Pines and Needles Quilt camp

Ahhh, Quilt Camp........

Picture this.......

A lovely little cabin in the middle of a forest of pine trees.

A cool breeze making rustling sounds in the tree tops and

the tall grasses swaying in the wind.

Sounds of elk calling to thier mates.

The smell of a campfire burning.

Home cooked meals.

A comfy bed with a quilt on it.

Quilts adorning the walls everywhere you look.

A big sewing room filled with friends sewing to thier hearts content.

For a small view into the lives of our 10 campers

here is a pictorial view of the quilting weekend:

Linda started our weekend off by showing us the finished

version of her Round Robin that we had participated in

earlier this year.

The front AND the back are lovely.

We graced the design wall with some of the

little quilts we have been making to send off to

Ami Simms for auction.

Mary had the first finished project of the day with this

lovely fall table runner.

Have a look and see if you can find the clack charm squares......

A few months back most of us signed up to

do a Fabulous Fall Mini-quilt swap.

Here are the results:

Four of us brave souls decided that it was a great day

for a hike in the woods. What a delightful trek thru the woods.

We came upon this cute little squirrel munching on

something up in the tree!


This was a little chilling.............

United States Forest Service (USFS)
CRIME SCENE

DO NOT DISTURB!

We couldn't help but wonder what had happened there,

but finally decided that it must have been someone unlawfully

cutting down this huge tree.....perhaps for the beams it could provide.

One night Killer got thirsty................

but, oh no! He must have fallen in!

I wonder who the culprits could have been?

Mary with her new 2 1/2" strip project.

These blocks will be part of a 2 twin sized quilts.

I can't believe how quickly she was busting out these difficult blocks!

Judy was the big winner in Left Right Center.

She won 30 Fat Quarters!

Get busy Judy.........we expect to see a quilt made!

Oh NO! Some one must have put Killer on ice!

He was wearing an ice cube body cast!

Watch out Killer........next time it could be concrete shoes!

Joanne's granddaughter will be 11 this week

and she has a tradition of making her a doll for

every birthday.

This doll started as a couple of wires found in the garage,

but with the creative genius of Joanne turned into this

beautiful work of art!

Linda put together this quilt top in a hurry!

Can't believe how fast she is!

This is to become a Christmas tree skirt.

Dolly whipped out this beautiful baby quilt in no time!

Cheryl designed this warm and fuzzy quilt for

the new grandbaby she is expecting in the spring.

This is the FIRST grandbaby!

Katrina made a monkey suit for her

1st grandson's halloween costume.

It was really cute when she modeled the

ears, but I didn't get a picture of that...........

I know.........it makes me sad too!

Judy made this baby quilt.

She has these VERY PROLIFIC neighbor children

who keep having babies.

Once you start something it sure it hard to stop!

Ah, she doesn't really want to stop.......it gives her

a reason to make quilts!

Princess Pretty Butt was in rare form.

(NOW THERE"S a story! But I won't go into it at this time!)

She stopped her work from time to time to grace us with her

wisdom with wonderful "simple tips for quilters"

Princess Pretty Butt was elevated to QUEEN status

on this trip, but I can't seem to remember the name at this writing.

Must not have been as catchy as "Princess Pretty Butt".

In addition to working on a t-shirt quilt,

Kathy started this lively strip quilt.

Kerry started this nutcracker project

back at our very first quilt camp.

In 1999? or was it 2000?

She is very hopeful that it will grace her wall

this coming Christmas.

I finished up one quilt top that can't be shown here

since it MAY be finished by Christmas and become a gift.

But I also made a plethoria of tablerunners

and the micro mitts, pillow case, and surgical caps shown below.

One of the ladies in our group is a surgical nurse and

requested that we make some fun surgical caps for

the young patients who come thru her hospital.

The 2 stuffed, blue pillowcases are filled with

all of the fabric scraps that would have been thrown away

this weekend.

Instead we filled the bags, sewed them across the top

and they will be donated to the Humane Society so

a dog or cat can have a comfy bed.

