End of September Already!

September was one of those months that just zoomed by with activity and fun around our household.

I didn't even notice the inactivity on my blog until my mom mentioned something about it.

I geuss between getting back into teaching, a major home construction project going on, taking a weekend to our see our grandguy, followed by my parents final visit before they head back to Arizona until next summer, I haven't been very creative.  But, I loved that last week as they visited, evenings were filled with way too long of "happy hours" enriched with good food and conversation. (EVERY NIGHT!)  So much fun!!!! Good memories made!! (hmmmm this would be a great story quilt!)

Seriously, Mom and I's favorite outing is to our local Mexican Restaurant where they serve a glass of wine like THIS for only $2.50!! (And this wasn't even during Happy Hour!)

We also toured the quilt show at our local Garden Nursery.

The show was much smaller than last year, but never-the-less, they were proud to see my quilts

...hung among so with many inspirational others.

It's unanimous that we had a wonderful visit. We miss you guys already!

And today (which is usually my sew day) I distracted myself from the duldrums of missing everyone by taking Jackson out to the country for his Fall grooming. I had good company in the form of two former students whom I happen to teach with their moms. (Yes, we do have another jack russell. Our little girl Cami who is totally blind. The girls love to baby Cami and took great care of her as Jackson got groomed and enjoyed his playday. She is not near the personality or energy level of  you know who!)

Anyhoo, I know as the days begin to get shorter and cooler, my sewing mojo will rev up again. I look forward to sharing the many creative ideas that always seem to keep developing in my head.

But until then, I'll look forward to seeing ya on Tuesday where you are invited to share your Twister Quilts this week. As always, thank so much for stopping by!

Everytime you link and share here at Tuesday Archives you will be entered you into a monthly drawing for a $15.00 Gift Certificate to: (pretty cool huh!)

Winners will be announced the first Tuesday of every month! Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday Archives #65: Retreats!

Welcome to the linky party that rejuvenates your old quilting/sewing posts! 

Please click here to read more about this linky party.  

This week's theme is: Retreats!

Oh the joy of a bunch of quiltier's gathered together, sewing for hours, heck for days, at a time! I've only gone to a few retreats but my very favorite was back in May of 2011. A quilty friend and I took off on a road trip to Coeur d'alene, Idaho. (About an eight hour drive)...but we were talking about a five day retreat with Mary Lou Weidman here...so well worth the drive don't ya think! Plus, I never laughed so much on a road trip! Good memories for sure. I had previously purchased the book: Out of the Box: Unleash Your Creativity thru Quilts.  and fell in love with Mary Lou's storytelling idea and was so excited for this opportunity: 

It's actually where my  Oh Happy Day Quilt was "born".

We'd stay up till midnight sketching and coloring!

It was fun to meet Mary Lou. She also introduced me to the color Cheddar...and to think this whole time I thought it was just a wonderful compliment to wine!

Oh and the food we get to eat at retreat!! Oh man, really good food!

We enjoyed a "field trip" day to the Buggy Barn ladies out in Spokane, Wa. 

Seriously, they even had quilts of the ceiling! So much inspiration... 

And we toured downtown Spokane:

Gees, I've had so much fun reminscing this morning, I almost forgot today was our linky! LOL! With that said, I can't wait to see where all of you have been for retreats ("at home" retreats count too). Be sure to include your retreat destination in your linky name title as it will be fun to see all the places we have been! As always, thanks for stopping by and rejuvinating your archives with us.  

