No new eyes and Shay's Wheel being started!

My newest find still hasn't arrived (my Restaurant Readers). I received an email stating that my color choice (shiny brown) weren't available at this time in the power I ordered. Not knowing how long the back order wait would be, I decided to go with the shiny black in the correct power. At this point I just want them to arrive so that I can start using them -- I am willing to sacrifice my original color choice.

On the quilting side of life... I have started Shay's Wheel of Mystery quilt. Shay choose many shades of turquoise with a deep brown. I love her careful color placement, it created an awesome hidden border. It was just screaming for me to do something different in there... so I did! Here is a peek -- more pics to follow once it's done.

I can see clearly now

or as soon as my latest find arrives at my doorstep! Aging sucks, we all know this, but my need for reading glasses along with not enough light is getting worse by the minute... not year. Okay, this is basically the problem of every woman over 40 right so why do I feel the need to share such problems with you, my wonderful blogger fans, because I have found a solution!

In yesterday's mail I received my latest issue of On Track magazine (imqa.org) and what did I find... one of Linda Thielfoldt's "finds" -- they are called restaurant readers -- what an amazing concept! Reading glasses with tiny little LED lights built in. Check them out here -- I can not wait until mine get here... the suspense just may kill me. Thank you Linda and IMQA for all your wonderful little gadget finds.

Here's the pair I ordered and I am so excited! I know, its the little things that amaze me - haha! But I need to wear my readers while I'm quilting and I am forever needing "more" light -- now I have the perfect solution! And the more I think about them, the more uses I am finding... I can now bind in the dark while the family watches tv -- no more annoying everyone with the operating room overhead lights! I won't have to wait until high noon sitting next to the kitchen window to pick out tiny "mistake" stitches. Oh, give me time and I'll come up with so many more uses... until then I'm waiting so very impatiently!

Gail's Quilt

Here is another amazingly-pieced quilt by Gail -- great use of color too. She really makes my job so much easier!

Gail's only instructions were "keep it simple" and "it's an everyday quilt". I understand the keep it simple part -- that translates into only do enough to make it look wonderful. I have a problem with the everyday quilt part. Yes, it is my own personal problem I know. To me an everyday quilt needs a lot of quilting. It is going to be used everyday, and washed a lot -- hopefully, ewe that was a bad visual. Anyway, one of my personal peeves... something that is going to be used everyday needs to be stitched well in order to hold up to the use and washing. BUT, there are many people that think only show quilts need super amounts of stitching. WRONG... show quilts need super amounts of "show" stitching. Everyday quilts needs super amounts of stitching... not super dense, just super quilted! I will explain all of this in further detail in a separate post -- oooohhh, I have just given myself homework! What fun.... NOT, but I really want you all to see what happens to quilts when there isn't enough quilting. I have everyday quilts and show quilts and there is a definite difference!!! My dogs would never sleep on my show quilts! LOL... until next time, Happy Quilting!!!

Baby Jungle Fab...

Wow, Scott's quilt is absolutely awesome. I really like how it turned out -- so uber-stylish and contemporary! This baby's first words are going to be WOW, I love my quilt! I love the backing as I had mentioned in my early post about this quilt. For those that follow my facebook page this quilt is old news I know. For those that don't there has been tons of commentary on my page posts about this quilt... tons; it seems everyone really likes this quilt. Scott was kind enough to share the pattern source during all the chat so I thought I would share it also. It is by Better Homes & Gardens and can be found here it's called "Simple Squares & Bars. So far a few FB fans want to try it in hand-dyeds -- oh, I think that sounds too good or being the monochromatic junkie that I am, I was thinking about doing one in shades of gray. Okay.... I say that but, really I have "penned" it to my list of quilts I want to make. Yes, pen, so much closer to being started then pencil - LOL! One day I'll share with you my "list" -- wondering if there is enough lifetime?

Anyway, off to start the binding on this great quilt!

Store front...

Okay, I have spent almost my entire Sunday setting up the store front page on my website. Sometimes I am so computer savvy and other times not so much... yep, today was a not so much kind of day! It is just a basic store front with only 6 items so I figured -- how hard could this be -- only as hard as paypal was going to make it! I really think it was more my brain's attention deficit problem but we're going to keep blaming it on paypal and the fact that they didn't want to make the shipping calculations work correctly. As far as I can tell it is now working, but I really won't be sure until an order comes through and goes completely haywire -- wow, I have all the faith in the world today!

If you get a chance, click the link and check it out -- let me know what you think -- better yet, order something and tell me how it works! LOL... or cry.... either way works today! Needless to say, I'm a little leery of putting the paypal links here on the blog -- but I will try... perhaps after yet another cup of coffee!

Happy Sunday and Keep Stitching!!!

Baby Quilt meets Jungle Fab!

Here's what's going on the frame next...


This beautiful baby quilt was pieced by Scott in Ohio. The backing is the most adorable Jungle Animal print -- one of the cutest that I have seen in a while -- it is "Safari So Good" by P and B Textiles! I had to piece the backing and match up the pattern -- here is the result


Quilting pics will follow tomorrow -- I plan on ruler work with multi-directional lines in each block of the quilt. Hope it looks as good on the quilt as it does in my head!

MCQ Guild Raffle Pillow for April...

Some of you will remember I designed and quilted a pillow for Martin County Quilters to be raffled in April - if not, click here. For the rest of you, continue on... well, truth be told - I am a fantastic quilter and not so bad at designing, BUT (oh no, that dreaded BUT) -- I stink at pillow construction! Not just a little stink, we're talking down right nasty reeking gut-tugging stink! Put it this way, it would look nothing like a pillow when I was done with it! So knowing this, I asked Pat P. to take my quilted fabric and make the pillow -- she did, and here it is...

