I'm IN!!

I've never done a Bonnie Hunter mystery but I've seen so many gorgeous quilts from them I just had to dive in this time. I'm using greens, pinks and purples with neutrals.

My method for QSTs: cut a light and dark 2 1/4" square. Right sides together, sew a scant 1/4" seam down one side then down the opposite (parallel) side. Cut diagonally, corner to corner press open. Try it!

I've made all 224 plus a few more so I'm ready for Clue #2! Check out everyone elses QSTs on Bonnies Blog!

I'm Doing It. . . !

After years of watching others produce amazing, one-of-a-kind, scrappy (my favorite!) colorful, stash-busting quilts from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Mysteries, I've jumped on the Quilt Train to success and joined them! Quiltville will post a new mystery clue every Friday starting November 18th for 7-8 weeks and you need to keep up!

If you are familiar with Bonnie's mysteries, they are not for the faint at heart!! There's lots and lots. . . and LOTS of work to do. (For example, the first clue is to make 224, 2 1/2" quarter square triangles!! Yes, that means the triangles are cut from 1 1/2" strips--OH, MY!)

As you can see, I've got them started--in fact, I have 211 finished at this writing! Should be finished by tomorrow. Are you going to join me? I'll bet there are a lot of comments about this mystery on Judy's Design Wall Monday post today--go see!

Finished!!

      I've missed two DWMs in a row! Oh, I've been sewing a lot but only on projects that I have to keep under wraps from the two quilting groups I'm in. One is a quilt that will be revealed to the group on December 11th and the other two, one Row-Robin and one art quilt project, not until mid-January. Yes, I do like to begin early and give myself plenty of time to relax before a project is due rather than what I hear so much from my quilting buddies--that they were madly finishing up the binding at 2am on the day it's due! Sooo not my style!
     This is a 'Lil Twister quilt that turned out to be
60" X 70" and all I used was 1 Layer Cake and a yard of background! I made a template that was 7" and after cutting everything, I ended up with a Charm Pack's worth of fabric left over. I cut those charm squares in half, joined them to the same sized background pieces, and that made the border you see here. This will make a wonderful give-away quilt for the next time a community group asks me for an auction item.
    I'll tell you, I'm hooked on these 'Lil Twister quilts! So easy and quick to make--and aren't they great looking?
    What do you have on your design wall this week? Did you post it on Judy's website for us all to see?

It's Garment Time!

Yes, I'm the Rabid Quilter but sometimes I have to return to my roots. My mom taught me to sew when I was in grade school by making aprons. I took sewing in 4-H, then more lessons at a Singer store in my home town--yes, there were entire stores devoted to sewing machines, lessons and fashion fabric--then in Home Ec in high school. I can't say I was completely successful because the clothes I made didn't really fit that well, but I was proud of what I made and at this point in my life, I feel it was a great start to my knowledge of sewing.

This week I made a skirt. Doesn't sound exciting but let me tell you that I made it by copying my favorite off-the-rack skirt I purchased a couple of years ago. I've worn this lightweight, slightly stretchy black and white skirt a LOT and thought I'd love to have a couple more of them in different colors. Without taking the skirt apart, (wouldn't want to ruin my favorite skirt!) I managed to copy it on to paper, a technique I learned quite a while ago in one of my favorite magazines, Threads. I looked in a few Joann Fabric stores before I found a lightweight, slightly stretchy, non-knit fabric. (Super stretchy, knit fabric, ala t-shirts, is easy to find but wouldn't work for this skirt). Sure wish there were as many fashion fabric shops now as there were when I was young!

This skirt has no facings, using only a double fold, pre-packaged bias tape and an invisible zipper so it was super easy to make and after only a tiny bit of tweaking, I had success! The top I'm wearing is one I bought at Coldwater Creek a few minutes after I'd bought the fabric. I brought the fabric into the store to match it and the ladies there probably had no idea why I would be making something instead of buying it. Well, ladies, I paid $7.50 for the fabric (with my 40% off coupon) $1.79 for the zipper and $1.55 for the binding. A little over an hour to make the skirt and a priceless amount of satisfaction!!

What do you think?

