Designer Mystery 2010 -Progress !

Remember these...

These blocks were in various states waiting for me to receive the last 2 and get them done.

Top completed. Yeah!! Now it goes in the line up to be quilted. I'm pretty busy until mid November, so I won't get to it till then. My goal is to get it finished and on the bed for the holidays. Think that will happen?

Do I need another BOM? Duh...of course I do !

Hop on over to Lyn Browns blog http://lynbrown.com and look at her new quilt-a-long starting this month.

Logs by Lyn Brown

It also has some applique coming later around the inside white setting triangles. You can do scrappy or controlled. Hmmmn. I probably have enough to do this in my stash . I might have to get the backgrounds as I never have enough cream/white /eggshell fabrics. I like the thought of doing a few blocks at a time. Since I'm usually at the longarm  all day, a few blocks is fine.
Uh oh, the new Hancock's catalog just arrived and I am drooling over the new Jinny Beyer Kashmir line.
http://www.jinnybeyer.com/ax_commerce/browse_fabrics.cfm?collectionID=3849F06A-BAD8-2456-4C81A18ECF59011A
 I may have to buy more fabric!! It would look so good in this quilt!

 On the frame is a great Christmas quilt, but until I get the owners OK, I will just show you a peek.

Isn't that jingle bell border cute? Just fits perfectly. I am doing all the background fills free handing and just took a break to grab a coffee! Back to work.

Trick or Treat !

Isn't this a delightful quilt? I love all the bears in their Halloween costumes. Reminds me of growing up and how my brothers, sister and I  would plan our costumes,(changing our minds daily), and our trick or treating attack plan for the neighborhood. You always had a favorite house to get to first where they had the best goodies! These bears are ready to go .  

There are spooky surprises quilted in the purple background. Witch on a broom, scary cats among the mice, ghosts and spider webs! Sort of a Halloween "I Spy".

We didn't want a heavy look to this quilt, so I quilted in motifs and light fills. With applique quilts, I think the "star" should be the applique . It's a lot of work and needs to shine. This quilt lent itself to all sorts of fun motifs and I had fun with  the quilting.

Purely Purple Omni thread , So Fine black and Hobbs 80/20 batt. As always Diana's applique was perfect . This is a BOM quilt from http://www.fatcatpatterns.com/. They have some great patterns ,so check them out.Watch out for spiders !

One finished .. one still working !

Ryan's quilt

Crazy Cars

This cute little quilt was custom ordered for a boy who likes cars! What a fun quilt to do. I put in a star and one car next to the name in the center. It is a pale blue fabric, (hope you can see, it's hard to get a decent photo) and a wild blue with lots of cars on the back.
I used a pale blue cotton thread to quilt it and everything was prewashed. I like to use a fairly dense quilting on baby quilts as they are going to get tons of love and use..and probably some dirt too!

Meanwhile I am plugging away on the large Ohio Rose. It is turning out very pretty. I will try and get pictures at the end of today. Need to do a bit more quilting.

I got the final block in my Mystery BOM , the Christmas one. I can't believe it has been a year. I have block 11 & 12 to do, but already have the rest in rows.
But I am way behind in the Layer Cake Quilt a Long!  I need to add borders and get her done! Where do they sell clones? I need one.

Catching Up !

April Block

Yes, catching up with one of my BOMs. We are using 12 in blocks from Quilter's Cache. (free patterns, go check them out)

Here is the group so far:

Back to quilting. I just loaded a quilt on the longarm and will show progress...when I make some!

Have a good day..and what happened to our sun and lovely hot weather????

Layer Cake, All 12 blocks!

The whole bunch !!! Yeah, now on to setting and borders. That will have to wait for I have several customer quilts that need to be done. This has been fun and manageable. I used only what I had in the Layer Cake and it made for some interesting choices. The sashing may take some time as it has pieces that form a star at the intersection. More little tiny squares..ugh. I'll leave the pieces by my dsm

 and do a few when I have a moment.

Block 11, sorry it's blurry.

Posting to Design Wall Monday.

Quilt Retreat... fun, food, fabric and balloons!

I just returned from our annual quilt/sew retreat at Vina de Lestonnac in Temecula, Ca. This facility is a convent and former preschool that is now open for retreats and conferences . Is is a beautiful setting nestled in the wine country of Temecula and the Sisters are most welcoming. A group of 20 of us from our guild, friendship groups and friends  spent 4 days having fun doing what we love. Of course we ate, snacked, shopped at the local quilt shops , took walks and watched the balloons launch. Usually the balloons lift off several fields away, but this time the weather was such that they were right next to us, so I got a shot of the set up . I had no idea they lay them on their sides to fill them. 



Nancy with her Bear paws




Mary's Split 9 Patch




Gayle in front of Turning 20 Again (mine)



We had the use of one big classroom and we went to work! it is a lot of fun to work on projects and share opinions and fabric. We raided each others stash for help and one lady forgot her Viking cord and someone had an extra !!! Now that is awesome.  When anyone got stuck their were good suggestions from the peanut gallery and we got a lot accomplished. Everyone brings their own projects to do and we also make forays to the local shops for more!



Asian panel beauty




Designer Mystery BOM 2010



All the meals were provided and just a pleasant walk up the drive to the convent.  It was nice to have the break from sewing and we returned ready to sew on. This year they installed a coffee room that had coffee and hot water 24/7 at the touch of a button. This was great. I especially liked it as I was up at 6:30 and walked the perimeter of the property and climbed the hill to spy for balloons or coyotes and the hot coffee was a good hand warmer!

I got one quilt top done except for border and all 9 of my BOM done...now I am caught up!

We had cool mornings but sunny and beautiful. We lucked out as it's now pouring rain in Huntington Beach and Temecula too.

We had so much fun , I've already signed up for next year!

Happy Valentine's Day !

The above is part of my UFO calender quilt. I hope to get some work done on it  before next week. Otherwise, it will go along on the quilting retreat to Temecula . Looking forward to some fun & sewing with no interruptions!

On my wall is the current state of my layer Cake BOM and one block from the start of the LAChat BOM. I will be adding another block to both next week. In fact, I'm in charge of the block choice for the LAChat group for next month. We are using 12 inch blocks from theQuilter's Cache.

Quilting wise, I am doing several photo/memory quilts and they are turning out so well.This is a different pattern that I haven't seen before used with  photos and it works very well. I just go around the photos because if you stitch to much on them , the holes really show. Names are being added to each quilt too.  Quilting design is a geometric swirl because these are for guys and we want  nothing too frilly. I am using Permacore /white  and batting that was supplied. Looking good !

I want to get these finished, (except for binding I'll do later) before I head out for the retreat. ( I will be sure to take pics to show later)

Have you ever been on a quilting retreat ? Have fun? What was the best thing about it.

Did you really get a lot done?

 Happy Valentine's Day to all of you , my family (here & in Hong Kong), and my special Valentine of 37+ years, my DH Doug!

Linking to Judy L. Design Wall Mondayhttp://www.patchworktimes.com/.

Newest Layer Cake Block

Block 8
This is the latest. A fun & fast   slice-n-dice 9 patch. This joins the rest of the bunch:

Only 4 to go !!

That's what's left. I think I can get 4 more blocks out of these.