Block Swap Friendship Stars

I made 30 blocks for the swap.  It is great how quickly you can make the HSTs when you are just using two fabrics.  I have not been quilting on the longarm.

I will have surgery on 3/3/11 so I have busy preparing the house and running to appointments.  I had been facing the daunting tasks of trying to stock food for 4-6 weeks, imagining what simple meals I could prepare with lifting restrictions etc.  Fortunately I have friends that will help and siblings Jim, Jeanne and Betty are all traveling to Texas to help me.

Quilting Again

According to my calendar I had been dropping the ball for 53 days straight.  Yikes!  Not what I intended.  I need to have a practice piece on when I am not working on a quilt.  I have had the labyrinth marked since the middle of January, but vacillated about the border.  I kept avoiding putting on a practice piece or donation quilt because I was almost ready to load the labyrinth.  Now the labyrinth is loaded and I have started quilting feathers in the outer border. 

Classes on the EQ7 cruise

Classes on the cruise – I took one on photographing quilts from Gregory Case. I took two from Mary Ellen Kranz and three from Barb Vlack on EQ7. As I wrote in the previous post I recommend all three of these instructors. No sewing machines on this quilt cruise, we brought laptops and cameras. Both Mary Ellen and Barb brought supplies for final day small class projects. I wasn’t able to participate in Mary Ellen’s notebook project because that was when I had the photography class, but the examples I saw were really neat.


I did make two photo/fabric postcards in Barb’s class. I need to trim them (I don’t know how I got the white in the one, but I intend to cut it off) add backing and binding. She had us select a backing fabric from the EQ7 fabric library stash and print it with the postcard pics on top. That way none of the fabric (an 8 x 11 sheet of fabric that can go through a printer) was wasted, as I can use extra pieces for the fused binding.

I had lots of fun and learned new skills. These  are my two fabric postcards designed in EQ7 from pictures I took on the cruise --- rather these are the pictures of the designs, then Barb printed them for me and I need to finish them with an interface lining, backing and fused binding. 

Cruising

I have just returned from my first cruise. I wanted to try a cruise, but since I would be going alone, I wanted it to be a quilting cruise. There are a variety of quilting cruises, but I chose my cruise last September and I wanted to go early in 2011 and have classes that interested me. I ruled out cruises that had mostly appliqué projects as I don’t do hand appliqué. I also ruled out ones were the projects were too simple.


The cruise I chose focused on EQ7 (quilt design software) and photography. I had a great time. There were 3 teachers:

Mary Ellen Kranz

Barb Vlack

Gregory Case

I took only one photography class and the rest were EQ7. I recommend all of these teachers. EQ7 also gave us gift bags with a gift certificate and a copy of the new stash fabrics to add to our software.

My roommate was a wonderful woman from Vancouver Island, BC. Gerrie took many more photographic courses than I did and that will be evident in the pictures below that she graciously allowed me to post here.

Unhappy with the border

I had picked out two fabrics for the borders on the labyrinth quilt.  After I attached the narrow paisley border I decided I didn't like the pumpkin with the quilt.  The colors are just a little off...too green/yellow or something.  I don't know if it will show up well in the pics.  So I moved the pumpkin fabric to the back of the quilt. 
Now I am left with a narrow border only.  I have marked the quilt and almost loaded it onto the frame, but I am not happy.  I think I will go shopping for another border fabric.

UFO String Quilt

It took 3 days to do the binding on this donation quilt. I wouldn't have finished it tonight, but a friend called and when I told her that I had today off she asked me if I had done any sewing. No, I had been procrastinating because I had to rip out some of the binding and redo it. I got up and finished it in 30 mins.
Another thing I have been doing today, was playing Bejeweled Blitz...my sister and nephew had outscored me and I spent a good part of the day trying to beat their scores. I need to be as competitive with myself to finish projects!

Christmas photos

On Christmas Eve day I saw Brandon, Natalie, and Tiffany

On Dec 30, 2010 Brandon and I drove to Memphis and had New Years Eve Dinner with Paul, Melynda, Stefan, Danielle, Kearstyn, and Loralie.  I neglected to get a picture of Stefan