A Quilt kit and my first BOM

Above is from the first quilt kit I bought - it is called "A Bow on Top" and from the Fat Quarter Quilt Shop in Texas, now I would never pay $99.00 for a kit but half price and with the pattern I can do.  The fabric was all Moda and features Little Red Riding Hood - so adorable.  It was for my friend Charisma in Canada to celebrate the arrival of their daughter Ava.  Super easy pattern and very cute to boot!

My girlfriend, Clara brought me over a big suitcase and bag of scraps in January and while sorting through it I came upon a whole bunch of papers. When I put all of those papers into order I found this Block of the Month called All Around the Farm. Looking at it now, I can see a mistake but that is okay, it was really fun to put together and I learned how to make a Snail's Tail and even did a bit of applique on the boy and the crow! I used muslin for the background and micro-stippled on all of the background.  I must take a picture of it finished and add it to this posting - next time I am taking pictures.  I have a friend in upper NY state who is retiring this year from her school support job  and they are dairy farmers also - this will be her gift!



Wow, I am really behind on my picture posting - so here is goes :)

This pattern is called "Welcome Spring" and is from the Moda Bake Shop.  It is made with jelly roll strips and yardage.  I used the Serpentine stitch on my machine for the straight line quilting.  I was inspired by a similar quilt posted on the quilting forum I frequent,  www.quiltingboard.com .  The quilt was for a co-worker's daughter.

This quilt for a baby boy is from a pattern called Enigma.  I had purchased a fat quarter collection at the 7 Sisters Quilt Show in San Luis Obispo last month with the intent of making a co-worker's quilt as her baby shower present.  I love the bright colors!  I have it draped over the rocking chair that my daughter Jessica and I rescued from the curb on garbage day.  I think I will skip the draping effect in the future and go back to flat pictures.

 



 

Below is a Shadowbox quilt I made for my sister, Barbara.  Hopefully, she doesn't come to the blog and spoil her surprise waiting for her when she comes in a few weeks.  As usual, there are coordinating pillowcases :)  Mistakes are part of the quilting process, and there is one in this quilt but it doesn't take away from the beauty of the quilt at all.  This was made with a collection of fabric from my best quilting friend Clara.

 

This a another Shadowbox - truly this was the trial quilt and it has no errors - go figure.  Anyways, our classroom teacher Malikah is leaving us next month for new teaching adventures and this is her farewell quilt.  I bought this pattern on a bus trip with my quilting guild a few years ago, and had totally forgotten about it until I saw a post on the quilting forum I visit.  It was the first pattern I ever purchased. Most of the fabric for this quilt was from a fat quarter set bought at Tuesday Morning - yep they have fabric there sometimes.

Jinny Beyer border quilt - I call "Shenandoah" (out of my comfort zone) colors seemed washed out when taking picture outside :(

 

My husband's cousin came for a visit in October and asked me if I would make her a quilt. "Of course", I said and she went and chose a quilt out of my magazines and books. She selected a quilt out of my comfort zone, but I am always up to a challenge. Gail ordered the border fabric needed and I spend a couple of months collecting the other fabrics needed. The original pattern made a quilt too small so I doubled everything. It is almost king size now! The pattern had the name of another mountain range, but Gail and DH are from Virginia so I wanted a more personal name. I did the FMQ on my Viking Sapphire 830.

 

Yesterday, Salomon and Ruby were married!

Salomon is my BMF (best male friend) aside from my husband and he and his BFF Ruby were married yesterday.  It was a lovely ceremony and day.  Salomon and I work with exceptional students at Santa Monica High School.  Last year while on a community outing, we were at the thrift store and I found some quilting books.  Salomon and Ruby had just started planning their wedding,  so I had him pick a pattern out of one of the books I bought and asked what colors he wanted -  the pattern is called "Ice Crystal" and is made with all 1/2 square triangles.  I used sheets of paper that I photocopied out of the book - similar to Triangles on A Roll.  I personal feel this is one of the nicest quilts I have every made.  This is the info on the book I used incase you are interested:
The book is called Plentiful Possibilities A Timeless Treasury of 16 Terrific Quilts by Lynda Milligan and Nancy Smith C&T Publishing ISBN 1-57120-214-5 published in 2003.

 

Now for the happy couple!

 

I love that quilters on the internet are so supportive of each other :) aka I needed a Bugs Jelly Roll by Stripz

A few years ago I made my two beautiful granddaughters in Canada super twin sized quilts for their beds using a bug themed jelly roll that I had picked up at Tuesday Morning cheap.  Kaitlyn and McKenna share a room and I being the grandmother that lives far away wanted them to have something else from Grampa and I with them so they can remember us between visits.

