Spring Break

OK, this post will be picture heavy. I will return to quilts next post. Spring break was last week. It started out beautiful, so I packed my 3 kids in the car (my husband was off doing Army things, so he did not get to attend our spontaneous road trip to NC) and we took off to see my parents who live in Asheville, NC. Our halfway stop and overnight was Paducah, KY. I timed it perfectly if I do say so myself- to just make it to the last 2 hours of the Quilt Museum.

I am pretty sure I gave the museum people hives when I showed up with my ragga-muffin kids but other than being closely pursued by one of the museum men I was able to inspect some great quilts. For the most part the kids were ok.

They were quick to pick their favorite quilts and announce that they were ready to move on.

I have been through Paducah a couple times and this is the first time I have been able to stop and look around. Cute town with lots of quilt shops!

We went down to the river (the mighty Ohio) and watched a barge of some sort.

This guy was down on the river blowing in his pipes. This is for my husband. Maybe his wife was lost in the museum and he was trying to summon her out.

The next day we arrived at my parents house. I think we were out in the woods for 2 hours before we even went inside! I love the forrest behind my parents house.

The trillium are peeking out from the forest floor...see spring really is on the way!

I took the kids on a nature walk and showed them some wild food. The ramps were met with great enthusiasm until the aftertaste lingered too long.

Wild chive and chickweed were much preferred.

I showed the kids some of the waterfalls I liked to explore when I was younger. It was so fun to see these woods through my children's eyes.

One day we toddled up to one of my colleges (WCU) where my husband and I met. Emma's great great grandmother is buried practically on campus. I named my Emma after this Emma, She was a quilter.

Then we drove around some more and walked in some more forrest and explored a family legend and them took a look at the Judaculla Rock.

The kids preferred the petroglyphs in Australia, but I thought these were pretty neat. According to the legend the Forest Devil (from Devil's Rock) got angry that the natives were not making sacrifices to him as often as they should, so he jumped from Devils Courthouse to this rock. He was supposed to have left hand prints here.... I will leave you to your own devices to find them, I have a pretty vivid imagination but I had trouble finding a Devils handprints. Maybe I just don't see many devils hand prints. That is fine with me.

I think as soon as the kids got in the car each time this happened within seconds.

My sister even came up to visit with her son. It was so nice to have all the children together. The 3 boys got to camp out in my parents tiny Airstream camper and they thought that was so wonderful. Their own tiny house.

Here we are right before I pulled out to make my way home. Sorry mom. I know you will hate this picture, but it is the best of me.

Here are the boys and their grandpa. We had so much fun.

On the way home we stopped to see my Mother in Law in Tennessee. Emma and Ethan got to drive her golf cart so now the kids ask if they can drive around in the van....since they now know how to drive.

On the way through Kansas City it started to snow. Welcome home from spring break.

The Generals missed us terrible. Both have been competing for who gets to actually lay on my feet when I am still enough. We all had a great time visiting my family. Vacations are great, but it sure is wonderful to be home! I have quilts to quilt.

xo,
Tia

A swirly quilt for Julie

This quilt is a bit of a change of pace from the last quilt for sure! This one was a complete blast to quilt. I love quilting for Julie because she always just tells me to do whatever I want.

So it is swirls and pebbles in the background

And wavy lines with more lines in the printed strips.

I love quilting for Julie!

Here is another quilt I finished over the weekend. I can't show the front yet, but I think the back is mighty pretty. I will be participating in a blog hop over on Such Designs Blog....she may give more peeks over there.  All I can say is that I love the baptist fans! Beautiful! This is an edge to edge design that I quilted with my fancy Statler Stitcher.

xo,
Tia

Tree Of Life Quilt

Hey there folks! Are you ready to take a look at an amazing quilt? This is going to be a picture heavy post...but this quilt deserves tons of pictures!

Today I present to you a Tree of Life quilt. This quilt belongs to a friend of a friend. She got this top from her husbands aunt and was looking for someone to finish it for her. She interviewed a bunch of quilters and decided to send it to me. This quilt took a long (for me) time to finish. The quilt is designed to have a large scallop edge, but the lady I quilted it for wanted straight sides.

Before you get terribly impressed with my traditional quilting skills, just know that this quilt was stamped with the intended quilting design. I was not positive if the little blue dots would wash out, so I quilted along them. I figured it would disguise the dots if they don't wash out. I found a website that discussed this type quilt and it said how to remove the dots...but I am not sure i it has ever been pressed as the heat from a hot iron will probably set those dots for eternity. I am going to wash in in just a bit before sending it away. Wish me luck!

