Oops….

I really didn’t make it this month. I was kinda close though.  I did get the sashing sewn on to the flowers and all they need is the border.

Here it is without the border.

Yea!  It’s mostly assembled!

Here is the green I had originally thought I would use for sashing.  I did use it in the corner stones and thought that I would go ahead and use it as the border.

I know, they aren’t the best pictures, but at least I came close to finishing this UFO.  I’ll bet getting that border on before the week is out and then I can call it complete.  Of course I still need to get my star done and the new one comes out tomorrow.  I hope to get some of that done yet this week as well.  We shall see how it goes.  Plus I need to pick the next UFO to tackle.  If nothing else, I’m not doing too badly at carving out a little sewing time during the week.

With it now being summer break, I was worried about losing all of my sewing time.  So far, that hasn’t been the case.  It seems like I will be able to still make it work.  I won’t bore you with all my details, but I’ve been working on a theme a week for summer break.  This week we are doing a Superhero theme this week.  If you are curious, you can read more about my exploits with the boys here.  Mainly I use the Smallest One’s nap time as a quiet time for the older one to do things like his own craft or reading or playing a video game which still gives me a chance to get a little sewing done.

At least I am hoping that it will continue to do so.  Wish me luck!

As far as the 10K stepping, well, this week was easier than last (yea!) and I was able to make that goal 4 times this week.  I was a little surprised that it wasn’t much harder to reach and seemed a little easier than 8K.  I’m not sure why but I am going with it.  I have instituted a little exercise each day with the boys where I get in at least 20 minutes of walking while they do jumping jacks or running or silly goofy things to get their bodies moving.  It’s working and I’m glad for that.

I have my work cut out for me this month and I’m hoping to really get a good start on it during this week.  It always feels like there is more to do than hours in a day, doesn’t it?  Maybe that’s my motivation kicking in….that would be a good thing.

 

 

 

The third time we went to visit Blanche

We did manage one more group visit to Blanche’s home.  This time we convinced Vera to join us!  We also had a running gag through our email about being able to read each other’s thoughts.  After all we were spending a bit of time together and emailing.  So unbeknownst to Blanche, Ruby and I decided that what we needed were aluminum foil hats to block our brain waves so Blanche wouldn’t know what we were plotting.  Hattie and Vera were a bit surprised when the aluminum foil came out as we were in the car and heading to our favorite quilt shop meeting place.  Hattie was completely game.  Vera took a little convincing.  I’m sure you can picture this – three monkeys in a car wearing aluminum foil hats speeding down a highway and one monkey with her hands over her face so as not to be associated with the other three.  Although that is rather difficult since we are all in an enclosed space.  We did get lots of stares and some honks as we made our way down the highway.  Eventually Vera caved and the rest of us cheered that she was going to join us in our foil frivolity.

We managed to arrive at the quilt shop before Blanche and took turns on look out so we would know when Blanche arrived.  When she got there we disappeared into the sale room to see if she could find us.  I’m sure she could hear the giggling, but I’m not sure that the shocked looks of the store clerks were registering for her.  I’m sure we just provided more stories for their customers and they probably wonder where we have been.

One of the most exciting things about this trip was the opening of a new yarn shop next door.  I love to crochet.  Hattie loves to crochet and knit.  Of course we did wear our aluminum hats when we went over there to check it out.  When we walked in the door, we were greeted by a gentleman who said, “I was hoping you would come over here.  I wanted to ask you why you were wearing tinfoil hats.”  Much hilarity ensued during the explanation and Hattie and I enjoyed ourselves shopping in a new yarn shop.  I got my first set of knitting needles and some self patterning yarn.  Of course I have yet to do anything with it.

I am sorry to report that we did not get any pictures in the car of us in our foil hats.  Sorry to disappoint.

