Check It Out

Five minutes before we left for the Y this morning for our daily workout, a knock came at the door. It was the FedEx driver leaving my long awaited box of books from C&T Publishing. They had a warehouse sale over the internet several weeks ago and my book finally arrived. There were some great deals, so I ordered 5 book for $16.00. WOW!

Book One: Card Art by Susan Terry.

Such cute greeting cards and gift tags using fabric on cardstock.

Here are a couple of fall cards.

BOOK TWO: Puzzle Quilts by Paula Nadalstern

Here quilt designs are so fabulous. In this book she gives tips on design elements and shows the same blocks made with alternate fabrics. She is also very funny.

Samples from Paula's book.

BOOK THREE: Bella Bella Quilts

This is a book I have wanted for a long time and now I have it!! The author travelled to Italy and took photos of many mosaic floors and designs. Then she created some incredibly beautiful and intricate quilts from those designs. The book includes patterns for paper piecing. I hope I can focus on making just one of these quilts some day.

What beauty.

BOOK FOUR: Benni Harper's Quilt Album by Earlene Fowler & Margrit Hall

I love reading the Benni Harper mysteries and these are a collection of some of the quilts included in the mysteries.

One of Benni's quilts.

BOOK FIVE: Pineapple Stars

This is actually a packet of pattern pieces for creating a Pineapple Star quilt. Pineapple designs are some of my favorite traditional quilts. Paper piecing should make it a breeze.

Can you believe I got all this for $16.00? If you don't follow the C&T Publishing blog, you definitely should. They have frequent giveaways of new books and this sale was too good to be missed.

Busy Days

Here is the alternate colorway for this wonky log cabin block. I have made several and am excited to see how the pieces are starting to go together.

I started back teaching pre-school Spanish today and have the Fiber Friends stitching group coming to my house tonight, so I have been busy cleaning house and cooking and reviewing lesson plans. Tomorrow I plan to get back to quilting.

Last night I went to a great book club get together. A local book store hosted Lesley Kagen, the author of Whistling In the Dark and the sequel, Good Graces. She came up from Milwaukee and talked almost non-stop for an hour and a half. She is very funny and the group was really caught up in her stories. FYI, she does talk to book clubs via Skype and over the phone besides her in person visits, so you might want to contact her if you have enjoyed reading one of her books.

A Little Progress

I have made several blocks for the new quilt I am working on. There are 4 different blocks. One is made in two colorways. There are six of one colorway and 12 of the other. This block is a wonky log cabin. To keep track of the colors, I coded each paper so I can make sure I put the right fabric in the right place. Of course, I did manage to get one goofed up, but then it wouldn't be paper piecing if I didn't make mistakes like that.

Here is the finished block. It is pretty simple and goes together pretty quickly, as long as I pay attention to what I am doing.

A Fresh Start

I'm starting a new project as a gift for a friend. She has a special occasion coming up in November, so I am starting now as I am a known procrastinator. If the FBI has a Known Procrastinator's List, I'm pretty sure I'm at the top of the 10 Most Wanted List.

I have been trying to find fabric for this wall hanging for months. Last Friday I made a trip to Appleton and made it to 3 shops there and finally found a focus fabric I like. In fact, I found 3 or 4 I liked and had to narrow it down. What a great surprise that was! Once I found the focus fabric, the other coordinating fabrics practically fell off the shelves into my arms. I was a little pressed for time, so maybe that hurried the process along. The good news is that so far, I still like all my choices.

Besides having such great luck at fabric shopping, the best part of my day was having lunch with a good friend who I haven't seen in about a year. We had a lot of catching up to do, starting with a tour of her new house.

Here is the first block which is the center. The rest of the quilt is paper pieced. Fortunately, I heart paper piecing.

A perfect day

After the quilt show in Madison was over (this was a week ago), we made a mad dash to Milwaukee in rush hour and Brewers traffic to make it to the Bradley Center in downtown Milwaukee by 7 p.m. to meet our husbands for . . .

Yes, you guessed it! Professional Bull Riding. Huh?

This is one of my favorite things. Going to a quilt show and bull riding in one day? That's pretty close to heaven for me.

The guy in the white hat next to the bull's head is Cody Lambert. He is a rider from the 90's and is one of the original owners of the PBR.

Love these chaps!! Another guy had purple ones with purple fringe.

This is Flint Rasmussen. He is one of the top rodeo clown/ bull fighters. He claims to be a big Packers fan. Someone on the far side of the arena brought him a cowboy hat made from cheesehead foam. Very funny. He wore it for awhile and said it was very hot, so he had to take it off. Our friends brought him some Packer boxers. Here he is receiving the package and reading the note.

I think This is It!

I have finally run out of photos from the quilt show. So this is it until next year.

OOPS! Sideways --- but you get the idea. This was made from clothing labels. See the detailed shot below. Very clever.

Last night was Jo Morton Little Women's Club and I was the only one who made the quilt besides the group leader. I decided to let it go and just enjoy talking with everyone instead of being frustrated.

Fall is setting in here. Had to cover the plants last night.

The Quilts Keep Coming

I hope you can stand to see a few more photos of quilts. They are all so lovely. I can never choose a favorite.

Isn't this gorgeous applique? It is designed to look like a Morris print. Stunning.

On Wisconsin

More quilts.

This quilt made me wish I had an embroidery machine. It is so creative.

Can there be too many quilt photos? I wish everyone could see these in person as a camera can never do them justice. One of the ribbon winners (shown at the top of my previous post) is by Marilyn Badger who is a machine quilter for APQA machines. Her micro stippling and overall machine quilting is always perfect and so creative. I wish I could photograph her work and capture it.

There were two of these red compass quilts. The one above is bright red and the other was a more muted red. Lots of discussion in the aisles as to the preference.

This quilt was a log cabin with wilderness prints in the centers. The quilter captured photos of her husband holding prize catches and incorporated them into the quilt label in the shape of a fish. How fun is that?

We couldn't decide if we liked this quilt or not. Two parts sweet and two parts disturbing.

Beautiful fall quilt with maple leaves and little helicopter seeds.

Cute Cherries in pink and red.

Gorgeous applique in lime green and royal blue. It was stunning and bright.