HMQS Inspiration: Quilting Applique

Before I even begin, let me apologize for the poor picture quality. I took all these quickly during the convention using my cell phone. So it's easy to say the first lesson I learned was bring my camera! LOL!! So with that said, this Thursday Inspiration post will focus on:

Applique Lessons Learned:

I love to applique and have two wallhangings that have been "pinned" to the walls where I want them to hang...unquilted. Two years ago I dove into teaching myself the art of long-arm quilting. Feeling like I now know my machine and have the art of pantographs established, one of the lessons I wanted to learn while attending the HMQS was: How in the heck do I quilt my applique quilts? In my How Do I Quilt This lecture class with Gina Parris-Perkes, here are a few tips she had for answering this question:

Lesson #1: Outline all your applique. Not echo, but outline.,,,almost like a stitch in the ditch around all your applique shapes. Oh and stitch s l o w l y. Gina created a wonderful ruler for this. It's called: Control Freak! (I love that she names all her rulers.) I ordered mine as soon as I got home. Click here for a shortcut to her shop. I got to try this ruler and with a little practice, I know it will make this step of outlining my applique spaces soooo much easier!

Lesson #2: The larger pieces of applique will need additional quilting inside the shapes to maintain density balance. See the leaves below.

Lesson #3: Use elements in the quilt to enhance your negative space/background. (Note how she repeated the leaves and added motion in her quilting in the first picture above.) Also, look at the design elements in the quilt itself and repeat these in your quilting. I think someone in our class called this "shadow quilting"...but never the less...it's pretty cool.

As I walked through the convention quilt show, it was easier to know what I was looking for as I studied the quilts done by others. These quilts below are wonderful examples of enhancing the theme of your quilt by continuing the design elements in the quilt with your background quilting. For example, this first quilt extending the applique design into the quilting using colored blue and pink thread:

 Here's a look at the entire quilt:

This next quilt is an example of repeating design elements from
your fabric as seen with the flowers in the quilting:

This next one is an example of enhancing your theme through your quilting. Look at the quilted hummingbird visiting the pink flower! I love this design element! (The quilter also used a glitter thread for the hummingbird....a very nice touch!)

I also like the idea of keeping the quilting simple. I like how clean this look is and learned that not every applique background needs to be densly quilted.

 Here are some borders that also caught my eye:

Finally, lesson #4: Audition your quilt first by printing a grey scale picture of it. This helps you identify the many elements in your quilt. Busy pieces will only need S.I.D. while negative spaces can be used to enhance your quilt. Below is an example of Gina's "audition".

So with all that learned, here are two applique quilts that I have on the horizon to quilt:

2013 Garden Party

And....

2012 Whimsical Flower Garden

With Gina's input and encouragement I'm ready to print some grey scale versions. I'm so much more confident and find myself ready to have a little bit of quilting fun! I hope what I shared has helped and /or reinforced what you already know. Please do share any other tips you too may have on quilting an applique quilt and as always, thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday Archives #53: Anything Plaid!

Welcome to the linky party that rejuvenates your old quilting/sewing posts! 

Please click here to read more about this linky party.  

But Wow!!! I knew you guys were a talented bunch....as last week's party had 68 links of Original Designs by YOU!!! That's the largest linky thus far as Tuesday Archives celebrates one year!! (I haven't even made it through last week's list yet...but I will!) I just love the idea of having an opportunity to rejuvinvate our older posts under this forum. I've have never been concerned about the "numbers"....until my husband commented this past weekend about all the links! I'm so looking forward to visiting them very soon! I love our blogging community! Just so much inspiration and support!! I think I'm jubilant! LOL!! Just love it! Okay, let me calm myself down and get to the matter of business...this week....well, this week is all about: 

Plaid:

I was fortunate enough to take a Mary Lou Workshop a few years ago. I am just so inspired by her Out Of The Box style. Thus the inspiration behind by current "teacher" story quilt that is fermenting in my mind! I mean look at her adorable Plaid City:

Self-Portrait Quilt Inspiration

In 2012 I made this self portrait quilt:

The blocks were part of a Saturday Sampler created using alot of Mary Engelbreight fabric. The girl was just a Sunday inspiration in the sewing room. I LOVE that she now hangs in my classroom and kicks off each new year with us creating our "self portrait school family wall".

Yes, I have a class size of 28. 

Well, lately the kids have inspired me once again with their drawings of me!