From there we went on to Blanche’s house and this time she had some plans for us.  Of course we did some shopping while we were there because we now have some favorite places to go.  One such place is an Amish grocery store where we stock up on bulk spices and the like.  Vera was partial to the noodles.  Ruby also had a little surprise in store for us in the form of flamingo headbands!  We wore them while out shopping.

Don’t ask about the leis. I’m not really sure how that came to be.  I can tell you that Ruby and I had gone to a rather large quilt show that attracts lots of folks.  In order for us to more easily find each other should we be separated, Ruby came up with the idea of the flamingo headbands.  I swear she could have brought a box of them and sold them at $5 each.  We would have shopped well on the proceeds from that!

Anyway!  Blanche had been doing some work with fabric dyeing and wanted to teach us how to do some ourselves.  We had a good time trying it!  Here’s some pictures of us and our handiwork.

As always our time at Blanche’s was far too short, but we did have a good time.  No alcohol this time, at least for me as I was pregnant with the first small blonde boy.  Our ride home was uneventful compared to our ride down, but I suppose that was for the best.

The more time we seem to spend together, the more firmly entrenched with each other we become.  We have made our own little family with each other.  I believe that we are getting close to 10 years now.  I’m sure the others will correct me if I’m wrong.

I know you are probably itching to hear more from our most recent retreat.  I promise I will get to that soon.

Until next time, Happy Quilting!

 

Time to start another project.

You’ll have to pardon me for how long it’s been since I got out here to write more about our retreat shenanigans.  The truth is that I need to find my notes.  I can hear the other monkeys cackling now, that I actually take notes at retreat from time to time.  Well, how else am I supposed to keep track of the goofy things we say?  I admit that I can’t keep track of everything.  I try, but I honestly have to keep notes.

Oh, yeah, time to start another project?  Like I don’t have enough going on and with Christmas around the corner I admittedly have lots of things I could be completely for gifts.  That being said, I’m still going to start something new.  I can hear you moaning from here.  Don’t worry, this will be something that goes slowly and should be a lot of fun.  Plus I learned a new and different way to pick colors.

Now that my brain is jumbling around a bunch of thoughts about what I should tell you next.  Can you tell I’m a little excited?  Or maybe it’s that I want to be sure that I don’t forget anything…  First, the project.  It is a mystery quilt.  Have you done one?  I’m sure you have at least thought about it.  The one I’m doing is this one, it is called Easy Street.  I know I’ve talked before about scrap quilts and Bonnie Hunter.  This mystery quilt is her latest quilt.  She will be posting the first set of instructions on 11/23 so please feel free to join me on this journey.  If you follow the link you will find her supply list for this quilt.  It’s going to be sizable at 96×96 finished.

On to that new way to pick out colors.  If you head to the link you’ll see some photos that Bonnie has posted with her fabric and then some pictures of paint chips.  Paint chips?  I know, I didn’t really think about it either.  But, if you are shopping from your scrap stash it would be handy to have something that is exactly what you are looking for so as you sort through your scraps so you would have something to use for comparison.    Pretty ingenious isn’t it?  I thought so.  If you are looking for more information about color, I really can’t stress this book enough – Joen Wolfrom Color Play.  It has to be one of my most favorite quilting books on the market.  She takes you through how the color wheel works and how you can get out of your rut when choosing colors for your next project.  She has gorgeous color photos throughout the book with color combinations directly from nature.  This book isn’t about quilting patterns or the latest and greatest methods.  It is a Bible for color, something that you will find yourself referring to again and again just to get a new point of view.  Okay, I’ll get off my soap box now, but you should know that sometimes I pull that book out just to look at all the pictures and hopefully absorb some more of the knowledge that it contains.  I plan on pulling it out now to make a decision on which colors I want to use for Easy Street so I can go pick up my paint chips and shop my stash.

I hope you’ll join me and do the same.

Scrap-Tastic!

