Quilts Completed in 2008

I usually keep a list of all my quilts I made in a year. This year since I have a blog I'm adding pictures to my list. I didn't think I made a lot quilts, but I sure have been busy with my quilting hobby. Plus I taught 4 classes, 2 EQ6, 1 Machine Applique for Beginners & one 9 Patch Pizzazz. I also had 7 EQ6 club meeting that I prepared and made handouts for.
Horses for Lynn
Fall Mini Quilt
Boo Mini Quilt
Shamrocks for Rob
Mini Snowman
Shamrocks for me
Iris
Skier
Hooray for USA
Frank
One Block Wonder
Krystal’s Winter Quilt
Friends (Joan = Yellow Flowers Mary = Rainbow)

Bermuda Triangle Team Quilt with Janice

Three practice charity quilts on my frame
Three quilts on my frame for a friend

Quilts almost complete:
Winter Wonderland 9 Patch Pizzazz needs binding
Festive Santa needs embellishments

I also completed 4 EQ6 classes from http://www.quiltuniversity.com/
See my pictures below.

Sunday Night Quilting Updates

It's Sunday again, how fast the week has gone by. I'm running late tonight, I was watching the Sound of Music. I did some non quilting activities this week that will help me in the long run. I did some cleaning in my sewing room. I put away all the creative explosion that was going on. I also organized my quilt pictures on my computer. Placing particular pictures of quilts in folders of the same name.
I finished Krystal's' quilt. I finished Christmas morning while she was still sleeping. I cheated a little and sewed the binding on by machine on both sides.

I worked on my Festive Santa I finished the binding but still have some embellishments to do. I'm not going to post that picture because you really can't see the progress. I started The Southwest frog for Glenda.

I have started to think about the quilts I finished in 08 and started to think about what I'm going to work on for the next year. I'll post more about that later. Now it's time to go to bed, I'm going to work in the morning, so I need my beauty rest. Well at my age it's more than beauty rest. It's if I don't sleep I don't function!

Quilting Friends and Lunch!

I had lunch today with some of my favorite quilting friends. We don't get together too often because they live on the West side of Phoenix. They live in towns such as Buckeye, Sun City West & Surprise. I live in Mesa on the East side of Phoenix. It takes almost an hour to get to them on a non work day. We had a good time at lunch and visiting. We even had a fat 8th Christmas fabric swap. Afterwards we made a quilt shop run. That makes for a perfect day, friends, food and fabric!

The other end of the table.

Kierra's & Will's Home

Here is Kierraa's home and some pictures of the kids and our winter weather.

Christmas Day!

I forgot to wrap Richard's big gift and he forgot mine. We both had a good laught over the forgotten gifts.

My camera date was off!

Christmas Eve Pictures

Merry Christmas!!

Well we have a very nice Christmas. We started last evening at Tom & Judy's house, that is Richard's oldest sister. They had three of their daughters present, and the grand kids and one great grand kid. We had dinner first and then Tom presented all the kids with a little present. It is so fun to watch the little kids and how excited they get over the little things. This was the first year some of the kids received money that was a hit also.
Once home again, I finished wrapping the presents and did some sewing for the finial gift. Off to bed at 1 AM.
Today I went to the front room to turn on the Christmas lights and saw the stocking hanger had finally given out, the one side of the arms was broken. Good thing I can buy a dowel for cheap.

I finished sewing the binding on the quilt. I did cheat and sewed both sides by machine. It was done before the recipient was even out of bed!! That works for me! Krystal did like it.
All the gifts I gave were well received and where right on. Our youngest son really surprised us with some very thoughtful gifts. A digital coin counter jar for my husband, who does save coins. A Jim Shore dachshund figurine for Kierra & her boyfriend Will. His parents have a dachshund. A Jim Shore horse for Krystal & Klint, they own a horse and she has a collection of horse and a lamb for me, for my collection. It is so fun when kids do such personalized gifts.
We had brunch and the new omelet baked dish was liked by all, except I didn't have any Tabasco sauce.
We all went over to Will & Kierra's home. They just closed on it on Monday. Yesterday on their day off they spent the day painting the kitchen. It is exciting for them and we are excited for them. It is a big step in life.
I'll add some pictures in slide shows.

Happy Christmas Eve!

I only light these little creches on Christmas Eve. I just made it, there is only 15 minutes left to Christmas Eve. I had a hard time trying to turn my flash off on the camera. Our son Klint and his wife Krystal just arrived from Payson. They are spending the night with us. Well believe it or not the gifts are all wrapped, all but one, which is a quilt, I have to go put the binding on it. So have yourselves a Merry little Christmas. Delight in the reason why we celebrate!

It Was a Hit!

Rob walked into work today and found a package on his desk. When he pulled it out to find a soft item he said, "It feels like a quilt." It is such fun to see non-quilters who appreciate your work, get so excited. He is looking at the back and saying it is so beautiful. Maybe I should just give backs?? He really like the front even more. Here he is with his first little quilt.

Sunday Night Quilting Updates

Well another present is done and another started. Here is the completed one. This is for my co-worker Rob, he admired mine I had at work in March. So I made him one.

This next one is for my daughter-in-law Krystal. Lesson learned, when picking out panels pick out coordinating fabrics at the same time. I didn't and last week I picked out some yellow and blue to go with it, thinking it was the same line and it would match. Well I went to put the blue borders on tonight and it isn't a match, not even closed. So I made do with some left overs I had from my Winter Wonderland. It looks OK and I think she will like it.


The third project of the week was picking out fabrics for my other co-worker, Glenda. She didn't like what I had originally picked out so I found some other fabric and it was a hit. The border fabric was good from the start. I told her it won't be done in time for the eighth day of Hanukkah, she is fine with that she just loves the Jane Wilson pattern so much she doesn't care when she gets. She collects frogs. The pattern is the Badlands Frog.


