Latest customer quilts.

Here are a few customer quilts I've done lately.

This one needed a panto and I had nothing that would work so I took the flower from this bottom picture
and made a panto out of it. I think it came out great.

This is the panto I came up with. I call it Plumaria.

I didn't want to give this one back. I love Civil War prints.

As you can see , this one started out as a real headache.

But I think I did a pretty good job of beating it into submission.
I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Need ideas on this one.

This is a quilt from my favorite customer. It's a block of the month Santa quilt.
So far I did the SID and went around each applique but I'm at a loss on what to do
with the backgrounds. If anyone has any ideas I would appreciate any imput.

Desperate need of ideas

I have this large queen (95 x 114) to do and have no ideas what to do in the blocks. She wants custom.
I would appreciate any ideas you might have. The blocks measure 6" x 7 3/4".

QOVs etc

I know it's been a very long time since I blogged. My bad!

As some of you may know, my daughter is an Army Captain stationed at the hospital at Ft. Stewart, Georgia.
I told her I was quilting a QOV (quilts of valor, quilts given to wounded soldiers) she wanted to know why they don't get any. So I started out to make quilts for them. In the last month I have 4 done. The first one was made with blocks that a friend made. I put them together with some solid white and quilted a star that I found on clip art. I went over each line several times with gold thread to make them stand out.
The second one was a quilt that was left over from ones we made for Katrina victims and the last 2 were made up with 2 1/2" strips and squares.
We will deliver them when we go out on the 23rd.

I got the borders put on the last one and will get it quilted and bound tomorrow.
I am asking/begging for red, white and blue fabric. If you have any to spare would you please consider donating it? I love what I'm doing but there is no way I can do it alone.
If you have some to donate, please message me for my address and thank you very much in advance.

More patterns

Here are a few more of the patterns that I designed. I will be adding more as soon as I have a chance to write them up and get them printed.

"Xcellent"

"Hidden Diamonds"

"Outside In"

"Garden Walk"

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Site for professionals

http://www.allquilting.biz/quilt-blogs/

This is a site I just joined for professionals to show off their blogs and their wares. I came across it from another quilter and thought it was very interesting. When you have time, grab a cup of coffee and sit a while looking it over.

For a while, I am going to start posting pictures of the quilt patterns I have for sale (or anything else new that I come up with). Here are a couple for today.

"LOVE IN BLOOM"

"LOVE GROWS HERE"

"GARDEN TRELLIS"

 Almost all the patterns are designed for beginner or advanced quilters and most come with multiple size options.  All patterns have been tested for accuracy.

I hope everyone has a great week.

New rulers

After the first pass

After the second pass

After the third pass

After the 4th, last pass

I saw a wavy border treatment that I really liked but had a really hard time doing it freehand so I came up with a ruler to do it a lot more uniform. It will come in 2 sizes (patent pending). I used the smaller one yesterday on a little charity quilt I put together. The muslin strips were finished at 5". The squares I already had were cut at 3 1/2".

This ruler is really easy to use but does have to be flipped every other time.
They will be available through Leslie Allen at finishedquiltingstudio.com in West Virginia.

These are the two sizes we came up with.

Custome ideas needed

I have this beautiful quilt to do for a customer and I'm completely brain dead for ideas.
The blocks are only 8 3/4" and the border is 10".
I would appreciate any ideas you may have.

Wanted to show you all that have looked, what I decided to do. Thank you Donna for the suggestions.
The reason I went with piano keys is that the colored squares break up the light border.
I wanted to do 1/4" quilting in the blank space but didn't like it by itself so I did a little curvy thingy.

I've been busy

This is my friends quilt. It's a center panel with some plain and a pieced border. She wanted something simple but I talked her into letting me do what I wanted. I love how it turned out.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them for more detail.

Our granddaughter, Jessica, starts school next Wednesday. We have everything she needs. The neighbor moved out (school teacher) and gave us enough school supplies to supply 4 families, I bought her 2 new pair of shoes, and Joe took her over for orientation this morning. She may choose to join Civil Air Patrol. I hope so. It can really make a difference to her future.

I hope everyone has a great week.

What's going on?

It's been a long time since I blogged. I have a very boring life.......busy but boring.
I just finished the 6th quilt for a group of ladies. I will only post pics of one of them, the most beautiful and the one that took the longest.
Now I can get back to some of the UFO's I found (from 12+ years ago) and back to the charity quilts for CPS. I really missed being able to do those. Right now I only have 3 ready to go.

And of course one of my little helpers, Bear. This is how he lays.

My friend has to go out of town frequently for her job so I have been taking her husband down to Riverside for his radiation treatments. They have been very dear friends for years and Brian is from Scotland and I love hearing him talk. I keep them both in my prayers that all goes well.
We now have our 13 year old granddaughter living with us. It's a treat to have her here. I taught her the basics of knitting and she has taught herself much more since. She has also been teaching herself to crochet.
She is a quick learner and smart as a whip. She will start school the 22nd and her school is right across the street. Convenient.
I hope everyone has a great week.

Some work this week

Finally got my black/white Disappearing 9 Patch put together. Now to find borders. This quilt was to pay for Bear but I ended up not having to pay for him so the blocks went into my UFO pile along with all the rest. He was 2 months old at the time, he is now 9 1/2 months old.
When finished, this one will be added to the "for sale" pile.
I also quilted our last 2 guilds BOM tops and finished several charity quilts for our guild.

By the way, this is Bear. He needs to go to the puppy parlor really bad.

This is our guilds BOM called Daisy Chain.
I didn't get pics of any of the other quilts I did.

I hope everyone has a great week.

Tutorial

On drafting out an odd block evenly.
Most 9 patch blocks (or any block with uneven numbers) can be drafted out easily and quickly to a measurement that is not easily divisible by a given number.....a 6, 9, or 12 inch block is easy to divide by 3 but what about an 8" block? I will show you an easy way to divide any size block evenly.

Here is an 8" block that I want to make into a Monkey Wrench. What is the measurement for a 9 patch? I don't know and really don't care.










By extending 2 lines on your paper (shown here in green)


Place a ruler with the "0" on the bottom left corner, place the ruler on your extended line to the next highest number divisible by 3. Which in this case is 12.






Place a tic mark at the 4 and 8" measurements.






Using a straight line on your ruler held against an outside line, draw your lines for your division.

Do the same thing with your other extension for the cross measurements.






Here is the block drafted out. Now all you have to do is draw your HST in the corners.







Here is the one I made in 8" x 11" size for our guilds BOM (block of the month.

I am trying to get our ladies to do something different from the norm. To think outside the box.

I hope everyone has a great week.

Working on a couple things

A large customer quilt. She does the most fantastic needle turn applique but her piecing is always off. It's appliqued maple leaves, large and super small log cabins and a cottage panel.
My sweet hubs has been telling the girls he works with that I am a quilter and some wanted to see my work. So I made up a flyer of things I have and he got an order for one I had already made and a Ladybug Picnic that I designed over a year ago for my first great granddaughter. All I have left to do on it is finish piecing the piano key border then quilt it.

Here is a close up of one of the large log cabin areas.







Here is another view of the quilt. This is just the second row.








And here is a pic of the Ladybug Picnic in progress. I love designing baby quilts. They can be so bright and fun.


I hope everyone has a great weekend. We have another storm coming in from Alaska so it's cold and windy.