January flew by.

Hey there everyone! 

How is did your January go? Mine zipped by so fast. I took January off as far as classes go, but beginning on the third of February I am off to a quick clip with many classes this year. Please see my side bar if you are interested in taking a class with me.  I will be teaching in Kansas City at Modern Makers and in Leavenworth at Meadows Quilt Shop. 

Lets look at some quilts. I did several Edge to Edge quilts and got them out the door without taking pictures of them. That seems to be happening a lot lately. I seem to remember to take pictures of the Custom quilts, but the e2es slip by. 

 With that said I did take a picture of this quilt, at least the back anyway.   I think this digital design is named Space Travel. I have been wanting to use it for ages. I love quilting with Minky. I think it makes such soft quilts. The ones I have made for my children have held up pretty well as long as I don't dry them on too hot a cycle. The front of this quilt was really cute robots and rocket ships. There is a picture in my Instagram feed for sure.

Next up is this really sweet cupcake quilt.

The cupcakes are paper pieced and all the fabric is flannel. I stink at paper piecing. It is so hard to switch my brain to that area so I just rarely do it. Joe made this quilt and the next one. And he did a great job.

I knew just how I wanted to quilt most of they quilt, but those little "L" shaped bits had me totally lost. I looked and looked at them wondering what the heck was I going to do with them? I decided to quilt cupcake names into them. Red Velvet, Sugar Pie, Mochichino to name a few. Quilting words not only creates pretty texture it is kinda neat too.

Last up is this fabulous quilt with a big white skull in the middle. Joe made this for his young Nephew. I think Sugar Skulls are neat and I wanted to quilt the skull into a sugar skull...but hold back and not make it super feminine.

The back ground is quilted with contour lines. I never get tired of contour lines. Maybe the skull belongs to a pirate? And maybe the pirate buried treasure (as they do)? I bet these contour lines will help him find his chest of jewels and gold coins.

Have a great weekend. It is super warm here, so I hope you all get outside to enjoy the weather.

xo,
Tia

My Mighty Lucky Quilting Club Blocks

Hey there folks!

Have you heard about the Mighty Lucky Quilt Club? It has been all over my Instagram feed, so I decided to give it a go for the first month. Just to see if it is something I would actually do. I am not much of a joiner of things especially quilting things because my free time for quilting it so precious. I used to sew for fun all the time, but now I just feel guilty if I am not working on client quilts. Do you know what I mean? But then I got to thinking....my mind is jam packed full of quilts and ideas for quilts. I actually NEED to just sew for myself sometimes like I did when I first began making quilts. 

I also got to thinking about my Flicker Quilt Bee. I had such a great group of ladies to make quilts with. Each month one of us would have a challenge...a block to make for the lady of the month. It was so fun to work outside my box, or learn something new. I missed that. So I went to the Mighty Lucky quilt club website and join for the first month. It was Krista's month and the skill of the January was Bias strips.

I love bias when I do appliqué, but I do my bias differently than the technique shown by Krista. I don't use a bias maker, I just long baste stitch the bias and use my iron to shape it into the curves I desire. I also just pin the bias in place before stitching it down with my sewing machine. That is easier for me and that is how Gwen Marston taught me. If its good enough for Gwen it is good enough for me folks.

These are the 3 blocks I made. I suppose they are really 4 blocks, but the vine one is more one than 2 right.

I started with this one. It is pretty similar to Krista's block. I made it different by piecing my bias with several different prints. I like the scrappy look.

Next block was this puppy. Similar to the first block, but a little different.

And last but not least my vine block. I still need to stitch down the little flower blossoms. I have gotten several questions about what background I used. It is Paint dot cloud by Alexia Abegg for Cotton+Steel.  I still have some in my shop.

In summery I really liked this challenge. I feel like it really jump started my sewing MOJO. I will be doing next month with Season Evans too. Are you joining along?

Have a Happy Day Folks!

Tia

Quilts

Good Morning!

So I have 2 lovely Custom Quilts to show you and a work in progress. 

I really like the embroidery on this quilt. Such narrow bits stitched so very well.

I quilted it with a clamshell background and some crystals in the sashing and a little vine quilted around the border.

This quilt  was made by a very skilled quilt maker, Pam. The quilts name is Cleopatra's Fan. I was a little concerned when I saw all the curves and bias, but this was the most square quilt I have quilted in quite a while.

I quilted it with feathers in the background, some S curves and echo arches. I also used Wool batting which gave the quilt so much loft. Wool batting is my favorite!

This is the quilt I am working on down in the studio now for Sherri.

It is getting quilted with a Lovely E2E.

Have a Happy Day folks!

Tia

Texas Flag quilt #19

Hi there! I will try to blog more in 2016. I guess that won't be too hard when I compare it to how frequently I blogged in 2015. 

So I made my 19th Texas Flag quilt over Christmas. I think this one had some really great quilting. It was king sized. 

I really like to combination of swirls and straight lines.

I think I will only make one more of these quilts just to round out the number. While they are very fun to make it is draining to "make" for others. I love quilting. It makes my heart sing, but I may be done making the same thing over and over. But looking at that quilting I just LOVE it. Of course I can do this to any quilt. It doesn't HAVE to be a Texas flag now does it?

Have a great day!
Tia