June already?

Hello again!  The last few months have been quite the experience, first of all I have a new job working at Home Depot now.  I'm loving the part-time, it gives me time for the second happening which is that we are starting a quilt pattern business!  I have taken a few business classes and am in the midst of pulling together a business plan.  We received our business license a couple weeks ago and that was a really exciting day, made it very real for us.  I also approached a local quilt shop about one of the patterns I have in the works and the owner was VERY excited about it which is really encouraging.

 

In other news, there has been quilting happening!



I finished the last three Snapshots blocks!  The truck represents my truck that I bought a year out of high school (hmm, 13 years ago now, crazy!) and I altered the picnic basket and glass to reflect my basket and the glass is a goblet with orange sherbet in it.

This is my truck, a 1978 Chevy Scottsdale.  It was my first truly-mine vehicle so is very dear to me.

All the blocks together and how I decided I like them arranged.  Now I just need to decide what color I want to use for the frames around the "photos".  This was the end of February.

In early April the guild hosted a symposium for anyone to attend and learn about quilting.  I shared the joy of hexi's and had a lot of interest.  It's amazing how many people have never tried English Paper Piecing.

In May we (the guild) had the baby quilt sew-in and this is the top Sarah finished while she was there.

I put borders on a panel that I bought at Quiltmania and worked on free-motion quilting for the day.  I love how it turned out.

Pat worked on this batik Sticks and Stones (MSQC tutorial here) and it is going to be gorgeous!

My cousin graduated high school this year and I made her a quillow.  It is the first I have made, and I learned a lot of how I will do it differently in the future.

Is this not the most adorable cat block?  I am making a donation quilt for the Blue Mountain Humane Society's Fall Fur Ball and plan on making 7 more.
I saw pictures on Facebook and tracked it down to a pattern by Carol Hughey called Scrappy Cats, which was published in the June 2014 Issue of The Quilt Life magazine.

John and I left early for the diesel show in Abbotsford, BC this year and were able to stop at a couple quilt shops on our trip.  I am super excited that I was able to pick up a couple more Row by Row license plates and even found another pin, and my collection of black and white fabrics has grown to 16 different designs.

This is an example of the practically impossible happening.  I bought the fabric for the hunter's star quilt 3 years ago at WW Sew & Vac, and when I went in on Thursday to see if they had the same fabrics, they did!  The black is actually a match, I was so impressed and surprised.

At Home Depot we held a bake sale this last week to raise money for a couple associates who are in need.  Only people who work there are allowed to donate money to the cause so I made a half batch of oatmeal butterscotch cookies and they were a big hit.  Even John liked them and he doesn't like sweets.

Speaking of John, he's been working really hard to fix up a couple motorcycles.  One is being made street legal and one is being fixed up to be race-ready for his father's 60th birthday present.  We hope to drive down to California to deliver it to his dad before the end of summer, funds permitting.  :)

I have a bit of writing to get to so I'd better get off this computer and hop over to the other.  Thank you for visiting and I wish you all a happy summer of sewing!

~Brandy

Belle is helping me create a banner for our new business, stay tuned for more information coming soon!



Happy First February Friday!

Good evening my friends!  I hope you have had a nice winter thus far, we are still enjoying our 24° weather with snow now and again.  I love the snow.  Not so much the ice.

 

I took time this week to build a snowman.  He is waving hello!

I am quite excited to share some news, I had the honor of testing a pattern for my new friend Teresa, of Teresa Down Under. (The link will take you to her blog post about her new pattern release and where you can purchase it.)  She named the pattern "The Four Seasons of the Heart" because there are four ways you can assemble the quilt.

 

I used the 15-91 to sew my blocks together.

 

The pattern starts with a basic shoofly block.

And then you can make something like this:

 

 

I still need to quilt this little pretty, I am calling it the Ice Crystals Baby Quilt because when I was assembling it we were having ice storms all week, and the weather seems to have been reflected in my fabric choices.  A family friend had a baby that week too, so I figure he'll enjoy it (as soon as I get it put together LOL).  The actual block construction goes quickly and it's really neat that this pattern has four different ways you can lay it out starting with one simple block!  I had a blast testing and reviewing the pattern.  So much so that I signed up to test another lady's pattern the day after I was finished with Teresa's!

 

In the mean time, I have been sewing up a storm with some other blocks that have been catching my eye:

 

I was inspired by the block on the Freshly Pieced website but decided to change it up a bit after making the first block so that less fabric is involved where the points meet in the middle, and no paper piecing is involved.  I like to paper piece, but at the moment it is difficult to print anything (it involves driving in the weather we're experiencing).  This block is made with 60° diamonds.  I hope to put together a tutorial with my changes in the next week or so.

 



 

I spent most of my morning working on the Hunter's Star quilt and feel really good about it.  I had completed 24 blocks the last time I worked on it and decided this morning that if I add another 16, it should be large enough to cover my father.  So away I went!  I was very fortunate to find that our LQS still carries the fabric we had picked out for the backing three years ago, can you believe my luck?  I have increased the size of the quilt by quite a bit from when we first picked out fabric, so needed more backing.  Hopefully I have it all now.

