Time Flies!

Hello again, it's been a busy week in the studio and at home. I entered a quilt into the Keystone Quilter's show, which ends today. I have never entered a quilt in a show for several reasons, afraid to have my work scrutinized, not organized enough to get them registered on time and just lacking confidence in my work. My Mom thinks I am wonderful but she's my Mom! Anyway I dropped off my quilt expecting to get some useful feedback from the judge,nothing else. Yesterday I went to the show and looked at all of the beautiful quilts and read thier stories and went thru the entire room and didn't see my quilt! I looked again and then asked one of the white glove ladies who sent me to another room that was marked 'More Vendors' and here was my quilt! My quilt that I made for my husband, John, with a 3rd place ribbon on it! WOW!!! Boy was I surprised! I was grinning from ear to ear!
Here's a pic of the quilt with the ribbon. Today the entire gang here is going to see our quilt hanging with it's ribbon!
This week included Ashley finishing her first quilt, a Rail Fence and me puppy sitting the Bandit for 4 days straight! I forgot how much time puppies require! Below is a picture of Ashley & her quilt and 2 of The Bandit, who is growing so quickly!


Along with all of the excitement of the ribbon and crazy puppy doings I managed to get a couple of my customer quilts done. I am beginning to be caught up which is a wonderful feeling! Gotta run and get the borders done on a quilt that I need to deliver tomorrow.

These are 2 of the quilts that I completed for my customers this week The top quilt is a Terry Atkinson pattern pieces with many paisley fabrics and quilted with Highlight's thread from Superior Threads. The quilting is a freehand all over design of leaves and loops and some feather meander in some of the larger blocks to complement the paisley prints.

The second quilt is the Carpenter's Star or Wheel that is free hand custom quilted. This quilt had some issues, mainly that the backing is dark blue and the batting was very thin in places. I had to use light threads on the back to maintain the integrity of the quilting. I told my customer about the thinness of the batt and she states that it is Dream Cotton, select loft. The only thing that I can say is that it was a king size batt and she opened it and maybe laid it out on the quilt which
distorted the batting and then
when she refolded it it stretched even more, causing thin spots.

Lesson to learn, leave that batting in the package and just give it to your quilter!

Second lesson, don't use plain, dark backs on light quilts!

That being said, with all the difficulities I encountered the quilt
turned out beautiful.

Wrist Purse

Happy Sunday! The sun is out and it's beautiful, fall is coming day! We've had days of rain, again so today is a blessing!
I was at Country Quiltworks to meet some of my customers. It's nice to run into shop customers that I used to help when I worked there. Today there were 2 regulars and I said hello and remembered their names which was quite a surprise to the one lady! I made her smile.

I dropped off my sample for the wristlet handbag class that I will teach next month. It was fun and easy to make. I met the designers in Pittsburgh at Spring Quilt Market this past May. Nice ladies with some really neat patterns, Purse-O-Nalaties of Palm Harbor is their name if you want to see their other patterns!

I think that this little bag would make a great gift for a young woman, a teacher or babysitter!

Times & Seasons quilt views

Here are some snapshot views of the Times & Seasons quilt in progress. My customer really did a fantastic job with her machine applique and embroidery.