Tradewinds

Isn't this quilt beautiful?

 It is my second Tradewinds quilt and I love this pattern! It used to be a free pattern on the Hoffman Fabrics site, but not anymore. However, I did a little searching and found the pattern here, if you want to make one of your own.

I love the secondary pinwheels that are created by the placement of the background fabrics. Can you see them?? Here are some close-ups, including one of the borders where I did a meandering feather pattern.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Dory

Word Verification...UGH!!!

For those of you that have tried to comment and are asked to verify the almost illegible words that Google blogger pops up with, I am sorry!!

After searching around FOREVER (okay, so maybe it was only an hour or so...but it felt like forever!), I've been able to turn that off.  Comment away...in fact, feel free to comment away. At least that way I know I'm not "talking" to myself!!

Dory

The Sequim Studio

My studio is done!!! Its lovely having my own space, especially being right off the house. We've converted the garage and if we open the door to the studio when we leave in the morning to work out, by the time we're home its lovely and warm. I also have an  Eden-Pure heater that keeps it warm and is quite efficient. However, I'm not sure I'm buying their claim that it will heat a 1000 square-foot area; but it does fine with my 300 square-foot area.

My first quilt was done in here.  It was cold and dark and made me really miss my yurt!

But now I get to quilt in here! We put in a wall that leaves Dennis all of about 10 feet at the front of the garage, where the main door garage door is. I have the back two-thirds of the garage with a view of our backyard and the pond. This picture sort of gives an overview of the whole room.  My plan is to make a long quilt to hang on the back open wall.  It will be squares of black and white 12" blocks with different background fills quilted in each one.

Taken from the same side, showing a different perspective. The two cabinets hold customer quilts and batting. The shelves near the window will hold all  my quilting books (when I finally put them up there). The cutting table has shelves for all my Art-Bin project containers and my bolts of fabric. I purchased this table from a longarm quilter that was going out of business. This is the first time I've actually had the room to use it. The door you can see will be replaced with a full-light door that I found at a used furniture shop. I am going to paint the inside with black and white blocks of some sort to carry on the theme from the floor. If you look closely, you can see that the switch plate by the door is also black.

This was taken from the opposite side of the room toward the house. As you can see, the door is open and the dogs have been great. They know not to come in and they lie right in the doorway. Its pretty cute. The other door you see is to Dennis' teeny-tiny bit of the garage that's left.

Same basic view, but you can see further into the house (notice the cute little Dash dog??) 

The racks hold my thread, the cases below hold my bobbins. I've just bought another holder so that I have six instead of the odd five. I've also noticed that I don't have nearly enough thread!!

This is a shot of a curtain rod that has hooks on it for me to use to hang my quilts for pictures. When I have local customers, I will hang their quilts there so that they get a full view upon entering the studio.

And my sewing are.  Of course, I haven't been able to sew there yet, but soon...I hope!

Quilt pics will start to follow...thanks for hanging in there with me. It feels so good to be quilting again!

Dory

Life in Washington

I've been working on a  beautiful quilt lately. Currently, I'm doing lots of these...

I finally finished (without going blind) and the quilt is on its way home. When it arrives, I'll post pictures. Until then, I thought I'd share this cool tip that I discovered from my guild-mates here in Washington.

Diagonal seaming for quilt backs. Of course, this won't work if you are piecing your back. But if you're not, this not only works well but will save you fabric. John Flynn apparently developed the math for this and if you have a "smart phone," you can download the app so that you NEVER have to do math.

John's method is for diagonally piecing a quilt back in the most fabric-efficient way possible. If your fabric is 44" wide or less, you can piece a back that is 66" or less. If the fabric is 60" wide, use John's method if you want your quilt back to be 90" or less.

John's Diagonal Piecing full instructions can be found here. Its definitely worth having in your toolbox of piecing tricks.

I'm planning to give this a go as soon as I have a quilt that needs a back.

Dory

I'm as sane as I'll ever be!!

Yep, I'm quilting!!!

I loaded a practice piece the other day, did some stitching to make sure everything felt right and then loaded Marei's quilt. Its a great pattern called Tradewinds. Its made for Jelly Rolls and it turned out great!

I now have an Eden Pure heater to keep me warm. I was very skeptical at first, but mostly my studio is warmer than my house. Of course, this is the Eden Pure Gen. IV and its supposed to heat something like 1000 square feet and I'm only using it to heat just under 300. But it works and I'm warm. I don't have the ambiance of my wood stove, but I don't have to haul wood and start a fire either. Just push a button and go!

As you can see from this sad picture, not much has been put away...not even my thread. I plan to get my customer quilts done and then play in my studio. Not sure how long it will be before I get some local customers.

Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Dory