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been letting my scraps build up for a while.  Like years.  Now I have a gazillion scraps that I need to cut into usable sizes, otherwise they will sit for more years never getting used.  I really don’t mind cutting them up, what bothers me is how long it seems to take.  I don’t know if you have ever sat down with a gazillion scraps to cut them into more usable sizes, but it takes a really long time.  Plus you can cut for hours and not really see any noticeable difference in the pile that you have cut or the pile you have cut from.  I’m not exactly sure how that works.  I think there is some sort of fabric division similar to that of cell division going on so that the pile to be cut never gets any smaller.  If you have any insights into this fabric phenomenon, please let me know.

I’m sure you are probably wondering why I’m cutting years worth of fabric now as well as how much a gazillion really is.  Well, I have been steadily working on getting my craft room organized and realized that I have 2 Rubbermaid tubs full of scraps.  Yep, two Rubbermaid tubs full of scraps = a gazillion.  I figured that I could get them cleared out and then there would be two less things taking up space on my floor.  However, it hasn’t really worked out that way.  So far I have spent 3 days pressing them so they can be cut.  Yep, you read that right – 3 days.  Thankfully my ironing board will work for a sitting position so I didn’t have to stand the whole time.  The nice thing was that I did find some squares that had already but cut so they could just be put away.  Unfortunately, I didn’t find enough of those.  Even more unfortunately I found some scraps that became projects.    More projects, just what I needed.

Now I have 1 Rubbermaid tub and 1 small-ish box of scraps to cut.  Now that they are all pressed and sorted, I realized that i have more flannel than I will ever really use.  I just don’t work in flannel.  So, that is a tub that will hopefully find a home with my quilting friends that do use flannel.

  Here are the two tubs I started with.  The one that doesn’t have fabrics peeking out over top is the one with the flannels in it.

  Here is my smallish box of scraps.  You can see that it is pretty full.  I don’t even want to guess how many hours it will take me to do just this much.

  Here is the inside of my cotton scrap tub. I know what you are thinking – those look like pretty darn big scraps!  Well, they are, but most of these are cuts off of borders and backings and so they are larger (and longer) but still not wide enough to make up a fat quarter so in the scrap basket it went.  At least it is now nicely pressed and folded.  Sorry I don’t have a true before picture for you of the heaping mess of tangled unpressed scraps that it was.  I’m sure you can imagine though.  You’re good like that.

I don’t know if you are a scrap quilter (or scrap saver) or not.  There are some folks out there who are not stash gatherers.  Instead they just purchase what they need for whatever project they are currently working on and that’s it.  I’m not sure what they do with their leftovers.  I have a feeling that they end up in the wastebasket. I am not so much of a scrap quilter.  However, I don’t want to waste the left overs of those fabrics I have lovingly purchased so I am a scrap saver.    So, I dumped them in the black hole of Rubbermaid tubs where they have waited years to again see the light of day.  I am taking a page from Blanche’s stash organization.  If you don’t remember, see here.  See how everything is so nicely organized?  Sorted by color?  I don’t know if you can tell by the photo, but it is also uniformly folded too.  Vera and I were completely in awe of how she has things organized.  If you look closely you can see some white storage boxes under the shelving.  This is where Blanche keeps her scrap stash.  She brought some to retreat once because the box was full and that meant it was time to do something with them.  I don’t have those type of storage units though (although I’m sure I’ll be storming Ikea at some point or placing an online order with Vera) to get some of those type of containers for my scraps.

What was funny to me was that I didn’t know Vera was also working on taming her scraps.  We are both part of a sit-and-sew group and at my first gathering I brought my small-ish box of scraps to cut so I could visit and not worry about getting a lot finished.  Vera also brought her scraps.  Then we started talking about Blanche’s stash and how she stores them.  I’m not sure what Vera’s plans are for her storage, and I’m not sure that I described what I was currently using overly well.  So, Vera these are for you!

