Daughter news

Last weekend my daughter had an Irish dance competition in San Antonio.  She has been taking Irish Dance lessons with McTeggart for 8.5 years now. That is her on the top of the podium! 

This was her second time receiving a first placement in the Preliminary Championship level of dance which means she moves to Open Championship level! It meant a lot to her and I was very excited for her to meet a goal.

Oh my gosh it's twins!

I had the pleasure of quilting two Christmas tree quilts recently for two sisters believe it or not! It was a block of the month for Sunflower Quilt shop in Houston. They had nearly identical quilts and both asked for custom quilting. 

Here they are side by side. 

Below are some detailed shots, starting with a before and after:

I started at the top of each tree like this:

Making it look a bit like pine needles and worked my way down making it look like each tree was standing in front of a sampler quilt of sorts. Here are some more detail shots:

 Top and bottoms of both had this row:

 I got to practice some feathers and ruler work.

These were some blocks in the quilt: 

Back shots, you can really see all the texture created with the quilting they both selected a very pretty metallic stonehenge fabric for the backing by Northcott:

 These were really fun to quilt because I could create a lot of stuff in all the negative space behind the tree which was a lot of fun. 

Thank you Bankie and Flo! I hope you enjoy embellishing them as much as I enjoyed quilting them!

Anytown, Texas Quilt

So I designed a quilt for the Quilt Across Texas fabric line and wrote up the pattern too! It will be for sale at Quilters Crossing starting September first! Kits are available too.

It is called Anytown, Texas. 

The center of the quilt is a panel that I quilt Tomball trivia onto, you could do that for anytown in Texas though and it would make a great quilt.

The quilt finishes at 72" x 74"

Here are some detail shots:

 Hooks Airport was not originally part of the town but was incorporated later on.

My favorite part of Tomball, Relics by the Railroad!

 Latitude and Longitude of Tomball

 Tomball was originally called Peck but was renamed Tomball after Thomas Ball in 1907

 This was a very educational process. Designing a quilt is challenging but, I decided not to make this too complicated, so that a confident beginner could accomplish it, which I thought would also make the pattern writing a bit easier too. In a word WRONG! The pattern writing turned out to be the real challenge! 

I wanted to make sure I gave good directions, had correct fabric requirements etc... Lots of check and re-checking. Wording and re-wording. Thanks to my mother for helping proof read for me! I am happy with how it came out, we'll see what our customers say starting tomorrow!!!

Think I will stick to quilting for a while now!

Halfway through the quilting!

 Tomball was originally called Peck 

( until renamed in honor of  Thomas Ball in 1907)

 Hopefully I get this finished today!!

More Quilt Across Texas Quilt Revealed

Working on the quilt! Hoping I will have it done for Saturday!

Teaser

I have been diligently working on a pattern and quilt using the 2012 Quilt Across Texas fabric line from RJR. This fabric will not be available for purchase until September 1st though we have had people calling at the shop asking if we would sell it earlier. 

Can you believe that?

So here is a teaser of the quilt which we will have kitted with patterns starting September 1st. Note it isn't quilted yet but it goes on the longarm this evening so hopefully it will be done by the first!

Wine Tote

Have you played with these new laminated cottons yet? They are a lot of fun once you get used to the way it handles. 

 I saw this pattern in the shop and thought it was worth a go, it said you could use laminated cottons to make it so I took advantage of my laminated cotton stash!

 I made the wine tote version with great results. The pattern also gives full instructions for a lunch bag size.

It holds two bottles comfortably with a little divider so your bottles don't clang together.

Small pockets on the outside for a bottle opener perhaps?

Loved it and plan to make more for gifts! The pattern was good and full of helpful tips.