Becky's quilt obsession

Ghosts and goblins have shown up for Halloween! Two bolts of cotton batting were delivered yesterday, and they are sitting in the entry, waiting for me to haul them down the street to the quilting machine. I decided they would make good ghosts, so cut out some scrap eyes, pinned them to sheets, and the "ghosts" held the candy. We don't have many Trick or Treaters, but I still enjoy the few that come. It was the first T or T for the DGD#2, who is two, and she seemed to enjoy it. She spent yesterday and part of today being sick at Gma's, so she only went to a few houses with her cousins. I doubt she will be allowed to try any of her candy. I hung the two Halloween quilts on the photo backdrop holder, lowered so little people could see it. I really don't like how you can see into half the house from the front door, so the quilts fixed that problem. I actually finished the Medallion Winding Ways quilt. I quilted it with a lime green spiderweb. My DH wa...

This is our guest room / soda fountain / photo studio / crews' quarters, and a place for my husband to house some of his antiques. About 6 months before he moved from California (3 years ago), he found out he liked woodworking. He built this room, minus the sheetrock and silestone. I did a lot of "holding", a lot of cleaning of the antique stove, the tile work, and part of the finishing of woodwork. The only thing of mine in the room is the rocking chair (the little red one is his). You can see into the bathroom / darkroom. To the right just out of the picture is one of the entrances into the railroad room, and then there is a Murphy bed he built. We move the table and chairs, and guests have a place to sleep. If you're into railroads, here is a link to DH's Website. http://www.sandcrr.com/ What does this have to do with hating sewing? I'm a quilter, not a "sewist"! You may have noticed the Coke theme. We didn't have to buy all that stuff, DH a...

Last Tuesday I drove to Des Moines to attend the AQS -American Quilters Society - show there. I just came home last night. One of the instructors was Joen Wolfrom, and I have always wanted to take a color class from her. My wish was granted. I actually took 2 classes with her, one was on landscapes, and the second was a log cabin class, but much of the class was spent on color theory. I've tried multiple times to put luminosity and luster (light and reflected light) in my quilts, without much success. I think I understand it a bit better now. AQS was very clear that personal pictures of the quilts in the exhibits should NOT be posted on the web. I think it is okay to post these pictures of our class in progress on landscapes. This was the first project. We were learning how to put distance, as well as luminosity, in a landscape. Mine is the middle one in the top row, with the crooked peninsula. I can't seem to glue straight. It was so interesting to see them up on the wall, and...

Someone asked about posting a link to the previous photo I had on this blog for this quilt made from HeartStrings purple project group blocks. I did quilt it, finally, with spirals of course. It is bound, labeled, and off to be auctioned at a Friends United fund raiser. This group takes educational materials, including computers and the like, to Honduras. I'm quilting another top that was donated for them as well. I want to make sure and give credit to Evelyn Sloppy for the pattern for the Hearts in this quilt. I've owned her book ( Log Cabins , I think) for a long time. When I posted pictures of these blocks for help with settings, many HeartStringers asked for the pattern. Evelyn Sloppy's book was out of print, but she graciously gave us permission to post the pattern on the Heartstrings website. A few weeks later I noticed it was on the Martingale Publishing site as a free pattern. What a neat lady! Happy quilting, Becky Email me

I've been quilting on on the long-arm the last few days, but took time today - and the last few evenings - to work on this UFO. I cut two of these out last summer (2007) when I was cutting out some other Winding Ways blocks. I put them in a drawer, and only remembered them in late October. I saw them in the drawer a few days ago, and decided I should probably work on them if I wanted them for this Halloween. It's now a flimsy, and I think I will have time tomorrow to quilt it. I had planned on using circles to quilt this, but this quilt doesn't have the overlapping visual circles that you often see with Winding Ways. This is the Medallion quilt setting from Nancy Elliott MacDonald's book Winding Ways Quilts (I love the matching templates), so I need to figure another way to quilt it. I'm open to any suggestions!!! I've been working on quilting Chinese Coins Quilts of Valor, and have 3 ready for binding. I'm attending the AQS show in Des Moines, Iowa next w...