 Pics of where my cut up scrap stash is hanging out.  Ignore the plastic shoe boxes – those aren’t scraps.  At least not yet.  Those are projects and I’m sure they will donate their leftovers to the scrap bin.  This is one section of the little storage boxes I have.  I believe the brown ones are all 5″ squares (I have a lot of those).  The smaller black ones above are 2″ – 4 1/2″.  Yes, I know that is a little nutty to cut them into whole and half sizes.  I was just trying to get the most out of the scrap as I could.

  Here are the other drawers.  They hold 5 1/2″ – 9″.  Mainly because 9″ was the biggest I could fit in the drawer without folding them.

Now I’m faced with the task of finding patterns to work with assorted sizes of squares.  I’m sure something will come to mind soon.  I know where I’m going to start looking though – Bonnie Hunter the scrap queen.  You can check out her website here.  She gives lots of tips and patterns on her site.  It’s a nice site to visit.  Yep, I’m sure that’s where I’ll start.  Maybe you will find some inspiration for your scrap bins too.

The Power of Design

I’ll bet you are thinking that I found some moving picture of a totally gorgeous quilt that I had to comment on.  Nope, I’m going in a completely different direction.  Besides, what I find to be completely moving you might not be as interested in.

What I want to talk about is the act of design itself.  Such as in EQ (Electric Quilt) or Quilt Pro (if you are a Mac user like me).  Design is powerful.  We can walk through quilt shows and find some totally amazing designs (and color placement – let’s face it sometimes it is the color placement that really  makes something speak to us) that inspire and wow us to go home and try our very best with the project we are working on.  Sometimes we are even so inspired to try to find the same pattern the quilt artist used and give it a go ourselves.

We have programs available that enable us to come up with our own stellar creations.  Perhaps even modify some our favorite traditional blocks into something completely different.  There is a bit of danger with these programs.  It is so easy to sit down and start designing and having a “finished” product at the end that we turn our creativity on high and open the gate to let our imagination out and then next thing you know it’s 1 o’clock in the morning and you have designed 15 quilts and not touched one thread of fabric.  Then you start to obsess, “if I just move this one line I wonder what would happen…”.  It’s definitely a hazard and one that they don’t warn you about on the cover and they really should.  WARNING: Playing with this program is so much fun that you may just forget about making real quilts out of fabric.  Or maybe, WARNING:  Be sure you have a set of new ink cartridges on hand because you will run out of that color you need after all the stores have closed and it’s too far to Wal-Mart to justify a trip for one ink cartridge.  If you have played with these programs, you know what I’m talking about.  If you haven’t, please keep the above warnings in mind as you consider whether or not your quilting would benefit from having such a program at your disposal.  Oh, I should also add, WARNING: If you have an obsessive type of personality you should not use this program without supervision as you will forget to eat and use the restroom.

I have now decided that Pinterest is the same.  You can get so lost in pinning pictures of those fabulous fabric creations that you don’t make it to your stash (or local quilt store) for patterns or fabric.  It should come with warnings as well.  WARNING: You will find more stuff than you will ever make so get up from your computer and go outside to enjoy life.  My favorite would be: WARNING: You will not need to visit other websites to find cool stuff to pin, you can roost on Pinterest all day finding plenty of inspiration while repinning other people’s pins.  You should also heed the warning about making sure your printer ink is fully stocked.

There is no doubt about it – design is powerful.  We can see it at work in the composition of photos and paintings as well as color choices and placement in quilts.  Our houses will never look like the ones in magazines and we may never have a quilt juried in for the show in Paducah (although I’ve not given up that dream just yet).  Programs and websites like these can be very useful tools to help our inner artist as it yearns to put on paper the how-to of that dream quilt floating around in our minds.  Just don’t let yourself get so caught up in the element of design that you neglect the actual creation.  They do look great on paper, but seeing them live (and of course larger than 8.5 x 11) is so much more powerful.  Not to mention the process we go through to bring these creations to life.

Of course I have some examples! Here are some quilts I photographed at MQS.  I do not have the quilter/piecer’s information but they are most definitely not mine.  They are beautifully designed (in my opinion) and inspiring.

