A Quilter's Nightmare

Well the end of 2013 really gave me a swift kick.  We had an early freeze here in Rogue River, Or the first week of December causing a pipe to burst in my sewing room.

What a mess it made.

Luckily I had finished all my sewing for Christmas.  The repair work has been in the process ever since. I will post pics of the finished product soon.

1930's Beauty

I had the privilege of quilting a vintage quilt top from the 1930's. The top was in very good condition for the age of the fabrics. There were no frayed fabrics and the top was surprisingly sturdy.

Look at the stitching. I couldnt help but picture the person who stitched them sitting in the evening choosing her fabrics from what she had on hand.

I wondered what her life was like, how different from mine. I imagine it must have been physically harder than ours today. But as many ways our lives were different I bet we had similar hopes and dreams.

Providing the basic needs for our families, wondering what the future would be for our children.  I felt like she and I were spending the day together as I completed what she started so many years ago.

The pattern I chose was geometric in design to complement the quilt top pattern .  I wanted to give the fabrics support so the quilting was close together .

Such a beautiful piece of quilt history 

It was a very special day spent quilting that I dont think I will repeat again soon. I want to thank her in spirit for the opportunity to be a part of her vision.  

It was a long time coming but her vision is finally complete.

My Variation Quilt 2013

When I got my quilting machine I decided to look for other long arm quilters in my area.  I searched online and found the Southern Oregon Longarm Assoc or SOLA.  A great group of women from all over Southern Oregon who want to educate other quilters and promote the the art of longarm quilting.

Every year they do  what is called a Variation Quilt. They pick a theme and a design to make a 36 x 36 quilt.  The quilts then travel around to different quilt shows for the year to promote longarm quilting.

This year's theme was perfect for me "Holidays".  We could use fabrics representing the holiday of our choice. Well for years now I have collected Halloween fabrics. I have always enjoyed the Halloween as the start of  the holiday season.  Pumpkin carving, all the trick or treaters, making costumes for my boys, it all was a blast.

So it didnt take me long to choose my holiday for the variation quilt. Here is the pattern that one of the members put together.

Sorry for the flash. I had trouble getting the pic to load. 

I just love this orange fabric.  It is called The Ghastlies and is such a fun large print that I had to use to use it for the outside border.

 I did some free motion webbing and added spiders to it. Cant have a Halloween quilt without a few spiders

 For the center I chose to fussy cut these jolly jack-o-lanterns and surrounded them with a bright orange tone on tone and yellow small print. The ghost town print is a 3 1/2 inch border I quilted with witches flying on their broomsticks. I wish the pic came out better so you could have seen the quilting. I is really cute.

 

For the binding I pieced together these 2 1/2 inch strips to make a checker board look to it. Below is the piece before I cut it and how it turned out when I finished the binding

 

And this is what it looked like when finished

My husband considers himself somewhat of a comedian and he said the group in the pic below is me and my three sisters.  Isn't he hilarious (not)

Maybe I should tell him he is this guy with the cane

And here is the finished product.  It was a lot of fun and I am pretty happy with the way it came out. 

So what are all of you working on with your quilting time. I love to read your blogs and find new ones to follow.

OOOPS

Ok so I have already messed up my plan to blog every Friday.  Its just that the time goes by sooooo fast and before you know it another Friday has come and gone.  I so many ideas for blogs running around in my head but dont seem to get them out on paper.

Heres 1. an online quilting friend of mine has a longarm quilting machine that she got from someone. She needed some help on how and where to oil the machine. So I took some pics of my machine with my cell phone to send her. When I tried to download them onto my laptop they wouldnt take.  Called ATT for help and after trying a few things we came to the conclusion the phone was not the problem the laptop was.  The laptop was  over 5 years old so my husband and I decided to just get a new one.  Went to the local tech store, picked out an HP and brought it home. 

In trying to download the quilt machine photos I found out that I HATE the NEW WINDOWS 8 program!!!  Too many steps to move around, all kinds of little tricks and finger movements to learn. AUUUGGHHHH.  Plus taking all my photos and stuff off the old one and putting it on the new one.  I almost want to take the thing back. 

I finally got the photos to my friend and hope they help her out.  It turns out the pics were on my old laptop somewhere in icloud.   I cant keep up with all of this stuff!!!!  But of course I will keep trying.

I have to leave you with at least one pic of a quilt so here is a sneek peek at something I am working on and will tell you all about later.



Happy Quilting
Candy

Time to Share

Since the holidays are over I am able to share the quilt that I made for my daughter-in-law.  She has been a Nutcracker collector for years.  Her Grandmother started her collection years ago and would add to it every year up until she passed away in 2010.  So when I saw this patterned I just had to do it for her. 

I started it for her in 2011 and it took me til Christmas 2012 to get it completed.

Each Nutcracker is appliqued and  has his own personality. They were very fun to do. I got to see her open it on Christmas morning via Skype (thank you technology) and she loved it. 

I am a pretty fortunate woman to have such a special young woman in my life.

 We enjoy each others company and she is not just my daughter-in-law she is my friend.

Starting the New Year Out Right

 Well I have spent this past week doing a major redesign of my sewing room. What better way to start of the year.  It helps to have a sister that is a retired interior designer to help with planing the space. This is what we came up with. 

This is a view from the doorway looking into the room. I have a good size cutting table that doubles as storage.

 Here is the view from the opposite end of the room. The wood table was my mother's and I use it as my sewing table. I have a folding table set up with it right now for my sewing group coming tomorrow.

 This corner is my fabric stash.  I have broken them down into color groups for my cotton fabrics. The top is all of my flannels and fleece. Oh but there is still room to add more. The plastic containers are all my WIP's. Hope to get some of these done this year.

There is a library section dedicated to Quilting and Cross Stitching my two favorite things.  I have collected over the years so when I retired I would have plenty to choose from.  The dresser underneath doubles as storage for my cross stitch supplies.

Here is the kitchen area of the room. It comes in handy when I have groups over to sew and lunch. The bathroom is just to the right of the kitchen. We never have to go into the main house at all

The design wall is fantastic ! I love it. It is pretty large but I am able to put any size quilt on it. Right now I have The Super Quilter I am going to be quilting for my sister hanging for inspiration and some Halloween fabrics for a variation quilt layout I am working on.

  
I have saved the best for last. My Gammill Quilter with Statler Stitcher.  I got it in May of last year and I have been having a ball !  I just love, love, love this machine.

 
Well that's it.  I hope you enjoyed  visiting as much as I have sharing .  See you all next week my friends 

 

Happy Pre New Year All

Just wanted to say Happy 2013 to my quilting friend across the country. Hope all is well. I have been a negligent blogger since my move from California and it is my intention to be more active in the coming year. In May I finally got my Gammill quilting machine with the Statler Stitcher. I have been working on learning the program and doing quilt tops for friends and family. Here is one of the quilts I have done.

This is an applique quilt done by a friend of mine for her Red Hat Society.

I wanted to keep the quilting more in the pieced blocks and on the borders.

I kept the quilting light around the applique and did just enough to keep everything in place.

She had 15 different faces that she designed herself. These are just a few of my favorite ones.

I will post another quilt I did next week. Let me know what you guys think. It was a fun one to do. PS To Denise I too am getting used to the new blog setup. LOL