Machine Quilters Expo 2010

The 2010 Machine Quilters Expo (MQX) was held in Providence, RI last week. It was fabulous! Great classes, spectacular quilts, old friends, new friends, and lots of cool stuff to buy :-) I had 12 hours of classes with Al Hutchins, he is a fantastic teacher. I learned a lot about Creative Studio, the software that runs my Statler Stitcher. It is an amazing system, and I am looking forward to finding some time to experiment with all the new things I learned.

Lots of beautiful thread. Buying thread is almost as addictive as buying fabric. I bought some new colors, and some different types of thread to try.

Spectacular quilts! There were many different categories of quilts, including edge to edge, custom, heirloom, wallhangings, and challenge. They were all magnificent. I really enjoy the ideas and the inspiration, both for piecing and quilting!

Longarm machines to play with. A lot of people come to the show to see the different machine manufacturers and decide which one they like the best.

Vendors to visit. There was all sorts of cool stuff to buy. New tools, thread, replacement machine parts, thread, fabric, more thread, new rulers. Did I mention thread?

Quilted wearables exhibit. Another category of the competition is the wearables. Interesting clothing items, but I'm not sure I would want to wear most of them!

Demos. Gale is hard at work. Is he demonstrating something on the Statler Stitcher in Cowle's Quilting booth, or is he spying?

Friends! Gale Tuper was demonstrating one of the Cowle's Quilting Statler Stitchers in Anne Bright's booth. Anne designs patterns for paper pantos and digital designs for computerized machines. She is really nice, and a lot of fun! Ask her about the bear shaped cloud ;-)

More friends! Darryl and his other brother Darryl ;-) We had lots of laughs! (For those of you who dare to ask... Larry, Darryl, and Darryl were from the "Newhart" sitcom).

How often do you get to have your picture taken with the two people who own MQX? Thank you Mary and Janet-Lee. Another fantastic MQX! See you next year!

AQS Lancaster Quilt Show

I went to the AQS Lancaster Quilt Show with a friend on March 25-26. We had a lot of fun, stopping at several fabric shops on the way, and more on the way home! If you are ever in the area, you must stop at Hayloft Fabrics in Morgantown, PA. They claim to have over 8000 bolts of quilting fabric. I didn't count, but they had at least that many!

The show was interesting. A lot of art quilts, but I wish there had been more traditional bed quilts on display. There were hundreds of vendors, and crowds of people! I attended three lectures, and they were all very informative. We are not allowed to post photos of the quilts, but here are a few pictures of the quilters :-)

On the way home we stopped in Lititz, PA and stocked up on Wilbur Buds at the Wilbur Chocolate factory. It is the best chocolate in the world :-)

Teddy Bear Quilt

I made this baby quilt, it is a Turning Twenty pattern using primary colors, teddy bears, numbers and alphabets. I quilted it on my Statler Stitcher. I love the teddy bear quilted design!

The backing is little teddy bears. They are so cute!

Visit my website at www.ValentineQuiltworks.com!

Castle in the Clouds

Castle in the Clouds is an amazing place in Moultonborough, New Hampshire. We have been there many times, and used to take the tour. We would go down to the spring to see where the Castle Springs water originated, and then see it being bottled. The spring was sold, but sometimes we can find that wonderful bottled water! Bottled at the source, in Moultonborough, NH.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I Love Quilts

A picture is worth a thousand words :-) I used fusible applique for the letters, added the borders, and then quilted it on my Statler Stitcher. The quilting design is called Celtic Hearts, stitched with red variegated thread.

A Bloggy Question

I'm a visual person, I like pictures. When you look at a blog, do you like to read lots of stuff, or do you prefer to browse pictures with short explanations?

The Simple Joys of Christmas

Our beautiful Christmas tree!

Machine Quilting - How It's Done!

Have you ever wondered what happens during the consultation when you bring your quilt to a longarm quilter? Have you ever wondered what the actual quilting process entails? Visit my website and find out!

Valentine Quiltworks

To Wash or Not To Wash

Do you prewash your fabrics before you use them in a quilt? Here are a few examples of why all of my fabric is washed before it is placed into my stash! Some colors have more excess dye than others. Red is bad...

