Hippy Birday

Hippy Birday was painted by my good friend Traci Suzanne Marvel. She gave it to Toni Whitney for Toni's Birthday. I thought it was such an outstanding painting for so many reasons that I decided to recreate it in wool felt, with her permission of course.

I used Lana Wool Thread from Aurifil for the stitching. What a great thread. I wasn't surprised to see how much I loved it since Aurifil makes such wonderful cotton thread.

I'm still working on our Hippy Birds eye because it isn't quite right. I'm also in the process of making 3 more blocks to make into a table runner, pillow, and wall quilt.

I love working with the wool so much and Traci has so much folk art I want to make into felt designs. I wonder what's next?

Whoopsy Daisy by The Quilted Fish

Whoopsy Daisy by The Quilted Fish is one of the tops I finished at the cabin retreat this last weekend. This picture is taken off their website and mine will be quilted by Jan Barnett.

My Granddaughter Mackenzie wanted a black and white quilt so I thought this would be perfect for her. I even copied most of the fabrics because I loved it exactly as it is pictured.

To finish off the edges of the daisies I used a blanket stitch on my machine since the petals were fused with Pellon Fusible Web.

I can't wait to give this to her for Christmas.

Jan Barnett at Handi Quilter Retreat

Handi Quilter owners were invited to write their Handi Quilter Stories to try to win a free trip to Salt Lake City for a Handi Quilter Retreat.

This is the reception the winners got from the employees at Handi Quilter Headquarters. The winners had no idea what was going to happen when they walked in the door. What a great surprise this must have been.Jan Barnett, the woman who machine quilts my bigger quilts, was one of the winners.
Here she is along with the other winners. Jan is the one on the far right.

Jan is working on the HQ Sixteen while Cheryl Duncan, HQ Studio Educator, watches.
I wonder what wonderful new technique she is learning now?

As you can see, Jan is having a great time. Jan works so hard on their farm and still finds the time to quilt for others. She recently bought the HQ Fusion after many years of service from her HQ Sixteen. Her work is outstanding and I can't think of anyone who deserves this trip more. Congratulations Jan!

New Free Motion Designs Every Day!

365 Days of Free Motion Quilting Designs by Leah Day is one of the most outstanding Blogs on the Internet for Quilters! Leah Day is a beautiful young woman who has given herself the challenge of creating a new free motion filler design every single day for one year! She tells you her design inspiration and as if that wasn't enough...she shows a video of how to make the design.

Leah gives views the opportunity to ask questions like, "what causes skipped stitches?". She gives amazing tips and discusses tools that make a huge difference in making the quilting process so much easier.

Her website Day Style Designs Online also has great information and the products she uses not to mention a Gallery of her quilts.

I have been quilting for over 30 years and machine quited for most of that and I am learning so much from this talented young lady. All machine quilters, Beginners to Advanced, can learn from Leah Day. We will certainly be seeing a lot of her in the future.

Viola, Tulips, and Simply Daisies

All three of these stunning new quilts are designed by Brenda Yirsa for Bigfork Bay Cotton Company. Brenda has once again done an outstanding job creating these beautiful, fresh, and modern designs.

I am honored to have done the quilting on the cover quilt for the Viola's.

These quilts are fun to make and what I like is that they look harder than they really are so it makes the quilter look even more amazing. By using Wonder Under Fusible Web the pieces are just traced, ironed on to the fabric, cut out on the drawn lines, and fused together to the background. Using the Applique Pressing Sheet from Bear Threads makes it super fast and easy! As always they are sewn and quilted with the BEST thread, which is Aurifil.

Each one of these designs is a pattern from Bigfork Bay Cotton Company and they also have kits for each pattern with the exact fabrics shown in the original. How great it that?! Just when you thought it couldn't get any better....they also have the thread kits that you can order so you have the exact thread used in the quilt too! High quality fabric from Batik Textiles, thread from Aurifil, and designs from a leading cutting edge artist. It doesn't get any better than this.

My First Basket

This morning I made my very first basket. I've been wanting to make one ever since Alan and I were on vacation in Manistique Michigan.

Alan's cousin Kathy is an amazing Basket Maker. We all made plans that next summer JoAnne, Kathy, and I would all stay at Kathy's house and sit by the lake and make baskets for a few days while the guys all go do what ever they do at the cabin. Well, when I got home I started looking at basket making supplies, bought a couple of books, and finally couldn't stand it any longer and bought a kit. I decided that since Kathy was such an expert basket maker that I wanted to know a little about what I was doing so that I could get her help with more intricate things I can't figure out on my own or that I am doing wrong.

I can already find several mistakes in this basket, just like I did with my first quilt, but I'm anxious to move on to something else soon.

Don't worry, basket making won't take the place of quilting but I really do like it. Oh, and I have fixed the lashing on the top of my basket so it doesn't have the mistakes you see any more.

Poinsettia By Brenda Yirsa For Bigfork Bay Cotton Co.

This is one of the Poinsettia I made for Trunk Shows for Bigfork Bay Cotton Company. It is designed by Brenda Yirsa.

Shelly Diaz, my daughter, put the top together for me and I did the quilting. We made three of them. They are so much easier than they look, and everyone wants more bang and less work.

The batiks are from Batik Textiles and the thread I used is Aurifil 50 wt. I use Wonder Under Fusible Web by Pellon to fuse the applique down.