I've Been Practiciing

A few weeks ago I went to Victoria with another longarm quilter to take a class with Kathleen of Kathleen Quilts!

Kathleen is amazing and a terrific teacher! The class was for domestic machine quilters, but she was nice enough to let us take it with only our sketchbooks. The best part of this was that while others were sewing, we were getting more options for the designs. It was a great day and a great class.

Kathleen showed us quilting done with these two great stencils by Jodi Robinson--which I immediately had to have! This one has so many options with these circles.

And this one--the design potential is just unlimited!



This is what my top looked like with after marking with the above stencil.  I had to put directional lines and "x"s in the blocks so I could keep track of where to sew!!

If you'd like to purchase the stencils, or any of the other wonderful aids on Jodi's site, click HERE

This is my finished sample. As you can see, I must have gotten a little too involved listening to "Outlander" while I was quilting.  Can you spot my mistakes????

Remember, if you click on the pic, you get a larger view.

Dory

Quilting at MQX

I am just back from MQX in Portland. It was great seeing all my friends and making new ones. This year we had four in our tiny room at the Inn at the Convention Center; however, that meant more money to spend on fun things! We had a great time!!

I learned so many new designs and techniques, like this one from Angela Walters. Her classes were so much fun and she is so darn cute. Full of enthusiasm and great tips!

 I took classes from Angela, Jamie Wallen, Linda Taylor and Judy Woodworth.  I'll show more pics over the next few days along with my practice pieces as I get in the studio.  I can't wait to practice what I learned so that I can put these designs and techniques to work on your beautiful quilts!

This piece was from a stand-up class with Linda Taylor, who was showing us alternatives to the quilted-to-death stipple meander. This piece was quilted on one of the Innova machines that were supplied in the classroom. I cannot wait to give this one a go on my Millennium. I plan to balance the density and then quilt it as a wholecloth on black flannel to show you some different background options. This was such a fun piece to play with.

Happy Quilting!!!

Dory

Houseguests, Fly-Mask Fashion & Practice

Most houseguests call before they move in...our latest ones didn't bother.  They did, however, explore the entire porch before deciding to make our front door their home.

Recognize the nest?? It belongs to these guys:

They're incredibly cute, but now we have to be very careful before opening the front door.  They flit around and scream at us whenever we dare to exit/enter the house.  And they haven't even had their babies yet--it will get noisier, but the babies will certainly make for some cute photos.

On Saturday, summer arrived and with it, the flies that drive the horses nuts.  Everyone got new fly masks this year and were kind enough to model them for me.  What do you think???  Aren't these the best?!  The boys got cross-eyed eyes staring at a butterfly and the girls got flowers.  This is Bailey...

And here's Kate:

And for a little quilty goodness, here's another practice piece that I did after watching Jamie Wallen's Cotton Tracks. After all, isn't this blog supposed to be about quilting??