Shopping Adventures

For my birthday, my darling husband got me the AccuQuilt Go!  Exactly what I wanted.

I had to pick up some dies to go with this nifty quilter's tool.  I may have gotten carried away.  I hope to be using it to make some new and amazing stuff.

I found myself back at Bonny's Sewing and Fabric on a drive through Virginia.  I couldn't resist the rainbow-colored machine quilting thread. Okay, I couldn't resist the fabric, either.

I went on a couple more adventures this past week.  The little bundles of fabric are from What's Your Stitch 'N Stuff.  A great little quilt shop where I was overwhelmed by the fabric and kits.  I did rather well leaving with only two little rolls of fabric.  The coordinating flannel was found at Fabric Hut "Where friends and fabric meet."  This place is huge!  Loaded with quilting fabrics, sewing machines and garment fabrics galore.  I also picked up the flower die for the AccuQuilt here.

Ribbit!

I work with a young lady that wanted to try to make a quilt.  I cannot refuse such a request.  I picked up an inexpensive, thrift store machine (it might weigh a ton, but it sews wonderfully), provided a bobbin or two, went shopping with her for all the things you need to get started, showed her how to cut out a stack of 5 inch squares and set her loose on the quilting world.  I think she's done a splendid job with this quilt top.

The fabric choices are hers, bright greens, yellows and blues that coordinate with a cute backing of frog-covered flannel.  All I did was add the border. 

Time for the long-arm and quilting.  I will be using my original quilting design Lily Pads. The next lesson will be finishing binding.  (Since I started this, she has taken off on a quilt-making frenzy.  Two more quilt tops have been finished, excluding binding.  I may have created a monster.  I am an evil mastermind!).

Shopping

I've been going on mini adventures over the last couple weeks.  I pick a quilt shop at random from the internet and take a drive.  I love seeing new things and being able to feed my fabric addiction.

First up: Bonny's Sewing Center where I picked up some thread and the cloth leaders I wanted for the longer rails on the long-arm.  Not really an adventure, but I did pick up some thread.

Next up:  Nancy's Calico Patch where I couldn't resist some bag patterns.  I was also tempted by the fabric but managed to resist.

I succumbed to the urge and picked up both fabric and thread at Quilt With Me!  I love it when I wander into a quilt shop and everyone there just loves to talk about fabric, thread and that next project.  I may have to see what's going on with their open sewing nights.

Doodles

After watching some of the videos on YouTube about long-arm quilting, I realized that I should pick up a sketchpad and make some doodles.  Doodles or scribbles or whatever you want to call them, help me set the motion of the quilted line into my mind making the motion of the long-arm more fluid and confident.

While there are other doodles in that notebook, these are the few that I found by accident.  Lily pads was designed specifically for a quilt a friend of mine is working on for her son. 

Pea pods was just an accident when playing with lines and pebbles.

Large ocean swirls happened when I was working from a pattern I saw on the internet and it... changed to become something new and different.

Prairie Paisley

Prairie Paisley is a fun little quilt made with Prarie Paisley II by Polly Minick and Laurie Simpson for Moda Fabric.

I just love red, so I had to find some warm, red flannel for the backing.

The quilting is stitched up in swirls over the face of the quilt.

I also can't resist a diagonal print for the binding.  I just like how it finishes off the quilt.

Spring Race Finish Line

In the time I've been away from the blog, I've accomplished quite a bit of sewing.  

The Spring Race quilt is done.  Binding may not be glamorous but a nicely finished binding is still a wonderful thing.

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

 

On Saturday, I joined a friend on an outing to the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival. We wandered, we oohed and ahhed at all the wool fiber, spun and unspun. We looked at sheep and sheep dogs.

These shots are from the sheep dog demonstration. I have to confess I was in too much overload to take pictures of all the sheep and fiber.

Spring Race

My friend picked up this wonderfully bright little jelly roll.  I picked out some coordinating prints from my stash to add to it and help with the continuity between the quilt and the border and binding.

I raced along until I had about the right size.  This is slightly over-sized for a crib quilt, but I'm not going to let that slow me down. 

I only added borders to the top and bottom of quilt.  This will bring the binding right up to the pieced edges, but I was running low on coordinating prints.  This wasn't the time to add another print to the mix.

I found a good yellow, floral print for the back and layered it all together on the long-arm frame.  I really like how these colors go together.  Bright and playful.

The doodle I had for the quilting on this is nothing like what happened on the quilt. 

This large peacock feather just sort of stitched its way across the quilt.  Yet again, the quilt is telling me what it wants to become.  Time to attached the binding.