On the Frame!

Woohoo!
My quilt is finally on the frame and progressing :-D After taking it off my own hand-quilting frame I felt such a sense of relief - and now that it is on my regular bee's frame, being quilted, I feel so happy! This quilt was pieced so many years ago, and, I loved piecing it, so, it needs to be finished - badly. My quilting bee - the Silver Thimbles, were gracious enough to agree to finish hand-quilting it when my time came to put a quilt on the frame. Looking at it now I love this quilt again. It has transformed itself from a source of stress to a great joy again and that makes me very happy. I hope that we all enjoy quilting it together ;)

I'm (Locally) Famous!

Only in a small town, or community, could my quilts make the cover of both of our local newspapers! The EMC is our local area-wide newspaper and the Chronicle is our town's newspaper. That's me on the right ;) I couldn't believe it when my quilts made the cover of *both* of the newspapers!! Although I am not in the left picture that's my flying geese quilt. I just had to laugh when I saw the papers this weekend. Our guild's show was a success and I now have the feeling that the photographers liked my quilts :-D It was two different photographers as well - so I must say that's quite validating ;)

BTW I've finally realized why I haven't been blogging as much as I was. I changed over from a PC to a MAC a couple of years ago. I absolutely *love* my Mac and wouldn't change it for anything. But, the PC had card slots o take different types of memory cards from cameras etc. and the MAC doesn't. So, I had to get an external card reader - I got one that hangs off the back of the machine. I hated it from day one since it didn't stay in the machine; but, rather, it would become disconnected half way through an import and it took so long to import photos. So, blogging became a real pain. I recently got a new card-reader that plugs in via a cord and it doesn't become disconnected if you breath on it! So - blogging is fun again! Amazing how something so little can change everything for you huh?

Rug Update and New Christmas Crazy Quilt!

Hi all! I thought that I would post an update on the spring welcome rug I am doing! I only have a small piece of the sky left to do and the boarder. I thought that a nice bright blue boarder would anchor the rug around the edge. I'll have to see if I can find a nice bright blue to whip the edges with as well. I think that I might rip out the bottom right rays of the sun though ~ or rather add to it and make the bottom right rays a bit longer to balance the sun more. It's not horrible bit I'm not quite happy with it. I always think that if you're not happy with it while you're working on it you won't be happy with it later! The one good thing about rug hooking though is that you can go back and fix it at pretty much any point ;) That's very comforting.
I'm teaching Crazy Short-Cut Quilts again and decided to get to work on the Christmas Crazy Quilt that I had cut out quite a while ago. I did a fairly simple pattern, with large pieces, to show-case the fabrics a bit more. And, since this will be a 30 block quilt, there will be a bit less decorative stitching later so a bit less work in the stitching! I know it seems odd to be working on a Christmas Quilt in the spring but I did start this in the winter :-D I'd love to have another couple bed sized Christmas quilts around. I just love the way that they look on the beds for the Christmas season. I think I'll use a gold rayon thread for the decorative stitching - or I may try a polyester to see if I get a bit less thread breakage than with the rayon.

What do you think? If you have any comments or questions please feel free to leave them here and let me know what you think!