My first finished quilt

I have thought for some time that I ought to write, at least for my benefit, a little about each of my quilts. I post pictures of the progess on them on my website, but there is very little other information there about them. So I am going to use this blog as a kind of journal about them. The quilt pictured here is the first one I finished. It is a wall hanging I made for our middle daughter and her fiance/husband. I began it a few weeks after they became engaged in July 2005. They picked out the pattern and the colors they wanted in it. I had a fat quarter of the border fabric which they really liked, but of course when I went back to the store where I thought I had gotten it they had no more of it, and the piece had no identifying info on the selvedge. So I began looking for other fabrics they might like in the same color. I found several fabrics, but none of them did they like as much as this one. Then one day I was looking online for more fabric for another quilt that I was making and there on the screen was the fabric I needed for this one! I of course ordered it immediately, but it was coming from British Columbia, so I didn't tell them anything about it until I had it in my hand. Once we had enough of this fabric, we were able to settle on the other ones in the quilt. I hoped to get it finished for them in time for their wedding in Feb 2006, but it was actually April 2006 when I gave it to them. They hung it near their front door in the house they had then, and it is in the same location in their new house. I hand pieced and hand quilted it, and am very happy with the way it turned out. It is the Rail Fence pattern from Alex Anderson's Start Quilting.

Picture of the T-shirt quilt

Here is a picture of the T-shirt quilt I mentioned in my previous post. This is the first picture I have posted on this blog - I think I need more practice at it. I have loaded a few of my quilt pictures into Webshots and am posting them here from there. I am going to pick it up from the first longarm quilter in the morning and will take it to someone else locally on Monday. She is in the group that I meet with at the Senior Center. I am hoping that if she does not feel comfortable doing it she will let me know now, rather than waiting 6 weeks to tell me like the first person did. If she doesn't want to do it, I have a blog friend in CA who will do it.

T-shirt Quilt Update and Retreat plans

About 6 weeks ago I took my t-shirt quilt to a longarm quilter who lives about 40 miles or more from here. We selected a thread color and quilting design and she explained that the quilting design would be all over the quilt. After thinking about that for a few days, I called to ask her if she could not quilt on the photos that are on the quilt - look here to see what I am talking about. She said she would practice doing that to see if she could do it, but today she called to say that she can't do it, so now I have to go get my quilt from her and find someone else to quilt it for me. In July I thought I could try to do it by hand myself, but after having it on my Q-snap frame for several weeks I decided that I'd better pay someone to do it. Am I being unreasonable to want there to be no stitching over the pictures? I have the names of a couple of other longarm quilters in the area who might be able to do it. It is big - about 75" by 96" and pretty heavy. I suppose I could just tie it, but I really would like to have it quilted. I will make some calls tomorrow and see if I can find someone else to do it.

Our Retreat Committee met today to discuss plans. The retreat is not until the first weekend in May, but we know we need to get plans made. We are hoping to get a teacher who can teach us about sewing with curves, and also want to have some demos from guild members on various embellishment techiques. We are going to look into getting some t-shirts for us with maybe a picture of a quilt we would be making at the retreat. We thought it might be fun to play some strip poker, but we need to find out how to do that -- Jen, can you educate me about that? I am hoping that those who want to will be able to stay overnight. It is held at a community center way out in the country - not sure how many would want to stay, but having that option would be fun. If not, maybe some of us could spend the night in a hotel in town rather than going back to our homes for the night. Thanks to those who replied to my off-blog email request for advice about retreats.

Tomorrow morning I will continue working on the blocks for my demo to the Senior Center group about ways to connect the blocks of a quilt-as-you-go quilt, but when I get home tomorrow afternoon I'll be able to get back to MY quilting and see if I can make some progress on this week's list.

Beginning a new blog

Welcome to my new blog. I was previously on My Quilt Blog - and plan to keep my previous posts on that blog for the time being. I am hoping that this one will be a bit easier to maintain and that therefore I will post more often. I have a website - that has a Quilting Links page - where I try to document my progress on my quilting projects.

In the last few days I have been working on:
(1) a lap quilt for my son and his wife - using all batiks and a pattern from Four Paws Quilting called "Surrounded." I have just finished piecing the 35 blocks and am letting it rest while I decide on the exact placement of each block
(2) a wall hanging for oldest daugher and her husband - "Van Gogh's View" from the July/August '07 issue of McCall's Quilting - I have one more row to attach to the rest of the quilt, then need to continue tacking down the folded pieces on each of 190+ blocks
(3) four blocks for a demo for the Quilt Qlub group I lead at our local Senior Center - this Wed. I am going to show them how we can finish a sampler quilt we have all contributed to by quilting it one block at a time
(4) another placemat for the Quilt Qlub's project to make enough placemats to distribute to the 60 recipients of Meals on Wheels - we hope to be able to do this by this Christmas
(5) ordered fabric to make a Peter Rabbit quilt for a young woman I work for at my volunteer job at our local hospital. It is "Storybook Bunnies," from June/July '07 issue of Quilt.

This week I hope to work on:
(1) my Hydrangeas and Butterflies wallhanging - I am going to a quilting class on Monday nights this fall where our theme is to finish a WIP - I have LOTS to choose from, but this one is more nearly finished than most! The hand quilting is finished on it except for 3 1/2 sides of the border, then need to bind it
(2) measure, cut and sew the borders on a quilt for the Senior Center group that one of the other members assembled. The blocks she used were in a large donation we received from the widower of a lady in our area. We are hoping to raffle the quilt in her memory for the benefit of the Senior Center.
(3) complete my Quilt-As-You-Go demo for the Seniors by Wednesday afternoon
(4) meet with the other 2 members of the Retreat Committee for our guild to continue planning for the retreat in May
(5) determine the placement of the blocks for Surrounded and sew them together
(6) finish assemblying Van Gogh's View and do some more tacking on those blocks
(7) finish at least one more of the International New York Beauty blocks on Quilter's Corner Club - I've done 2 so far and we have patterns for 8
(8) participate in the Curve It Up challenge on One Stitch at a TIme
(9) anxiously await Carol Doak's October Block of the Month pattern that she promises will be out sometime this week on her Yahool Group page

Well, that sounds like enough for one week! I plan to use this blog to help me stay focused on what I want to do next. I have so many quilty things in the works that it is hard to decide what to do next sometimes! So why do I want to start new ones like #7, 8, 9 above? I guess it is because I am more of a starter than a finisher - a bit of quilty ADD! I like to think it is just because I love all things quilty and just want to do it all! I did just recently straighten up my quilting/guest room so now I can find all of my quilting and counted cross stitch things -- I think the listings above are kind of just another way of organization. After all, I was a librarian for years before I retired, so organization is well-ingrained in me!

Wish me luck on accomplishing at least most of the 9 items listed above!