Dinosaur semaphore stripes

Krista Moser, thequiltedlife, gave a talk, and a class.  This is the semaphore stripes pattern.  Her patterns are so user friendly, thanks.

Jill schumaker class

I have taken 2 classes from Jill Schumaker, this is from the first one, a machine trapunto class.  Jill is just a wealth of practical information.

Christmas quilts

Small house needs small tree, quilt to the rescue!  I made a tree for myself, then a fellow quilter wanted a, you guessed it, smaller one.  The top one is about 6 feet tall,the mini is about 18” tall.
The wreath is, well, wreath sized

This is from the McCall's January/February issue.  Yes, an actual pattern!!!I think this should have been on the front cover.  I hastily laid the quilt on the couch, took a photo, and then wrapped and mailed it in time for Christmas  to my DH's god daughter's new baby, Corinne.  So after doing many undersized quilts, this one is definitely oversized for a baby.  I started Dec 2, 2012, and finished Dec 14.  The applique bunnies are constructed by making paper copies of the bunnies, placing them on two pieces of material, right sides together, sewing completely around the shape, making a slit in the back, turning inside out and then sewing from the back of the background material.  By doing this the stitches don't have to be so perfect and it has the needle turn type of look.  FAST.  I guess other folks do this too, but it was not in the instruction. Lots of fun doing this one, I guess I like kids quilts, I need more victims.

So here's the deal on the teeny weenies, I did a few, but find that the preselected fabric collections don't always  lend themselves to the patterns that I had created.  So I started a new pattern on my tiny cad program.  I have since switched out to a new cad program, Nanocad, free and very nice.  Both programs work fine, but Nanocad is free and actually does more.  Yeah.  I put together a large Christmas tree by the seat of the pants method, I am close to finallizing that one, just the decorations left.  The large tree was supposed to be a quilt in a day project, about 3 feet tall.  It ended up 6' tall because when I assembled the star on top it was WAY to huge for the smaller tree that I had imagined.  Prior to completion of the big one, I made a smaller (surprised here?) version for Sheri. Done!!!  I did do a cad layout for the smaller one, actually pretty much kept to the plan and it is finished and out of the UFO box.

 I did a UFO show at the Wannabees a while back and was shocked at how many I had.  Worse yet I had even forgotten one that was stuffed in a drawer.  I am now anxious to start another design on my new CAD.

Madeline's quilt

I finished quilting the red, white and black teeny weeny, and have not taken a photo yet, so thought I should at least put up a photo of one more quilt.  This one was done for my niece's graduation.  The quilt has a lot of issues, but here it is.   I had just purchased a Husqvarna 875 Quilt machine and kinda,( slightly) overquilted the quilt.  the feature that I like the most about the machine is the intuitive foot pedal.  When I am in the needle down position, I sew, then the presser foot automatically lifts slightly for the next piece of fabric.  The presser foot also does a number of very intuitive up down things.  love it.  My DH selected the focus fabric and much help was given by Sherrie at Aker's for the fabric selection.  

OK, so it's a very local quilt show, buuutttt, I received viewer's choice awards for two quilts that I entered. wooohooo!  Quite a surprise.  this was the first challenge competition that I have entered, I learned so much that I hope to participate next year.  Other than that my DH and I have been doing finishing touches on our guest house, so quite busy there.  I have also started learning applique.  I decided to join a BOM thing at my local group, the project includes applique, new to me.  So anyway...here are my two winning entries.  The bottom quilt is a mini, gee what a surprise, it's 17"X17" and is a pattern by Janet Wickell available for free on About.com.  The top one started as a doodle, it's titled Just a Doodle.  I decided to ultimately hang it 180 out from the way I photographed it, so yes, the sky is at the bottom of the photo.