So I made them each a quilt which has already been posted here on the blog

http://californiaquilting.blogspot.com/2012/03/more-creations.html

Now last year Gemma was born and I started my elusive search for the same jelly roll so that she too will have something similar to her sisters.  I was not having any luck at all finding the Bugs jelly roll but ....

I decided to post my request on the Quilting Board Forum that I belong to. Judy from Virginia answered my plead and at this very moment our respective parcels are flying through the air cross country to each other :)

Judy is working on a charm quilt and needed some green fabric (golly gee isn't green one of my favourite colours!) and I emailed here that I would cut WOF 2.5 inch strips from my stash and send them to her and she said that would be great and thanked me for making this such an easy swap.  Little did I know that I had over 50 different shades of green in my stash, and I threw in some small squares of olive green from another project I had done.

So a great big thank you to Judy in Virginia for making my wishes a reality!

So you want me to make you a quilt ......

Lately so many folks have been asking me what I would charge to make them a quilt.  Now, I certainly have enough ideas and people to make quilts for already, but I wouldn't be opposed to making a little stash building monies.

Having said that, no one has taken me up on my services and I am not heartbroken about this at all.  All of you that are quilters know how many hours go into the making of a quilt; from the initial concept to fabric and pattern selection, to preparing the fabric, cutting the pieces (a zillion sometimes), piecing the pieces, preparing the backing, choosing the proper batting, sandwiching the quilt hmm shall I use 505 spray adhesive, Elmer's glue method, home-made spray basting, pinning or thread basting (OMG never again!), fusible iron batting, and lastly thread selection for the quilting and the hours that even just a simple meandering takes.  We all know that a baby quilt takes less time than a king-size with a nice drop, but the process is the same for all quilts.

I have sold a few quilts in the past few years and recouped my expenses for material - nothing for the labour.  I knew both of the ladies that I sold to and was fine with that at that point in my life.  Now I want to be compensated for it all and here is what I have been and will be telling folks.

• We can get together and chose a pattern you can chose from mine for free!
• We will go to the big fabric warehouse and you can select the fabrics to make your quilt: that would include the piecing, backing, thread, and batting and if you want 2 pillowcases to coordinated we will need at least 2 yards of your fabric. 
• If there are any specialized notions for the specific quilt you have chosen - such as Triangles on a Roll you will need to supply them or provide monies so I can procure the notion. 
• If there are special rulers I will get those as I can use them again.
• You will be paying for all of the supplies at that time.
• You can anticipate spending anywhere from $65.00 for a baby quilt to $250.00 +++ for a king size quilt

Now to make your quilt it will be as follows:

Baby/Crib = $75.00

Twin = $150.00

Double/Full = $200.00

Queen = $250.00

Super Queen = $300.00

California King = $375.00

Eastern King = $425.00

2 pillow cases = $30.00

4 pillowcases = $50.00
Euro Pillow Shams = Same as above

If the quilt you chose is a paper pieced project you can double my costs, and if it involves applique we will not have gotten even to the store :)

This is for enquiring minds :)

My Husqvarna Sapphire 830 and its spring-loaded "darn" ing/ FMQ foot.

Pictured below are the two spring-loaded FMQ feet that I had purchased for my Husqvarna Sapphire 830 sewing machine. 



One had a clear bottom aka this was the newer model and the other had an open metal bottom.  Both were official Husqvarna feet and each one cost approximately $50.00.  I used each one for about 6 months when they "snapped" Now can you see that thin wire on the top of each one?  Through use that thin little wire has snapped on both of these feet - now I was ready to chalk this up to operator error, but I started to dig a little deeper on the Internet and found that others were having similar issues with that "darn" little wire. Kathy Upton, a follower of this blog had commented on this very issue on another blog  - this was a total coincidences that I saw her name and my name together - so a big high 5 to Kathy for pointing me (inadvertently) in the direction of the Leah Day you tube video I have marked here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwbNPgnP8r4

This video showed an easy adaptation to any spring-loaded foot to use for FMQ.  Voila, with a rubber band snagged from my classroom and a pair of needle- nose pliers I have elevated my FMQ to a higher level.
A higher level, you say!  Yes, do you remember the feel of an expensive Long Arm setup at the quilt shows - how the needle just slides over the fabric like a hot knife through butter; well that is exactly how my sewing machine is performing after this quick fix.  I even feel confident that I can spread my wings and try something other than meandering my quilts.

So, if your FMQ isn't quite where you want it to be watch Leah's video and step outta that box your in and try something new - you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.