A bad day at the pond~

The boys have these cool remote control boats, and BC has this water park for activities such as these!

Here we have a tipped vessel, (red/cream), but here comes Will to the rescue!!!

After a few attempts he finally gets in a good position to push him to shore!

It was quite entertaining watching them~

Finally, the rescue is made! A few minor adjustments and he is back in action!

I love watching these guys, in BC, its boats, skateboards, bikes and scooters, at home, its quads, hiking, target shooting, bow hunting, and now handheld crossbows.....................blessed? Indeed!!

Been a busy couple days, dental appointments, quilting, and guild business meeting, and more quilting, not up to leaving but I look forward to delivering quilts, it's like watching kids opening up presents!

A Challenge accomplished!

Hehehe, just a funny shot I came across while looking at some pictures, this boy was out riding with his buddy, the mud was pretty slick and he just tipped right over! No harm was done to the bike~and obviously none to the rider either!

This quilt was quite the challenge, it was one of last months accomplishments and as I look back at the pictures it all comes rushing back!

I loved the design, it is one from Deb Geissler, love love love her stuff!

This was no little one either, you can see on the left how close it is to the end of the frame, I have a 14 ft table~

One of the challenges was how the quilt was growing from around the middle of the quilt towards the bottom, tried to get a shot of it but it was around 110 at the top and by the time I hit the bottom we were at 116 wide!

We knew the backing and batting were going to be close but man oh man............

Here is its full shot, it came out pretty even with all its quirks~

Here is a little closer look at the design, kokopelli's flittering around doing their thing! I gave it to her on a Wednesday and she had the binding on it and on her bed by the weekend!

Seems we go through spurts of quilts that bring us a little challenge, we did 5 bargello hearts that still cause me to wake up in a sweat in the middle of the night, they came out beautiful and that is what I try to focus on! Those babies are up next to share!

Catching up~

Wow, I am still amazed that we are already in June, I had a fun May and was sorry to see it end so quick!!

This customer is one of my favorites, she tells me exactly what she wants and that is just what she gets!

The pictures don't quite do the quilting justice............

She also had shams but didn't get pics of those.

Then this little guy, sigh, when you get a naggling feeling in the back of your mind it is always best to trust that niggle and double check those little things, especially when it involves your tension!! I got to the 4th row and seen the stitching from the 1st and my heart dropped clean to my toes, what took 15.5 minutes to stitch out ended up taking over 5 hours of unstitching. Big lesson learned!

Here we have T and K, they are two amazing quilters in our Guild, T, is showing her latest using silk ties that she has collected over the years, it is an amazing quilt to say the least!!

Since we have had rain, snow and sleet so late into the year, it is has brought out all the beautiful wild flowers, Court and Donnie brought the bouquet home for me and hopefully I will have a nice supply throughout the summer!

I am very excited to have gotten our classes scheduled for MQX West this morning, did that at 9am sharp, booked our room last week so we are set to go! From there we went and delivered a couple quilts then it was off to the dentist, poor Donnie spent over 3 hours in that chair, he takes after me in that we have a high pain tolerance so by the time we realize there is a problem it definitely has become one! One more visit and he is good to go, the Dentist gave him a prescription and I thought it was for an antibiotic but it turned out to be a pain killer, Vicadin to be exact! I about flipped on the pharmacist, actually I did, but it will be properly channeled to the bleeping dentist on the next visit, in the meantime he is doing just fine with the ibuprofen thank you very much!!

The machine is happily stitching along and I am trying to get some order put back into this studio............

Favor~

That was how this conversation started~ The Owner was going out of town in 2 weeks and wanted to know if I could possibly have them done for her in one week giving her time to get the binding on before heading out of town!

Sigh~

Wanted to see how those funky feathers stitched out anyway~

And the backing was this heavy fleece, was a little nervous at first how it was going to take to the stitching, ended up being very nice!

This one was a mystery quilt~

It reminded me of snow and the sky, so I thought the Windy Day Design would be a perfect fit!

Was a good choice!

