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

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. 

And the winner is...

I have so enjoyed reading all your comments of your favorite summer vacations. Some made me laugh, some made me cry and some I have made a note to put it on my "Places to See Before I Die" list.
I think the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day was another success.
Welcome to all my new followers. I enjoyed each and every comment and appreciate your spending some time in my little corner of blogland.

The Random.org number generator chose #66, out of 384 comments.

The winner is Bonnie, who blogs at http://bonnieprojects.blogspot.com/. 

Bonnie said...66

OMG I love that tomato fabric!

Last summer we spent a week at the beach with both families, and it was so much fun!

Congratulations. I can't wait to see your finished projects.

I will be emailing Bonnie and she will have until Sunday to send me her address. I can't believe how many no-reply commenters there still are out there. Too bad, because they might have won something.

Free Motion Frenzy

I have had a fear of free motion quilting for some time but decided my Stitch Tease quilt was the one I was going to finally push aside my fears and really try to make it special.

My first snag was that IKEA was out of the numbers print and I had to drive to another store to get the 6 yards I needed for this quilt. This mission was accomplished when I attended the LA Modern Quilt Guild Meeting a few days ago. I stopped at the Ikea in Carson on my way to Los Angeles.

Yesterday I sewed the backing together and got the quilt all spray basted and ready to go. Then I set up my Bernina 820. Threaded it with Isacord 40 wt. Polyester thread, attached my stitch regulating foot and started quilting. The thread broke about every 2 minutes. 

A quick plea on Instagram led to lot of help. 

Change the needle to a #14 Embroidery needle √

Re-thread the machine √

Clean and oil the machine √

Try a different thread √

Make sure the BSR button is pressed on the machine √

Nothing worked. So I decided to take my machine in tomorrow to be checked and serviced.

Meanwhile, I really wanted to start quilting this quilt now that I had my courage.

I set up the old Bernina, the one with the tiny arm space. And guess what? No breaks, no problems. Just a lot of quilt wrangling through that tiny space.

Here's what I have so far. It's nowhere near good but I did it and I can hardly wait to continue tomorrow.

I quilted the middle row, which is Hadley's contribution to my bee quilt. I am loving this free-motion quilt stuff. It's actually quite forgiving.

Squiggly lines above and below the bottles and between each bottle in all the white spaces.

My version of bubbles or more like pebbles all around the word Celebrate.

I'd say I had a pretty good serious first try.

Now, what can I do for my aching arm and shoulders?

Giveaway Day

Giveaway is officially closed. Winner to be announced soon.
Thank you for playing.

It's that time again when Sew Mama Sew organizes Giveaway Day 

and we all add our names in wishful hope that we will be the lucky winner of 

some sewing supplies or lovely handmade items.

I have loved making framed clutch purses over the last year or two.

They make a quick and easy project and an impressive gift.

I have developed a pattern that is for sale on Craftsy,

but this week you can have a chance to win my pattern

along with the frame and Guttermann glue you need to make your own clutch.

I have also included two fat quarters of fabric

that I think will make a really cute clutch for summer.

To win:

You can have two chances

1. Just leave a comment of your favorite summer vacation memory. 

2. If you follow my blog you get an extra chance, just leave a comment if you do.
Entries will close at 5 pm PST, Friday, May 10. I will draw a winner Friday evening.
I will ship anywhere in the world. Good luck!

To follow through Bloglovin just click the link at the bottom.