International Round Robin quilt block

I am taking part in an international round robin quilting adventure.  There are 4 ladies in our group.  We were to take a 12.5 block to start depicting something about where we live.  Then a border was added supposingly using two colors, and next to set the bock on point and then applique something from your area in each corner.The block on the top is the actual one that I set on point and added applique, the one on the bottom is my practice block I really needed to try satin stitch applique before I send the block back to Australia.  I will post my block when it gets back to be !  I used scraps from my pansy bags and fussy cut them and layered before appliquing.  It turned out great.

Pirate quilt for Erik - Arrrrrr

Dotter, Jessica asked me to do a quilt for her friend in Ohio.  I had purchased some pirate material from a fellow quilter on the forum that I belong to.  Jessica thought the material was fine so here it is.

LeAri's quilt

It has been said that I should have a picture of every quilt I have made.  I made quite a few without a thought of keeping a record.  So those of you out there that have a quilt that I have made please take a picture of them and send them to me - nudge nugde that would be my daughters:)
Anyways since I am here in Virginia I made this quilt for our grand nephew LeAri Darnell I asked if I could take a picture of his quilt this morning.  It is my favourite baby quilt Gramma's Joy and his was done in a football motif as his big brother is a football champ.

A new bag for holidays!

As my daughters can attest - I love pansies!  I have been looking for a pansy bag for a very long time.  They are always so expensive, too ugly, too big etc.  I had bought a piece of fabric on on ebay but the actual pansy were far too big for any quilting project I could foresee.
Two nights before we left for our holiday in Virginia, I decided that I would like a new bag. It would have to find my mini computer, regular purse stuff, and a book.  I had seen in my new quilting magazine a picture of a bag, the same magazine that I had made the thread catcher from - a bag.

I got busy right after work and had it finished except for the button by the time Criminal Minds came on. I found the button for it at Joanns.  If I were to make it again, I would either quilt the material before I start or use something like Pellan in it to stiffen it a bit.  Having said all that - I love the colour, size, and the fact that I made it myself.

Lauren and Aurora's big girl quilts

My niece Becci (the top two) and also my good friend Evelyn (the bottom two) both had baby girls within six months of each other.  I really love this pattern it is called Gramma's Joy.  It uses 4 coordinating fabrics and is quite quickly put together.  I love the one fabric so much from Jonanns - it is called girl bugs! Perfect for little girls. I fell in love with prairie points when I first saw them on a quilt at the guild meeting and have tried to use them when ever possible. The quilts are very similar but I just love them.  I hope that when the girls are older that they love them too.

Our guilds mystery quilt!

Starting in January of this year our guild embarked on a mystery quilt.  Over the course of three months we were given sheets of instruction but no visuals and asked to produce a quilt using three fabrics a dark, medium and light value.  Now I am all in for a good mystery but I had looked at all the cutting involved and decided that I would not start this quilt until I saw a finished project.  I am an extremely visual learner.  The first set of colours that I had chosen were a white on white, fuchsia and raspberry not bad I thought , but I still didn't jump at it.  When the quilt was revealed at the March meeting she had used a cream, aqua, and a darker paisley aqua - now I knew the colours that I had chosen would not work for me they were too ho hum.  Off I went to get new fabric!
A batique in a very dark teal blue, the medium was a swirling mixture greens, blues and a tinge of black, I picked up a sea foam green for the light but under my Ott light at home the colour was off, so back to the store (thank goodness I work 3 minutes from Joanns in Santa Monica), I picked up a shade darker green. Now it might not look like much from afar, but each block had 49 pieces yes that is not a typo but rather 49 separate little pieces some as small as 1.5 inches.  I was so happy with the fabric that I cut, sewed, ironed, sewed some more and worked very diligently.  Carnell was out of town for two nights so I was unhampered by wifely duties and was able to complete the top in less than two weeks.  I have a nice piece of fabric in my stash that will complete the quilt and I will use it in my living room as a throw for the love sofa.
Each time I make a quilt I learn something new and I life to master those skills - my friend Clara and I went to Anaheim last weekend and I picked up the fabric to make a quilt for our California King bed a nice Robert Kauffman that was only 2.99 a yarn it has blues and browns, a great brown tonal and a solid light Wedgwood blue. I am very excited about my new project!  Which is one of many :)  I am already in sewing withdrawal here in Virginia and have made two knitted dishcloths between family card playing, food and going to my husband's family church this morning.
I need to get out and try and get some pictures of the beautiful spring flowers here - they are outstanding.

What I did this Sunday :)

I have always liked to sew.  I sewed clothes as a teen and a young mum for my dotters - Diana and Jessica.  I encouraged them to learn to sew also! When I discovered quilting, I found a way to express my artistic ways in a meaningful manner. I am not sure how many quilts I have made and given away since 2005.

I picked up a magazine at Vons on Thursday as it had a pattern I wanted to do for a quilt that Jessica asked me to make for friends of hers that had a baby boy.Unbeknown to me the magazine has a plethora of quilting ideas. The magazine is called Simple Quilts and Sewing, I made the topper for baby Erik's quilt and will post a pic once it is completed, but I found a cute pattern for thread holders. I usually just tape a luncheon or grocery store bag to the edge of the table for scraps and threads but my quilting friend Clara had mentioned at the last quilting guild meeting that she would like to get one of those.

So today, being a pajama day I made two of them!

I tried to stage them nicely on my "big" ironing board. Clara is going to pick up the sand tomorrow and then I will fill a muslin bag and put it in the rectangle at the top of the straps.  Carnell (my beloved husband that is very encouraging of my sewing addiction) thought they were Easter baskets :)

Clara's is purple and mine is green.

The two bags were made from 3 fat quarters, 2/3 yard muslin and an 18 inch square of left over batting. I free motion quilted the body and then sewed them up. I likely won't

have to look at the instructions much again except for the cutting part.

Welcome to California Quilting

This isn't such an inspiring name for a blog but it was late at night and I had to think of something!

I am a self-taught quilter but I would love to share with others and learn new things also.

Here is some info for European viewer as instructed to do by the website


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