I have just come back from spending six days in Paducha Kentucky. My friend Elaine and I went to the grand quilt fest. It was great! It was so crowded the first few days, one could hardly move and I didn't care for that too much...but all in all, we were there and made do. As we entered the Expo, we were greated by this wonderful crazy quilted horse by John Flyn. Isn't he grand?

I took many pics of the wonderful quilts but will show just a few of them. Here is one of a bull that is just magnificent.

Here is another wonderful quilt.

Another....




Another..










The whole town participates in the quilt fest. Here is a huge bull in the street with a quilt on his back lol.








We bought tons of fabric. Elinor Burnes had a huge tent sale at 4.00 per yard of over 6000 bolts of fabrics. We also visited her store. After we shopped Elinor four times we went to Handcocks twice and shopped their 4.00 special for the show and then did some major damage in the regular price stuff too. I think I spent about 800.00. One lady said she spent 4000.00.

We also went to Elinor's lecture. She was soooo funny.


Here is a pic of my bags of fabric and I laid some of them out for you to see....














It took me 5 days to make up my mind to buy this 48.99 pattern by Jaqueline de Jonge. I'm sure you've seen it. I bought it on the last day of shopping. I have to make this quilt.

I also visited the booth of Laura W and said hi. There she sat surrounded by her beautiful hand dyed fabrics.

I am having such fun. I am making an art doll. Well, I call her an art doll because her face is painted and her clothing is our quilting fabric and I'm going to decorate her when she is done with beads and things.

She has an amature inside so you can pose her. In this pic I have added the body and one leg you can see part of her foot and hands on the table. Also, a pic of what she looks like when finished is in the background. If you want to see her close up and more like her, click here ...http://www.pmcdesigns.com... The artist's name is Patti Medaris Culea. I met her many years ago and bought a pattern and now many years later, I am in a fit of doll making and have ordered several. They are such fun, they call up all your creative juice. You can add to the dresses, add more bling, bling etc.
The body is ever so shapely, better than mine even lol. Knees, calves, breasts, long slender neck. A beautiful doll.

I painted the face and did very little sculpting. She is an 18 inch cloth doll. I painted the fabric that I made her face and top body out of.

Here she is so far, no arms yet. I am waiting for the special turning tools to turn the fingers. I finished her bloomers, skirt and vest so far but no adornments yet.

Here she is with some colorfull ribbon tied around her knees and waist. I will hang baubles from those. She is standing all by herself now. I have to decide on hair tomorrow and rings and things and more decorations. I will post her again when she is all finished.

Here is a little project I did two days ago. I need a sewing cabinet and what I want cost bucks so in the meantime>>>>> I found this cabinet, it even came with a storage stool. I measured inside the cavity and cut and screwed a nice piece of strong plywood in there and my Janome fit right in.

You can see a little space in the back, but that doesn't bother anything. See how nice it looks?





Since my machine's storage box opens in the front, this flap in the front worked out just right. I had to trim of about an inch. When I want to access the box, I just flip it up.

Here you see a space on the right side too but that also doesn't bother anything and my cords fit in there just nice too.

I had to cut an inch off the legs as I'm short and we are doing a custom job here now lol. I also had to cut a large curve out of the front, since cutting off the legs lowered the front panel to my legs...but I fixed that.

Here is a view accessing the storage area. Just flip up and then down ahahah...I'm so smart.

All this cost me a mere 10.00 bucks, so for now it will do. I can also butt this up to a larger table when I'm working on a larger piece. I kinda like my invention. I might build a side left piece or find a perfect cabinet and cut the legs down to suit me. I did a rough job but it's fine for now. I might refine it or not and oh all stuff in the back is my folk art that I do now and then.....

GRANDMOTHER'S FLOWER GARDEN

I'm going to upload about six pics of the Grandmother Flower Garden that I started some years ago in memory of my grandmother. This is the tin that I keep it in with everything that pertains to it.

Here is a block done. The center, two rows of garden and then the steps or path. The path is on one side only.



Then as you join the blocks, you join then at the path side.