Looks like I'll be up late sewing the next couple of nights!!

Christmas Treat

Here is a recipe that I make every Christmas, it makes a lot so it can easily be shared. I made it today and have it all portioned out to deliver later.

Hot Butter Wassail
12 oz Orange Juice Concentrate
12 0z Lemonade Concentrate
6 oz Pineapple Concentrate
8 quarts of water
6 cups of sugar
1 tsp ground cloves
2 TBSP of butter

Mix in a large pot and serve warm.

Hints: I cut the sugar to 4 cups. Since I don't have a pot big enough to hold 8 quarts plus, I only mix it with 4 quarts of water and dilute it again when I serve it. Since I can't find 6 oz Pineapple Concentrate anymore I use the whole 12 oz.

Enjoy

I Learned something new tonight.

I love learning even little things are fun. If you click on my signature it is a link to the site where I made my signature. My friend Jan taught me that! Way to go Jan. She has a really cool signature on her page at the Hartman's in Gilbert.
Guess since it is now midnight, I really learned this trick, last night. I'm on call again and I was just paged, so now that the work is done, I'm playing on my blog. I guess I should go to bed since I have tons to do tomorrow, the Last Saturday before Christmas.

Mystery Quilt Fabric.

I signed up for the Long Arm University Mystery Quilt that will be happening on New Year's Eve & Day. Here is a picture of my fabric & thread selection. The colors are out of the box for me, but doing a mystery quilt is out of the box for me, so it all fits. I’m excited about this challenge and looking forward to it. I when shopping today for fabric because this was the best day to get it done. I also brought my Plexiglas, this is used to drew your quilting design on while the plexiglas is on top of the quilt, a great way to preview your quilting. I’m ready. Now to put it away and finish my Christmas gifts.

Here is the link to the Mystery Quilt. http://www.longarmuniversity.com

Sunday Quilting Upate

Well the Skier is finished, she is all appliqued, and has some embellishments. The label is on, and she is packed to be mailed. I liked how she turned out. I didn't work on any other projects this week. Here she is in all her glory!!
I hope she will be happy in her new home!

Richard's Birthday

Today is my sweet husband's birthday. We went out to eat last night to celebrate. Our son Kinsen treated us to dinner. It was a nice time had by all. Today the other kids have called to wish him Happy Birthday. Krystal our daugther-in-law even sang him the birthday song, which is what he always does to each of us.
Here is Kinsen our youngest.


Happy Birthday Honey!!
Love

Our House

During the last year my husband has built a new room on to our house. Today he started testing some paint for outside. I think he was a little surprised at how off he was in his color matching. We aren't worry for an exact match since the whole house will need to be painted next year. We just wanted something for now. The primer paint has been on for a couple of weeks. You can see lots of pictures of the whole process in my Webshots link, Album Our House atarting page 3. http://community.webshots.com/user/mequilter

Do you EQ?

One of the classes I teach is EQ6 for Beginners. One of the shops where I teach EQ6 at, wanted a poster board to promote the class. So I spent some of my time this morning making a poster board. I tried using my scrap booking scissor to cut the paper. Decided that was way too much work and ended up using my rotary cutter and a ruler. It is plain and simple and to the point. I hope it helps promote the class. Here is a link from Electric Quilt Company to were my classes are being taught. http://www.electricquilt.com/Users/ClassesTutorials/ClassListing.asp

Here is a picture of the poster board.

How Many Christmas Quilts Do You Have???

While talking to a friend at work about finishing my Christmas decorating, I told her I only had to hang my Christmas quilts. So she asked how many do I have. Well I was a little surprised to see how many I really do have. You know how it goes. You make one here and you make one there. You don't remember how many you have. Then you see another one you like and you make that. They all aren't big quilts, only 1 of those. The rest are all little wall hangings. Some were class sample for paper piecing classes or machine applique classes. So here are the pictures. How many do you count?

Here is the big one, Made in 1997. I started quilting in the Summer of 1995.


Here are some little ones. The one on the left was my first Christmas one, made in Dec of 1995. The other four were all class samples.


The three Wise Men was a class sample, the two in the middle were gifts and the Hawaiian applique is my only hand quilted piece I have ever completed.


Here are the three I have at work that decorate my cubical, the cactus was a machine applique class sample.


And of course you need to know how many days are there until to Santa comes.


Last but not least are the ones I'm working on now, the Winter Wonderland 9 Patch Pizzazz which was a class sample and my Festive Santa. I made him last year for our daughter Kierra. It had started out for me, but I gave it to her instead. So now he will be done for me soon. I think I have enough!

Sunday Night Quilting Updates

Well it is almost time to call it a day and I have taken my pictures of quilting progress. I finished the quilting on the Winter 9 Patch Pizzazz, all it needs is the binding. Since it is not a priority to get it done. I hung it on the wall the way --it is without the binding. I'll do that after the Christmas gifts are done.

Next the Festive Santa, I worked some more on the binding. It's been nice to have some hand work to do. It really has a messy spot on the resting border. I was going to try and quilt it out, but I don't think it will work it might even make it worse. I don't think it will be very obvious to the untrained eye. I'll have to think on it some more.

Last but not least is the Skier. I'm making this for a friend for Christmas. I had three backgrounds to chose from and it took me a couple of the days to decide which one I liked the best. I'm not that crazy about the skies, but I had no medium brown, and now that it is fused to the background I'm out of luck. I'm using my stash only and not buy more fabric for these little projects. My friend is not a quilter so she will be thrilled. This technique is you applique and quilt at the same time. I have only appliqued the one ski.