I have been having some trouble publishing my blog so I have not been writing lately. Today, I decided I would try publishing and see what would happen.
I saw a new wool appliqué quilt pattern in February and it was love at first sight.

Solstice Dream was designed by Kerry Green of kerry stitch designs. The quilt is 36" x 42".

I decided to use hand dyed wool from Wooly Lady, I chose turquoise wool as my background. The butterfly is the first block I stitched, I really love stitching with the hand dyed silken pearl by Thread Gatherers. The finished size of the block is 6" x 12"

It has been quite awhile since my last post, life got a bit complicated.  After Christmas, I sewed the binding on Folk-Tails and today I hung the finished quilt. 

Folk-Tails is a wool quilt was designed by Sue Spargo and was introduced as her 2015 block of the month.  Folk-Tails was a creative journey for Sue as she was born and Zambia so designing the African animals, birds and vegetation brought back many childhood memories.  January through October 2014, I received 3 blocks to appliqué and embellish plus each month Sue would write a story about African folklore such as "How the Zebra got his stripes" and "Why Warthog is so ugly".  The beautiful machine quilting was done by Jessica Jones Gamez .  The finished quilt is 37" x 43". Close up of quilting on the giraffe and stork
The outer edges of the road were couched with bullion knots over two strands of #3 pearl cotton.

I am remembering Lucie today. It is hard to believe that it has been 7 years since Lucie died. I miss Lucie everyday, but it is true that time does heal. It was a lovely day in Phoenix, lately we have been having quite a few rainy days. I had lunch with Lucie's good friends, Jane and Mary Lou. We had lunch at Luci's, a delightful restaurant which has a beautiful outside dining area. Jane gave me a vintage milk bottle from Reading Home Dairy, Reading Michigan filled with beautiful bougainvillea from her yard.

I placed the flowers on ice box which use to belong to Lucie and John Protz.




In loving Memory of my sister Lucie June 25, 1943 - January 10, 2010

November 2015, Sue was diagnosed with breast cancer and for the last 12 months has courageously fought this disease. On May 18, 2016, Sue's daughter Aimee Spargo, sent a request to Sue Spargo stitchers to make a 4-1/2" square embellished WOOL block to be incorporate into an inspirational quilt for her Mom. Stitchers from all over the world responded to this request by stitching 394 blocks which Mary, Aimee and Kelly sewed together into an amazing quilt. The quilt was presented to Sue on October 14, 2016.



This is the block I made


My courage block in the quilt



This October, Sue joined with BrightPink and pledged 20% from every pack of her Special Edition Breast Cancer Awareness Thread Packs. BrightPink is a national non-profit focused on prevention and early detection of breast and ovarian cancer in young women. The organization’s mission is to save women’s lives from breast and ovarian cancer by empowering them to live proactively at a young age. Bright Pink’s innovative programs educate and equip young women to assess their risk for breast and ovarian cancer, reduce their risk, and detect these diseases at early, non life-threatening stages.

Sometimes it pays not to be the fastest student in a machine embroidery class. In January, I took a machine embroidery class with Claudia Dinnell of Claudia's Creations. I stayed after the end of the class so I could finish my Christmas "Boot'iful Bouquets. Claudia had some unfinished class project that she want to give away and I was lucky enough to get one of Claudia's halloween quilt.

My biggest challenge was sewing binding for an angle greater than 90 degrees. I did a google search and found a YouTube video by Marci Baker which had excellent directions for mitered binding angles, greater than 90 degrees.

Jessica Jones Gamez, Jessica Quilting Studio, did the beautiful machine quilting. The finished quilt is 18" by 54".

I have not been sewing much lately, I have been doing a lot of embellished wool appliqué. After Labor Day, I realized I only had 4 more months to make Beads of Courage bags for my 2016 donation.

Today, I finished 25 bags. My 2016 donation goal is 120 bags, so I have quite a few more bags to finish. A lot of the bags were made with dot fabric which was left over from making my sewquilt.com quilt in 2005 which used well over 60 different dot fabrics.


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 Jansen, a granddaughter of a good friend.

Sunflower Cowboy Boot is now quilted and bound. Beautiful machine quilting was done by Jessica Jones Gamez. Finished quilt is 20" x 25".