Now what is funny is I never met the gal, she called before I was heading to Boulder City for 3 days and she met my Son and Daughter at the quilt shop downtown, I got them done first thing Monday, literally, started at 7am and worked until completed, called her around 8pm and said they were ready, she would get back to me after checking her budget..................my stomach cringed and I just put them up and loaded the one that was up next wondering all the while what was up with this!?!

So I didn't hear from her again until Thursday, we were already in Boulder and I let one Son know what was up, he may be making a run again to take them if she found her budget worked.

In the end she was going to be able to pick them up on that Friday and wanted me to just leave them at the shop for her to pick up, nah, nada, nope, asked other Son to step in as he had some other errands already in town so he met with her at the shop and all ended well! He even took a video of her pulling them out of the bag to look at them, she was beyond thrilled and she gave him cash for payment!! Phew~ felt like I dodged a bullet there!!

It has been a long time since tinking around with the blog layout, had fun playing with the different fonts, something simple and not easy to mess up! I have forgotten how to update and change certain things so hopefully I will be able to take baby steps and change it up a bit, I found a neat background that I would like to try, then have to trial and error my way into changing the banner photo. Hmmm, wonder if I practiced on a fake one so as not to mess this one up................love those "lightbulb" (courtesy of Gru from Despicable Me) moments! ~smile~

Quick Jobs~

There are some cute frog prints in this little guy, so thought some bubbles would give it what it needed!

Love the bright colors!

There's them bubbles!

And always a sucker, can never say no, a customer who was visiting her daughter needed something done before she headed home the following week.

Since she just wanted simple stars, I figured I could fit it in!

She was thrilled and I was happy to make someone smile and make them feel special!

Sigh~

Good News is these two are officially in the completed category! Yay! Happy Day Happy Day! Ahhhhh~ I have to get the photos into the computer yet but here is just a shot of what the flange I was dealing with, turns out it really wasn't all that, but it was the first time to do one and those first timers can really put a hurtin' on ya!

Then this one! Boy's!

That about sums it up~ the three have been enjoying the skate/bike park in Boulder City and had been accident free 122 days! The new count date has been reset~

He landed on his hand, and after icing wrapping and more icing, and google searches on hand injuries we decided to don the Dr.'s hat.

We pressed, pulled and prayed and in the end he is back up and running! There were even directions on doing stretches once the swelling went down, but believe you me~ I was watching it like a hawk!

These colorful beauties showed up about 3 days later, I still cringe at the thought. Two weeks have past and it is all looking good. Until last night~ when he decided to do a little workout on the punching bag, Boy's~ sigh~

On the quilting front, I just completed 4 table runners, 3 full size quilts, 2 shams, and 1 wall hanging since Monday morning, I am pooped and calling it a week, now it is time to pack up and head to Boulder to put in my 3 days there, and the Annual Retreat the shop sponsors is starting up this weekend, the first of 4 so it should be pretty steady there, kind of funny by the time I leave here I am ready to rest up at the shop and play a little there, after the 3 days there I am ready to get home and rest up and get some quilting done! Sad sad sad~

~All about Sharon~

This big baby is Sharon's Wedding gift to her son and daughter in law, very very striking!

Her daughter in law drew the wedding invitation design and Sharon blew it up to put on the back of the quilt along with the registry of all who attended!

It was a little tricky with the stitching out part here, it required dh laying underneath to be sure everything went as smooth as possible! Thankfully it did!

I am now working on the second of 2 quilts from h-e double toothpicks, flange edges on these two monsters and they are driving me batty!

Only because I would love to be able to learn something new on one of my own projects before being forced to on a customers quilt!! I just want them to be over with NOW! ~smile~

Still some more~

This was just a neat picture to capture Kaa while he was drinking some water, we have a black and white ringed King snake that lives around here somewhere and he comes to get water from the chickens coupe during the warm months, he is also neat to watch fill up!

One of my favorite things to do when quilting one of my own quilts is use up all those bobbins that have just enough thread on them that you hate to throw out! Ultimately that whole bin has been emptied and has begin collecting once again! And it's funny that not one person has noticed all the different colors on the back of my quilts!