That should hold you for a little while.

Do I really?

This is where I will admit my insanity.  It’s not like I don’t have enough to do and of course I would like to add more to my ever-expanding to-do list.  I know you are thinking, what now? And what really do you have going on since you haven’t been writing entertaining posts for us to enjoy?  Well, I’ll be happy to tell you.

I need an embroidery machine.  Yep, and I just made fun of Inez for thinking this very same thought not quite a year ago.  After all her pile of things to do runs very close to mine.

Let me take a moment to share a little more about myself.  I live in an old home that needs a gazillion things done plus my husband and I are (unfortunately) pack rats.  I may have mentioned that a time or two before.  I recently became a stay-at-home mom for our small blonde son (who is 3) and have tried very hard to be on a kick to get rid of our clutter.  We have made numerous trips to Goodwill to donate and yet it still seems like there is more and more stuff that we don’t need.  I have a friend who is a Garage Sale Queen and has graciously allowed me to bring some of my excess there to make a little cash on.  Which has really been nice.  Now I am stock piling everything I’m finding so I can slap a price tag on it and drag it back to her house in another month for her next sale.  The most glorious thing is that she will have 2 more sales and after her last one, everything else will be heading over to Goodwill.  That should make a serious dent in our pack rat ways.  I am also a Disney-aholic.  Certified.  Bona-fide.  Much to my husband’s chagrin small blonde is following along in my footsteps regarding Disney.

While perusing my favorite online community for ideas to make our next trip even more fun I hit on a group of sewers who were doing some amazing things.  I mean, stuff I would never even dream of trying to do, only now I am.  I haven even gone so far as to convince Inez to show me how to use her serger so I can start making clothes for the small blonde.  I bought patterns at Joann‘s and some fabric and I am raring to go!  Inez might not be as raring as I am, but I think I’m ready to take this step in my sewing education.

As far as my lovely quilting projects go, I have totally run out of steam.  At the beginning of this year I was getting so much done and I was so motivated to get so much more done and now, eh.  I did work some more on that gorgeous fused applique flower from Quilt Poetry.  However, I am a total genius when it comes to this fusible stuff and I kept the iron too hot and on some parts too long and it evaporated the glue on a good portion of some of the pieces.  So, now instead of fusing the rest of it down I am going to have to start sewing it down and I haven’t even picked out the thread to match the fabrics yet.  I’m a bit disappointed with myself and have kinda put it off to the side but I can’t leave it there terribly long as all the rest of the pieces are good to go and I don’t want the paper to start peeling off the glue/fabric since that is where everything is labeled and numbered.  If that happened I would be totally out of luck and would have to start this whole project over and that would be a real waste of batiks.  I’m a better quilter than that.  So, it will now be a really arduous journey for me to get the leaf sections sewed down before I can lay out the flower top.  I just have to put on my big girl pants and get it done.

So, if any of you are addicted to your embroidery machine  and would care to share your recommendations here, I am all ears!

Happy Sewing!

We’re Baaaaaack…….and a public service announcement

However, before I embark on a play by play from our latest retreat I wanted to share in case the cyberworld can help recover what this fellow quilter has lost.  Yep, I’m talking about stolen quilts.  You can read about and see pictures of the missing items here.

As a quilter I completely understand the heartbreak of having someone steal your quilts.  Those outside our craft are not necessarily keyed in on how we go through our process of finding a pattern, painstakingly choosing our fabrics, and the hours it takes to assemble our fabulous fabric creations.  It’s not always about the money we spend at the quilt shops or for our long-arm quilter.  It’s about the process.  I think for most of us quilters being able to piece and quilt is our way of saving our sanity.  It gives us a creative outlet and a medium for creating art.  It enables us to escape the world or our troubles for a little while and create something beautiful.  Even if it is only beautiful to us.