 

 

I experimented more with this disappearing block, and found I can make this gigantic one starting with 10" squares.  I am excited to show it to the ladies of our local Quilts of Valor group tomorrow at the sew-in we are having.  They have blocks all ready to be sewn together tomorrow, but I am wondering if they may like a pattern for this one for the future.

 

In other news, my mom and I get to take a Chocolatier Class at Walla Walla Community College on the 11th and I am SO excited.  I can hardly wait, here is the class description:

 

In this Valentine's Day chocolate class we will be covering the basics of the chocolate-making process (from bean to bar), taste different types of chocolates, and learn gourmet chocolate recipes that you can tailor to your own vision. Chocolate truffles (with and without chocolate molds), fudge, and cake brownies will all be covered in this hands-on, two hour class. Experience why chocolate is considered to be the 'food of the Gods'.

 

This weekend is very busy, I have the sew-in all day tomorrow, a 21st birthday party for my cousin tomorrow night, and then Super Bowl Sunday to participate in.  We are having a chili feed on Sunday, which John is making a batch of chili for and I am bringing brownies.  It will be a great weekend, especially if the ice stops falling from the sky. :)

 

Thank you for stopping by, have a wonderful day!

~Brandy

 

Thomas has mixed feelings about the snow, he can see the birds a lot easier, but we never open the windows and let fresh air in anymore...

 

 Linking up to Busy Hands Quilts for

Quilty Adventures

I have had some fun the last couple months!

 

The guild had a sew-in in July, where I introduced the idea of Tiara Time to more of my fellow quilters.  I saw the idea on my friend Ronnie's blog where a teacher told her students that when she put on her tiara, it was her time to focus and they were not allowed to bother her.  I thought, what a great practice for quilters, especially for those with kids!  For myself, it is "me time", and I'm allowing myself to quilt without guilt.  Here is my favorite photo of me with my tiara that Jessica took:

 

At this sew-in I focused on working on this gorgeous quilt for my friend Cheryl, who is weaving me a picnic basket in exchange:

 

 

 

 

Our guild retreat was in August, and again I was only able to be there on Saturday.  It was so much fun though, I left at 6am and came home at 9pm.  The ladies are always so much fun to be around, and I took a few projects that I wanted to make progress on.

 

This was the amazing goody bag they had put together for us, so many awesome and useful items!  The new Missouri Star Quilt Company thread, a calculator, a notebook and pencil, fat quarters, Chapstick, seam ripper, tape measure, Row by Row license plate, just so many incredible gifts.  Thanks again Kay and retreat crew!

Early morning view of the room.

Here is Mary!  She though the idea was so great that she found herself a tiara, and then we strategized to wear matching shirts for this event.  Of course, we ended up sitting across the room from each other, but whatever. :)  We still had fun.  She has a great photo of us on her blog.  I love this quilt she made, it's the Lori Holt Farm Girl Vintage quilt and is SO CUTE!

This is one that Leann was working on, we had a good discussion on how "ugly" fabric can look so different depending on what it is used with.

This is my first project I worked on, I just wanted to get the blocks assembled.  We did some quilting by committee and decided it looks best on point and with the cornerstones.

This is Pat's, and I love how it turned out.  She quilts on her home machine.

Here is Pat with her finished Ten Pack (Laurie Shifrin pattern)

I brought my Ten Pack as well, just to throw on the wall and see how it looks outside my sewing room.  Everyone loves the color-way I have going.  All I can say is, that's what layer cakes are all about!  I have more blocks than can fit on a design wall, so I will have to figure out another way to lay out my blocks.  Maybe on our bed.

Mary brought this for me, from one of the shops in Tri-Cities.  I have since found it incredibly useful, I highly recommend this size ruler.  I know Bonnie Hunter over at Quiltville has mentioned in her videos about getting some for her store.  I like how it's working with my half-square triangles, when I want to draw the line across, this ruler has some grippy on the back-side which helps keep my fabric from moving around on me.

This is what Melanie was working on, it will be a gift for her pastor.  I love the bright colors.

This is the Hunter's Star that I am working on, I wanted to make progress on this as well and I am feeling pretty good about it.




I recently started an English Paper Piecing project that I am very excited about.  John bought me the rainbow of fabrics and said make whatever I want.  I had seen the photo below of a table topper with butterflies and I really like it.  So I've decided to make something similar.  My grandpa made me the box on the right, it uses a ruler that slides as the top.  So cool!  This one uses a 7 inch ruler, he also made one with a 12.5 inch ruler that will work well for holding larger blocks.  He made extras, and I plan to take them to guild and see if anyone is interested in buying them.  I think they'll make some awesome Christmas gifts!



This is so pretty, I hope mine looks good when it's done :)

This was something I had hoped to finish before the Walla Walla Valley Quilt Festival, but it took longer than anticipated.  And then we started working on buying our house.



I made progress on this pillowcase this weekend!  Finally have it to the finishing stage, I think I will make a tutorial for the process I am using, as it's different than what I've seen around.  I can tell you, that wavy quilting was difficult for me to do, I am much more comfortable with actual shapes apparently.



And this is what happens when I walk out of the room for a few minutes...

Well, I hope you are all getting some progress made on your projects too, I would love to hear what you are working on.  Anyone starting Christmas presents yet?  I just remembered, my blog anniversary is next month, sounds like a GIVEAWAY will be happening soon!

~Brandy