..................Quilt to the Edge....: November 2012

Friday, November 30, 2012

2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge-November

Talk about waiting until the very last day to get this done!!! And it isn't done yet, I still have the border to do which will be the two inch spirals!!! I am SO VERY THANKFUL to get this done in November :^)

So our teacher for November was Sarah Vedeler. Her tutorial was on spirals,which I need much work on!!! I am so glad that she chose this to teach us because my skills are quite lacking in this area. I decided to add the rows of little circles/pebbles because I am fairly lousy at those also :^) So I am doing the 3 P's, practicepracticepractice!!!

Sarah had us down load a grid to practice on, printed with spirals and then blank ones. It really does help to practice on the paper first. I could tell that my circles were improving the more I did them!! I even put the grid on the wall to refer to when I was actually quilting!

I marked the one inch and two inch grids to make it a little easier. I marked and remarked and then didn't follow the feather section!!!

Back of the quilt, all the straight seams done and just starting on the spirals and pebbles.

Notice the spirals in the feathers? :^)

And a note about the fabric I chose. I hand dyed this years ago. When my husband was still teaching, I would go in to the classroom at the end of the year and teach the kids how to tie dye. We got them all t-shirts and sometimes a piece of fabric to make into a bandana. I brought my dyes out to school and we would have a fabulous day!! The t-shirts had to sit in plastic bags for 2 hours, which gave me time to clean up and play with my own fabric. This is one of the pieces I did while waiting!!

The back of the quilt

close ups

Thank you so much Sarah Vedeler, I appreciate the time you took to teach us this needed skill and I hope to improve in the upcoming months and years.

Thank you to SewCalGal for giving us this opportunity to learn from such wonderful teachers. Amazing. And a year of this. How blessed we are. You are a Gem!!

Take care everyone, Happy Quilting, and keep those scissors sharp!!! Martha

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Santa Arrives On Holiday Lane

Welcome to Day 7 of the Holiday Lane Blog Hop!!

I would like to Thank Pauline at: http://quiltnqueen.blogspot.ca/ who is our hostess for this hop.
A big Thank You to Madame Samm at: http://www.sewwequilt.com/ who is the cheerleader for this blog hop.
And finally, Thank You to the designer of Holiday Lane pillow, Jill of: http://jillilystudio.blogspot.com/ . We would not be doing this blog hop if it wasn't for the hard work and creativity of these three women!! :^)

Santa Arrives On Holiday Lane

This is my version of the Holiday Lane pillow. You can see that Santa is just arriving in the upper left corner with Rudolf pulling the sleigh!!

A little closer view of Rudolf

Feathery smoke from the chimneys!!

All happy and stuffed with the pillow form from below!!

I made a separate pillow form so that I could easily clean my Holiday Lane pillow cover in case it became soiled. The back of Holiday Lane was made in two pieces so I could easily slip the pillow in and out as needed.

I also started a second pillow cover that will be used when Holiday Lane is stored until next Christmas!! "On Holiday" will live in our grand children's bedroom here at our home. I am planning on painting the room the light lime green, it is going to be fabulous!!

So, meet Holiday Lane goes "On Holiday"!!! :^) I still have quite a bit of work to do on the vacationing Holiday Lane, but it is going to be fun!! I will be doing the same trees and windows, all with a modern, vacation theme!! FUN FUN FUN!!! More later!!

Oh, I cannot forget my giveaway!! Since this is my very first bloghop, I would like to say, with heartfelt thanks, how thankful I am to you, my visitors.

6 fat quarters and a very cute little quilt pattern called Heartfelt by Cindi Edgerton.

To win this little collection, just leave me a comment, become a follower if you want, you don't have to, no pressure here, and make sure that I can get a hold of you in case you win. With no reply bloggers, I may have no way to reach you!!!

I will announce the winner on Wednesday, December 5th. That will give everyone a week to take a peek and leave a comment!!

Now that you've seen what I made, check out the other Holiday Lane Blog-Hoppers and see what creations they've come up with!!! Leave them a sweet comment, and most importantly, Have Fun :^)

Wednesday November 28

Quilt n Queen

Keep your fork There's pie

***Quilt to the Edge-You are here***

Farm Road Ramblings

Rose Prairie Quilts and Farm

Peach Patch Quilts

Cherry's Prairie Primitives

Mary Jo - that other blog

Take Care everyone, Happy Quilting, and keep those needles sharp!! Martha

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Holiday Lane Pillow bloghop-Day 2/AND A HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

HAPPY DUCK THANKSGIVING!!!!

Our Thanksgiving tradition consists of listening to Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m57gzA2JCcM&feature=share when we sit down to enjoy our turkey!! We encourage all guests to sing a long at the end. We have gotten some funny looks in the past, but now our sons are doing the same thing!! So today, when we sit down to say Thanks to our Lord for all that he has given us at our son's home, we will ALL enjoy listing to Arlo :^)

HOLIDAY LANE PILLOW BLOGHOP

I am participating in my very first bloghop!! My day is next Wednesday-11/28/12. I wanted to let all of you know about it so you can see all the really fabulous pillows that have been made so far!!! Awesome ideas!!

You can check out the link below to Quilt n Queen's blog and find the whole schedule of hops and a little more information!! Quilt n Queen is our hostess for the hop!

I will also be having my very first GIVEAWAY!!! It's a secret right now-so stay tuned and have fun hopping during the holiday!!

http://quiltnqueen.blogspot.com/2012/11/lets-take-trip-down-holiday-lane.html

Here's the list of hopping days and destinations. I will post them again on my day!!