What a cool idea.........Thanks for sharing this tip with me Carla!

Wow! That was a long pictorial journey.

Hope you enjoyed it!

and remember when in doubt........

Lick it! Lick it!

Don't Waste it!

Design Wall Monday

As I said in one of my last posts
I have been ITCHING to piece something!
So on my recent getaway to quilt camp that's just what I did!
I sewed the first 3 blocks of Debbie Bowles "Yikes" quilt.
(Yes, yes, I can count...........there are 6 blocks.
You make a light and dark version of each of the 12 blocks!)

This quilt (when finished) will actually go on MY bed!
Can you believe that I don't have a quilt on MY bed?



Here we are.........the Friday Night Quilters
at Pines and Needles quilt camp up in
Christopher Creek Arizona.
The weather this past weekend was absolutely wonderful!
I did quite alot of sewing, alot of eating & drinking and even
some hiking. More on quilt camp in the next post......


The day before quilt camp I worked on and FINISHED
this huge quilt for Mary. Blaire, Mary's daughter chose
the fabrics for this huge quilt, designed the pattern and
did the piecing. This is her first quilt!

Also before quilt camp I finished up these

2 quilts for Jennifer. The one on the bottom

was my design wall last Monday!

I was trying to decide what to quilt on it!

I finally decided on a Greek key type border

(even tho this quilt did NOT have a real border)

I did quilt abit of stitching in the ditch around each

of the pieced squares and circles and then geometric

shape in the remainder of the quilt.

Jennifer was going to a quilt camp this past weekend

and she was going to be doing the binding on this quilt.

Well, for now I'm off to "Jazz my Size" or

Jazzercize as most people call it!

Design Wall Monday

This quilt named "The Journey" is
currently on my design wall.
I believe that this quilt pattern was inspired
by Frank Lloyd Wright.
It is next to go on the quilting frames and I
am in the process of trying to decide what to
quilt on it!
The quilts owner, Jennifer, would like me to
quilt a foot in the large circle surrounded by black.
Other than those instructions I am on my own.
I have did a little web searching trying to get inspiration
and have only come across Frank Lloyd Wrights
stained glass quilting. I am not sure that the straight
lines of that pattern would fit on this quilt.
At the moment I am considering doing a variety of sizes
of circles and squares in the outer regions of this quilt.
Would sure appreciate any other suggestions!

I've recently finished another of Barbara's t-shirt quilts.
This one is for her eldest grandson and is a Christmas gift!
One of the things that I enjoy about Barbara's quilts is that
I get to really cut loose on the quilting. She likes for me to
incorporate images that relect the boys interests.........

It is hard to make out on this small picture, but there
is a bear catching a salmon quilted into the bottom
right hand corner of this block.

On the bottom of this square I quilted an open book
with a stack of books right beside it.
Other squares feature hot air balloons, dinosaurs,
dragons, the disney castle, hockey sticks, baseball bat
and ball........you get the idea..........it is pretty fun to do!

As always.......you should go and check out Judy Laquidera's Design Wall Monday blog: http://www.patchworktimes.com/

Design Wall Monday

It's been awhile..........

I know..........It HAS been awhile since I"ve posted anything new

on this blog.

Guess I've just been busy downstairs in my studio.

I've been sorting thru fabric and pulling out candidates

to become Micro Mitts. My pile is dwindling, so as you can

see in the basket, I've put together about 50 kits to make

new ones!

I love having these to give away.

I just hope that the people who receive them like

them as much as I do! LOL!

I've been itching to piece a quilt lately.

(let's not count how many finished quilt tops I

have hanging ready to be quilted......okay?)

So when I found these orphan Bullseye blocks mixed

in with my fabric I spent a little time and pieced

them together. Now I just need to add a border

or two and quilt it up.

It'll make a perfect little picnic quilt or car quilt

or outside swing quilt.............

I love having utility quilts that I can USE!

(okay.......so I WILL need to quilt it before it is finished!)

