Sunday, October 30, 2011

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Thanks to Amy's Creative Side  for once again hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival!  I encourage you to head over to Amy's for a wonderful show of hundreds of different and unique quilts from other bloggers. Pull up a seat, grab your favorite beverage and enjoy everyone's talents and creativity!

Amy'sCreativeSide


My Fall Quilt Festival entry is this Western wall hanging made for a Benefit Auction.

Headin' Home!
This will be auctioned off in our small Southern Idaho community next week. It will help raise funds for a family needing to take their baby to Boston to a special surgeon. You can read all about BrynLee 2 Boston in my recent blog post. 

I was thrilled to be able to go to my stash and use a piece "Gradiations" fabric by Caryl Bryer Fallert for the background. A couple of years ago, I bought 4 different color combinations of hers at a quilt show, but had not had the opportunity to use any . . . yet.

The colors in this fabric were perfect for a sunset!
Silhouette by Cutter Creations and quilt hangers by Summer Sky Creations.
You can find many more details about the products in this little quilt here.

Thanks again to Amy for hosting the Festival.  What a great opportunity to enjoy everyone's talented contributions!

Saturday, October 29, 2011

BrynLee 2 Boston

I made this wall hanging to donate to a benefit auction that will be held for 4-month old BrynLee Nichole Hutchison.
Headin' Home!

Dinner and Auction
Monday - Nov. 7th at 6 pm.
Raft River High School Gym
Malta, ID
You can read all about this baby on her blog:

Here is a brief synopsis of BrynLee's story:

"BrynLee was born with a rare condition called Bladder Exstrophy in which her bladder and abdomen did not form correctly in utero. BrynLee had her first surgery at 2 days old and about 10 weeks later had her second surgery. She has more surgeries ahead of her to complete the repair. She is currently being treated by a wonderful team of doctors at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, UT and has received wonderful care. There is a more experienced Bladder Exstrophy surgeon in Boston, MA named Dr. Joseph Borer.  Our goal is to help her parents get BrynLee to Boston to see Dr. Borer in the next 6 months!"


. . . and here are some details about the products I used for this wall hanging:
Batting: Quilters Dream Poly-Weighty Loft.  It is great for wall hangings, as it never sags, it lays super flat, yet gives your quilting nice texture.  I wouldn't use it for anything else though, it doesn't drape well for a regular quilt.
See . . . here it is "standing" up all by itself!
Thread: Superior Thread's monofilament Mono.Poly in smoke color. Can you see a tangle of it to the right of the spool here on the batting? It's like threading a hair through your needle, but it works great. You just have to turn down both your upper and lower tension to almost nothing to sew with this thread.
Clear monofilament tends to look shiny on the fabric, but not the smoke.   
Fabric: When I decided to make this, I rummaged through my stash and found a yard of Caryl Bryer Fallert's "Gradations" that I used for the background.
Silhouette: No, I didn't cut these out myself!  I just happened to have this silhouette on hand from a trip to HMQS a couple of years ago. Made by Cutter Creations out of Michigan.

Now I love McKenna Ryan patterns and I even made one of her small wall hangings several years ago. But for me--cutting, placing and fusing all those teeny-tiny pieces is like crocheting or knitting--I just don't have the patience!!

What a joy to roll out these three pre-cut cowboys!
I always sew my hanging sleeve into my upper binding and then secure the other edge to the quilt back fabric with my hemming stitch/foot.  It takes a bit of practice, but once you get your stitch length just right and your quilt folded just right, it's a breeze.
Wall Hangers: Hubby chipped in for these cute western hangers from Summer Sky Creations in Arizona.  I gave him a choice: he could make me hangers out of horse shoes, or well . . ummm . . .  what did he think about these old boots right here on this cute website? 
He also helped me anchor the whole wall hanging to a couple sheets of paper covered cardboard. All the donated items will be displayed in the gym before and during the dinner. The auction will be after the dinner is cleaned up.  This wall hanging is secured with zip ties as are the 2 sheets of cardboard so it can fold flat or stand up. Whom ever buys it can easily carry it home assured they have all the parts.
I have been to several of these dinner/auctions and it never ceases to amaze me how supportive our small communities are when there is a need.
~Yee Haw~

Monday, October 24, 2011

Let it Snow!

As I watched the falling leaves drifting through the October sun, I had the privilege of quilting this fun Snowman and Cocoa quilt.
In keeping with the theme, the borders have swirls, snowballs and ...ribbon candy?  Not sure how the candy fits in, but it reminds me of an old fashioned Christmas. I remember by grandmother having hard candy in her pantry during the winter holidays and I loved the ribbon candy!
Almost every snow "person" in this quilt has a frothy mug of cocoa. 
This guy is here for the day with his thermos.
A fun snowflake fabric on the back. 

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Wedding Quilt

Another fun quilt my client and her Mom made for a friend's wedding.
Boy, hate to let this one go--I love all these fall colors.
'Feeling Groovy' by Michelle Wyman and Terry Watson
I have had this pantograph for 3 years and only used it once or twice. Interestingly, it was requested for 2 different quilts this past week.
 Yummy dark chocolate Minky on the back.
This is going to be the perfect wedding gift!

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Baby Quilt

My clients make the cutest quilts!
Don't you just love that one little brown block . . .
 . . . and the plaid border?
Waterworld pantograph by Jodi Beamish

Most of my quilting is done with 'So Fine' thread from Superior Threads. They ship it out the same day and usually it's only 2-3 days to get an order. I appreciate that. For my basics and neutrals, I always order 2 cones of each color, that way, I can fill my bobbins with one cone and keep the other cone threaded through the needle.

This was quilted with #403-Putty.  I rarely use white thread unless the fabric is bright pure white . . . and then I have 4 colors of white!  When you audition thread color for a quilt, if you pull out about 3 feet of thread from your cone/spool and lay it on the fabrics, you will get a better feel for what you want for your color selection. Usually, I choose 3-4 cones from my thread rack, then narrow it down to the one that is just right.
Here the thread looks light blue . . .

 . . . now it looks green . . .

. . . now it's beige . . .

Fun bumpy Minky on the back.

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