April Reflections

Since April is practically over I thought I would post about my accomplishments for the month and goals for next month. It helps to keep me at least partially focused.

April Accomplishments included:

1. Turning in r/w/b charity quilt at April guild meeting.

2. Finished the Christmas Rail Fence top

3. Pieced both a Christmas backing and a pink and blue backing for the second bunny baby quilt.

4. Quilted two customer quilts and have a third currently in process

5. Quilted and bound two table runners

6. Made a long table runner (top) from a pattern purchased at MQX.

7. Started blue and yellow Triple Treat lap quilt


Goals for May include:

1. Finishing the blue and yellow Triple Treat top

2. Finish current customer quilt

3. Piece backing for and quilt charity quilt

4. Quilt bunny quilt

5. Piece backing for triple treat quilt

6. Continue practicing new quilting motifs

Linda Taylor Class

I took a class from Linda Taylor on the 18th and she had one of her quilts on display (purple one with the red hearts in the middle), the quilting was unbelieveable. The quilt also had all sorts of crystals on it which really made it shimmer in the light. These are the last two pictures I took. I specifically took a picture of the flamingo jacket to show my friend Pam.

More Pictures

Here are a few more of my favorite quilts from MQX, I can't believe how wonderful all the quilting was.

MQX

Have not posted in awhile, first I was at MQX in New Hampshire and then I was trying to catch up on things at home and work once I got back to Maryland.

I had a super time at MQX, great classes, wonderful quilts, shopping opportunities and met lots of wonderful quilters.

The first day I arrived I was to early to check into the hotel so walked up to the Radisson where the show was being held and had lunch. Walking in by myself two ladies said to come sit with them. As it turned out neither of them knew each other either so we had a great time talking quilting and comparing stores. Turns out one of the ladies was also from Maryland and the other from Virginia.

I took four classes and feel like I learned a lot but also I think I was on overload and my brain just couldn't absorb any more.

I didn't take that many pictures but wanted to share a few of my favorites.

New Hampshire Here I Come

I have been doing good in getting at least a little bit done every day in my sewing room even if it cutting out a few blocks or sewing a few pieces together it all adds up to a lot accomplished in a months time.

In the last week I got my butterfly quilt top completed, quilted a friendship quilt for a group of local ladies, pieced a backing for a kids quilt and started to piece a backing for a Christmas scrap quilt. I decided to concentrate on piecing several backings together so when I had time to concentrate on quilting I would have several choices ready to go.

Right now I am so excited, I leave early in the morning for New Hampshire to attend the Machine Quilting Expo (MQX) in Manchester. I can’t wait. Hopefully they allow you to take pictures, if so I will be posting pictures of some of my favorites here next week.

Scrap Quilt

Here is the picture of the scrap quilt I just finished quilting. The quilt was pieced by my friend Nikki from Montana. My daughter said she must have used every scrap in the house because of all the different fabrics.

U-Turns

I feel like I accomplished a lot over the weekend but not exactly what I started out to work on, it is amazing how we get sidetracked at times. My plans were to put the border on a Christmas UFO quilt that I had been working on, to get binding sewn on two table runners and start quilting a customer scrap quilt.

When I finally picked out fabric for a border I realized that it needed to be pre-washed so working on the border was out at least for awhile. I didn’t feel like quilting on the frame so I decided to start on a new project. I had purchased some colorful butterfly fabric 2 or 3 years ago and a couple coordinating fabrics. I went through my patterns and found one I had printed from quilter’s cache called Squares in a Square 2 that highlights a large piece of focus fabric that I thought would be perfect for the butterflies. They go together fast so ended up making 12 blocks on Saturday.

Yesterday I spent several hours quilting a customer’s scrap quilt with gold swirls and had it finished by evening. Once I get it off the frame and trimmed up it will be ready to mail back to Montana.

So my weekend took a couple of U-turns on my projects but ended up getting a lot done, even if it wasn’t exactly what I had planned.

MQX

Every spring the Machine Quilting Expo is held in Manchester, NH with a quilt show, machine quilting classes and lots of vendors. I was scheduled to go last year but then a family health emergency required me to cancel out at the last minute. I had not really thought about going this year but yesterday was checking my United Frequent Flyer miles and discovered that all my miles were getting ready to expire this summer..... what to do!!

With a little prompting from a quilting buddy in New Hampshire and agreement from my husband I checked it out and was able to find both a flight to use my miles and a hotel room still available about two blocks from the convention center.

All that left was to find out if there were any classes I wanted to take still available. I lucked out and signed up for 3 classes today, one of them with Linda Taylor and I am so excited. I used to get up at 6:00 a.m. on saturday mornings to watch Linda's Long Arm Quilting so I am thrilled to be actually taking a class from her.

I don't know what I am more excited about, the quilts, the classes, the VENDORS, or seeing my good friend Mary Lou again. I hope the next two weeks fly by.

UFO #4

I made the center dresden plate several years ago and it slipped to the bottom of my UFO stack unfinished till recently. As part of my guild's UFO challenge I decided to finish up this one. I stilll had one of the border fabrics so just had to find another one from stash. The backing was pieced out of 10 1/2 squares from stash and it was quilted with a pastel variegated thread. I finished the binding a couple of nights ago and am glad to have four UFO finishes so far in 2008.