But blue is often worse!I soak similar colors of fabric together in the sink with a little Tide. I continue to change the water until the excess dye is out. Sometimes I leave it to soak overnight. I rinse it by hand, then I toss it in the washer for one final rinse and spin, and into the dryer it goes! I do it in batches of about 8 yards or less, and remove it promptly to reduce wrinkles. I fold it neatly, and put it in my stash, ready to be made into a quilt!

Winter is Coming...

This is a photo of the acorns in our shrub bed. The entire wooded area looks like this, thousands of acorns! The squirrels have been busy... is this an indication of a harsh winter to come? Wouldn't this be a fabulous design printed on fabric? :-)

Shoreline Quilters Guild - Quilt Show 2009

It takes a lot of work to put on a quilt show.

Setting up the quilt show, the vendors are unloading their stuff and the quilt frames have arrived.

The quilt frames are being set up.

Quilts have been checked in and are waiting to be hung up.

Vendors are getting ready. It's starting to look like a quilt show!

Quilts are displayed.

More beautiful quilts.

A view down the aisle. The show is on! There were over 200 quilts on display, and I quilted more than 30 of them!

One of my quilts in the show. I named this one "Oreo Ice Cream with Raspberries on Top". I must have been hungry :-)

Another one of my quilts. I named this one "Sound of Music".

I quilted this beautiful Dresden Plate quilt for a customer.

A closeup of my quilting. The quilt has been washed so it has a wonderful antique look to it.

Here I am in my vendor booth, promoting my machine quilting business. The quilt show was a success! It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun too. I really enjoyed talking with all of the quilters who stopped by to see me. I also saw a few old friends that I had not seen in many years!

Quilt Show!

The Shoreline Quilters Guild presents
"A Harvest of Quilts"
Quilt Show 2009

Saturday, October 17th, 10am-5pm
Sunday, October 18th, 10am-4pm
East Haven High School
East Haven, CT

I will have quilts in the show and
a booth in the vendor area.
Please come say Hello!

Stash or Collection?

Is it a "stash" or a "collection" A stash is meant to be made into quilts, a collection is meant to be loved and enjoyed. Which one do you have?

A Beautiful Day for a Parade

July 4, 2009. Happy Birthday America!

Twisted Log Cabin Quilt

Remember Alex Anderson's TV show "Simply Quilts"? I miss that show, I learned a lot of new quilting techniques from watching it! At the beginning of every episode they showed a Twisted Log Cabin quilt. About 4 years ago I decided to design and piece one of my own, from the concepts presented in Barbara Kaempter's book Log Cabin with a Twist. Mine is still a UFO, I never did figure out what I wanted to do for a six sided border, let alone the quilting. So, here it is, as is, about 30" across.
When I designed this quilt, I created it full size on paper with all the colors. There are 24 triangles in the quilt, and every one is a different color combination! I really enjoyed the paper piecing, but this one has so many little pieces, so the foundation paper is staying on the back!RaNae Merrill wrote a book, Simply Amazing Spiral Quilts. Her book takes the twisted log cabin to a new level by creating spirals in 4, 5, and 6+ sided shapes. She is in the process of writing yet another book based on spirals, and I am lucky to be part of her "Quilt Lab". I am designing a quilt, and will piece it and quilt it, and hopefully it will be in her next book! I am not allowed to explain the details of the book, but stay tuned, it should be another beautiful book that you will want in your quilt library!

Are You a Fabric-aholic?

I love fabric! And like many of you, I have a pretty substantial stash :-) Of course when I make a quilt I never have exactly what I need, so I end up buying more. I collect cat fabrics, heart fabrics (after all, it's Valentine Quiltworks!), bright colored fabrics, pretty fabrics, and any fabric that I like. The main reason I am writing about fabric is because I want to share my two favorite online fabric websites. The first one is www.fabric.com. They get new fabric every few days, and they have good prices, and free shipping if you spend over $35 (that never seems to be a problem!). The other website I like is www.thousandsofbolts.com. Everything is about $4/yard, and who cares if it is last season's fabric? It is all name brand, quilt shop quality, and they also get new fabric every week or so. Both sites tell you how much they have in stock too. I must add that I do like to support my local quilt shops, especially if I need something specific or need to match colors, but occasionally I like to support my stash habit late at night, so the internet is handy for that!

"Friends are like fabric, you can never have enough!"