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!

More Fan Mail....

I loved my quilt as usual. It is always like Christmas when my quilt returns home to PA from their trip to FL. I am never, ever disappointed with your work. All the girls' here thought that it was beautiful as well. Did see your new website and thought it was great! Your #1 fan
Dottie D.

"Park Ling" Panda takes shape....

Here is a peek into the "rebirth" of Park Ling Panda! I say rebirth because he was originally born when Pat P. created him during the week-long Sharon Schamber Design and Construction retreat back in September. WOW... he was amazing, but now he is unbelievably amazing... Pat created this great wall hanging and is allowing me to "draw" on it with some thread... or thread-paint, whichever you choose... anyway, here is the beginning...





This the original photo... Pat's inspiration









Here is a close up of the face before any thread work...







Step one of the thread work -- the first layers...








"Park Ling" so far.... there is still much work to be done. And lots of threads need to land. So far there are already 5 different colors in his face.

Rozann's "Grandmother's House"

I really like this quilt, I REALLY like this quilt! It might be the black and creams... so neutral and almost calming. Or the fact that I am slowly becoming more and more obsessed with hand work. Rozann's embroidery almost reminds me of a pencil line on stark white paper - and my need to doodle and draw. All I know is that I barely have enough time in my day as it is now... but I have this sudden obsession to begin hand embroidery! WOW, just look at the work that Rozann did - amazing! Yes I know, my beginning embroidery would look nothing like this... but a girl can hope can't she? We'll see what tomorrow brings...

Here are a couple of detail photos...

I just realized that I neglected to share with all my wonderful blog-followers, the pictures of my booth from the PSL Crazy Quilter show. Okay... there are only a few



So that was my booth for those of you that didn't get the opportunity to visit the show... as I mentioned before it was an absolutely fantastic show-- can't wait for 2012...

Karen Marchetti Designs

Take a peek at my patterns... here are the first three, which debuted at the PSL Crazy Quilters Show...

I'm still in the process of setting up the shopping cart on the website. As soon as its up and running I'll let you all know with an updated link!

PSL Crazy Quilters 2010 Show

Here is the link to the Award Winners listing and also a nice slide show of ALL quilts in the show. Enjoy!!!

PSL Crazy Quilts 2010 Show

Dotties quilt... finally finished!

Now that the ribs have healed, the Christmas rush is done , the Show rush is done, and the Show itself are all complete; now my life can return to a somewhat normal state (now remember I did say somewhat normal) LOL!

Back to work... and first up was Dottie...

Such a cute quilt... with some very nice hand applique work! It'll be on its way home tomorrow, no mail today, sorry about that Dottie!

Fan Mail.... WOW

I have my first official piece of "fan mail" from a darling woman who I absolutely adore...

Feb 02/07/10 9:05 AM
Dahlink, every where I turned yesterday I saw another absolutely gorgeous quilt done by Karen Marchetti - your work should be in all the quilt magazines and you should become a national teacher - you're better than half of them out there!! I am so happy for you. The labels, prize ribbons and everything else you designed for the show were also wonderful. It was just the best show. Before you take a break, pat yourself on the back a thousand times. Love, Pat P.