Summer's Blush Big Reveal

Hello Everyone,

Yesterday was the day I've been waiting for. I was meeting with the girls for the last class session of Summer's Blush.  The quilts were so unique, gorgeous, and well constructed.  The girls have been working hard on their quilts over the past six weeks and here are their results starting with Colleen's version in mainly French General fabrics.

Love, love, love the polka dots and the flange material!

Ann custom cut and stitched one of her hexagon flowers together.  She is making one larger flower for each setting triangle instead of three small ones.



Ann's beautiful version incorporated a lot of fabric from Blackbird Designs.  From the Wild Rose collection to Harvest Home.....with some Itsy Bits added in for posts.

We all participated in auditioning fabrics for both inner and outer borders.  Everyone would stop what they were working on to step back and look at the results on the design wall.

Ann's little mouse pincushion spent the day by her side.

Carol has quite a collection of Jo Morton fabric in her classy quilt.  The dark border will lend itself nicely to a beautiful quilting design.

The teal and black sashing really set her blocks off nicely.

Look at all of Lisa's flowers!  She got creative and stitched them together on her sewing machine using a very, very small zigzag stitch.  The majority of the fabric in her quilt is from Fig Tree Designs.  The green sashing is from a collection by Verna Mosquera.

Finished flowers and blocks are waiting to be sewn together.

A labor of love!

Jean had a box full of pinwheels and flying geese just waiting to be assembled all made from Bunny Hill's Lily and Will fabric collection.

More fabric auditions for the borders.

Sweet, sweet blocks......

....will soon be joining the little hexagon flowers.

It was a great day spent at the shop with a wonderful, fun and creative group.  Collectively, we all looked at border fabrics for each quilt and in the end, the results were amazing due in part to the huge selection of fabrics at the shop.  I'm sorry that a few of the women couldn't make it, but they promised to send me pictures of their quilts soon.

Have a great week EVERYONE!

As always,

Lynn

Enchanted Autumn Leaves

Hello Everyone,

I've been busy working at the shop and finishing up my income tax preparation, so you've not heard much from me lately.  I have worked on some of the maple leaves for Enchanted Autumn in the evenings.  I also have more yo-yo's completed.

It hasn't been very Springlike here in California for the past few weeks which makes it easy to work on a project for Autumn.  It is so hard to believe that April starts at the end of the week.  Where has this year gone?  All I know is that it is a good thing that I'm working on quilts for Christmas!

I'm off to the shop this morning for the last Summer's Blush class.  The 'almost finished quilts 'will be posted tomorrow.

Have a wonderful day everyone. 

As always,

Lynn

La Petite Ecole version of Summer's Blush

Hello Everyone,

I was so happy when Colleen came into the shop Monday to show me her version of Summer's Blush that she made using French General fabric from the La Petite Ecole collection.  This quilt was incredibly classy!  All of the girls from the Folk Art Applique class gathered around and marveled at this exquisite quilt and Colleen's workmanship.

Colleen chose not to put any hexagon flowers in the setting triangles since it isn't a 'flowery' quilt.  She plans on showcasing a beautiful quilt design in those areas.

As a budding quilt designer, nothing, absolutely nothing, brings me more pleasure than seeing how someone can take one of my patterns and add their own personal touch, style and fabric selections.  Such fun!  Now I can't wait until Tuesday to see the rest of the quilts the girls created when we meet for our final session of Summer's Blush.

Have a wonderful rest of the week.

As always,

Lynn

Heartfire is finished

Hello Everyone,

I have just a minute to dash off a post then it's time to get ready to go to the shop for the day.

Heartfire is done! She is off of the machine and the binding is in the beginning stages.....one side down, three to go!  This is a happy quilt for Spring...if it ever arrives.  Rain, rain and more rain is expected here for the whole week.  It is going to be excellent quilting weather!

For me, working on binding is a great sense of accomplishment and it brings closure to a quilt.  I love the relaxed feeling that I get while working on the binding and looking ahead to the next project.

Good Monday to all of you.

As always,

Lynn

Pastel Heartfire

Hello Everyone,

Yesterday was machine quilting day and my back will attest to that! It is telling me that I was standing at the machine much too long!  Even though it was a dreary, rainy and cold day here in California, it looked like Spring had arrived in my quilting room as soon as Hearfire was loaded on the machine.  The quilt is composed of about 5 different lines of Fig Tree and Co. fabric.  They mix and match and play so nicely with each other.

The borders were fun to quilt but the individual blocks aren't any fun at all!  Stitching in the ditch is my least favorite way to stitch but there was no getting around it for this block design.  The Dream Wool batting makes the blocks pop!

I have been saving my pennies for a set of micro-handlebars for my Handi Quilter. I picked them up last week at Bearly Quilting, an authorized Handi Quilter dealer.  I love the handlebars and they are worth their weight in gold!  They are positioned lower on the machine making it much easier to do much more detailed quilting.  I can't wait to quilt an appliqued quilt.  (First I have to finish one!)



The lower handlebars make it much easier to backtrack on the feathers.  The new handlebars make everything easier once you get used to them.

I'll be working at the shop today, so Heartfire will have to wait to be finished tomorrow.  I'm down to the last row of blocks then let the fun begin on the rest of the borders!

