Postcard Swap

I had surgery a few weeks ago and haven't been able to sew since prolonged sitting wasn't allowed and I couldn't figure out how to sew lying down. Now I'm allowed to sit for up to 20 minutes at a time and I was finally able to get back to my favorite pasttime.

I had signed up for a postcard swap and needed to make 3 postcards. While on a recent Quilter's Quest bus trip to 6 quilt shops I found some adorable halloween fabric. So I decided to use that in my postcards.

I know it's early, but orange is my favorite color and Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, so I figured maybe these cards would inspire others. This is the perfect time to get Halloween fabric.

These things are tons of fun to make and tons of fun to receive. It's like a smile in the mailbox. Tomorrow I'm making a few more for some other quilters who have never seen one in person.

Life is good!

Great Sewing Weekend

Was able to finish two table toppers this weekend. I just finished a 30-week long social justice program at my church and wanted to give Thank You gifts to our two instructors. Had some pretty fabric with crosses I wanted to use, so I made two table toppers with them. Since the fabric was blue and gold I made two blue and gold star blocks from Carol Doak's 50 Fabulous Paper-pieced Stars Book. I used the Minnesota block with slight modifications. Can't decide which one I like better, but since they're both gifts, I just hope their owners like them.

Simply Radiant Block of the Month Block Swap

On my favorite on line group, we've been going through a block of the month program. I hosted a swap where we provided the corner pieces of fabric to four people and they used those to make blocks for us. I made four blocks and got four blocks. I used the ones I received to make the table runner below. The other four pictures are the blocks I made for my swap mates using their fabric and instructions.

Quilting Cruise

Just got back from my first quilting cruise. It was through Stitchin Heaven and Royal Carribean to Roatan Honduras, Belize City Belize and Cozumel Mexico. The cruise was seven days and three days at sea were quilting classes. One was a Belize Mariner's Compass Star by Carol Doak.

Another class was an applique class. I don't like hand stitching, so I'm not doing that one. The last class was a piecing quilt called Gumballs. I combined two colors (instead of leaving mine monochromatic) and came up with [Orange] Crush on Carol Doak [Blue].

In my spare time I worked on a Block of the Month I had been participating in for about a year but hadn't sewn one block yet. It's called Dancing with the Stars. This is the Two-Step and Pablo Doble.

There's another cruise next March. If I'd known about that one I would have waited. This one was great, but that one will be better as all three classes are Paper Piecing Classes - my favorite technique for quilt piecing and you end up with a complete quilt designed by three different quilt teachers.

It was a lot of fun and I got to meet more than 50 other quilters. Many of the quilters I met were from my favorite online group -- the Carol Doak Quilting Group on Yahoo. It was so nice to put faces with peoples names I've chatted with for years.

L&L Quilts

I finished up two quilts for my grandsons (Lliam and Lucas) today. Luke likes trains so his has a train track and he loves trucks, so that's why I picked the backing. Lliam likes racecars. Lliams quilt turned out significantly bigger than Lukes, so I made it into a quillow with a monster as the spot where you tuck the quilt up into. I think it turned out pretty good, but it was really too long for a traditional quillow and I made the pocket too small. Ooops. Maybe I'll do better next time. In another year or so, I'll make a quillow for Luke and a bug quilt for Lliam. Already have the fabrics ready.

New Challenge

My favorite online quilting group just reached 7,000 members and to commemorate the milestone, Carol Doak designed a new block for us and issued a new challenge. We had to make a quilt project using four of these blocks. I already had one (in the center), so yesterday I made three more (slightly modified) and put them together. I think it's pretty cool. Now I just have to find some border fabric to go with it.

Taught Barb to quilt

Barb came for the weekend and was going to do some projects around the house, but needed help that I couldn't give so instead I taught her how to paper piece quilt blocks. She took to it right away. She made a block for Ben's quilt and liked the color combo so well she made herself some placemats for her kitchen. She made them miniatures (which means each little block is only 2 inches bit and it took 16 blocks for each placemat). I had to help a little but the majority of the work was done by her. She really caught on quick and she's so creative with a great eye for color. I know she'll be making some beautiful quilts when she sits down to do it again. She sure is off to a fantastic start. Before this she had never even sewn. Quite an accomplishment for a weekend of work. And we had fun and fit in our own mini shop hop to local quilt shops. Life is good!