My friend Lynn did a bit of research on this quilt shortly after I showed the first pictures of it on Instagram. If you would like to learn a bit more try this site. As for the binding, I hand stitched the binding. I forgot how long that takes! At any rate I hope Tammy is pleased, I sure loved working on it for her!

Happy sewing folks.
Tia

A big purple Tula quilt

Hey there! How are you doing? I hope good. I have been busy down in my quilt lair. I finished up this quilt yesterday and Julie came over to collect it. Quilting can be such a solitary business...most of my quilts arrive by mail and go out the same way. Sometimes I feel  like I have more interaction with the mail men than I do with the ladies I quilt for. Well it was such a treat to have Julie over. What a dynamo she is. Anyway, she made this massive quilt and I quilted it for her. Forgive the pictures it was super cold and windy so I was hasty with my picture taking.

Maybe this picture show the quilting details best. I used my Statler computer to quilt curved cross hatching in all the printed blocks. Tula Pink like to make intense and busy fabric so sometimes it is really hard for quilting to show up. I went with a simple curved cross hatch. When the quilt is washed it will have fabulous texture. In the purple diamonds I went freehand and quilted a bunch of free flowing feathers. They were really fun to quilt. The feathers were quilted with a variegated purple cotton so there is a subtle glow.

Super fun quilt. I am almost finished binding the tree of life appliqué quilt I have been working on for the past month. More pictures of that one soon I hope!

Quilt Almanac Winner!

Hey there! I finally remembered to choose a winner for one of my magazines!

mjbFebruary 15, 2013 at 5:55 AM

I have to leave a comment over here on this blog, too!

I have already sent you an email so I can get your address. Happy sewing!

On a different note, We are snowed in! I plan to quilt until my power goes out...then I may drag out a hand crank machine!

It is so beautiful outside, I hope you are all warm and toasty!

xo,

Tia

My little quilting lair

Hi there! Have I ever given you a tour of my quilt lair? I don't think I have. I am sure you have seen little peeks now and then, but let  me take this post to show you around. My studio is in our basement...it takes up most of the basement. As you come down the stairs you are greeted with thread and a shelf with junk. I need to sort it.

Across from that is my book shelf, buttons and some favorite fabric.

I like a quilt book. I used to buy them all the time, but that was silly, so I have sold many off on Amazon and I am now down to my real favorites.

If you turn left after coming down the stairs you are greeted by my new Long arm. She will probably be named Queen Elizabeth....we are trying that out to see how it fits. This picture really doesn't show her off very well, but it does show the pretty quilt I am working on right now.

I have always wanted a peg board in my sewing room. I have the hopes of having all my tools right on the wall, organized where I can find them. But now that I have rearranged, the peg board is in a funny place and most of my tools are strewn all over the place.

Behind the Statler Stitcher is some of my fabric stash. I tried to color spectrum it, but lost interest pretty quick unfortunately.

Here are some of my quilt tops that I intend to quilt up someday. I have an old herb drying rack to drape them over. I think old quilt tops are beautiful and there is so much to learn about quilt construction from an old top. I don't put client quilts here.

Here is my other Long arm, Lady June. She is great, but sad that I am not using her as much since the new machine is such a joy to quilt with. I do rent her out if you are in the area and want to quilt your own quilt. Just let me know. More fabric is on the shelves behind her and more quilt blocks waiting to be made into quilts. My design wall is big and wonderful. I am bad about putting blocks up and thinking about them then taking them down and putting them away again. I am about to do the same thing with my "X plus Along" quilt. The blocks are super tedious in my opinion.

Around the way is the guest bedroom and my sewing room. My cutting table is here.

And my sweet big Bernina 820 is over in the corner. I am not thrilled with the placement of her....I am sure to find another spot for her in the future, but I have too much to do to fret with it much right now.

I have more fabric in this room. Most all of this shelf is Heather Ross and Denyse Schmidt.

I know you are probably wondering about my awesome flooring? Well, it is actually vintage 1980s carpeting. It is gross. But it is also magical. No matter what you drop on it instantly disappears...never to be found again. Something special about the color and pattern makes it the perfect camouflage. We should have ripped it up before our household goods arrived, but we were too busy putting in a wood floor upstairs and repainting. The floor down here is a someday later project. In Time is will change.

So that is where I spend a great deal of my day. There is also a bathroom, and storage room, but they aren't that exciting. When you come over I will show you, hows that?

It snowed a bunch yesterday, and the kids have not had school for the past 2 days. In my mind snow days should be spent quilting, but my kids had other ideas. It has been fun playing in the snow with them.

I hope you are all warm and dry. Happy Sewing!

Tia