Friday, April 30, 2010

HUGE Layer Cake Sale!!!!!!!!!!!!!


If you liked our last Jelly Roll sale, you'll LOVE our Layer Cake Sale. We are selling our Layer Cakes for only $25.95, and they are going fast. Get them while you can, this price is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday, April 24, 2010

I have been published!! Yipee!!!



Back in October I designed a quilt and it was accepted by "Quilts and More" magazine to be published. I had almost forgotten about the quilt when the mail came today with my magazine! I love this quilt. It's fun because it uses a couple jelly rolls and a layer cake with some yardage as well. It's the perfect scrappy quilt!



I love having my quilt in an awesome setting. I don't get that great of pictures of my quilts by doing it myself. I think the photographer did an awesome job with the quilt and the setting.



There is something cool about having your name in a magazine, makes me feel special, I love it! I pre-ordered a few magazines so you can get your copy here if you would like. I will ship them out as soon as I get them!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

So, I have been doing some things............

Not a lot of things, believe me - the bed and couch have been my friend lately since I haven't felt too well. Three quilts in three weeks! Sorry ladies, I just haven't had the energy to get it all done. I figure I am just burned out from my quilt, it took me 65 hours and since then, quilting seems more like a chore! I hate to admit that, I am sure it's just a stage because truth be known, I love quilting and I find great pleasure in finishing quilts. So, a couple weeks ago I got this quilt done for Heather of Superior Threads. She provided the thread of course and this was her metallic gold thread and she had a perfectly matched brown high light thread for the borders. So here you go!

Oh, and check out the really fun quilt I did over at Emily's blog. She took awesome pictures of it so I figured you might as well see it over there.

Oh, one more thing, don't forget to check out this weeks Deal of the Week!





Monday, April 12, 2010

Are you ready for Christmas?????

Well, it may be early, but Christmas fabric is already making it's first appearance. Click "here" to see our newest additions -






















Thursday, April 8, 2010

Serenity.......

- a disposition free from stress or emotion
- the absence of mental stress or anxiety

That's the definition of serenity! I can hear George's father saying "Serenity Now" in my mind (if you didn't catch that, it's from Seinfeld).
What's so funny about the definition of Serenity is that I am the complete opposite of it - disposition free from stress or emotion - Who is free from that, please tell me your secret?
-the absence of mental stress or anxiety - that's laughable, if you know me. My father has been telling me to "Breathe Judi, just breathe" for years! Crazy I know, you wouldn't think it if you met me, but I am a little anxious and stressed out, not because my life is stressful or anything, but I worry about everything! And like my mom always says "you will find something to worry about if you don't have anything right now" so true!

So, in hopes that I will one day achieve "serenity" I have decided to name my quilt Serenity! It's a goal to be there someday!

I got the binding done, wish I would have hired out, but glad that I can say I made the whole quilt (thanks mom and clint) so it's done, I have entered it into the HMQS show - wish me luck.

Oh, and come to the HMQS show because it would be fun, I am going to have a booth there, so come and say hi! Would love to meet you all!

Thanks to everyone who left all your wonderful comments, thanks so much for the positive feedback! I live for it! I wish I could have gotten back to everyone. To answer some questions - I used Highlights from Superior Threads for the thread, and about 7,000 yards of it.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Finally!!!!

Much to the happiness of Clint and the kids I am a wife and a mother again. I have taken the past two weeks to quilt this quilt and it's taken it's toll on me. I love how it turned out, it's just hard to try and sneak in my own quilts when I have people waiting on me for their quilts. But, I have to be creative because it's in my blood and I want to make my own things, I just have to block out days (weeks in this case) on my calendar for me! That's not selfish is it?


Let me just walk you through this quilt. I drew it from graph paper - didn't have measurements - made a lot of blocks twice. Then, when it was finally pieced - I had to take it off the machine mid-quilting to fix some unsightly errors! Chaos, if you ask me. I am grateful to Clint for pointing out the final error in the quilt and telling me that it wasn't acceptable - it pushed me to fix it and I am so glad I did! When you work on a quilt for over 100 hours (35 hours piecing, 65 hours quilting roughly), you better like the end product and not have any regrets!


I can tell you that I can see and point out every single imperfection of my quilt, but I won't point them out because when it's all said and done, once you take the quilt off the frames, it looks good and your eyes see the whole quilt, not just the 18 inches you have been working on for hours.


I wanted this quilt to look like it had some iron work in it. The swirls were an excellent match for the design because they matched my template designs for the blocks. In case you are wondering, I drew up my own templates. The templates for the blocks had the base of the daisy flower with the swirls going into hearts around them.



The center block is my daisy flower pot. I love it! So simple, yet so elegant. The quilting just balances out the whole quilt, it really turned out better than I could have imagined.


I was a little nervous just using super plain fabric and only three colors, but the quilting took over and put the print right onto the fabric.




I seriously keep looking at it! I have to admit I cried a few tears last night at 2:30 am when I put in the last stitch, took the quilt off the frames and stared at it. It really has been a rough couple of weeks, maybe because I was a little stressed? :) but having this quilt done and to know that it is mine makes me so happy. I have created an heirloom quilt that can be passed on to my family when I am gone. I told Lili that she can have it when she is 60 because I won't give it up until I am 85 and dying. She was a little excited at first, but then realized it's going to be a while.







Here's the back! And I love it just as much as the front. I used 108" wide cream cotton sateen and it looks fabulous. This side looks like a whole cloth quilt and could easily pass for one. I am sad I have to put a label and sleeve on it because I won't be able to use both sides, but that's okay. To the quilt show it goes!


I used a wool batting and hobbs 80/20 batting for this quilt. It gave it a perfect loft for how much pebbling I did and the tension is perfect! The thread on the back of the quilt looks as good as the front. I love my A-1 longarm!!!




So, what's left? Purple binding, sleeve and label! I am considering hiring out because I hate to hand bind, but can't justify machine binding on this quilt!

Well, Happy Easter everyone! The kids had a fun little Easter Egg Hunt today. I loved it! I hope your weekend is wonderful and you eat some ham and funeral potatoes! That's what we are having tomorrow! Yeah!!!