Freezer Paper Templates

With today's quilting of a customer quilt, I had the need to make little pine tree templates for and outer border and larger trees for four inner blocks. I start with a cut of freezer paper about 1/2 an inch smaller than the outer border, fold the paper several times on itself until it is about 2 1/2 or 3 inches wide. I draw half of a simple pine tree and then cut on the lines. This yielded about 8 little trees for the border. These can then be placed on the border and ironed into position and will hold long enough for me to stitch along the edge of the paper. I can then peel them carefully off and re position onto a fresh spot. These should last long enough to do the entire border.

Framed Felt Art

Just wanted to let those that followed the previous post about the felted framed art piece. It was auctioned at the Amy Johansen Benefit and the person that won the bid for it was a close friend of mine, Helen Gubrud. Thank you Helen for winning the bid and loving the piece. I was hoping to win it myself because my daughter said she loved it and wanted it for her home. But now that gives me incentive to make another original felted framed piece for her.

Fiber Art for a Friend

Yesterday I worked on another piece for the silent auction for a friend. I made a felted piece using acrylic felt for the base adding alpaca and wool roving, organza, yarns, inchies from a previous project for accents and colored pearls. It's in a wood frame. I'm very pleased with how this developed. I tried not to be premeditated but more organic in the making of it.

I feel fulfilled by this piece and I'm going to have a hard time parting with it. I might even bid and buy it back.

Fund Raiser for a Friend

My nephews wife is a good friend and she has a brain tumor. She is a young mother of 2 beautiful little girls, and she is currently undergoing treatment after surgery. On April 6th there will be a Pancake Breakfast and Silent Auction fundraiser held in her benefit at the Hayward Wesleyan Church in Hayward WI. The event starts at 8 am and goes until 11 am.

She is a fellow quilter, fiber artist, and crafter. The fundraiser will have many lovely handmade items being auctioned and I plan to donate several things. The picture is of a felted art scarf I made tonight for it. It's felted organza and wool yarn on black felted wool. I've also attached a glass pendant that I made.

If you are in the Hayward area on April 6th, please stop by and bid on something to help out a good friend.

Stitch Samplers

There are big benefits to making thread/fabric quilt sandwich samples to help you kick the fear of using non matching threads on your quilt work. The picture is of two sample sets from a group exchange that I participated in in the past couple of years with our Wild Threads machine quilting group. The project coordinator started with a color wheel and paint sample chip cards. Picking colors opposite on the color wheel, members received two colors and then they were to use one of the colors as the thread and the other as the solid fabric. Most made two sets of stitched samples doing the opposite for the other set. We then cut the sandwich into 2 inch squares and swapped with the other members to get a healthy variety of color variations  It's great to see the different effects of the threads that we are so often afraid to use in our quilting. When I get that little tickle of fear, I glance at the sample and shake off the fear by grabbing the cone of thread that will push me out of my color box.

UFO's

Shhhh....just between you and me, I'm going to quilt my own ufo tomorrow. I'm caught up on customer Christmas quilts and I'm feeling clean. It's my turn until after Christmas. Wish me luck.

I've Been Super Bad!

I've been super bad by allowing other things keep me from posting on my blog. I apologize for this. Summer gardening, flowers, quilting for customers, and a couple of quilt show trips plus the usual family stuff has sucked up all my time and I procrastinated on my blog duties. So, I'm back and it's time to share quilty stuff again. I'm freshly back from Portland OR and the Machine Quilters Expo and all the fun of seeing friends and being inspired. I took only two lectures this trip and they were from Angela Walters who is a young but experienced quilter in both traditional and modern quilting. She is a teacher, video personality, and quilt book author with a new book coming out this fall. She is also a motivational quilter with a wonderful witty personality. I highly recommend her as a teacher.

Now back to the normal stuff. I've taken the time this morning to gather all the goodies from my stash for my next show quilt. My inspiration is from a table runner I made this summer and I'm pretty excited about it. Think flora's and the forest. I will share pictures as I progress with the project.

Now it's time to get serious and get some quilting done today.

Later friends.