Becky's quilt obsession

I've been very busy learning IQ on my Nolting - Black Bart. It's coming along, but there is much to learn. I've also been working on the quilt pictured below. It took a lot of time as I "designed" it to make the batik panels from Africa stand out. I did Prairie points with beading on them. I sewed a necklace I received from a Nigerian seminary student on it as well. Handmade bone beads on that one. The panels were a gift to my sister-in-law from a student  from Burkina Faso, a small country near Senegal. Most of the fabrics were from Africa as well, some I bought through AQS and some from the Quilted Fox  in St Louis, MO.  It was donated to Friends United - a group that works with students and teachers in Honduras to improve the education system. They had their dinner and auction last Friday night, and it was sold for $800. The buyer agreed to let me have it back for exibit in our next quilt show. Gifts from Aftica. Happy Quilting, Becky

This is what I'm working on. It's not my usual thing. My DSIL had the heavy batik panels / figures and asked me to make a donation quilt out of them. I'm not an art quilter, so this was hard for me. It is now on Black Bart being quilted. The fabrics used in it are almost all African in origin. It is different to work with such low thread count fabric. Go to  Judy's designwall  to see more fun things. Happy quilting, Becky

This is what I've been working on: We are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Quilters Guild of Great Kansas City next week. This quilt is made from the "quiltlets" that were made for the first quilt show - a collection of Flower blocks. I found pictures of these hanging from a display wall. It was in the historical album. This isn't all of them, but the last of them. Some were sold along the way. 40 years is a long time to keep all the quilt blocks people made throughout the years.  Happy Quilting, Becky

Just Beachy is home – to stay, after being in the Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival.  (edit - I misspoke Just Beachy is going to Des Moines for the AQS quilt show the end of September!) I couldn’t get a picture without someone in front of it as the attendance was so large. Hurray! I took two classes, Feathers with Jamie Wallen and Dot to Dot with Angela Walter. I also did a 4 hour volunteer shift although I gave up a bit early. I received favorable comments from the judge, but with such noted quilters (winners at AQS shows) such as Miriam Reed, JoAnne Web and Janet Stone in the local guilds, simple quilters like me didn’t have a chance for ribbons. I don’t mind; I’m just glad that Beachy was shown.  Beachy can now hang proudly in my living room. A better picture of Beachy, and one of me. Happy Quilting, Becky

We are just back from California where we attended DH's son's wedding. It was beautiful. It was held in the rose garden in the L.A. Arboretum. We had send other gifts, but this one I delivered in person. This is from the pattern "Labyrinth" - we had the designer as a speaker at guild a year or so ago. I bought the pattern then. I quilted it with my new IntelliQuilter on Black Bart. I purchased a pattern designed especially for this pattern by Nancy Haake from Wasach Quilting  http://www.digitizedquiltingpatterns.com/shop/product/5-lg-modern-labyrinth-pattern-set/   This was the first time I actually SID'd the entire quilt before I started filling in the quilting. The sections were so large I had to move it a lot to get them all in. I had to change one pattern to P2P triangles on the large grey box - I couldn't divide the one in the pattern without a lot of starts and stops. It turned out well - but I sure learned a lot about what I didn't know in IQ. I

Because I now have Intelliquilter installed and running on Black Bart - my Nolting 24" Pro longarm, I am selling all my Circle Lord items. The following are for sale. If you are in the Kansas City, MO area, I will give a 10% discount if I don't have to package and ship items. All prices are plus shipping. I have the following giant templates that come in 3 interlocking pieces to fit various needs. All of these were sold to me as king-size, and I’ve never had a quilt larger than them even when I had a 14’ table. I’m asking $150 a set,plus shipping. Zig Zag – does what I call wave and Ribbon quilting as well as a true zig-zag that you can use for crosshatching. You use either the waves or the zig-zags, not usually combining the two.  14" wide boards  This quilt was quilted with waves: Cosmos – Funky flowers Sold pending payment. 15" wide Cosmos   The back of a quilt using Cosmos Boards Basic Circle Lord set-up  I’m ask

I hate blocking quilts, yet I know of no other way to have them hang straight - really straight - without doing it. I've had Just Beachy hanging for a week , but it didn't hang smoothly - how could it with all the fusible in it? At my house this is what is entailed in blocking a large quilt: Moving everything you can out of the dining room, bringing in a table and the appropriate size insulation boards Of course you can't move everything so you have to work around them Find the right batting for this configuration of boards, wet it with spray water and stretch it flat Wash the quilt on handwash cycle and lug it in still wet This color catcher has me worried A gazillion rulers, pins, pulls, measures, a helpful engineer husband and 4 tiring hours of work 24 hours later it is dry, flat, and one block has run - I'm leaving it. I hate the tremendous backache from doing this, but I need to look straight down on the rulers/quilt to get e

We added Intelliquilter to my longarm (Black Bart - a 24" Nolting Pro). In learning it I have finished up a LOT of small UFOs that I didn't remember existing. I used to make small quilts out of my scraps so I could remember the large quilt since I give so many away. These are my latest finishes: St. Louis 16 patch, scrappy, charity quilt for teen-age boy Quilted with IQ - QOV pattern 9-patches bought at Guild Boutique made into Sister's Choice blocks - baby quilt Quilted way too densely with IQ swirls and Pebbles 24" x 18" HST sampler - first try at "Custom" quilting with IQ All the designs came from the "from Helen"  file on IQ Baby quilt made from HSTs - 6" bought from Guild boutique Made it a "Sampler" of quilting patterns on IQ Framed 9-Patches from Guild Boutique with Rosebud alternate squares Working on SID with IQ and repeating patterns 20 year old pillow blocks quilted

I have shamelessly “borrowed” these pictures from Sue Daurio’s Blog http://suedaurio.blogspot.com/2015/03/just-beachy-fresh-from-frame.html This is my Just Beachy that I started with two other quilting friends about 10 years ago. We shared our batiks so we would have more variety. It is from a Karen Stone pattern, although I enlarged mine. Karen had a unique way to make these blocks with fusible. You put fusible on a full square of fabric, then carefully cut out the pattern and then fused both parts to two other pieces of fabric. I used a lot of Steam a Seam, some original and some 2. Every edge is machine embroidered down. I used a variety of threads and stitches from my machine. I blogged about it here http://beckyquiltobsession.blogspot.com/2012/08/just-beachy-ready-for-borders.html   We had to put tear away stabilizer under each block including the sashing to keep them from bunching up. I have a few blocks left over – ones where I was trying techniques and did