Spooky Chinese Coin Quilt?

Can a Chinese Coin Quilt pattern be made using Halloween fabric? I threw tradition out the window and just went for it. The July Schnibbles pattern chosen is called Joy Luck. It is a pretty adorable quilt, and a little daunting. I didn't have a whole lot of time this month to work on it, I usually start these quilts at the beginning of the month... I started last week. I am happy to report I finished the top on Wednesday night though!

The fabric I used are two charm packs I picked up last fall, when Halloween was long over, they were super cheap, and super cute, so I added them to my basket. They go well with the pattern I think, the colors are really bright. The fabric line is called Spooktacular.

By the way I wanted to give a shout out to Quilt Taffy, they shipped me the Joy Luck pattern with no shipping charge! Woohoo!

Be sure to check out Sinta and Sherri's blogs on the first of August. They will have a Joy Luck Schnibbles parade and show off everybody's quilts, it's very cool to see them all.

Summer Porch

Doesn’t this make you want to sit out on a porch with a cold lemonade? This quilt is one of my favorites, it is such a cool pattern. When I first saw this pattern it was in a magazine. There was an ad for some long arm quilting machine and a Summer Porch quilt was draped on a couch, and I thought “oh my gosh, that quilt is so pretty!” some time goes by before I spot it again on somebody’s blog and they had the pattern name, woohoo! I found out it was an Eleanor Burns pattern, and bought the book at Joann’s.

Can I just say how much I enjoyed making this quilt? Eleanor gives the best and most detailed instructions for making it in a variety of sizes. It had a picture or diagram of every single step, with hints and tips to boot. I love that, it made it a no brainer, and the quilt went together easily. I used the remainder of my fat quarter pack called Shangri La by Moda. I bought it from Nicole (Sisters Choice Quilts) sometime ago when she was selling some of her stash. I’ve made 3 quilts from this fabric now, and I am kind of sad to see it all gone, BUT there is so much more out there to use right?

This is one of the two quilts I quilted on the long arm last weekend. I did not use a panto, I did it free motion stippling (looks like big puzzle pieces, a meandering pattern), with a cream thread on top and dark red thread on back.

In order to take a good picture of a big quilt, you need lots of helpers standing on the back of my truck!

The backing is a soft plaid red flannel. Did I mention I love using flannel for a backing? Okay, I mention it all of the time. I can’t help it, it’s so soft and warm. I pre-wash my flannel backing before I put it all together, flannel I have found likes to shrink, so I wash it in hot water and dry it hot too. No, I don’t wash my regular cottons, ever… it takes too long! Haha!

Regarding the trip I took back in June, I stayed only 9 days, because I had to get back to work, the rest of my family got to stay and play! Lucky them :)

Visiting Charissa and the Long Arm

Charissa is so lucky! Her mother in law bought a long arm quilting machine, and she lets Charissa use it whenever she wants… and then I got lucky because she said I could use it too! You know somebody is addicted to quilting when she’ll drive 5 hours (one way) to go sew. That is me, I am not ashamed. Also I missed Charissa, I mean we had been apart for 5 whole days after the quilt show!

I brought two quilts to try out on this machine. It was interesting because it’s the opposite of the free motion quilting I do at home on my domestic machine. It goes pretty fast, and I did do a super basic pattern on both of them.

In between quilting two large quilts, we managed to shop… and we bought beads to make these bracelets, how fun huh? Thank you Charissa for letting me come visit!

This butterfly was hanging out in my backyard for the past few days, it's so pretty, I had to share.

There has been a lot of free time for me this month, I was home alone, all by myself, single… for 17 days straight! How on earth does a young mom of two manage this? Well, we went to visit Mark’s family in West Virginia on June 26th, I came home alone on July 5th. The kids and Mark stayed out there to play and hang out with his family until yesterday the 22nd. I know! It was very fun, but I am not going to lie, I felt like half a person, I missed my family a lot. You can tell I kept myself pretty busy huh?

More pictures of the family vacation to come :) Lots more quilting to share as well!

Portland Modern Quilt Guild July Meeting

Barbara, Jenn and I were all lucky, we got to attend the Portland Modern Quilt Guild’s July meeting. It was held downtown. Since I am a suburbanite it’s always fun to venture into downtown. I think those people are crazy for living there, but in a small way I envy them.

There were about 40 of us in a room at the art college. It was pretty warm, but we didn’t seem to mind. Christina gave a really good speech about how to make hexagons. Have you guys been to Christina’s blog The Sometimes Crafter? I LOVE her blog, like a lot. I was so excited to meet her. So, hexagons were the big topic of the night. I’ve seen them all over blogland right? But… I didn’t dare try them, you know why… I need another addiction like I need another hole in my head. Well, it was fun, I am smitten, they are so adorable.

Here are the few I did. They took a picture of me doing the “show and tell” I enjoyed seeing everybody’s work, talk about inspiring, the wheels can’t stop turning in my head. I hope I can go to these meetings regularly.

Sisters Quilt Show

Look at me, trying to play catch up. This will be very interesting! I've had so much going on these past few weeks, and I want to share, so it'll take a few posts to get it all down.

Every second weekend of July is the Sisters Quilt Show. Sisters is a little town in central Oregon, about 3 hours from Portland. They hang quilts all over the town and a bizillion people go to this. I thought it was a blast!

My boss has a house in Sunriver he let me use for 4 days, I invited my friends to come with me and we had a girls weekend. Seriously, we were so lucky to be able to spend so many days there and we took advantage of it. My friend Charissa came from Anacortes, Washington. Jenn came from Portland, Barbara my neighbor, and her sister Carol from Idaho came, and my friend Karen came too! There were six of us.

We got there on Thursday afternoon. Riding bikes is so fun to do in Sunriver, so we rode down to the lodge to eat dinner, then headed back home to sew. On Friday morning some of us had signed up to take classes that day, so we drove to Sisters. They have the classes in the high school, how cool is that? Charissa and I took the same class, taught by Alma Cox. It's so hard to explain the process, but it was sooooo fun. It felt like we were in art class as a kid, we had free reign to do whatever we wanted, it was very liberating.

Saturday was the big show, so we left a little early to get there, I am glad we did. It was backed up to even get into town. We enjoyed the day looking at quilts, shopping for clothes, jewelry and cowboy boots :) We may have had too much fun!

We came back home Sunday tired and happy. I loved the Sisters Quilt Show. I hope to go again sometime.