Drum roll, please. Bird Dance is finished, I even have the quilt label on the back. The gorgeous machine quilting was done by Jessica Jones Gamez.. Bird Dance was designed by Sue Spargo for her 2013 BOM. Sue's quilt design was inspired by a tile floor while on vacation in Italy, check out the full story of Sue's inspiration.

In January 2013, I started my first Sue Spargo BOM. I was new to Sue's wool appliqué stitching and I decided to make a test block using wool from my stash. Of course, I then had a finished 6 1/2" bird block which I decided to use as the front of a small needle keep. My original needle keep has served me well these last 18 months but as Sue introduced a wider variety of needles, my original needle keep did not have enough labeled spaces for the needles. I designed my new needle keep with 4 wool pages which would allow spaces for 24 different types of needles plus I added two zippered vinyl pockets to hold thimbles and needle threaders. I did a wool appliqué flower on the front. The needle keep is 8 1/2" high and 7 1/2" wide.

I finished the African tulip tote today. The African Tulip tote was designed by Sue Spargo and is 21" wide, 16" in length and 5" deep. The embellished wool appliqué front gave me a chance to learn some new embellishing stitches and to use some different embellishing threads. Valdani pearl cotton, Thread Gathers silken pearl, silken chenille, and sea grass are some of the embellishing threads I used. Sue's pattern was constructed using batting but I decided to use Soft and Stable to give the tote more body. I also wanted a zipper closure and I used instructions from a by annie tote pattern.

I love a challenge. Last week I decided to make a queen size quilt for a friend. I needed a fast and easy quilt and I picked The Right Slice quilt published in Quiltmaker Magazine, November/December 2013. The quilt in the magazine was constructed using assorted red and green 5 inch squares. I decided to make my quilt using just 3 batik fabrics, 2 batiks for the nine patch blocks and the remaining batik was inserted into the slashed nice patch blocks. The queen size quilt requires 36 blocks. I want to finished the quilt top by Tuesday so I can take the top to be quilted by Jessica Jones Gamez. It is going to be close, but I think I will finish the quilt top by Tuesday afternoon. I now have 24 blocks finished and sewn together, plus I have the remaining 12 blocks started. I took a picture of part of the quilt hanging on my design wall.

I have sewn another 40 pillowcases and they have been delivered to 35th Avenue Sew and Vac, they collect pillowcases for Back to School Clothing Drive. I made a total of 110 pillowcases in the month of June, it certainly was a great feeling to clear out fabric from my stash. I will admit that sewing the last 20 pillowcases was just a bit of a chore, but I wanted to really wanted to see if I could make at least 100 pillowcases.

Hope everyone is have a great 4th of July holiday weekend, although it seems as if most of the United States will be having rain. Phoenix had dust and thunderstorms yesterday, some local fireworks displays were cancelled. It is very overcast and humid today, thunderstorms are also predicted, hopefully we will get some rain too.

I have sewn another 40 pillowcases and they are ready to deliver to 35th Avenue Sew and Vac, they collect pillowcases for Back to School Clothing Drive. I have been able to reduce the fabric in my stash which keeps me motivated to make more pillowcases. I have now made a total of 70 pillowcases and I plan to make more, maybe I can get to 100 completed pillowcases.
I will keep you posted on my progress.

I have been busy these last few weeks sewing pillowcases. I have found that making pillowcases is a great way to use fabric in my stash. I construct the pillowcases using the roll it up pattern found on the Million Pillowcase web site. On Monday, I delivered 30 pillowcases to 35th Avenue Sew and Vac, they collect pillowcases for Back to School Clothing Drive. I will continue to go through my stash and will be making more pillowcases, I will keep you posted on my progress.

Katie and Molly are good buddies and they have really brought out the best in each other. Katie is 7 1/2 years old and Molly is 4 years old. Molly loves everyone while Katie is a bit more selective, but with Molly leading the way, Katie has become more outgoing. It is not often I am able to take a picture without either Katie or Molly deciding to move. I usually end with a picture of one poodle and one black furry blur. Katie is on the right and Molly is on the left looking much serious than she really is.

Finally, my quilt ladder is set up in my office area, it only took 6 months! I ordered my quilt ladder from DWR Custom Woodworking when I was at the Houston Quilt Show in November 2013. At that time, I was not in a hurry to receive the ladder. The extremely cold winter weather in Pennsylvania delay the shipping of my ladder but it finally was delivered the end of March. So why is it May and I am just getting my ladder set up? Long story short, the ladder is much easier to put together if 2 people are doing it. Last week, my electrician came to install receptacle strips to my desk and I persuaded him to put the quilt ladder together.

June 2013, I took a quilt cruise to Alaska, one of the featured teacher was Sue Spargo. My class project was embellished circles. I found some fabric and based my circle color choices on the chosen fabric. Sue was an excellent teacher and I learned quite a few embellishing stitches for my circles. Sue's book, Creative Stitching which includes step by step instructions for 50 of Sue's favorite stitches was an excellent resource for embellishing the circles. I finished embellishing the circles and and I can't wait for the piece to be made into a pillow.