Friday...Funday...Results

Friday....Funday.....resulted in my completing Molly's quilt. This is the free BOM offered by Bunny Hill Quilts during 2009. Molly's quilt has lots of detail in it. It was fun to work on. It was my goal to get the sashing and borders finished. Now I'm here to tell you that I am NOT a professional quilter. I do have a longarm but use if for personal use. Molly asked me if I wanted to quilt hers so I thought I'd give it a 'whirl'. I was a Nervous Nelly! LOL

I stitched feathers in both the sashing and the borders. I mean I should say "butt feathers" cause they look like big ole butts! I'm really obsessed with feathers and trying to master them. Molly sure was a "trusting soul" to let me 'play' on her quilt. Only a dear friend would do that!!!Here is a pic of the quilt pinned on my design wall. I love how she used ric-rac in every single block.

The October block is my favorite! Look at the three different pieces of ric-rac intertwined together. Too caa-utteee!!!

The pic below is of the feathers (aka butt feathers) in the sashing.

And here is a picture of the border -- more butts! LOL

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of the Bunny Hill quilt.

Funday Friday!

Funday Friday...I am so excited that I am now off work on Fridays! This means Friday will be a fun day. What are you working on today? I am working on my friend Molly's Bunny Hill basket quilt that she made. This was a free BOM during 2009 that we both made. Molly has entrusted me to quilt it for her. All of the blocks have been stabilized and quilted. Now on to the borders!Stay tuned......

Longarm Training Academy

I had the opportunity to attend the Longarm Training Academy in Houston, Texas. It was awesome. Carrie and Tom Dugan with Texas Quilt Machines hosted the academy. They did a great job and had a great line-up of teachers from all over the country! I met lots of neat quilters and learned a whole lot. The down side is I lost all my pictures of classes, teachers and beautiful quilts! I am just sick over it! I was able to do some "line dancing" with Diana Phillips! Line dancing is a machine quilting technique based on repeating a single design line that follows a continuous path across a block or quilt top using the piecework as a guide. The class was called "Fun with Shapes -- The Leaf Version". This was a lecture class with lots of pencil quilting. What an entertaining and good teacher. Diana is from Michigan.

I attended two classes taught by Jodi Robinson of Pennsylvania. What a delightful and talented lady! She taught us "Less-Stress Feathers" (a hands-on class) which taught formal style feathers without the stress of backtracking. The second class was "Quilt to Fill" a lecture class with pencil quilting teaching freehand quilting. I truly enjoyed Jodi's classes.

I attend a 2-hour class called "Threadology" presented by Bob Purcell, owner of Superior Threads. Now talk about fun! Bob is funny as well as very knowledgeable about threads! He even tied us all up together!!! No really, he did -- with threads!!! Bob dispelled the myth about "polyester thread" cutting into your cotton fabrics. We learned about all types of thread, thread construction methods, needles, tension, thread delivery, thread breakage problems and much more! There is lots of info on his website so go take a look. I even received a diploma!!!

DeLoa Jones from Michigan taught the class "Got Stencils? Use Them!" I have lots of stencils but hardly ever use them. I now look at stencils in a whole new light thanks to DeLoa. DeLoa gave a very interesting presentation and then we had 'hands on' using parts of different stencils to create our own quilting pattern. What a fun class!
I took three different classes from Lisa Coker. Lisa is a good ole Texas gal from Commerce, Texas. The first class with Lisa was "One Start, One Stop Borders". Lisa did demonstrations on the longarm machine of different borders using traditional curling feathers. The second class was "Now You're In Business". Lisa shared the basics of business and how to handle those PITA customers, the importance of ALWAYS using a work order, pricing, advertising, etc. The third class with Lisa was "Elegant Formal Feathers" where she taught us the basic stitching pattern and shape and how to give these feathers motion and make them come alive.

It was a great training academy and well worth the $$$$ spent. My 'feather knowledge' has really grown and I think those feathers in my brain may be fighting each other -- LOL! As an extra bonus, I was able to stay at my childhood friend's home and do lots of visiting in the evenings. Thank goodness she only live a 15 drive from the training.

Just remember this:

I hope you enjoyed my overview of my recent training. I'm just sorry I don't have the pictures of all those beautiful quilts!!!!