Another year end quilt

Here is another recent customer's quilt. A very interesting color palate.

I got a lovely thank you note from my customer, she said " the designs you chose took the quilt from something very simple to something remarkable"

I love my job!

Happy New year!

A new year, a fresh start. I love the idea of all the possibilities. Hopefully some of my aspirations will take hold.

I finished out the last year with a few quilts for customers. No surprise there. But one was especially dear to me. While on the Sew Nice retreat in Nov., Diane - the shop owner- made a wall quilt for her partner, Flora. It was to be a surprise for Christmas so we were all sworn to secrecy. I looked at this quilt and knew immediately how I would want to quilt it if I had the chance. The more I looked at it, as it hung on the design wall all weekend, the more it spoke to me, so I offered to quilt it. Mind you it is four weeks until Christmas and I still had two other quilts to complete.
Sometimes you just have to squeeze one more in.

In addition to wanting to quilt this little gem, I was honored to give something back to Diane and Flora of Sew Nice in Norwich, NY. They have always been very supportive of my business and have allowed me to teach many, many classes at their wonderful shop.

Here are a few pictures:
details; Qulters Dream midnight poly batting, Superior So Fine tread in many colors! Swarowski  crystals applied afterwards.

What a wild few weeks here in central NY. First an earthquake, then hurricane Irene, followed buy tropical storm Lee.
We have been drying out form the last two but so many homes and businesses in our area have been devastated. Two major floods in five yrs is just too much.

On a cheerier note, I have been quilting,

Where are the lazy, hazey days of summer?

How is it possible that it has been two months (less one day) since my last post? And summer is coming to an end, it was 55 degrees this morning. I was tempted to put socks on!

What has been keeping me so busy you might ask? Along with my usual jobs, I have been teaching twice a week at a local quilt shop. In addition I've been putting in lots of extra hours at the computer at the Volvo Club's new website. The integration of our database to the new software of the site has been less than smooth. In fact for the first time in 25 yrs of this job I seriously thought about if I could make up the income with more quilting.

We did have one lovely week off in the Finger Lakes. We visited wineries, breweries, quilt shops, yarn shops, took a cruise on Seneca Lake and stayed in a charming B&B.

See you soon, I am off to the studio to quilt!

Baltimore Album - Amazing

I recently had the pleasure of quilting an amazing example of a Baltimore Album Quilt 96" square. This was a four year project of Rhoda Bushnell, a customer of mine. She call this her mourning quilt as she made it in the months and years following her husband death. Here is the kicker, its not hers! She was hired to make it for a friends daughter in AZ. I sure hope she charged enough, not that you ever could. Enjoy the show!

This is the center block

More of the center top

Side view of center block

Corner of center block

One of four wreath blocks surrounding the center

a second wreath block

Cornucopias in each corner

Center block flanked by four large baskets, this is one

Last row, notice- no borders.

Last but not least, the back.

Socks!

After much trepidation I finally got the courage to make a pair of socks. They are about an inch too long but hey, finished is better than perfect! I have already started another pair, hopefully they will fit better.

My First Zentangle Quilt

Lat month I took a class from Pat Ferguson at MQX on Zentangle. I have been playing a bit and finally decided to put my needle to cloth. Here are my results. I love it! The Zentangle tile is on the left and my quilt, enlarged 200% from the tile is on the right.