2016 Finishes - 8 of them - More to Come

Treasure Hunt was made for line dancing friends residing in Indianapolis for their wedding in May.  I made the center panel with some leftover flying geese from a previous quilt to make the stars.  Afterwards, I added a mix of borders to get the quilt to an appropriate size.  I had fun reminiscing over past projects as I used my scraps to make this quilt.

 BP Express:  Bowling Hall of Famer is a quilt I made for my husband who is listed in the national bowling hall of fame for his many accomplishments.  I quilted this quilt with a panto called Bowling Fun.  It was a challenge.  See the close up photo.  I also have a video review of this panto.

Gypsy Conversion (The Gypsy's Wife) is now completed!  I love the entire process and how colorful the quilt is.  Again, I adapted this quilt with my orphan blocks instead of piecing the blocks as indicated in the original pattern.  I have included some close up photos of  some of the quilting.

This Streak of Lightening quilt is a UFO top that I never got around to quilting.  Now that I have my own longarm quilting machine, I will be finishing a lot of the tops on my projects list.  This one was made the old fashion, time consuming way by adding HSTs to opposite sides of a square.

Asian influence was a great design to use some Asian charm packs in my collection.

Batiks Modified Bento Boxes used some of my scrappy batik fabrics.  I love the colors in this quilt.

One of the most underutilized quilting tools in the market is the X-Block Ruler.  This variation is Ribbon Star.  Instead of making 9-patches, I used 3 rectangles.

 Another X-Block quilt I call Animal Kingdom.  I love finding ways to use the pieces in the border that are trimmed when making the center blocks.

I have a few more finishes that need photos.  I fear I gave away some charity quilts that I forgot to photograph.  I'll have to look at all my media storage devices to be sure.

-------------------------- Type-u-later, http://www.teaquilts.com

Design Wall Monday with Two Finishes

Venetian Tiles, an X-Block pattern is finally done (well, almost as I have one side border to sew the binding down).  Just another of those quilt tops that needed to be quilted.  I used the scraps and my tri-recs ruler to make the border pieces.

The Stitch Connection is one of my favorite applique sampler sites.  I've made the Snowman Sampler in applique and machine redwork embroidery too.  I have the teddy bears, angles, a lot of embroidery designs as well. This one is called Bloomin' Flowers and it was a treat to stitch on the embroidery machine.  I get a kick out of combining my favorites styles in one quilt, i.e., traditional piecing, machine embroidery and using scraps.  Mine look totally different than their version but I wanted to see what effect scraps would look like and it's WONDERFUL.

To view more design walls, visit www.patchworktimes.com.
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Type-u-later,

http://www.teaquilts.com

My day...

As I start typing this post, it's 11:53 p.m.  Don't quite know why I not asleep other that I'm excited with how my day progressed.

First, I posted about the bath remodel earlier in the week but received spam comments advertising remodeling supplies and services.  I attempted to delete the comments from my phone and instead deleted the post. Anyway, the most exciting part of my day was the completing of the bath remodel.  I guess I was too exhausted with the waiting to take finished photos; will upload a few.  Here is one wall from the previous post that was mistakenly deleted prior to grouting.  About Wednesday, I was getting a little testy with the inconvenience so I'm really excited that it's all over; it took almost two weeks.







My other exciting event was using a friend's long arm machine to quilt a few quilts.  Yesterday I pieced backs and cut batting for seven quilt tops. Here are photos of two of them on the frame; forgot to take the third photo.  I plan to go back tomorrow to quilt another 2-3 quilts, depending upon time. In my WIP stack, I have over 30 quilts that need quilting.

Have a blessed Sunday!

-------------------------- Type-u-later, http://www.teaquilts.com

SSBQG 2010 Retreat

Here are a few photos from our annual retreat.  We go to a bed and breakfast that set up for quilters/crafters in Greenville, IL.  This is our 6th year and as usual, we had a lot of fun.

We worked on x- block quilts.  To see my x-block quilts, go here.  I'll also show one of my x-block quilts that I worked on this week in which I pieced the border tomorrow.

Here is the photo of the miniatue quilts made for challenge.  Click the photo to enlarge it to see the quilts better.

Seven of of attended retreat; here are 5 of them at work and the sample for class.

Here are the other two participants; I'm on the left after just getting 3 hours of sleep.

