Stitching Hands Studio

Eat. Breathe. Quilt.

Way back in early July, during Quilter's Affair, I was fortunate to attend the Quilter's Picnic in the Park with some fabulous friends.  We had the most fun time!  Tonya, Jessica and Sarah made the evening amazing.  We had a yummy dinner, a hand quilting without a hoop demonstration by Tonya, and lots of laughs.  Thanks gals for a great evening!

Look who I got to meet!

Finally, Lazy Gal Tonya and I are in the same place!  It was so great to meet her- like old friends.  We had a nice dinner at Los Agaves Mexican Restaurant and then attended the Gee's Bend quilter presentation.  While waiting in line I did a mini show and tell and of course, we had to get a photo of this quilt, Love Always, our collaboration.  Tonya made the letters and sent them to me and I made the rest.  

I've got more to share, but it will have to wait.  Two more long days ahead.  See ya! 

Hope for June

This is my June quilt for AAQI.  It will be sent in next week.  My May quilts are posted with pictures now: Through the Window I, II, III, IV.  Zoom is still for sale, but Ginger's Garden is Sale Pending- woohoo!  Check out my $1000 Promise page to keep up with me and my quilts.  

Biggest news though is that the June auction is on-going.  Please head over and bid on one of these fabulous quilts!  Also, the Quilts for Sale page is busting with gorgeous little quilts.  All proceeds are going for Alzheimer's research.  AAQI is attempting to have this month be the biggest month for sales of quilts.  Please make that happen.  If you buy one now, or have ever bought or donated a quilt to AAQI, please tell me about it in the comments!  In this post I showed a couple of the lovelies I scored from AAQI earlier this year.

In other news, it's my talented sister's birthday today!  Happy Birthday Cheryl!  You should see her latest glass art.  Cheryl's hares, birds and other animals shine with personality and these necklaces are a fantastic addition to her Etsy offerings.  

Now I'm off to take in the warm weather that finally rolled into Central Oregon, just in time for the Heaven Can Wait walk tomorrow.  I'll be walking with my Undercover Quilter friends!  I'll be back here soon with lots of stuff I've been working on lately.

A little stash enhancement never hurt anyone!

Last week was spring break here.  Both the kids had the week off.  Hubby was working, but not traveling, so we were all at home.  We had nixed a little Oregon vacation with the trailer, mainly due to our heavy travel schedule for the summer.  And a good thing, the weather's been classic Central Oregon "spring"- snow, hail, sleet, rain, wind and brilliant sunshine in small doses.  Anyway, with a totally free week, I had visions of staying home and sewing for hours on end- always a fantasy for me!  As the days went on, each one was filled to the max with time with friends which was fantastic, but not the week I had envisioned.  I have lots of stuff to post about, but I need to take photos and get them organized.  So, we'll start with these as they are easiest!  

On Thursday, I had a wonderful day out with my friend, Erin.  We had both won gift certificates at our guild meetings last year to Homestead Quilts, a store about 45 minutes from Bend.  We kept putting off the drive due to distance and weather.  Finally, we got to go and it was great.  The store was much bigger and well stocked that the last time I'd been there 4-5 years ago.  I stocked up on solids there.  I can always use more solids and these are the Moda Bella solids that I particularly like.  Today is Erin's birthday!  A big shout out Happy Birthday to her!

Yesterday was the Fiber Market Day in Prineville.  I went over by myself this time and didn't even buy any fiber.  I got some locally made soap and hand lotion.  Then went to The Quilt Shack in Prineville.  It's a small shop and had some nice stuff, but I didn't end up buying anything there.  On the way home I stopped in Redmond at one of my favorite quilt shops, Material Girl Fabrics, which sadly doesn't have a website.  Leslie has a fantastic assortment of contemporary prints.  It always makes me happy to walk in the door there.  I got the wonderful Alexander Henry Halloween prints above.  Plans for these include the Halloween/Christmas mash-up blocks that Tonya is looking for.  If you don't know what that means, you can read about it on UnRuly Quilting.  By the way, Tonya is coming to the Sisters Quilt Show this year!  Woohoo!  We've already made plans to get together.  It'll be great to meet after all these years.

Material Girl Fabrics also had the MoMo owls and Route 66 prints.  I've been collecting owl prints for a while now and have quite a few. I just love the Route 66 print with the retro cars and maps.  I've been to many of those places, but don't have plans for that fabric yet.  The last one is a street map of Paris that I bought on Etsy from Uberstitch.  This summer will be my first trip ever there and I already know I'm going to love it and will need to make a quilt.  I'll post more about the crafty pleasures of the week soon!