What makes the doubly disturbing is that when quilts are stolen chances are that those who are doing the taking don’t really know what they have and might use what is a priceless treasure to us as something for their dog to sleep on or left in a car to be sun-bleached or wrap oily car parts in.  What a sad ending for our hard work.

What makes this particular theft even more disturbing than that is that the items were stolen from a quilting teacher who is now also missing her class samples and step outs to use in class for illustration.  Hours and hours of her hard work that will have to be replicated for her to continue teaching us her techniques so that we can also create quilts like the ones she has had taken from her.

Faithful readers, please keep your eyes open for these quilts or any other quilts that you may find at yard sales or flea markets that could match those that have been taken from our fellow quilter.  You can also find more information at this website, dedicated to helping those who have lost quilts get the word  out to others so that their quilt may once again  find its way home.

I’m a little puzzled by your placement…

At our last retreat Sandra Dee and Hazel attempted some paper piecing to help the guild.  I know what you are asking, how does two monkeys attempting to paper piece help your guild?  Well, I’m so glad you asked!  Our guild sponsored a booth/tree at our local Festival of Trees this holiday season and the Member in Charge asked our guild members to try some paper piecing to make quilted ornaments to decorate this tree.  She even provided patterns and finishing instructions so no one was left to flounder.  Enter Sandra Dee and Hazel, stage right.  At our last retreat these lovely monkeys made their attempts to paper piece.  Now, I should say that Inez and I have attempted to paper piece with Sandra Dee before.  It did not go well.  In fact, at the time we were a member of a 7 woman sit and sew where we were making paper pieced blocks.  Poor Sandra Dee ripped hers out so many times that she had to re-photo copy the paper pattern.  Unfortunately she did not use the same copier so when she completed her blocks they would not work in the body of the quilt as they were slightly larger.  We were able to use them as corner blocks in the border though so it all worked out.

If you are new to paper piecing, you should know that printers and photo copiers print slightly differently from each other. So, if you make copies of your pattern at copier A and then later use copier B to make additional copies they will most likely not match.  So always make extra copies, or be sure to remember which copier or printer you used to make your original set so you have things the same size, or if you purchase pre-printed papers for paper piecing and you are not confident of your technique, you may want to get some extras.  Just for your sanity.

At this point, I am happy to announce we had a visitor to the porch sitting with the Monkeys.  We’ll call her M.  M is an experienced paper piecer.  She is also the proud owner of a Singer Featherweight.  We were very much in awe of both.  M took on the task of teaching Sandra Dee and Hazel how to paper piece these 4″ ornaments (I’m guessing that they were 4″ as I don’t have the pattern in front of me).  Inez and I were thrilled because we’ve dealt with Sandra Dee and the paper piecing before.  Sometimes if you are stuck learning something, it is helpful to have someone different try to explain it.  They may have a different way to explain things to make it easier for you.  Any way, we were thankful for M and kept an open ear for the Monkey shenanigans that were sure to ensue.

Both of them were very excited to be learning something new and that they were learning it together.  M happened to be finishing about 100 of the ornaments single-handedly. She’s a very good paper piecer (of course I exaggerate, it wasn’t 100 but she is a proficient paper piecer.  Isn’t alliteration fun?).  Hazel and Sandra Dee smiled and laughed as they picked out their fabrics and then they noticed that M had a tool.  A special paper piecing ruler.  Now, as quilters we love gadgets.  Sometimes while we are at retreat we feel a need to go shopping and lucky for us there is a quilt shop not terribly far away.  Hazel and Sandra Dee made a trip with some others that were heading to shop and came back with the same special paper piecing ruler.  I am pleased to announce that the ruler is still safe in its packaging.

M tried diligently to teach Hazel and Sandra Dee to paper piece and was very pleasant and calm every step of the way and every time each step needed to be repeated and repeated and repeated…..  At one point, Sandra Dee thought that she was really making progress and proudly showed her ornament to M.  At this point it should be mentioned that the ornaments were all stars.  There were three different patterns for them, but they were stars and as we all know, stars have points.  Sandra Dee’s star however, was missing a point or two.  M, with infinite patience, calmly responded with the line that we would continue to use for the rest of retreat, I’m a little puzzled by your placement.  I wish I had a before picture of her ornament.  Instead I was laughing too hard to reach for my camera.