Here are a few x-block quilts; I realized as I was editing the photos that I did not get a photo of everyone's quilt, so I can't share them all with you.

At retreat, the hostest put on a fashion show for us.  I won't spoil it for other groups that go here, but I wanted to share one photo.  This is the block pleated skirt with Peter Pan collar.  It was so hilarious.  They had a lot more outfits too.

-------------------------- Type-u-later, Tea in MO http://www.teaquilts.com

Design Wall Monday

First, have a great Memorial Day!  I still need to see where my family is meeting today to celebrate.  I've just returned home from a quilt retreat weekend.  I have a lot to show-n-tell that will be in the next few posts.  I'll post pictures of the miniature challenge we had and show more variations of the X-Blocks group project.  In addition, I will also photo of the hidden wells quilt I finally got photographed today.

First, for DWM, I worked some more on my Cathedral Stars top.  I now have 18 of 36 star blocks completed.  I put them on the design wall at retreat to show my progress before moving on to the next project.

Then I got to work on my Venetian Tiles (now called Crown Jewels) X-Blocks first quilt top.  This one is the first I started and made only a few blocks to teach in class.  So, I buckled down and made all the blocks and got the top pieced.  Now, it needs borders.

These are the border units I'm working on for the quilt above.  This border will have accurately sized units as opposed to the quilt tops listed below. 

Then, I started work on another X-Block project that I only had one block made prior to retreat.  I got all the blocks made and pieced it into a top.  I haven't figured out borders yet.  Do you see hearts?  If not, maybe you see what my retreat girls saw, women chests?  One said she would add lace, buttons, and something else I can't recall right now due to lack of sleep.

I did not work on these at retreat, but wanted to share this top that not quilted while on the subject.  Another X-Block design just to show the differences.

Again, another X-Block quilt top I haven't quilted to show design variation.

I feel like I should be listing something else but I can't remember.  However, if you enjoyed this design wall, go over to Judy's site to see more.

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Type-u-later,

Tea in MO

http://www.teaquilts.com

Retreat Weekend

I had a productive "extended" weekend. I was hired to present two classes to a local quilt guild during their quilt-away. I hadn't gotten around to visiting the facility so that was another advantage as I'd wanted to see the facility for consideration of use by two quilting guilds I'm a member of. I did get my banner made that I mentioned in my last post.

I taught the Exploding Star class. Most of the participants made about 1/4 of the quilt. The themes ranged from 2-color quilts to feed sacks to controlled scrappy. They all had their own personality. One of the students in class wanted me to upload a photo of a half-square triangle quilt I started. When she last saw it, I had only the center pinwheels pieced. This baby is now HUGE.

One of the benefits of being at retreat is that I got to attend three lectures by Marti Michell. She gave great handouts and if you love her templates you would have enjoyed her presentations. I have 2-3 sets of her templates but don't use them too much - just depends upon what the project and process involved. And before you ask, yes, Stacey Michell was there as well. Stacey does a magnificent job with hand dies. I purchased two of her "hula hoops" to use on some Hawaiian applique patterns already in my stash.

During retreat I was very productive. In addition to teaching 2 classes, I put mitered borders on my scrappy 3-d stars quilt. I worked on the knotty purse, getting to the point where I was to add a magnetic snap. I did not have a snap so that project was put on hold. Marti Michell had so many log cabin quilts that I started another one, never mind that I have two that need quilting in my UFO pile. The off center log cabin squares were cut from scraps I'd taken to the retreat so these four blocks will not be actually pieced to each other. I have lots of strips cut at home that I plan to use to make this a really scrappy quilt. I plan to make eight large blocks (64 small log blocks). I got a tad further on my class sample for the Charm Tote class as well. I enjoyed the retreat and the guild members. I had so much fun (other than an attack of "the ants") and look forward to working with this guild in the future.

I plan to finish the purse and tote this week to get them off my UFO list. We'll see...I also have to get ready for a class I'm teaching Saturday on the X-Block ruler. Oh, and before that I have a quilt guild meeting on Thursday that I'm the president of and it's challenge quilt night. And then, Friday I have a craft guild meeting. Hopefully I can cut logs for my log cabin quilt. In addition I have to put back the things I took to retreat and do a little housekeeping to get me through the week. Gee, I'm tired just typing of all the things on my to-do list this week. Come back and see me some time.

Don't be a stranger.

-------------------------- Type-u-later, Tea in MO http://www.teaquilts.com