job is a bit stressful and physically harsh on the body so I really need a low key relaxing hobby when I'm home.

A couple of my good friends, Myree and Martha are into quilting so I do have someone to chatter with and who understands, gets excited and motivates me. Myree until recently owned a quilt shop, now she works from home. She does BOMs and among other things she sells kits. She also has a Long Arm that I named Busy, because he sure kept me busy. She does E2E quilting for customers and I think Busy is still busy. If you need a quilt quilted Edge to Edge I have a link on this blog to her Blog. Although I also have a Long Arm named I'ma I generally don't do customer quilts yet. I really loved doing customer quilts, it's so exciting to see what they pull out of their bag, but for now I just don't have time. I want to practice custom quilting on my own quilts and would like to enter a few local shows in the future. Time will tell what tomorrow brings.

My friend Martha does alot of embellished Art type quilts and wall hangings. She relies on her DSM to quilt them and I must say she does a fantastic job. She is so creative. And she has many other creative talents such as furniture and sea shell painting, knitting, basket weaving, and has even blown glass.

I'm done rattling for now as I have to get busy quilting. Myree did twist my arm and talked me into doing a customers quilt for her on my rack. The customer wanted and actually needed a custom job done because she'd already started quilting it by hand. I've got it finished except for the borders, now I'm a bit stuck on what to do.

Rock Garden

As promised here are the pictures of our rock garden and raised beds. The pretty rocks were all collected from the central oregon coast. We have 4 tumblers going most of the time. Each load takes about 6 weeks of tumbling to completely polish each batch. The raised beds take up a good portion of the back yard. We took out the grass area.

Our Beach House

Well I'm still learning. Here is the Picture of Our Beach House and the Beach where we collect pretty rocks that Hubby tumbles. He has tons of polished rocks. Recently he made a large rock garden in our back yard in town, it is really cool. I'll take a picture and post it later. We can't see the beach but we can hear it pounding in the distance. It's an easy walk and we have good access. On a good day the Central Oregon Coast is breathtaking. Most days are good days at the beach.

Happy 4th of July

It sure was hot, got up to 92 today. My hubby and daughter went to our beach house, I have to work this holiday so I couldn't go. I really don't mind because I

get a lot more done when I have the house to myself. Actually I'm not alone, we have an ugly white cat with 2 different colored eyes that keeps me company. She leaves her hair all over my quilts and makes sure I know who's boss. Meet Snowflake. My hubby found her at work and brought her home. You'd think she'd be more thankful to now have a nice cozy place to call home.

This is a picture of our quaint little beach house, it's small but very nice inside. We gutted the inside. Actually the bathroom and kitchen are larger than our house at home and nicer too.