This one was the cover of a get well card back in February. 

So many of their details were "me"...well, except for those hands....hmmmm????

And then there was this one created from the number one-hundred as we celebrated the 100th day of school with a creative project: (Note it was also "hat day"....yes, things are never dull in an elementary school!) Isn't she adorable!

Not that I need to add more to my Quilty To Do List....but a story quilt is always of my mind... 

one that would document my life as a teacher. I think it would be sooo fun to make!

 Do you do that? Have a special project fermenting in the back of your mind?

Speaking of teaching, I just finished a marathon week of parent-teacher conferences and now get to enjoy a three day weekend. Of which will find hubby and I off to the city for dinner and a comedy club this afternoon, then I'm looking forward to a weekend of sewing!!!! YAH!!!

ALYof F Jan: Story Quilt Finish

As described here  I set out to quilt, bind and embellish my Anniv. Story Quilt for my Jan. ALYofF goal. Here it is, finished & hung in it's new home on a wall in our Master Bedroom.
(PS: Click HERE for my Grow Your Blog Give-Away.)

I was kinda unsure how to quilt an applique top. Yet, since I chose that this is going to be the year that I quiet my inner critic and play more with my quilt projects, I just started. I learned two major things while quilting this project: 1. I have  A LOT to learn. 2. Quilting is pretty forgiving! I was inspired to create a collage while visiting Karen's Blog: Laugh Yourself Into Stitches. of a few close-ups that show how I was able to use quilting to personalize and add whimsy to this finish:

1. These are original wedding rings. We both love that they are a part of the quilt. 
2. I had so much quilting this "action swirl" of me metaphorically "throwing my books out the window". See I was in my last semester of school before student teacher, and well, we used the $500.00 I would have bought my textbooks with to buy our wedding rings. (Let's just say I spent many hours at the library using their class copy...oh life before the internet!) 
3. "Our Song" is Together Forever by Rick Astley. I had fun quilting all those little music notes. I used Purple Chimp Print & Iron Cotton Fabric Sheets and literally copied our original cassette tape! I was able to just iron the "cassette tape" right onto the quilt. I used iron-on letters for the words.
4. Having grown up in Arizona, we loved our sunset picnics. I had fun quilting swirls in a variegated thread on the the sun.
5. Our picnic basket, filled with champagne, port-wine cheese, and those ol' big jugs of cheap wine was a staple item in my husband's Nissan King Cab. I quilted "Bubby", "Wine" and "Picnic" on these. I also like the "floppy" red checkered tablecloth peeking out of the basket. (We still have this picnic basket and that is a champagne cork saved from one of our first dates!!)  I quilted the bed of the truck in hopes to add some density and dimension.
6. The little "Mile Post" sign: I put heart eyelets on it  before quilting. I sewed the words using a lettering feature on my viking machine. I used a variegated brown thread to quilt a "woodgrain design" on the post. (I quilted the larger sign the same way. This "Road Sign" details all our weekend get-aways during our days of dating.)
7. I couldn't resist quilted bubbles coming out of the champagne bottle. (I think you can see the "Bubbly" word a little better in this picture.)
8. My favorite: quilted and button hearts dancing out of the tail pipe. I also quilted hearts on the bumper!
9. The tires: I quilted a 1/4 inch spiral  and found these cute metal pieces in my "left-over" scrapbooking supplies! I love that they say: happiness and friendship.

Many thread changes later, this is definitely a "lovely finish" for me!

I love that it now hangs in our master bedroom, behind our favorite cozy chair that often finds me cuddled up, making hexagons, watching TV or quietly reading a book. 

And yes, my quilt finish pictures never seem complete without Jackson lately.

With smiles!
Val:)
Click to check out everyone else's January Finishes:

ALYof F: Jan.Goal/A Story Quilt

My goal for January is to quilt this story quilt I made almost three years ago. 