GREAT NEWS!

Mike FINALLY bought a new tractor!

His old one has put in about 15 good years.

Years of mowing the lawn, pulling small trailors,

and being driven around by countless soccer players.

I've asked MIke to buy a new one for a couple of years now

to the response that the old one had a "few more good years in her".

(Hey! Maybe that is why he keeps me around! lol!)

At any rate............the old one finally died

and the grass just kept getting higher and higher

so he finally broke down and got a new one.

Doesn't it look sparkly and new?

Design Wall Monday

This lovely creation is on my design wall at the moment.

This was a round robin created with 3 of my Friday Night Quilter friends.

I created the center portion from a quilting design from

Hari Walner's quilting book and Sharon, Linda and Kerry

designed the remaining borders.

I'm trying to decide if this quilt is finished or it needs

another border.

I'm beginning to think that my huge pile of UFO's

has to do with the fact that I never seem to be quite finished

with a quilt. I always want to add something else,

or try a new technique.

Somehow I need to get over that and start getting some

projects done!!!!

Does anyone else have this problem?

I did, however, finally finish up my Anita Goodesign

Halloween quilt! Just last night I finished up the

quilting. (I put spider webs in 2 corners and little

black spiders in the orange border)

I used some glittery silver thread in small amounts

thru-out the sky and also added a few crystals just

to add a little gleam here and there.

I still have the hand sewing to do on the binding

and also the sleeve to sew down, but I've got a quilt

retreat coming up and that will be a perfect place

to sit and do some hand sewing.

I've recently encountered a problem in using

this yellow chaco marker made by Clover.

I used it on the white t-shirt quilt square below

with disasterous results.

When I was all finished quilting this quilt for a customer

I wanted to remove the yellow circles I had drawn on

this square to mark the lollipops that

Barbara wanted on this square.

I tried brushing it off

I tried rubbing it with a damp cloth

I tried rubbing it with a damp cloth with Carbona stain remover soap

Desparate now since the above methods had produced a

water-type stain

that had spread and discolored the area around the lollipops that

STILL had yellow marks on them..........

I turned to the Machine Quilting Professionals list for advice.

The advice I received there was to use a diluted mixture

of Oxyclean and a toothbrush.

That STILL produced a water stain.

One of the gals on the list had received this advice from

Clover:

Yellow marks will come out with washing.

Since it was a customer quilt I did NOT want to wash it,

but I finally asked permission to dunk the offending square

into water and lay it flat to dry.

This removed most of the yellow and all of the water stains.

However you can see from the close-up of the square below

there is still yellow that remains.

I've since heard from the list-owner who contacted

Clover directly that 5 parts water and 1 part vinegar

will remove this marking.

So beware!

Click on the "Design Wall Monday" title to check out

Judy Laquidera's blog where you can take a peek at the

design wall of other quilters!

(More) The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI)

In my last post I wrote about the Friday Night Quilters

and how for our birthdays we were doing something different

this year.

Mary asked that we make little art quilts for
the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative.

All of these quilts are 9" x 13" in size.

Here are some of the quilts she received:

This one is mine.....finally finished.......

Dolly used some of the leftover from the quilt

she made for her brother to make this mini quilt.

I love the turquoise binding inset.

Another quilt by Dolly

Kathy made this sweet quilt and

gave it some sparkle using crystals.

Joanne really went all out with this one.

You are looking at pieced triangles folks.......

NOT a printed piece of fabric!

and the writing around the border is beautiful!

Another Joanne masterpiece!

Our lady Linda made these lovely leaves.

The image came from a "Shaw" carpet ad in a magazine.It symbolizes the loving family tree-the leaves on the treerepresent healthy family members. The leaves that have fallen represent those who have fallen to Alzheimer's.

I finished quilting Judy's quilt this week.

And another t-shirt quilt for Barbara.

This one is for her grandson Jonathan.

There is a disturbing story that goes along with

this above quilt............tune in tomorrow to get the scoop!