Wednesday November 21

Just Let Me Quilt

Simple Sew

sew.darn.quilt

Color My World - Happy Birthday Ellie

Thursday November 22
HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Apple Avenue Quilting

Hill Valley Quilter
Judith Handmade Treasures

Celtic Thistle Stitches

Friday November 23

Free Motion by the River

Sew Mollie Sue, Quilt Much?

Monday November 26

Living Life One Day at a Time

Luann's Loose Threads

Till We Quilt Again
13 Woodhouse Road

Tuesday November 27

Cindy's Crafty Creations

Scrapbook-Chickadoodle

Stitching by the Lake

A Stitch in Time

Wednesday November 28

Quilt n Queen

Keep your fork There's pie

Rose Prairie Quilts and Farm

Peach Patch Quilts

Cherry's Prairie Primitives

Mary Jo - that other blog

Thursday November 29

stitch, stitch, stitch

In Stitches and Seams

Hooked on Quilting

A Reformed Heath'n

Elaine - that other blog

As Sweet as Peaches

The Learning Curve Quilts and Such

Friday November 30

Marjorie's Busy Corner

Kris Loves Fabric

Linda - that other blog

Dora Quilts

Shedding the Wolf

Quilting, Sewing Granny

Creative Notions

Chickadees Country Cottage Crafts

Madame Samm @ Sew We Quilt

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, take care, happy quilting and keep those scissors sharp!! Martha

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Civil War Quilts at work!! University of Oregon Ducks vs Oregon State Beavers

Notice the sign in the background under the Duck quilt??!!! :^)

So my quilt is on the right, the University of Oregon Duck quilt, and my Nurse Manager Gae's quilt is on the left. These quilts were made a year ago. I had given Gae Beaver fabric for her birthday, she then gave me Duck fabric for my birthday and then challenged me to make an authentic civil war quilt. Both patterns used are from the American Civil War!!!

My quilt is still not done even after a year!!! I am close though!!! I still need to quilt on the opposite diagonal and put a binding on it.

I decided to put the applique rose on my quilt because we won the Rose Bowl last January!!!!!!!!

My rose. I looked for Copyright free pics of roses, then enlarged mine and changed it a bit to make is applique friendly. Here I am tracing the pattern and cutting out the pieces.

Yes, that's my 56 year old hand giving you an idea of how large the rose it!!

All the pieced on the quilt. I did a machine blanket stitch to attach the applique to the quilt.

All pinned and ready for quilting!!

Quilting with my Juki. I must say, I don't enjoy quilting a large quilt on a small machine. It isn't the easiest project to do and can get quite frustrating!!! It also doesn't help that I wait until the last minute to get things done!!!

The rose after being quilted!

My wavy diagonal quilting!

Close up of the rose! I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Our patients who come to the Samaritan Health Mid Valley Medical Clinic in Lebanon seem to really enjoy viewing the quilts. I have even had some Beaver fans compliment me on my quilt, except for the colors I used!!! hahahahahahahaa

Take care everyone, Happy Quilting, and keep those scissors sharp :^) GO DUCKS!!!!! Martha

Saturday, November 17, 2012

My new coffee cup!!

Look what came in the mail this week-a thank-you from the Editors of QuiltMaker Magazine. I was so surprised to receive it!!! Very nice!! The coffee cup has each of the 100 blocks from Volume 6 on it!!

This is one of the blocks from QuiltMaker's 100 Blocks Volume 6. It was designed by Sonja Callaghan and went together really easily. I am going to turn it in to a small quilt wall hanging by off centering it and adding more of the black dot sky and ice print. :^)

Have a great day, Happy Quilting and keep those needles sharp!! Martha

Monday, November 5, 2012

The City of Phoenix in: QuiltMakers's 100 Blocks Volume 6

Yes!!! I have a quilt published in QuiltMaker's 100 Blocks Volume 6. I am not one of the designers, but I am one of the block testers and was given the opportunity to make a quilt using one of the blocks that I tested!!

The magazine will be on sale around the 13th of November, I think!!


I would like you to meet, The City of Phoenix!!!! It is now on display in Golden Colorado at QuiltMaker Magazine. I will get it back eventually!!

So this was a challenge, a huge challenge. There were 16 if us that were given the opportunity to make a quilt. We chose fabrics from different manufacturers without any design to look at as we hadn't started testing blocks yet!!

I chose to challenge my self with this group from the Troy Corporation designed by Marcia Derse. Then I had to wait for a block to come along that would work with this fabric. Well, I started running out of time and realized that I would need to pick a block quickly.

I chose Smokey Mountains designed by Karen Combs. This is what the test block instructions look like when we get them, minus the doodling notes on the right!!

I did a mockup with the cut fabrics trying to get my fabric choices to work.

Hmmmmm... Nope

Almost!! But I wanted to use all the fabrics I chose, so I needed to add the light gray.

This is the end result of the choices!!

So first of all, I will admit that I was not happy with this quilt. So as I was piecing it, I tried to come up with a name that reflected the name given to the block, Smokey Mountains. This quilt that I was constructing did not remind me of the mountains. It is very urban. Hmmmm, Smokey City? Nope!! Sounds like air pollution. Where there's smoke, there's heat. City Heat? I like it!! Then it occurred to me that the name of this quilt is The City of Phoenix!!! Of course, the intense blue sky and golden sun, the red of the land and lots of amazing people, including my son Josh!!! WOW!! That's it!! And now I love this quilt!! Weird how the name can change your outlook!!??

So I chose to quilt it with a bit of a modern touch, in circles, beginning approximately where Josh lives in Phoenix!! And as I was quilting, I was watching Nascar and realized that the colors I chose were the same colors of my favorite driver, Kyle Busch!!! So the quilt could be named, Kyle Busch's car on Asphalt. He drives so fast, he's just a streak of color on the asphalt!!!