"Boot"iful Bouquets are machine embroidery designs by Claudia Dinnell. Claudia has an unique method for preparing fabric before doing the embroidery. The background fabric is stabilized with Shape Flex SF101 by Pellon, then a polymesh cutaway stabilizer is sprayed with Webbond by Mettler to adhere it to the back of the background fabric. After the background fabric is hooped, a piece of tear-away stabilizer is floated under the embroidery design. Hooping is easier with the polymesh stabilizer since it is softer and more flexible than medium weight tear-away stabilizer.

What to do with all the blue and yellow fabrics after making a traditional kaleidoscope king size quilt in 2013. The quilt has 144 7” blocks using over 50 different blue and yellow fabrics so I really had a lot of fabric left over.



Pam, my cousin who lives near Batavia New York, lives in a house built circa 1840. In 2015, she finally did a full remodel of the second floor so she now has beautiful new master bedroom with new closets, windows, flooring and the room is painted a lovely yellow with white baseboards. Yes, a blue and yellow quilt would be just the what this room needs.



New York Garden Trellis has 195 4 1/2" blocks sashed with white on white fabric with blue cornerstones. I did have to buy more fabric for the back but the rest of the fabric did come from my stash. The finished quilt is 82" x 92" and was machine quilted by Jessica Jones Gamez. I used Quilter's Dream Wool batting which is now my favorite batting to use in bed quilt. I love that Quilter's Dream Wool batt can washed and dried in a dryer.

It is summer in Phoenix, I was thinking about the cooler weather to come in December while I was binding the Christmas is for Cowboys quilt. I actually do not mind summers in Phoenix but I am thankful for air conditioning.


I took a machine embroidery class with Claudia Dinnell of Claudia's Creations in January. Claudia designed a new rework style design for machine embroidery call "Boot"iful Bouquets which has 3 boot types and 3 different bouquets to choose from, "Boot"iful Bouquets is the ultimate pick and chose machine embroidery design. The boot types are a cowboy boot, an ice skate or a Victorian boot and the bouquets choices are toys, sunflower or instruments. I used my Bernina 790 and the maxi hoop to complete the embroidery. The maxi hoop has a 8 1/4" x 15 3/4" embroidery field which reduced the number of necessary re-hoopings. Claudia has an excellent method for perfect placement and alignment so everything lined up perfectly. I was able to complete the Christmas boot with only one re-hoop.

I will be donating this quilt to Quilt for a Cause, their mission : To use the art and business of quilting to pursue advances in breast and/or gynecologic cancers by raising funds for research, by continuing the education of medical professionals, and by supporting clinical organizations that raise awareness, offer detection and provide treatment for all women.

Jessica Jones Gamez did the beautiful machine quilting. The quilt is 21 1/2" x 25".

January 2013, I started my first Sue Spargo BOM. I was new to wool appliqué, especially embellished wool appliqué. I decided to make a Bird Dance test block before I actually used the wool in the first BOM package. While stitching the first 3 Bird Dance block, I realized I was using quite a few different needles and I needed a needle case.


I used the my test Bird Dance block for the front of the needle case. The case is 6" x 6", small but served me well for about a year. As I began my second Sue Spargo BOM in 2014, I began thinking of making another needle case which was larger and had more pages for the additional needles I was using to do my wool appliqué.



My second needle case is 7 1/2" x 8 1/2", plus had some zipper pockets and 4 pages for needles. I used this needle case for 2 years and I was quite happy with my design but there were some features that I wanted to change. In June, Sue Spargo published Folk-Tails which had a wool appliqué Sue designed for a Folk-Tails workbox. Also, in June, Sue introduced an elephant pincushion pattern. My mind is now whirring thinking about the elephant wool appliqués.


I used some design elements from Folk-Tails, the workbox and pincushion patterns for my new needle case. The elephant appliqué is a smaller version of the workbox elephant, the green fabric is a design element from the pincushion, the cloud is a design from Folk-Tails, the back is fabric Sue used for the back of the Folk-Tails quilt. The front of the needle case is 8" x 8".

These are pictures of the inside of the needle case. I printed the needle names and then used Soft Fuse to attach the names to the wool pages.