All the seams are set in on this quilt, so one would be carful of the 1/4 inch seams.

I found this to be very easy to put together.

The Sharon Hultgren rule, "Easy Hexagon" and her book, "60 degree shapes without math, are really heaven sent to do this all on the sewing machine.

The blocks go together like butta lol and very quickly as in doing it all by hand or EP.

Here is a pic of the ruler.




Another pic.

I finished my Zodiac quilt....here it is all done...

Here is Tarus the bull....

Here is part of the border and some quiltwork...

This is me ..Libra....

I am still in the crazy mood and here is a new project. I bought the signs of the Zodiac a couple months ago and decided to crazy them this weekend. I actually started lasted night and only stopped because I promised myself to go to bed at a reasonable hour lol. Befow are the first two blocks. I was trying out the dryer sheets.

Then I seamed four dryer sheets togethers and put a zociac somewhere and crazied around it. Here are eight block 11x17 with 8 signs already done. I think I also did two of these last night, so I must have done 6 today.
Here is a close-up of four.

Another close-up of the other four.

I am using all my scaps and doing them any which way. It is totally mindless and as I sew, I create areas on the side and add them to the block. I sew strips together or use leftover strips form other projects...this is really a fun thing...guess I'm still crazy lol.....

I finished the twins' quilts...just the tops so far. Tomorrow I will quilt them on the longarm and bind them. I love them, they are so cute.

Somebody called them bullwinkle, I'm shocked hahhahaha.....

I have been busy working on two quilt for a pair of girl twins. The twins belong to my son's close friend and I talked to him the other day and he was talking about the babies and he called them, "my girls" and I thought that was so cute. I had to make them both a little quilt you see? I found this real cute design in some quilt mag. I had stored in my scap book of saved designs that I tear out of mags. I will go through tons of mags and just tear out the good stuff that I like. My friends mags too. Here is one finished but I think it's a bit small so I'll add more of something and post them both when they are all done and quilted. I have the other one all prepared so tomorrow I'll cut out the appliques and finish that part of it. It's a cute moose in the forest with friends, cute eh?






All the applique is fused on with wonder under and then machine stitched using the applique stitch on the Janome Memory Craft 800. This machine has some beautiful utility stitches. It comes with a host of decorative stitches and a separate embroidery kit. I don't use the embroidery part, except if it pertains to my quilting. I have had my Janome for years and think it's one of the best machines out there. It has a special foot for doing the applique, in that you can guide the edge of the patch along it and it does the job perfectly. When I go to Paducha in April, I will check to see if they have anything new to add to the machine that I can use.

I know there are some name brand machines out there that cost an arm and a leg and when I researched them, the only thing that made them so expensive was all that embroidery stuff, well so it seemed to me. I often wonder what people do with all that machine embroidery? How much of it can you really use? Do they sell it? I just don't know. There seems to be hundreds of patterns to download from the web and I hear about it all the time from eves dropping lol.

Personally, you should get the machine that is useable to you and what you do. I know I will hardly ever use the embroidery part. The Janome has just enough in case you should need to use it one day. I most often use the utility stitches and love all the other features like moving the needle where you want it etc. It has just enough perks to make it a top machine in my opinion and though the price is not cheap, its well affordable for a first class machine. I always have a back up machine too, just in case lol. I have a Brother Quilt Club 1300. I also did my research on that one. It is also a great machine. I do most of my piecing on it and if I didn't have my long arm, I would quilt on that one. I have one of those great singers also, I forget the model but it's one of the desirable ones lol...it is in a lovely cabinet and sews like a dream. I keep that one in one of the bedrooms and sew on it now and then. Also, I have never in my entire sewing life taken any machine to a shop....how about that? I service all my machines, have done it for years. I learned that when I first started to sew...as I am mechanically inclined, I like to know what make it tick and keep it ticking....well so much for now....

I have lost my web page with MSN, well they have lost it and won't admit it. I had so much stuff up there damn! I have a request now for the Cinco Di Mayo Quilt and I notice that blogger only carries over one year and a few months and the current year, so I will repost the Cinco for those who want to see it. This is the Cinco all finished.

