Sunday, November 30, 2008

Hospice Festival of Trees


Our county had its first Hospice Festival of the Trees yesterday. The trees were beautiful and the cause the greatest. This is a picture of the tree that was decorated by my guild. I had no part in the actual decorating but made about a dozen of the ornaments. It was very well received and I heard several people commenting that it was so nice to see all the hand made ornaments.

I participated in the show as a vendor selling my baby quilts and table runners and had a fun day and made a good profit all at the same time.

Kathie

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

I always have a hard time at Thanksgiving. In 1995 my father passed away after a long bout of cancer on Thanksgiving morning. It has been many years but my thoughts always go to him today. Last year my mother also passed away and on holidays I miss them so much.

Even through the sadness there is still joy and thanksfulness. I am thankful for many things including:

1. A husband that is supportive of my quilting, my choices and is my best friend
2. A daughter that of course as a teenager drives me nuts at times but is basically a great kid, talented and a good student
3. Being able to quit my office job and start my own business
4. Good health for all of us (minus all those general aches and pains of getting older)
5. My in person and on line quilting groups
6. My home, it is not new or big or fancy but it is warm and comfortable and ours
7. Not struggling financially in these difficult times

Hope you have as many things to be thanksful for.

kathie

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Holiday Rush


I am in the midst of a holiday rush so have not been keeping up my blog like I should.

I had my second craft show of the year this past sunday and now preparing for my 3rd show on saturday. This past show I was very happy with, it wasn't quite as good as last year but was close and with the way people are slowing down on their spending I am very happy with the result.

Also my quilting customers are busy getting all their Christmas present to me to be quilted so I have been busy five days a week on that.

I would have not been able to handle half of these quilts if I had still been working in an office five days a week. I am really enjoying my "career change". I still get going in the morning, check my email and then start to work but it is so nice to be able to take a break and toss a load of clothes in the washer or other things so all the chores don't have to wait till the weekend.

The other part of my life that has kept me totally busy lately is my daughters dance. They are in the last stages of rehearsals for their nutcracker performance in a week and a half. Her dance studio performs the children/teenager parts while the adult parts are danced by the National Ballet of the Ukraine. So mom and dad's taxi service has had a lot of business. Then on top of that she auditioned and made the high school dance team so that involves practice every night. Sure keeps us busy and on the road but she is loving it and talk about a great way to stay in shape.

Since most blogs are only interesting if they have lots of pictures I am including one of a recent customer quilt. This quilt is made of nothing but scrap squares of every fabric you can think of, what a great stash buster.

Kathie

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Sew In


Our guild had a sew in day this past saturday at our local library. They have a great conference room that we are able to use one saturday a month.

I had started the heart blocks for Project Linus a couple of months ago and completed them at a saturday retreat in October. I spent this past saturday sewing on the sashing strips and corner stones so finally have a completed top. It won't get quilted until after Christmas I am sure but at least the top is done and I can now fold it up and put it on a shelf.

Kathie

Friday, November 14, 2008

Quilting Week


I can't believe I have not posted all week but it has been a busy quilting week. I am trying to get customer quilts done as quickly as possible this time of year because I know most of them are for Christmas presents.

This is a picture of the most recent quilt I finished. I love log cabin quilts and Carol made great use of dusty blue fabrics. I wanted a thread that would show up on both the cream and the colored fabrics but not pop to much so selected a soft pastel variegated thread and I like the way it turned out.

I currently have a large quilt on the frame that I have been working on the last day and a half. I would have had it done by now but was feeling a little under the weather on wednesday so got a slow start. My goal is to complete it today and quilt a table runner for another customer. Then I am taking the weekend off.

Tomorrow our guild is having a sew in at our local library. I have been cutting sashing strips to take with me to sash blocks for a linus quilt and if time permits also sash other blocks that will end up being a hospice quilt.

Sunday I will be working on craft show items, seeing if I can get the rest of the runners I have prepared quilted.

Kathie

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Saturday Sewing


I had decided that I was going to spend my saturday sewing time on charity sewing this week. I didn't accomplish a lot but I did get these six tree ornaments made that will be dropped off at or guild meeting monday night for the hospice tree that we are going to decorate.

I am going to work on some table runners today and then get the next quilt loaded on the frame so it will be ready to go tomorrow morning.

Kathie

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Scrap Quilting


A lot of the ladies I know have been making scrap quilts lately. Not only are they interesting with maybe 100's of different fabrics in them but save money in a little tighter financial times to use what you already have. Of course I am sure that the local quilt shops hate this trend but I don't know anyone that has totally quit visiting their local fabric stores, just cutting down on purchases and considering their choices more.

This picture is a quilt by Carol, my most recent quilting finish. If there was a “scrap queen” title at our guild I am sure she would have it. Pieces I would toss in the trash as just to much trouble to save she incorporates into quilts. She calls these a “Use it All” quilt, I call it the quilt of a thousand seams!!! Makes for kind of noisy quilting constantly hitting seams but my machine handles them no problem.


Kathie

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Chain Quilting


Everyone that quilts does some sort of chain piecing. You feed in piece after piece of fabric to the sewing machine without cutting the thread. This saves both time and thread and you end up with a clothes line full of pieces sewn together. Along the same line I was chain quilting on sunday. I loaded a piece of backing fabric onto my frame and quilted one table runner after another using up some of the smaller pieces of batting that I had. Ended up quilting 5 table runners on the same backing fabric with the same thread. Saved me lots of time.

I hope to get all of these runners bound and finished by the weekend. Gives me some hand stitching to do while watching TV at night.

Did you vote today? From the news it looked like huge lines everywhere. I went to my local polling place about 8:45 and was in and out in 10 minutes, quick and easy. makes me think the news media searched all over for the longest lines and then put that on the news to make it look like that was the norm everywhere. Hope it doesn't scare people away from voting.


Kathie

Monday, November 3, 2008

Sewing Assistant


Those that have cats know that anytime you put a project down the cats think it is an invitation. Here Sammy is inspecting the wall hanging as I put the binding on. Doesn't make for easy sewing.

Last week was my last week at my office job. People have asked me how it feels but I don't think it has sunk in yet, feels like I am just having a few days off of work. The only difference I feel so far is that this weekend I didn't feel so rushed, trying to get everything done for back to work monday, that was a good feeling.

Today I need to spend quilting on a full sized green and blue customer quilt and getting all my craft show items and supplies staged for my first craft show wednesday.

Kathie