In case you are wondering, they did manage to finish their ornaments.  Here is Sandra Dee:

And here is Hazel:

Granted these aren’t the completed ornaments, but we tend to celebrate the small victories.  The assembling of the complete ornament was non-eventful and both of them hid their ornament in the basket provided to collect them so that others would not be jealous of their newly learned talent for paper piecing.  However, I don’t think they will be picking up any Judy Niemeyer patterns just yet…..

The Most Fun Seminar Ever!

This summer some of the Monkeys took advantage of the opportunity to attend Ricky Tim’s Super Quilt Seminar.  If you should ever have the opportunity to go, please do.  It was 2.5 days of sheer quilting fun.  Ricky Tims is amazing, Libby Lehman is hilarious and Alex Anderson, is well, she’s Alex Anderson.  I loved Libby so much that I wanted to buy her a membership to our guild and make sure she could go to our retreats.  She would be a member of the monkey tribe for sure.  She really is that funny.  Inez and I were volunteers for the seminar as our guild was hosting.  That meant that we got to touch all the gorgeous quilts by Ricky, Libby and Alex while we hung the displays and talk about them to the various other attendees who wanted to get closer or see the back of the quilts.  We also wore pink cowboy hats to make ourselves easier to find.  Well, not only the two of us, all the volunteers did.  It really was a great time!  Blanche came in to town and brought a new quilter friend for us to meet and have fun with, Sandra Dee and Hazel joined us at the seminar and we all sat together with our jaws on the floor as Ricky explained how his creative genius translates into fabric and we all became members of his Woo Hoo Nation.  Totally nontraditional.  Absolutely amazing.  Have I sold you on it yet?

We were all so brain tired after watching quilting miracles (with instructions) appear before us that we couldn’t carry on coherent conversations.  “Did you see?” “Yes, the one with the?”  “Yeah, and that other?” “Oh, I couldn’t believe that.”  Only I think we were all talking at once.  They completely explain everything and make it so easy.  Really, they do,  and it is so easy that you are left wanting to go home to do exactly what they showed you, but maybe in a week or two when your brain has had a chance to process more of the information.  Plus Ricky wants you to go home with the confidence that you can so that you can be super quilters too.  It was so inspiring that I really fear that I’m not doing justice to the experience.

However, one of us (Blanche, the overachiever in the group) went home and started working.  Here are some of her results (Blanche, thanks for sending me the pics!!):

Pretty cool, huh?  These are from Ricky Tims Convergence patterns.  Blanche does some amazing work.

I’ll also share some pics from our seminar.

 Ricky, Alex and Libby on stage, I think during a door prize drawing.  Did I mention the door prizes?  There were some every day!

 This is me and Libby.  Seriously, she is my new favorite professional quilter.  Love her!

 This is one of Ricky Tims’ Rhapsody quilts.  If you haven’t or can’t go to the seminar, you should definitely buy the book!  It offers a truly different perspective on quilt design.  You won’t believe how addictive designing quilts can be.  Of course if you are an owner of the Electric Quilt program, you may find that you are already addicted to quilt designing.  If so, don’t buy the book as it will only fuel the flame of your designing and you may not want to leave the house, ever.

I could go on and on about how wonderful the experience was.  You get a great book to take home and everything taught there is something that you can absolutely do at home.  It truly was an amazing experience and one I am grateful that I was able to attend with some of my best friends.  One of the best parts was getting to meet Blanche’s friend C, as making new friends over the great hobby of quilting is always something I look forward to.  There’s just so much we can learn from each other.  Anyway, if your not sold on the seminar or want to talk about the seminar more, just leave a comment.  Until next time, happy quilting!