So I love living in New Hampshire. Really I do. Nothing can beat it in the Fall. But we are seriously lacking in the quilt shop department. Utah on the other hand, has an over-abundance of fabulous quilt shops! And last week my mother-in-law and I went to 7 of them in 2 days. It worked out well for both of us - she gave me my birthday money to buy fabric, and she got someone to drive her to any quilt shop she wanted! She has failing eyesight and as such hasn't been able to drive for a while ...

I am participating in a Wool Crazy pincushion round robin with 3 quilty friends - Brenda of Pumpkin Patch Primitives, my internet BFF Anna, and Sharon Yeager of Daisy Cottage Quilting.

For those of you not familiar with how it works, this is what we do...the pincushions are entirely made of wool. First we each make a base using scraps of wool, basted together. Then we decide on a theme and add a wool applique to set the tone for out theme. Next we mail it to the next person, they add a wool applique, send it on to the ...

Today marked the end of an era in our family. My youngest, Joaquin, had his very last speech therapy lesson with his teacher, Miss Lisa. She's not really a 'Miss', but that's what everyone calls her:) We have been with her for over 2 years now, and it was a very bittersweet last lesson. We are happy that Joaquin has progressed enough to be released from speech, but we will definitely miss our Miss Lisa. So of course the occasion needed a quilt.
If you look closely you can see some words I quilted in the background.
They ...

My friend, Brenda of Pumpkin Patch Primitives fame had her birthday this week and so of course I had to make something for her. With applique of course! Brenda and I have very different tastes in fabric and quilts, so making something for her is quite a challenge for me! Whereas I like everything bright and modern, she lives things to be more subdued and Prim. But I think I managed to do it, even with some modern Denise Schmidt Hope Valley fabric in the mix. I'll force modern fabric on Brenda any way I can! I even lined ...

Even after 11 years in the US, I still get confused sometimes at what to call things. For the most part I can translate words, but some things still get me. Like wallets and purses. To me, a wallet is something a man uses to keep his money in, and a purse is what a woman would use for the same thing. But it seems that in the US a purse is a bag, and a wallet is used for both genders? Will someone please enlighten me? I know the difference between biscuits and cookies, flip flops and jandals, swimsuits ...

Don't faint. Yes this is my 2nd post in as many days. Something must be wrong with me! Well I suppose I do have a bug - the quilting bug!

I have been happily needleturning leaves and grass in my spare moments last night and today, and now have the top of the mini tree quilt done. I even took photos of the progress, and had my quilt holder on hold ready to work!


First layer of leaves
Second layer of leavesThird layer of leaves and the leaves are finally done!
Grass glue-basted down
Isn't he a cutie ...

I thought it was about time I did another post since it's been about 2 weeks. And amazingly enough, I've actually been quilting!

First up is a mini-quilt with a tree applique... I'm only half-way done - it still has two more layers of leaves to go, and some grass around the tree trunk, but I'm loving it so far. I'm also loving this little guy who was my quilt holder!Next up are blocks I've made for two online Bees I'm in, Fresh Comfort and Beatnik Bee. I have my months coming up ...

I just had to do this quick post for my dear friend Shannon - she has a giveaway on her blog and even though I want to win, I want her to have more readers even more:) She makes the most gorgeous things, and is giving away what you see above (all hand-made by her!) if you become a follower of her blog. So stop by her blog and leave her a comment! There are only 3 comments right now, so your chances of winning are amazing! She really has some great ideas to share!

Edited to add...One of the ...

Chances are if you are reading this blog, you know what a UFO is, but just in case you're not familiar with quilting terms, UFO stands for Un-Finished-Object!I started this wall hanging way back in January 2009. (Read about it here.) I can't believe it's been sitting in my quilt room that long just begging to be finished. Well today was the day. I couldn't stand to see it there laying limply on my shelves any longer!I did away with the idea of a border and just let the blocks speak for themselves with ...

We have been having a blast on our vacation here in Vermont. Swimming with the kids every day, factory tours, shopping, and today, finally, a quilt shop!

I had no idea about any quilt shops here in Burlington, so I got on my Droid and searched. Sure enough, there were several, but none of them sounded like they had the more modern fabrics I like. So I just picked the one with the best reviews, called Strawberry & Rhubarb, and off we went. It was only a couple of miles down the road, which was even better.

Turns out it was ...