As always,

Lynn

Yo-Yo's Galore

Hello Everyone,

I had a bag full of yo-yo's.  I hadn't counted them, but I just knew they were going to make at least ten blocks!

When all was said and done, I only had made enough for an additional six blocks.  These have just been glued onto the hourglass sections.  I applique them down at night while watching TV.

I need to make 576 yo-yo's.  My count so far is 126!  This quilt is going to be very old fashioned yet much stronger than the original quilts made with yo-yo's back in the old days.  I'm making the yo-yo's with perle cotton instead of thread.  A tapestry needle works well with the perle cotton also.  I'm appliqueing the yo-yo's to the hourglass section using silk thread, which "melts" into the fabric.

This quilt is fun to make but will not be finished anytime in the near future.  The yo-yo's are very portable and I take my supplies with me wherever I go so I can whip up a few of them while traveling, as long as the road isn't too windy.  (No wonder English is such a hard language.....windy as is curvy and windy as is windswept). 

I hope you all have a perfect day while trying to perfect your quilting skills!  I will not subject you to anymore on this subject. I know, I know, it is way too early in the morning for this!

As always,

Lynn



Productive day in class

Hello Everyone,

The girls in the Summer's Blush class, (now renamed Winter's Warmth by Peggy) were very busy and productive in class yesterday.  Vibrant blocks, sashings and posts decorated the design walls at the shop.

Peggy's gorgeous blocks were first to go up on the wall.  We auditioned many fabrics for borders. and all took a moment to admire her work.

As Lisa started putting up her blocks, we renamed the quilt Stinkin' Cute.



This is selection of Fig Tree fabric is going to be Marcia's sashing, flange and setting triangles.

Pinwheels in the making.

Nancy has half of her flowers made and all of her blocks made!  Isn't this combination adorable!!!

More pinwheels and great organization!  These girls put me to shame with their organization skills.



We decided as a group to have one more class meeting on the 29th to get these quilts done!  I can't wait to see the finished product.  Some of the girls want scalloped borders, one is adding flying geese to her border and some are sticking with the pattern.  Such creativity and they are all going to be fantastic quilts.

Have a creative day!

As always,

Lynn

Party in the Garden - Month #11

Hello Everyone,

We are almost at the conclusion of Party in the Garden BOM.  This month, you will be making the ten hexagon flowers bordering the cottage.  You can click on the picture to enlarge it giving you a little bit better view of the flowers.  I included this picture so you can get a better idea of how I quilted the borders, which you will be receiving in April.

Here is a picture of some of the flowers before I quilted them.  The area bordering the flowers lends itself to crosshatching.  Just try not to catch the little flange under your needle! 

I'm off to the shop this morning to teach part two of Summer's Blush.  I'm sure the girls have been busy working on their quilts this month and I'm excited to see what they have created! 

Have a great week.

As always,

Lynn

POST #3 - Quilt-A-Long

Hello Everyone,
This is my last post of the day even though the sun is still shining in sunny California. I've been quilting all day and it is time to call it quits.  I decided to make Sue's Scatty Christmas Stars pattern.  The only problem was that I failed to plan ahead......which wouldn't be the first time! 

I'm at the cabin and have limited fabric at my disposal.  I didn't have enough of anything to make all of the backgrounds the same.  But I did have a yard of each of these two backgrounds.  So it was time to improvise and change things up a little bit.  This Christmas quilt is going to be very scrappy and fun.

Sue's directions are very clear and easy to follow.  You will end up with lots of half-square triangles that need to be trimmed.

One of the girls in the last class that I taught raved about the new Bloc Loc rulers.  They are fabulous and now it is my turn to rave!  I highly, HIGHLY recommend that you and these rulers to your quilting toy box.  The ruler 'locks' in place, making trimming so easy and precise without any 'slippage'.

My blocks measured right on the money thanks to the ruler. 

I didn't make the blocks that Sue suggested we make last month, so I had double work today!  Next month I'm going to keep up with the Christmas Quilt Along program and try not to get behind.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  Keep on quilting!

As always,

Lynn

POST #2 - Quilt-A-Long

Hello Everyone,

Time to switch to applique and the Toyland Tree.

The picture is telling me to change the color of this little guys trunk. 

It is easy to work on Christmas projects when you are surrounded by a foot of snow! 

As always,

Lynn

March - Christmas Quilt Along

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to the March Christmas Quilt Along. Today I'll be working on a couple of projects for Christmas. I tend to get bored easily so I have to have more than one project going at a time.

During the last Quilt Along, I made this block......



....and this block.

Now it is time to add some more blocks to the mix.



Of course plaids need to be in the center for most of these blocks!  There are 53 pieces of fabric in each block which makes for slow going.



I've been playing around with a setting design and I think I've settled on this one for a real country look and feel.  Now this one is going to be fun to quilt!  I may have to accelerate my block making so I can get this finished sooner rather than later. 



I'm try to use the fabric in my stash and all of this is from the fabric cupboard.  I refuse to buy another piece of fabric for this quilt....even though I would like to.....I'm going to use what I have on hand!



Check back later for Christmas project #2.

As always,

Lynn