In January 2015, I attended Quilting at the Lake, a quilting retreat held in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Linda Hibbert of Silver Linings Originals, designed Strolling at Lake Havasu specifically for this class. Even though I have done a lot of paper piecing, Linda's paper piecing patterns are quite challenging. I enjoyed learning some of Linda's techniques for paper piecing. Jessica Jones Gamez did the gorgeous machine quilting. The top is about 16" by 36".


Close up of some of the machine quilting

Finally finished and delivered. I belong to Carol Doak's on-line Yahoo group, Carol generously designs blocks specifically for the on-line group. In 2007, I started making the free block designs in patriotic fabrics so I could donate a quilt to Quilts of Valor. I made 16 12" blocks, enough for one quilt but not 2. I received 8 more blocks and I was able to make 2 quilts. After the quilts were machine quilted, my sister, Lucie, had a relapse of cancer and after her death, the quilts got put into a drawer and forgotten. A few weeks ago, I discovered the quilts and took the time to bind both quilts. The quilts are 56" by 68". The Bernina Connection, my local quilt store, sponsors sewing days to support the Quilts of Valor project. Today I delivered the 2 quilts to the Bernina Connection so they can finally be sent to the Quilts of Valor Project.

Quilt top was finished in February. Machine quilting was finished March 10th. I finished sewing the binding the end of March. I embroidered the quilt label the beginning of April and today I took a picture of the quilt. 2 years ago, I purchased the Judy Niemeyer Starburst pattern at my guild's yearly tag sale and I actually started piecing the top. At some point, I stopped working on Starburst. In January, Marcie moved into a new home which has lovely blue walls and I became inspired to finish Starburst for Marcie's birthday. The quilt is 94" by 112" and I used Quilter's Dream wool batting.



While I had the quilt stand up in my living room, I took some pictures of large quilts which I had previously finished and check off another item off of my to do list.
I started collecting blue and yellow fabric in March 2007 after seeing Robin Strobel’s quilt Spring Fling in her book, Quilter’s Bounty. The quilt is made with a traditional kaleidoscope block. I drew the kaleidoscope block in Electric Quilt and paper pieced 144 7” blocks. Machine quilted by Jessica Jones Gamez. I finished the quilt in March 2013. Finished quilt is 104” by 104”.

I discovered a few quilts which did not have labels and decided I could not procrastinate any longer. In 2013, I had 2 linen hand embroidered table cloths machine quilted by Jessica Jones Gamez. I hand embroidered the linen table clothes in the late 1950s and it seemed rather sad to have these vintage tea cloth languishing unused in my linen closet. Fuchsia Cross stitch needed a label and hanging pocket while Purple Daisy only needed a label. It was rather nice to cross a few things off my to do list.






I then decided to hang 2 quilts and a cross stitch picture behind my bed. The cross stitch picture was hand embroidered by my sister, Lucie Protz, circa 1978 when she was living in Lake Jackson Texas.

Last week, I finished paper piecing all the Gambel quail, well almost finished. 10:30 pm last Thursday night, I realized I did not have enough of one batik to finish the male quail block. I need a strip 2" by 11". Luckily, my quilting buddy, Sandy had a small piece left from her kit and was kind enough to mail me the fabric I needed. Today I was able to finish the male quail block, piece the blocks together and add some borders. Although there were many tiny pieces, I actually found piecing the quail easier than I expected. The top is about 16 1/2" by 37". Tomorrow, I will be taking the quilt to Jessica Jones Gamez for machine quilting.

Introducing Emmie, an adorable miniature poodle born September 20, 2014. I drove to La Jolla California on February 6 to pick her up and she proved an excellent car rider on the long drive back to Phoenix on Saturday, February 7. Marcie, my daughter, is thrilled to have Emmie living with her. Emmie has the sweetest personalty, she loves Marcie and both are eagerly awaiting the start of training classes at Petsmart in a few weeks. Katie and Molly enjoy having Emmie come to my house for playtime and Molly has been teaching Emmie how to patrol the wall for lizards.

I just returned from a 3 day Magic Carpet class held at Quilting in the Desert. Ginny Goodbar taught liberated quilting techniques to construct strata which were then combined to create a "magic carpet". The finished top is then layered with batting and backing. The top will be quilted with couched threads, beads and decorative stitching. My magic carpet top is now ready to quilt, but I have a few other projects to complete before I can start embellishing my top. The top is 30 inches by 42 inches.

Back home after a great few days with quilting friends. We attended Quilting at the Lake in Lake Havasu City Arizona. I drove up on Friday with with a quilting buddy Perri. We then had a great lunch with Sandy and Joann who had just driven in from Henderson Nevada. After a wonderful lunch and visit to 2 great quilt stores we were back to the hotel to rest up for our quilting class on Saturday.

We had a little bit of rain on Saturday morning but that did not dampen the fun we had in class with Linda Hibbert, Silver Linings Originals, who designed an intricate paper pieced quilt for the class. Linda titled the quilt "Strolling at the Lake Havasu" which featured Gambel quail. It was a great class, learned some great paper piecing techniques.

This is Linda Hibbert's finished quilt


I was able to finish 2 of the chicks on Saturday. Can't wait to to finish the third chick plus the other Gambel quail.


After an intense day of class, our entire group when out for a wonderful dinner at Shugrue's
After dinner, we decided to take a group picture with the London Bridge as a background.

A few days ago, I finished embellishing the flowers on my Summer Blooms bag and today I sewed the bag together. It is always a challenge to sew wool because wool is thicker and the layers can easily shift when sewing a seam. I have found using the dual feed feature on my Bernina 780 a big help when sewing wool. Reducing the presser foot pressure also helps to minimize shifting.
Summer Blooms bag was designed by Sue Spargo and is 12" by 9".

In Full Bloom was Sue Spargo's 2014 BOM. This was the tenth year that Sue has done a BOM and this was my second Sue Spargo BOM. All BOM participants agree not to post any pictures of In Full Bloom before the quilt is published. Since I am unable to post a picture of my completed top, I am posting Sue's line drawing. I am just thrilled to have completed In Full Bloom in 2014.

Tomorrow, I will be taking my completed top to Jessica Gamez so she can do the machine quilting.
I have signed up for the 2015 BOM and is titled Folk Tails and I can hardly wait to begin. I should receive my first 2015 BOM package the beginning of January so I guess I have a few weeks to stitch on some of my unfinished projects. This is the line drawing of Folk Tails