It all started when my daughter found a book and announced:  "Mom this is your style of quilting!" So inspired, this is the illustrated story of  our dating/engagement: 

He grew up with my brother.

I was the irritating younger sister to my brother's friends.

That's okay....I thought of him as my brother's dorky friend. (LOL!)

Yet, here we were...I was post college and he was post Navy. So we were 24ish in age.

We both had moved back home. Oats sewn.

I was actually waitressing with a BS in JLS set to return to school that next summer to get my teaching degree...my lifelong desire. Here he comes into the restaurant I'm waitressing in for dinner...and something just clicked. He left pulling a plastic rose out of an arrangement proclaiming his desire to date me. Before we knew it, he had his own booth every shift I worked.

Every story quilt starts with an idea.
Then you sketch out your top eight to ten items of that idea.

Once you have your sketch...take it to your local print shop and have it blown up.
When ya think it's big enough, go a little bigger!
You want your pieces to over-lap into the border.
 

The truck is my main focal point. Here are my ten items:

My Item #1:  Do you remember cassettes! (Good you are in my age range...LOL!!)

I used Purple Chimp Print & Iron Cotton Fabric Sheets and literally copied our original cassette tape! I was able to just iron the "cassette tape" right onto the quilt. I used iron-on letters for the words.

My Item #2: I'll never forget the day my then "boyfriend" picking me up for lunch during my student teaching days and proudly "popping" in the cassette: "Whenever You Need Somebody" by Rick Astley and "fast-forwarding" it to the song: "Together Forever". And then proclaiming: "That's the kind of husband I'm going to be to you." (Huh?I didn't know we were getting married!) LOL!!! (I actually did in my heart, but was just playing is cool!)Yet, in that very moment I knew I had my forever in front of me and "Together Forever" continues to be "our song".

My Item #3: So ya see that book flying towards you?

Well, we started dating at a Spring Carnival the third week in March of 1988. I was due to return to college to get my teaching degree that May. So off  I went as he refused to marry me until I got that done.  My item #4: So penniless, we used my book money from that school session and bought our engagement rings ($400.00 for the whole set!) and I spend nights in the library studying using library textbook copies. We still wear these ring to this day...notice mine is even broken! 

BTW: This IS what my nails look like during the winter when I am NOT mowing and gardening.

Wellll...this February we celebrate number 25 and we will be getting new rings.  Truth be told, I just want a nice gold band. My hands are too busy for anything else. (smiles)

 My Item #5: Our original set of rings will be sewn right onto the girl's protruding, yet proud hand! (my husband's idea btw)

My Item #6: Many picnic weekends  followed filled with port wine cheese, jugs of cheap wine by the lake and lots of champagne.   We had our own little picnic basket and it went everywhere with us! (We still have it)

My Items #7: He had Nissan king cab mini truck and My item #8: we spent every weekend adventuring. Whether it was 8 miles to the lake or 207 miles to the mountains...we were inseparable. I stitched all our favorite spots on this directional post:

Item #9 It truly was: Pure F-8 (Pure fate) This was our first license plate as a married couple and it now hangs in his "man room". The years: 1989 and 2007 indicate the 18 years we lived in Arizona. And who could resist a bumper made of LOVE fabric!

Item #10: The Road Sign proclaims our engagement and wedding dates.

Yes, we were married within 8 months of dating!

So there ya have it....an illustrated story of our dating/engagement. I think Mary Lou would be proud! Do you have a quilt story you'd like to make? Share what it would it be. Too many ideas bouncing around in your head? Here's how ya get started:

First, write your ideas down and brainstorm as many memories that go with each.

Next, select the one item that "represents" the memory. (In my case it was the truck.)

Finally, pick 6-10 of your top items to include in the quilt.

I made the background first and this works like your palette.

The rest is done applique style.

I made the border colors to match our master bedroom and I can't wait to get this on the quilting frame. I feel blessed to be celebrating 25 years of marriage to my best friend. 

With smiles!

Val:)

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