Off to Vermont on vacation that is. So I thought I'd sneak a post in before we leave. Of course, one must take a hand quilting project when going on vacation, and I have been saving up my Joseph's Coat project for the occasion. It has been prepped and ready to needleturn for a couple of months now, and I even sewed down a few of the 'peels' before realizing how perfect it would be to take away with us.
I kept it on my bedside table, and I can't tell you how hard it's been ...

I have been hanging out in my nice clean quilt room of late and a girl just can't help but be creative in such an environment!

My Sampler quilt still needs to be backed, basted, and quilted, but I want to make the back different than just plain Kona, so I strip-pieced all the fabrics from the front into one long piece and will add that to the backing. I also made a new bag. I used some Anna-Maria Horner fabrics from my stash that I haven't wanted to touch, but I bit the bullet, and actually used ...

Every now and then (like you will see by clicking HERE) my quilt room gets to the point where I just can't stand the mess for one more day, and today was that day. I start off great, with it nice and clean, then as I do projects, it's easy to toss things to the side thinking that I'll put it away tomorrow...and of course tomorrow never comes. It had got pretty bad the last few weeks, and here I am, brave enough to show you before and after shots!

Before...(Why yes I did know ...

I finally have the sashings on this thing - I used a Kona Cotton (Tarragon) and the grey/white dot. It definitely needed the calming influence of the Kona! Now I just need to baste it and decide how to quilt it. Any ideas? I don't want to do any in-the-ditch quilting. I think something simple like just plain rows might work. Suggestions welcome!

I have been asked to teach a sampler quilt to a group of beginner quilters at church. Luckily my wonderful mother-in-law is the beginning quilt teacher extraordinaire back in UT! She already had all the blocks designed, complete with cutting and piecing instructions all neatly put together in a PDF. Talk about making it easy for me!

I needed to make one myself though before I taught it, and have finished all the blocks. Next I need to sash them (any ideas on fabric choice for that???!) then quilt and bind it. I decided to go with something quite modern ...

Another mini quilt for my quilt gallery wall is done! I felt like playing with some strips of fabric, so I used my rotary cutter and cut freehand strips, making them wonky on purpose. Sewed them together, then drew a very basic leaf shop on my new piece of strippy fabric. I then machine stitched on the drawn line before cutting it out to give it some stability. Glue basting to the background was next, (isn't that background fabric just perfect for the subject matter?!!) followed by needleturn applique.I quilted it with more leaves and loops. A nice ...

Blogging and Quilting. I have done neither for one whole month! Why does it seem that I start every post off like this? I owe you faithful readers more than once a month updates!!

So onto the show. Some of you correctly guessed in my last post that I was doing the Joseph's Coat quilt from the Don't Look Now quilt-a-long. But I couldn't just do it the same way - it's already been done, and well, to me, if it's already been done, I know what it will look like, so why do it that ...

This is my latest quilting project...I bet some of you can tell what it is! Hint...I'm not doing it quite the same as the rest (of course)...

OK I have failed miserably. My sewing every day goal lasted about 6 days, I am 2 mini quilts away from my 1 per week goal, and I felt so guilty about the whole thing that I didn't blog! It's a vicious circle isn't it folks?!

However, I am back with a renewed spirit. I have decided to give up on the sewing every day thing. It's too much pressure on myself, and I think I actually sew more without it, so next January 1st would you all remind me of that?!

Today I finally broke ...

I thought I'd combine the finish of my flowerpot quilt with a thrift store find tonight. Remember when I bought these embroidery hoops a few weeks ago? My flowerpot quilt is now mounted in one of them and hanging on my quilt gallery wall! I love it. I did end up quilting it, as most of you advised, and also added some elastic to the edges like Karen suggested, which worked out beautifully.
Here you can see the back with the elastic...
Here you can see the proof that this post really does have a thrift store find in ...

My first applique project for the year is this little flowerpot with 3 simple flowers in it. This is before I started the applique...
The fabrics, even the brown background, are all Jinny Beyer fabrics which I picked up in her store (scroll down towards the end of that post to see the pictures of Anna and I in the Jinny Beyer Quilt Studio) when I was visiting with my friend Anna in April last year.

I am going to mount this little quilt in a wooden embroidery hoop I picked up at a thrift store recently. My darling 9 ...

Last year in January I told you that my quilting goal for the year was to stitch something every day. You can read about that here. I kept it up for about 6 months, longer than most of my goals last, but not long enough to have achieved what I set out to do. So this year I have, surprise surprise, the same goal! And unlike last year, I didn't fail on the very first day! I am 3 days into the goal and right on track. I also christened 2009 the year of the mini quilt. I made ...