Happy New Year 2014

Phew. I could not get into this account for months. The problem was I signed up with my email address in Maryland and no longer have that one. A simple answer but it took a long time to get it. This is my first completed quilt of 2014. The star is from Moda Bake Shop and I designed the rest of it. This will go to our local Veterans Home through my charity sewing group. It is called Reap What You Sew. They support numerous charities in Phoenix. Hoping the New Year brings great things to all of you.

Some quick quilts

I have been piecing alot lately and decided I better get these into quilts. Quilting is my least favorite part. It helps that I have a Handiquilter and but still love sewing them much better.

The third quilts is a pattern called Hot Flashes. I really liked making it and can see more of these in my future. It was quite easy using strips and one triangle in the corner.

Blue and Yellow Quilt For Hospice

When I first discovered real quilting fabric, I fell in love with blue and yellow. I bought quite a bit and am slowly using it up. A guild friend gave me more just before I moved away. I love this pattern and made the top at a quilting retreat with my Phoenix Guild called Night Owls. I think this will be donated to a local Hospice of the Valley here.

In Honor of a Friends Mom

I am a member of an online quilting community. We are from all over the country and have met many times is person. One members Mom recently passed and had used Hospice. I support this organization with quilts and decided to make one in her honor. I will donate it to a local group. Her favorite colors were mauve and green. My group sent enough fabric to make this one and probably another. A little of the Mom's stash was in this quilt. I made another of this pattern using a Moda Layer Cake. I will hold onto this until a need arises when I will need a completed quilt in a hurry.

Catching Up

I took some time off from blogging for a bit. Life has settled into a new routine here in Phoenix for us. I have been sewing and quilting alot. I have discovered charity groups and many places to donate quilt locally. I went to my first retreat here in Phoenix with a new quilting community. This quilt is done from the pattern Yellow Brick Road. I used up lots of my scraps form patriotic quilts to make this one. I really enjoyed making it and see more in my future. Here are a couple of kids one I made recently also. This is the view right down the street from us at sunset. We watch the sun come up out back.

Teddy Bear Fun

I had alot of fun making this quilt. I know there are more in my future and and the process will be different. I will make sure I use a different fabric for each block of the quilt, quilt it before adding the bears and make the bears using a different type of applique. They were quite flat. I will use the Elenore Burns method and add a little batting to make them more dimensional

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Peter Rabbit Fun

I would this small panel of these darling small squares. I decided to turn them into something bigger and use up some strips. Here is the first one.

Once I figured out the sizes to cut everything it was smooth sailing. Here is number 2.

I had enough for one more. I was amazed at how far the blocks went when adding lots of other stuff to them.

I have found 2 wonderful quilt groups with the help of my friend Janet. That is about all I can handle for the time being.

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.