Lot's to Share

 This is a strange image I know. It's the back that I've made to put on the quilt project (which I need to keep secret until December). That's when my Calendar Girls group reveals their block exchange projects from June. So, in the middle of this back is a "tea towel" calendar dated 2011. If you haven't heard of the website Spoonflower you need to check it out. It's a place where you can create your own fabric! Just design by scanning an image, coloring, drawing, anything you want, then upload it to their website. You can then order quilters' cotton, linen, knit, even bamboo fabric to make whatever you want! Each week, Spoonflower has a contest with a theme. Several dozen designers submit their images and you can even vote on your favorites each week. Every November, one of the contests is to desgn a calendar tea towel. I've collected calendar tea towels from everywhere we've traveled and I usually order at least half a dozen of the designs submitted to Spoonflower to use on the backs of my quilts. Talk about a great quilt label! The year is already on there and I circle the date when I finish the quilt. Cute, huh?!

The stripes at the bottom of the quilt back are all the different fabrics I 'auditioned' for the front sashing of the quilt and that I ended up not liking. There were so many of them I thought I'd sew them together to add to the back. Waste not, want not!

This weekend was PIQF--Pacific International Quilt Festival--in Santa Clara, CA. It's a wonderful show with probably 100 vendors (my favorite part!) My friend, Jody, came with me and we had the best time! We saw this product at a vendor's booth and Jody said she'd bought them years ago and LOVED how they worked so I bought the set--one purse-sized, one regular sized and one with a telescoping handle to use on drapes and design walls! "The Sticky" is a permanent lint roller. Instead of sticky paper you have to tear off or replace (which I have such a hard tine with!), there's a silicon stickiness that pulls off lint, THREADS, pet hair, beads, even coins off any surface and then---you just rinse it all off in warm water! Then start rolling again. It's an amazing little tool.

I use batting for my design wall which is pretty fuzzy so it picked up a lot more fuzz than threads but it worked pretty well. But on pet hair--OMG--it's amazing!! I can de-hair our sofa and chairs so fast and efficiently! You might want to look for them and try it for yourself.

Another thing you must try: checking out all the other Design Wall Monday post on Judy's blog!

Teaching a Class this Week

I'm writing this from a lovely place in central California where, I'm thinking, most people rarely venture. Most Californians who drive from northern to southern California (or vice versa) use I-5, the 70 MPH uber freeway. The town I was to teach a class and lecture in was on HWY-101, a lesser yet more historic (read, older) classic highway. Since I'd never been there except to speed through on my way to my infrequent visits with my aunt nearer the coast, I didn't know what to expect of the quilters I'd meet there. Were they going to be wary of someone who lived closer to a more "metropolitan" area? Would they like me?!

King City: an agricultural area 50 miles, north or south, from a major department store. Population 11,000 plus or minus, and that probably covers a very large area. Yet they've had a quilt guild over 10 years of no fewer than 50 members, about 20 of whom took my class on Saturday. What a lovely, happy, welcoming bunch of ladies! Their salad potluck was fabulous, all homemade, and those pies---!! By the look of the progress of their quilts on Saturday, they really knew their stuff and were going to have some lovely quilts!

Thank you Holly, Jackie, Marilee and all the other quilters who made my day a memorable one! I look forward to seeing you again on Monday when I give my lecture on Group Quilts.

UFO challenge completed

My UFO challenge for September was our Quilt Guild Challenge. We were given a fat quarter of this large print and one other fat quarter, mine being green. We could use up to 4 other fabrics.












This quilt is about 20" x 26". I decided to do a mosaic. It was very tedious and I spent hours with tweezers placing every 1/4" to 1/2" square, pre backed with fusible, on to the black background fabric. Turned out the fusible wasn't holding very well and I had to end up covering it with tulle (netting) and machine quilt between the tiny squares! More work than I expected but I did like the outcome and, it was well received.

My #5 UFO is The Big Easy, a quilt I made in a mystery class over 2 years ago. I love it and hope to finish it this month but I'm lecturing and teaching to 2 quilt guilds this month and might not have time. But, we're all busy, right?

Hope the rest of you are able to finish yours!

Thank you Judy for giving us the little push we needed to finish so many of our UFOs this year!