This gallery contains 4 photos.
Well, quilting a custom quilt is so labor intensive that I HAVE TO break up the quilting with something more free. So, opened up my Electric Quilt 8. I updated it long ago but this is the first time I’ve actually looked at it since then. WOW has the face of this program changed. Love […]
Well, getting ready for a great guild retreat next Monday thru Thursday – can’t wait. I will be teaching a quick free half-day class on this super easy way to do a landscape quilt. Being so close to the Gulf of Mexico I thought it would be fun to do a beach scene, and, I had to add one of the Lorelei beach ladies to my scene. My studio bathroom is decorated with them so guess where my little quilt will eventually end up. The quilt needs to be quilted yet, and, of course bound, but it’s moving right along.
Well, if the above picture is titled “Sexy Lady at the Beach” it stands to reason that this one should be called “Sexy Paula With Her Quilt! It is so much fun to deliver a quilt and see the big smile!!! Good job Paula!
Off to the Coastal Prairie Guild meeting tonight to learn all about broderie Perse…should be interesting. Always fun to see so many quilters in one space having a great time.
Until later..BE HAPPY
Karen
This is the neatest, easiest way to hang a quilt I’ve ever seen. Too bad I’ve had it in my house for close to two years and never used it. I wanted to hang my surprise win quilt in my entry way and, of course, had no one to help. This took about two minutes. I found a stud and put a nail in the wall. YES, one nail. The small rod fits into the pocket and a small magnetic clamp with a nail hole in it clamps, by it’s magnet, thru the quilt and onto the rod. Just centered it on the rod. One Nail…it is perfectly level and fantastic! I highly recommend these things and they are guaranteed for life and they come in various sizes. www.hangitdangit.com Again, WOW. This is one happy customer!
Meanwhile I sure hope everyone had a great and safe day. I’m still adjusting to the time change. Did you know that there are 8% more accidents and 10% more heart attacks on the day after a time change? Maybe we need to rethink the need.
Cleaned my studio today. Way too many UFO’s! Oh well…the life of a quilter!
BE HAPPY….Karen
Wow what a fantastic day Wednesday turned out to be. At the Coastal Prairie Quilt Guild meeting, starring our speaker from Grayslake, Illinois Ebony Love, a guest was introduced and she had a fantastic surprise. She was from the Lake Jackson guild – Plantation Quilt Guild – and had their donation raffle quilt which had been won by one of our members! Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be me. WOW! My day for sure. Isn’t this quilt super and so much fun! I love the colors and will hang it in my house today. I will give it “entry-hall” treatment. So excited. Then, I even won a door prize that night.
I really felt special!
Be Happy, Karen
Well, I have one more quilt to go and I will be caught up with my schedule of quilting customer quilts. These last few have been fun and I think their owners will like them. One has a minkie back. I really love the way quilting shows up on Minkie. I have worked on quilting these the past few days and when I finish one more T-shirt quilt I will be on schedule again. The costumes were worth the effort though, my daughter and her team loved them and they went on to win a banner for top team in the contest. Their next contest is this Saturday and then one in mid-February. Hope the rest of the season goes as well for them.
TODAYS QUILTING PROJECT. These are pics of the front and back of Barbara R’s small quilt I quilted this morning. I love the floral edge to edge design. It looks fantastic on the back and despite my inability to take very good pics, the front is great-quilted with a Sew Fine variegated thread. It was fun to quilt
THE GREATEST APPLIQUE LADIES I KNOW. My usual Tuesday morning is spent with a group of quilters, mostly from Sugar Land, Tx. It was a quiet day today – we just haven’t gotten into the swing since the holidays – too much rain. Usually there are some absolutely beautiful quilts and blocks to see. These ladies excel at applique! The pics below show some hard at work. Val, the lady holding the bunny has gotten into felting. The bunny is great but don’t you love the felted owl?
BO’S PLACE – A GREAT PLACE HELPING GRIEF WITH QUILTS. Last stop for the day was a place called Bo’s Place. Our quilters guild has been piecing and quilting quilts for them or over 5 years. Bo’s Place is a non-profit that works to help as many children and their parent(s ) as they can face and handle the grief of loosing a sibling or parent. No charge to those participants. Part of their therapy is makin a memorial square for their loved one. We take the squares and sash and quilt and bind them. Quilts are hung all over the facility in memory of all of those lost and those that remember. Because of privacy I could not take great pic of the quilts-a good excuse for blurred images. The group of ladies standing in front of some of the quilts are the guild members that helped to put the quilts together. What a fantastic place!
Untll tomorrow – BE HAPPY!
COLORING WITH PENCILS
72 Colors to a box
Borders Colored with pencil
This was an auction quilt I made for our guild auction. I wanted something different so I found a wonderful pattern for quilting the border and then used my Derwent Inktense pencils to color the border to enhance the quilt design. Using the Derwent pencils, which resemble water color dependent upon how much water is applied is so simple. Color the areas you want, you can shade to your hearts content, then brush with a small brush dipped in water until you get the effect you want. Just be careful (ask me how I know), too much water will run the color thru to the back of the quilt. So Easy! AND IT’S PERMANENT!!! This is the container that the pencils come in if you buy the 72 color box. I highly recommend them. Other pencils, like Prisma or even the cheapest from the grocery store will work with this technique but will not give you the intensity of color that you get from the Derwent pencils. Most other pencils must be sealed with a textile medium of some sort. Tomorrow I will show you how you can use these pencils to make a quilt, combining them with embroidery from your embroidery machine.
QUILT FOR THE DAY This is the quilt for today that I am quilting. It is much like a t-shirt quilt and as little quilting as possible was my objective. There were a lot of memories built into this quilt that I felt needed to be the highlight.
Until tomorrow….BE HAPPY
Karen
www/karenthequltingdiva.com
Karen The Quilter
Welcome to my brand new blog, hope you will bear with me while I learn how to drive this thing! I feel like I have just gotten a new car with a manual transmission – scary stick shift! I am hoping to be able to post something of interest each day – wow, sounds like a New Year’s resolution to me. Because I am always running and multi-tasking I thought I might try to document some of my days. Primarily my life revolves around quilting and making quilts, dying fabric and playing with design options for the hundreds of quilts I want to make. My bucket list is way to long! I love checking out new techniques, have almost all rulers ever invented (most of which I haven’t used much if any), and am overrun with patterns even though I want to design my own.
Karen The Quilter 