Here are three blocks. I would put them on my design board as I finished and rearrange them until they pleased me.

I have squared off the quilt. I'm tired of adjusting and adding and designing lol. Now see the wheel at the right top? I am going to make several of these and add them some where on the quilt.

Here I have just place the wheel for now. I will put some borders on first and let the wheels extend out to the border, I think.
Until the next episode.....

Well, Spring has sprung in this house today. I started in the middle room which is our reading room or guest room. Never have any of those lol...anyway, I take everything out and go through everything and of course all the quilts came out. I have thought about rolling my quilts on long rollers ever since I saw Judy Martin do that to her quilts on her website. I thought what a neat idea.

Of course hers are rolled on wooden rollers and look very nice and decorative. After I counted 36 quilts 30 of them totally finished. I thought there is no way I'm going to spend all that money on rollers. So hubby had brought me home, last year, mind you, these long cardboard rollers that large amounts of damask fabric comes on. They are very strong and hardy. The company throws them away. I checked out the price for little rollers and almost fainted. So for free, take! hahahahah....

I piled all the quilts in a corner and I think I'm going to like that. Now I can see what I have just by looking and not having to take down and unfold..besides no more folds, which they say is bad for any quilt.

Now if you like that idea and would like to do it..just check with Joann's or any fabric store and see if they will let you have the roller when the fabric is done...

The beginnings of a crazy quilt lol. Lots of cast away fabric scraps and a mess. All thrown on a sheet and everywhere...but that's how it goes if you want to create...you must have a visual.

Crazy quilting is a very unorthodox way of sewing. I am a perfectionist in the sewing department, all seam match etc. you know. Anyway crazy quilt is the crazy in me and it is really art in fabric and in art, Anything is everything and that must be the reason I like it. I get to stray away from the norm.



Ok, I had this outfit I had painted years ago for the Las Vegas fabric painting show and I didn't win. Anyway, it was a lot of work painting these peacocks, so I decided to cut them out of the vest and crazy them. Here is what I have so far. Well at 3 am this morning hahahahhahahaha.

Look over to the left of the quilt above. I will do something of interest over there. Because I'm designing the quilt as I go, I must be careful not to put too many big pieces in there, so I will start to put little piece together seperately and then add them to the quilt until it is square. If you notice some areas are lots of little piece put together first before adding. I have four of those peacocks, so if this turns out good, I will continue to design as I work and will gain lots of experience. I am learning as I'm doing it and that is the best part about the whole deal, here is a close up.

I will keep you posted as I progress..

I finished another quilt with the binding. I am really on a roll finishing projects. That makes three for the week...oh boy, I hope this boost of energy never ends lol. Here is the one I call planets. Also done with fabric that I hand painted.

Here is a close - up of an area.

Another close up. For some reason it seems that the camera cannot pick up the true colors of the border. The border is brilliant and it is sunset so the light is ok but I've tried at different times and still no cigar...oh well....

Here is "Cat Nip". All quilted, with binding, labled, sleeve, signed and dated. An orginal to booth lol.....I enjoyed making this quilt. It was a lot of work. I think it's 47x57 or something like that. I am tired now, its 12.15 and I'm off to bed....I just wanted to get it up here.

I love crazy quilts...I started to make some blocks two days ago from by bag of left over scraps. We all have scraps right? I just started to upload pics in no paticular order so it goes faster. Below is what I've done at this point. I have now made 20.



I started inserting cat pics as I went along and really liked it. Cats are so cute in quilts ...it's like they belong there.



This cat is from yard goods I had bought long ago when I was making my crazy cat-coat. The yardage has about 4 different cats and they are the best. I wish I had bought more of that fabric...well we all know that story.


Here is another fabric of quaint cats. Imagine these are all scaps that normally get thrown out. I am making a quilt out of nothing. Oh and Ms Mel's hand dyed scraps are in there too.

Here's a real jazzy cat.

This was the first block I did. Well I made 4 in all before I decided to add the cats.

Well so far so good. I will post the entire quilt when I get in done.