Chevron Picnic Quilt {Blogger's Quilt Festival}

When Amy of Amy's Creative Side decided we could enter two quilts {I also entered in the bee quilt category} in the Blogger's Quilt Festival I couldn't decide what category to enter until I saw the Quilt Photographer category. I remembered when I originally blogged about the Chevron Picnic Quilt I had made for my son and his family, I wrote about the photo shoot in the park and around town.

All it needs is a picnic basket and a family.

 It looked over the lake...

Served as a horse blanket...

Stopped at the farm stand...

Since this is a two sided quilt, it also serves as a tablecloth...

But my favorite photos are of my granddaughter "modeling" with the quilt.

I am entering this quilt in the Quilt Photographer category.

Quilt Stats:

Pattern-Patchwork Chevron by Jeni In Color Order

fabrics-Reunion by Moda, Kona Ash, Robert Kaufman green gingham

batting-Warm and White

thread- pieced with Aurifil 50 wt. and quilted by me with Gutermann cotton thread 50 wt.

measurement after washing 76"x76"

Past entries:

Spring 2011 Storm at Sea

Fall 2011 Hexagon Park 

Spring 2012 Rockin' Robin

Fall 2012 Retro Flowers

Mother's Day

On Sunday we finally got together to celebrate Mother's Day. It was supposed to work for everyone because the boys that usually work on Sunday morning were off and the son that lives out of town was in town for a class. But then one son's class got out late and another had to leave early with his family for a basketball game, so we were not able to be together at the same time, but I did see all my boys and that was very special.

We live in a community with a man-made lake, so we took out a duffy boat and "cruised" around.

I have had an iPhone for about 4 years and just found out it has this cool panoramic feature on the native camera.

We had fun with the grandkids looking for turtles and seeing the momma ducks with their ducklings in tow.

The highlight was seeing this heron. We were all trying to decide if it was a statue...until he yawned.

The time went so fast, I didn't even get a photo of everyone.

With backlight and an iphone the photos are a bit dark.

It was completely unusual that Michael and Evan did not have to work Sunday morning.

The captain and his co-captain.

We did get this photo after Michael and his family had to leave.

We've decided to make this an annual Mother's Day event. Hopefully next time we won't be like ships passing in the night.

4x5 Bee Blocks

It's been a while since I have posted about bee blocks and really anything else other than my Stitch Tease Quilt. But, if you have not read about it or are interested in seeing all the beautiful submissions in the Blogger's Quilt Festival, click on over to Amy's blog to read about my quilt and the hundreds of other gorgeous creations.

A few months ago I joined the 4 x 5 bee for the Spring round and it was an easy bee and really fun to make the same block in 6 color combinations for my hive mates.

this one was made for me

I asked for blocks in colors of the sea; blue, aqua and green.

These are the blocks I received, along with the block I made for myself.

I hope to join another round of this bee and ask for the same colors so I can get enough blocks for a quilt. I might need more than one more round but either way I am loving these colors.

Wordy Friends Quilt {blogger's quilt festival}

Hi to all the new visitors from Blogger's Quilt Festival. I am so happy you have stopped by to visit my little corner of blogland. I hope you will come back and visit often.

I have been working frantically to finish this quilt in time for Blogger's Quilt Festival.

What started as my Stitch Tease Bee quilt with an idea about 14 months ago has turned into a quilt that is so personal and special to me.
It started with this strip made by me.

two of my sons hamming it up for a photo shoot

My theme was WORDS and I left it up to my bee mates to think of a word that reminds them of me. My request was for them to make a strip to go with that word. You can read all about each strip here.

After receiving this quilt top in April, I decided it needed one more row to acknowledge the women who made it for me . They have all become wonderful FRIENDS and so I decided to add a flag for each of the countries where they live and stamp their names on the strip. I used Kristie's fantastic pattern for paper pieced letters, which is available on Craftsy.

