Big dogs Will Find A Home

While packing up my sewing room I came across a bag of dogs block from a Buggy Barn pattern. I decided I did not want to make a whole quilt using these. Instead I will use it as a medallion and surround them with string blocks. There are lots of ways to make strings and I can try a new one on each quilt. These will be donation quilts.

Back To quilting

My beloved Handiquilter is all fixed and working better than she has in a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggg time. I have a huge backlog of tops to get quilted.

I cannot seem to get paragraphs on the blog any more so I will separate words with pictures.

I think I have found a great local guild called the Night Owls. They had a speaker from a group that helps at risk kids in many different ways. They will get all these quilts at the next meeting Bob The Builder was a book type panel. I love how it turned itself into a quilt.

I am working on using my stash and just buying a few things to fill in.

There are a huge amount of quilt shops in the Phoenix area.

The patriotic one was done by a guild friend from Maryland. It just needed to be quilted.

This is the last one to show.

Bloggin from Phoenix

We are here and reasonably unpacked. I am VERY glad we did alot of purging before the move. We were able to use just 2 of the moving pods which saved us quite a bit of money. We left the bed behind which was quite old anyway and ghosts of marriages of the past. We have bought a new one from Ikea along with a sofa that we both can sit on and is VERY comfortable. My sewing room is smaller but Chas installed 2 long shelves in the large closet which holds all my stash and lots of other quilting supplies. The Handiquilter resides in a corner of the L shaped living room. I cannot seem to get off East Coast time and wake up way too early and then go to bed early. I will give myself the rest of this month to recover before searching for another job. Here are some pictures I have taken in the last few days.

Moving Across The Country

I just wanted to make a quick post to tell my readers that we are moving to Arizona the end of this month. I have been consumed with purging and packing. Out goal is to discard about 50 per cent of our possessions including furniture. Freecycle is my friend. With the help of a dear friend we have found a darling house to rent in Phoenix. Here are a couple of pictures. We were afraid we night have to rent an apartment but grateful that did not happen. We will be looking for jobs when we get there.

Here is the front of the house.

The view from out back---simple breathtaking and amazing.

Quilt Of Valor--pattern by Mark Lipinsky

I watched the PBS special on TV and fell in love with the quilt Mark was making. The pattern appears in Fons and Porter magazine this month. I was going to figure out how to make it just by looking at it. I was really glad to have a pattern. I have plastic templates for the Drunkard Path from another quilt that I made. I sew them using 3 pins. I was a little bored using the same red as I usually make a much scrappier QOV. I do see more of these in my future as I really enjoyed the process. Next time I will experiment using lots of reds. I think the blue needs to be consistent though. Navy with white stars would be very pretty. I did find the fabric he used for the blue online. I seldom use what the pattern suggests but found the fabric on sale. I bought enough for 2. It is really a black background. I quilted swirls all over. I have a very simple machine and hate doing pantos. I decided on white thread as I thought any color in the white would detract from the quilt. It was a good decision. This will go to Afghanistan through Quilts Of Valor. I hope it lets the recipient know how much we care.

Show And Tell Bag

I saw this bag when I went to MAQ quilt camp this summer. I just had to make it. The directions are really good. There were still some difficult parts for me and I am not sure if I did the zipper packet right. But I made it work just fine. It will hold alot of quilts and has inside pockets. All fabric was from my ample stash.

It got pretty thick along the top with all the layers. I love the way these straps are made.

Missouri Star Tutorial Diamond Rail Fence

I love the Missouri Star Website. They have so many wonderful video tutorials on there. The latest one was a Diamond Rail Fence. I love adding diamonds to what can be a rather boring quilt. I quilted stars in the center of the larger diamonds. Next time I will not add the smaller ones. They are fiddly to put on. I also will trim the blocks a bit to get them to a perfect exact size. I cut lots more strips so I will be able to make another one without cutting too much more.

This quilt will be mailed off to our troops in Afghanistan through Quilts Of Valor.

Scrap user quilts

At our sewing day at the library a guild member gave me a copy of a pattern. It uses 2 1/2 strips. You keep the center strip consistent through the quilt. I made this one quite quickly from all my bright strips. I used the leftovers for a piano key border. It was fun and easy. It will go to our local hospital to cheer up a child.

I can see more of these in my future.

Kids quilts from library sewing day.

Friends from my guild and I sew once a month at our local public library. I always have pre cut kits made up of children's quilt patterns. I had one half done one month an was able to finish it up. I also got another one just about done. Quilting these are a breeze on my Handiquilter. These will go to our local hospital.

Eagels from Julia

I got confused with what blocks I put on what panel...lol. This one used the Disappearing 9 patch from Debbie. This has another panel and more of the churn dash blocks. I am almost out of them. This one turned out quite big.

Blocks already made and panels make these quilts go quite quickly. I try to stay off the internet and not watch too much TV for more quilting time.