Saturday, I received a newsletter from Sue Spargo with some sad news.
Dear Friends,

On behalf of Sue, we feel it's important to share some very difficult news with you. In the recent weeks Sue has been diagnosed with breast cancer; she is in good spirits as she prepares to begin her treatment next week. Sue plans to continue her work in her studio here in northeast Ohio. We ask that you join us in surrounding Sue with much love and encouragement as she prepares to embark on this difficult journey.

Much love from Sue, Kelly, Andrew, Jason and Aimee

I have taken 3 week-long seminars with Sue plus I have participated in the 2013, 2014 and 2015 Block of the Month programs. Sue Spargo has inspired me with her creative wool appliqué embellishment. I decided to make a wool appliqué pincushion to support and encourage Sue in her fight with cancer. I will be mailing the pincushion to Sue tomorrow. The pincushion is approximately 5 1/2" square.

Sunday evening, I arrived home from Houston and today I unpacked and had a chance to reflect back on my time in Houston. I flew to Houston on Wednesday, arriving in time to attend preview night. Sandy and I were sharing a room and we met up with 5 friends from Phoenix. Preview night, 5pm to 7pm is reserved for class enrollees, Sandy and I of course hit the vendor aisles first. Oh my goodness, the first few aisles were slow going because of the wonderful hand dyed wool and thread I saw. This year there were certainly many more vendors with hand dyed wools and threads to tempt me. At 9:30pm, we had only seen about 75% of the vendors but Sandy and I were exhausted and decided to head back to the hotel. Thursday was another shopping day, it is not easy to be a quilter but somehow we preserved. Friday, we spent the entire day looking at the gorgeous quilts.
I saw Spirit of Sedona which was quilted by a group of very talented Phoenix quilters


2015 Houston quilt winners can be see at http://www.quilts.org/winners.html

Saturday, after braving a short walk in pouring rain, we finished looking at all the quilts and did a little shopping. After 3 1/2 days of quilt festival, Sunday is a short day, making sure we had not missed seeing any of the quilts or vendors.

Just a few pictures of some of the wonderful things I purchased at the 2015 Houston Quilt Festival. Honestly, there were very few frivolous purchases, I really did need everything I bought.

I took a class with Claudia Dinnell in August and I saw the Enchanted Pumpkin pattern. I decided that stitching the Enchanted Pumpkin would be a good way to practice the multiple hooping skills I learned in the Tis the Season class. The pumpkin requires 12 separate hoopings and I chose to stitch the entire pumpkin on a solid background. Before starting the machine embroidery., I fused Pellon SF-201 interfacing to the background and then I fused Pellon fleece This is the first time I used Pellon fleece, the biggest advantage was I did not have to use any tear away stabilizer. Another first for me, I used Havel's 5 3/4" double curved appliqué scissors. Sandy, my quilting buddy, had an extra pair of the Havel scissors and graciously gave me the scissors. Previously, I have used Gingher duck billed appliqué scissors but I found the blunt rounded tips of the Havel scissors were much easier to use. I used my Bernina Maxi hoop with the Master-Hooper which stabilizes the outer hoop allowing easier alignment of the inner hoop/hoop grid. The quilt is 18" by 22".

I finished sewing the binding on Rhonda, the rhinoceros. Rhonda was designed by Barbara Jones of bjdesigns. I added piping between the quilt and the border which adds just a bit of color and pizzazz. Jessica Jones Gamez did the beautiful custom machine quilting. The quilt is 27 1/2" by 39 1/2".



Ellie is another quilt designed by Barbara Jones of bjdesigns which I completed in 2013. Jessica Jones Gamez also did the custom machine quilting on Ellie.

A few years in the making, but Spring Garden Visitor is now complete. This wool appliqué features 3 dimensionally stitched flowers and bunny. I started this wool appliqué project in December 2011 but multiple home remodeling projects unfortunately took precedence over this wool appliqué project. Spring Garden Visitor was designed by Kathy J. Gaul of Meetinghouse Hill Designs. The beautiful butterfly and dragonfly porcelain buttons were hand painted by Cindy Webb of Gold Seal Products. I opted to have the wool appliqué professionally framed instead of being quilted. The wool appliqué is 14" by 23", with the frame the piece measures 20" by 29".


Close up of the 3 dimensional flowers.

Two weeks ago, I became inspired to making more Beads of Courage bags. In June, I finished 20 bags and my goal was to make at least 100 bags in 2015. This morning, I finished 80 Beads of Courage bags, so I have accomplished my 2015 goal of 100 bags.

Beads of Courage was developed by Jean Baruch while working on her PHD in Nursing at the University of Arizona. She piloted the program at Phoenix Children's Hospital in February 2003. Every year, Beads of Courage provides assistance to more than 60,000 sick children coping with serious and life-threatening illnesses, and their families in over 250 children's hospitals throughout the United States, and in six additional countries.

I will be donating all Beads of Courage bag to Phoenix Children's Hospital, in memory of Kendall, a granddaughter of a good friend.

After much thought, I have decided not to do the machine embroidered borders on my Tis the Season quilt top. I really liked the Claudia Dinnell's Tis the Season quilt but I simply did not have an ideal spot to hang a 60" by 60" quilt. I really wanted to hang the quilt above my fireplace and the stone facing is only 50" wide. So I found a wonderful stripe fabric which I can use for the binding which I think will give a wonderful finish to the quilt. The quilt will be about 40" by 40". My quilt top was delivered to Andrea Woolsey who will do the custom machine quilting and I can't wait to get the quilt back.

I was in my sewing room Friday, all day Saturday and Sunday and I now have all the blocks embroidered. I have most of the seminole piecing done too. I was anxious to sew 2 blocks together with the light grey sashing. Even though I was tired, I squared up two blocks and then sewed on the sashing. I am pleased with the fabric I chose for the sashing and really pleased with the overall look of the 2 blocks.

This week, Sandy, my quilting buddy from Henderson Nevada, came for a short visit. Sandy and I took a 2 day machine embroidery class with Claudia Dinnell held at the Bernina Connection. The class project was Claudia's beautiful Christmas redwork style quilt called Tis the Season. I am not very experienced with machine embroidery and I was excited to learn Claudia's perfect placement multi-hooping technique.

Tuesday, I stitched the Teddy Bear block which is 25 1/2" by 13 1/2" and required 3 hoopings with the Bernina Maxi hoop to complete the design.


Wednesday, I stitched the Ornament block which is 15 1/2" by 24 1/2" and required 5 hoopings with the Bernina Maxi hoop to complete the design. What a great feeling to have all the stitched designs align perfectly which is a testament to Claudia's excellent perfect placement instructions.



I have 4 more blocks to embroider plus 5 word sashing blocks to embroider. I am planning to embroider at least one large block today so I can reinforce the multi-hooping techniques that I learned in class.

I would definitely recommend taking a class with Claudia Dinnell.

I finished stitching 4 more blocks for the Serendipity quilt tonight. Of these 4 blocks, I think my favorite is the daisy block, the bright white, yellow and green wools look so cheerful. I stitched palestrina knot stitch for the daisy stems and cast on bullion stitches for the daisy centers with a variegated DMC thread. I added some cross hatch running stitches for texture on the rose colored fish. Two of the fish are missing eyes, they will get beads for their eyes which will be sewn on after the machine quilting.