I wanted to Free Motion quilt this by myself and I am not an accomplished machine quilter. Through sheer determination and a lot of tears, swearing and broken thread and needles, I quilted each row in a way to accentuate the perfect piecing done by my friends. A huge thank you to all my Instagram and blogging friends for their advice and encouragement when I was having thread breaking issues with my machine.
Whether it was applique, paper pieced or patchwork, I wanted to make sure not to distract from the design. I squiggled, I stippled and made pebbles; I swirled hearts and wrote words and stitched stacked blocks and stitched lots of wonky, wiggly lines. I even attempted to quilt clamshells. This has been a real learning experience for me as far as free-motion quilting goes. I'm hoping, with practice [on smaller quilts next time] that my skills can only get better. I would say I almost have pebbles and swirls conquered. My favorite idea has to be the quilted weather related words in Dianne's row.

The perfect fabric to back this quilt is the IKEA Britten number words fabric.

I bound this quilt with a black and white mini stripe by Timeless Treasures. It frames the quilt without drawing attention away from the quilt, don't you think?

I'm pretty proud of this quilt and it will be hung on my studio wall as a reminder of the lovely and talented friends I have all over the world.

I am entering it under the Bee category in the Festival. I hope you will go and enjoy all the beautiful creative talents of the blogging quilt community.

Quilt Stats
Name: Wordy Friends Quilt
Made by the original 8 members of the Stitch Tease Bee
Binding: black and white stripe by Timeless Treasures
Backing: Britten Numbers print from IKEA
batting: Warm and White
Quilted by me with Aurifil 40 wt. and Isacord 40 wt. both in white.
Size: 77" x 84"

oh, by the way, this is on my Finish-A-Long list and is my 7th quilt finish for 2013

Past entries:

Spring 2011 Storm at Sea

Fall 2011 Hexagon Park 

Spring 2012 Rockin' Robin

Fall 2012 Retro Flowers

Finding Time to Quilt

I recently read an article on "10 Things NOT to do on your Blog". One of them was DO NOT do a recap of your Instagram feed on your blog. Well too bad, because that's what you get this week. I have been spending every free minute trying to Free-Motion quilt but there has been a lot going on this week.

The last 10 days has been full of a lot of social activities. We are usually not such social butterflies, but this was a special week starting with the wedding of our dear friend's daughter, on May 4. Lindsay was an absolutely beautiful bride and Scott was her knight in shining armor. Our two youngest sons were able to attend along with their girlfriends and our daughter in law, Jenny. Lots of friends were there too and we loved celebrating this special day with everyone. The nuptial mass at the Mission San Juan Capistrano was reverent and touching. Then we got our party on the rest of the night.

I went to my first Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild meeting and got to hear the very talented Alexia Abegg speak and see some of her stunningly beautiful quilts and clothing projects. 

This Circle of Diamonds quilt was my favorite and I have ordered the pattern.

I also got to see the Marcelle Medallion quilt that caused a whole cult following on Instagram. It's even better in person.

The garden has started really growing and we have been enjoying a few of the crops we have been nurturing. The bees were caught doing their work in the zucchini flowers.

My nephew and his family are visiting from Pennsylvania, so my sister and her husband hosted a lunch so we could all get together and visit. I love seeing my nephew and his lovely wife parenting their sweet little girls. 

Mother's Day started with a Mother's Day tea at my mom's Senior Living. It was nice to see all the residents with their loved ones enjoying finger sandwiches and tea cakes.

My own Mother's Day celebration is postponed until next Sunday when #1 son will be in town. Due to work and travel schedules no one could get together this weeekend. It's all good because Mr. Romance started the day with this gorgeous bunch of flowers.

We then went to breakfast at the beach and for a walk on the foggy Newport Beach boardwalk and pier. Later we met our son and his family for dessert at Yogurtland.

This post is titled "Finding Time to Quilt" for a reason. I am desperately trying to finish my Stitch Tease quilt for Blogger's Quilt Festival. It has been close to a nightmare for this novice Free-Motion quilter. My thread has been breaking and I have been crying and swearing a lot. Thanks to my Instagram friends I have tried every secret, trick, and advise given and I am still having some difficulties. But, I can say this...it is a learning curve and I am getting better. I won't be winning any awards for quilting. Thank goodness I plan to hang this quilt because no one should ever see the back of it! I would say Pebbles are my best technique because they are very forgiving. Hopefully I will finish today so I can get this quilt bound and ready to show in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

Wow! That was a long post. Thanks for reading to the end.