Happy New Year to all!  One of my resolutions is to post on my quilting blog more frequently in 2016.

I spent pretty much all day working on my 2016 show quilt which is now on my quilting frame.  (the one with 500 flying geese!)  I am challenging myself to do almost 100% computerized quilting and have spent much time preparing the design elements to use for this quilt.  My goal is to have the machine quilted by the end of the weekend and return to customer quilts next week.

Here is a peek at how I am progressing:

I have been spending time figuring out how to make the blocks for a quilt that I will be using for a show quilt for 2016 – I could have gone with Lemoyne starts on the main block but the alternate block would not have easily worked that way so I tried making the same pattern with flying geese blocks and it looks like it will work very well..

Here are the 2 main block patterns for the quilt: these are sample blocks –

My quilt will be a 2-color quilt with red batiks on a dark blue background. (The quilt has 100 of the blocks on the left and 25 of the blocks on the right.)

Below are my fabrics all cut out and ready to go to fall quilt retreats with me it will be very time consuming as there are 500 flying geese blocks in this quilt!  So I will probably only have to bring this one project to work on the whole time!  (Thank-you Deb Tucker for creating the Wing Clipper ruler – I will be a pro by the time these are done!)

My next post on this project won’t be until October at fall retreat…  stay tuned!

Puppies love quilts too!

I have made several quilts for my parents over the years which they use all the time!  My mom is recovering from back surgery and has spent weeks on the couch with several quilts at one time. But… she’s not the only one enjoying them!  Lucy their chihuahua loves to snuggle into them as well!

I had a great week last week at Machine Quilter’s Expo (MQX).  I learned a lot from great teachers Helen Baczynski, Angela Huffman and Bethanne Nemesh!  Did some volunteering, and very much enjoyed the special exhibit of Cathy Vandiford Wiggins.

Dresden Beauty in Indigo – my 2015 show quilt at MQX Festival

I had a major issue with my website access preventing me from posting but… all is good now!

I realized that 2015 marks a decade that I’ve had my Gammill and have been Machine Quilting…. logging in at over 1200 quilt projects quilted.

Over the holidays I quilted my show quilt for this year.

It’s an original design called “Dresden Beauty in Indigo” using indigo fabrics for the Dresden plate blocks with a New York Beauty-style layout. I pieced it during Fall Quilt retreat with my guild at Camp Abanaki but did not get a chance to quilt it until the end of the year. Here is a photo of the quilt and a blow-up of the quilting detail:

Nothing makes a quilter happier than giving a quilt to someone and having it put to good use.  I made a quilt for a friend who was having her first baby.  The baby’s grandfather shared this photo with me of his granddaughter and her cousins on the quilt…. what a joy to see!

 I just got back from a week-long quilting retreat in Rangley Maine.  Had a wonderful time and was able to spend many hours piecing quilt tops which I don’t have time to do at home.   This quilt is called One-Block Wonder –  all but the inner green border is one fabric. The outer border is the fabric and the inside is over 600 triangles pieced into Stack & Whack Hexagons for a kaleidoscope effect.  I have hand the fabric since 2005 with the intent to make this quilt…. Finally got it done!!

One thing we do around sunset is go out on the back roads looking for moose… we found some! It’s fun to watch them and they are very close to the edge of the road!

The table is set with a quilted table topper from Yankee Pride Mystery Spring 2013..