I also found some time to get my thread cabinet organized, it is actually a dvd cabinet that I picked up on clearance from Bass Pro for a song and it is perfect for storing and keeping the thread dust free!

Now this is funny, I have been watching this spool dwindling down for awhile now, I go through about 1 a year, I use the Presencia Thread, just love it! Now that I have 3 machines running I have one spool for each but this particular machine is what I use for attaching the bindings so it goes through the thread a little faster than the rest.

I was attaching a binding at this photo and wondering if I was going to make it! Thankfully I did and now a new spool is on there and ready for use. The spool holder is another favorite find, it works perfect although I didn't put it through the scissors, that was someone elses clever idea!

I am totally standing in amazement at how the Quilting Business has been flourishing for me! I love the challenge each brings at finding that perfect design and thread to bring it all together! A new customer was embarrassed at three table-runners she brought me to do, she felt they were too plain and would understand if I felt they were a waste of my "professional time"!! Blach!! I was speechless for a moment and couldn't express enough what a privilege and honour it is for ME to be trusted with any work by her hand! There is no such thing as 'just a simple quilt' in my mind! That fabric cost money and then precious time to create so be proud!! I just uploaded the pics to share next time! I think they came out fabulous and can't wait to put them in her hands and hear everyone ooh and ahh!!

Picking~

I have done more picking on quilts the last two weeks, this one had 20 minutes of quilting into it when I decided I didn't like the design or the thread color. Thankfully it was my quilt, but it still took over 4 hours to pick out!! The second one was a customer quilt, can't remember what was the cause of that one, I have already blocked it out of my head and only took a picture of after it was packed into its bag to be delivered!

I have been working on the pineapple blocks, did you guess it already? Hehehe, anyway the above one is done in all my civil war scraps and I love love love it! I have more pulled to do a larger size, maybe even in a king for my own room~ and below is a bigger block but in just the two colors, had a time picking out a border for it but eventually went with the gold for the inner border and the same blue in the quilt for the outer. It looks much prettier in person than the photo, I am going to attempt teaching the technique and these will be two of the samples. I much prefer the scrappy look myself, and did a quick large block in that version as well. Amazing how different they can look!

And back to some Christmas Quilts that were actually done after, seems this year a lot of people planned to do their family get togethers in January so that made it kind of nice not having to rush to get all those quilts done!

This gal's son in law is a carpenter, and she picked a design for the quilting that was tool related.

I love all the designs at my finger tips, and this one even came with my system.

We have been enjoying some very nice sunny and warm days, we even pulled out some of the ferns that we keep in the garage for winter to enjoy the warm sunshine!

Things at Fiddlesticks are still plugging along, I have to say I am glad to be back on only two days a week again, work has piled up at home, not only with quilts but with everyday chores, and not being home long enough to put stuff away after it has been used was horrid, just look in the background pictures and you will see all the little piles everywhere, so while the machine is going I am doing nothing else but picking up, sorting and putting things back where they belong. It is amazing how fast things get out of sorts, and I still have not gotten back to the pc laptop to get things transferred, and now the printer is acting up but thankfully I have a new one in storage that came with my MacPro so will just pull 'er off the shelf and get a new area worked up!

Just don't think it will be today..........................

~Non Stop~

What a BANG this New Year has been already! We spent our New Years Eve/Day and the next 4 making a total of 6 days at the Quilt Shop, the re-model/expansion is in full swing! The first class in the new Classroom is set for the 28Th and there is still a ton to get done. In between I get home for a few days and turn into a quilting fool so as not to get too behind, I am on 3 days a week at the shop and that leaves precious time for nothing else!

Here is one of Jo's quilts, I was tickled when she picked these Swirles for the design, another one of my favorites!

Just plain purrty!

This was a Cake in a cup Kit I got for Christmas, didn't think I would be to into it so re-gifted it to Blake, he made them up for us and have to say they were pretty darn good!

So much so he came up with his own version and they have become a fast favorite in this kitchen!

It is the same schedule for the next few weeks, it can be exhausting but I am quite content when I lay my head down at what all is being accomplished!!