LOVE for sale

LOVE is for sale here.  It's quilt number 6477.   Check out the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative for more wonderful quilts for sale and to benefit a great cause.  Also, I am now a member of the $1000 Promise as well as the Quilt-A-Month Club!  ZOOM is now awaiting assignment too.  I'll post when I know what's up with that one.  I have several exciting things to post when I get the chance.  It's been a busy few days.  

Can't Help Myself!

I'm using up every last scrap of this fabric.  I hardly ever buy several fabrics from a collection to use together, but this one has inspired me to keep going.  After this there is one last project with it and it will be almost all gone.  The postcard is for the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show's Wish Upon a Card fundraiser and the Love quilt is for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative.  I've added a button for AAQI in the sidebar and a category for it as well.  Just recently the AAQI has launched a Quilt-A-Month club, which I'm a part of.  It starts in February and members pledge to make or buy a quilt for/from AAQI once a month for 6 months.  I'm well on my way with the three I've made already.  The third will be a post for another day!  I'd love to have some of you join me in this endeavor.

Quilt!

Once I got going with those fabrics, I guess I couldn't stop!  This little quilt will be donated to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show's Small Wonders Challenge.  There are prizes for this challenge, but mostly it's a fundraiser for the quilt show and the Sisters Park and Rec District.

I had a lot of fun picking through the bits and pieces left over from the previous quilts.  There are still a couple of other works in progress with this fabric.

More words too.  I've been trying all sorts of letters and I think the Q is the most difficult so far.  This is the second one I did.  It took some concentration to get the corners to match up right on the x part.  More later!

Hope and Joy

This is my shop sample for my class I will teach in April at QuiltWorks.  I'll be teaching from Tonya's Ricucci's new book, Word Play Quilts.  This is an idea directly from her projects and seems a great way to introduce folks to making letters.  It actually took quite a lot of concentration to make my letters so straight!  I am much better at the wonky.  I do love this collection from Alexander Henry though- called Larkspur.  Love these birds!

While I was at it, I took the leftover letter strips and made a mini HOPE quilt.  This one will also be a shop sample, but will eventually be donated to the Alzheimer Art Quilt Initiative.  Tonya mentions this organization in her book and I plan to talk it up in my class.  By the way, I just found two gorgeous quilts to buy from the AAQI and will show them here when they come.

This one is just made from all the leftovers from the one above, including that little strip with the birdie.

I'll let you know when this is for sale on the AAQI website!  I also just finished Fun and Funky Vest #2.  Photos coming soon.  It's been a fabulously quilty weekend here due to lots of rain.  Today it's sunny and in the 50's, just right for a walk.  I know it won't last, but I also look forward to the next snowstorm.   It's nice to have a little bit of everything here.

Bah!

I had to join Tonya's latest challenge!  Bah! Humbug will be part of a quilt that she will put together someday.  I missed the boat on getting in a word for the quilt on the cover of her new book.  I'll always regret not participating in that one.  This one was fun to do though and only took about 2 hours.  While you're there at Tonya's blog take a look at this post.  My name is in the name quilt and a couple of orphan R's ended up in the letters quilt.  Too much fun going on over there!  Meanwhile, I'm preparing to teach a class based on Word Play Quilts.  More on that later!

Woot, woot!

 

Today's the day!  Congratulations to Tonya on a job well done.  Let's hope many generations of quilters enjoy the freedom of working in a liberated style.  May there be many word quilts in your future!  I've ordered my copy of Word Play Quilts from QuiltWorks, my local quilt shop.  I won't get it for a bit, but I can't wait to see it in person.

In the meantime, here's a quilt top that hasn't seen the light of day in a very long time!  I got the borders put on sometime in the last year.  I had figured this is the year to get it done, so I will baste and start machine quilting it this week.  I am hoping it will be done by next Monday so I can bring it to my quilt guild's Christmas party for show and tell. 

This one has a story too.  Ryan drew this picture for one of those melamine plates in 2006.  I believe it was the following year that I decided it would be fun to make into a quilt design.  The words just came to me as perfect for him and I made them right away.   Then I transferred his plate design to fabric and embroidery.  The Christmas tree is from another drawing he did.  The middle part sat around for a long time before I decided to do the stars and shoo fly blocks.  Now, that I am getting another good look at it, I'm all fired up and can't wait to get it done.  

In other news, have you seen that Jude is giving us all a little Christmas gift by posting videos and pdf's for a little holiday cloth she is starting?  She will be offering this for free, but I think this will be just as valuable as the online classes I took with her, so I urge you to join in on the fun.  Check it out here under her category, a little holiday cloth.