I think Pat did a fabulous job -- now it is an awesome pillow - it even has piping! THANKS PAT! Hopefully April's pillow raffle will have record sales... keeping my fingers crossed!

Oliver....

Wow! I am finally getting closer to finishing Oliver! This was my project from the week-long Art Quilt Design & Construction retreat with Sharon Schamber. Okay it was back in September of 2009 and I worked on it periodically from then thru December. But I recently picked it back up determined to get it done!

I spent the other day shading the remainder of the background and tacking down all the pieces. Then I began the invisible applique around all those pieces. It's really getting exciting now. I'm almost done with the "construction" part. Now I can sit down with some micron pens for the fine-tiny details of the feathers. That is so my cup of tea... quiet time for detail doodling puts me into the zone! THEN... the quilting... my other favorite cup of tea - LOL! I CAN'T WAIT!!! I'm already thinking about what background fills I'm going to use and then the birch bark.. utoh, here comes the drool (and that's only thinking about it). Then the feathers, creating the depth and dimension of each feather... again, I can't wait! I am so very excited to be coming to the end of the construction part of this project. The quilting part is going to be another amazing time and I truly can't wait -- I know, I have said this numerous times already -- but Oliver will truly come to life once I start quilting him! Until then, you can check out these older posts which led to the point we are now -- Oliver has been a long time in the making!

http://creativelongarmquilting.blogspot.com/2009/10/oliver-has-wings.html

http://creativelongarmquilting.blogspot.com/2009/10/updates-latte-and-owl.html

http://creativelongarmquilting.blogspot.com/2009/09/sharon-schamber-retreat-day-5.html

http://creativelongarmquilting.blogspot.com/2009/09/sharon-schamber-retreat-day-4.html

http://creativelongarmquilting.blogspot.com/2009/09/sharon-schamber-retreat-day-3.html

http://creativelongarmquilting.blogspot.com/2009/09/sharon-schamber-retreat-day-2.html

http://creativelongarmquilting.blogspot.com/2009/09/sharon-schamber-retreat-day-1.html

http://creativelongarmquilting.blogspot.com/2009/09/if-i-wasnt-weird-enough-already.html

http://creativelongarmquilting.blogspot.com/2009/09/on-monday-i-begin-my-week-long-design.html

Lisa's Stars... done!

I must first say this is an amazingly beautiful quilt (Primarily Stars pattern by Jean Wells) -- Lisa gave me the perfect background for my art. I love the mottled hand-dyed stars on the black background -- one of my absolute favorites!

If you follow my facebook page you have already seen many detail photos of this quilt, but if not, here are a few...

This beautiful quilt belongs to Lisa from Missouri -- wow, what a fantastic quilt! I really love this one -- I'm doing a background fill with multi-style feathers. I'm not sure what I'll be quilting in the stars yet but I'm sure the quilt will tell me exactly what it wants!

Yeah for Friday...

Today was Friday (I'm sure you all knew that)... anyway, Friday's are my official day off -- yes, I take other days off on occasion, but like I said, Friday's are my "official" day off to sew for myself!

Anyway, I had every intention of working on my show quilt ALL DAY... yep, paved with good intentions... anyway, I started on my show quilt, got all the pieces out, looked over my master pattern to see what else needed to be done... ran out of the special foundation paper... okay... change gears, work on different part of the quilt... life is good -- or so I thought! Right after changing gears and moving all my pieces around I ran out of basting glue. Here's another tidbit for those of you that don't know me... I AM LAZY! Once I'm in a creative mood I'm not leaving the house... especially not to get glue! Okay... hurry up and clean up this disastrous mess that I have created twice today!

DONE... not really -- I decided to break out the fabrics I got while in Jersey on vacation (Village Quilter). So I pushed all my creative juices to the side and did some mindless cutting of fabric. Which was good, now all six colors are cut into 12.5" squares and are ready for matching into threes. I'm making what I refer to as my "Jersey Onion" -- it will be a modified Red Onion pattern (Karla Alexander-Stack a New Deck). I love this pattern -- it is so easy and goes together amazingly fast! My modifications -- I'm only using six colors and I'm only making three slices into each square. I think it'll be great... time will only tell...

Here's a picture of the squares -- hopefully I'll be up super early tomorrow and I'll start slicing up the squares before I have to work!

Paint dust...

I don't want this to sounds as if I'm bashing -- but I did warn you -- sometimes we get the "ugly" -- for those that know me, you know I'm just venting...

Anyway... I HATE PAINTED FABRIC! There, that wasn't rude at all now was it? Now, don't think I'm talking about beautiful art like my mermaid or owl... NO, I'm talking about manufactured painted-on patterns... you know, tone-on-tones, but they're not really... they are white or cream fabric with PAINT as the pattern, and no, not high-quality paint. But let me stop the venting and show you why.

Here's a pic of painted fabric so that everyone is on the same page (I must apologize for not knowing the manufacturer of this specific fabric)...

Okay... here is what my machine looks like normally...

And here is my machine after one tiny little section of painted fabric...

LOOK AT ALL THAT PAINT DUST! It is everywhere, in the bobbin, on the tracks, everywhere -- oh yes, my lungs too. Now this doesn't mean you shouldn't use this fabric -- this is just my own personal opinion and its more of a mess and clean-up issue than anything else.

Either way, I would love to hear your opinion on this subject!

Floral Embroideries....

Here is a lovely quilt belonging to Margy's Mom...

MCQ Guild Pillow Raffle

Here is my pillow for the MCQ Guild Pillow Raffle. My pillow will be raffled in April.

Detail of the quilting

"Park Ling" is DONE...

Here he is...

"Park Ling" panda turned out awesome!