Mini Break

I realized that it was a week since I blogged here. Sad to say, I've hardly been in the quilting studio either. Life happened: work, house chaos control, an overnight excursion during which my daughter had gastro (aka 24 hour flu), an evening at work and now tomorrow I'm back at work again.
I did pick up some poly thread while in Edmonton. Also, today I did a thorough maintenance check on my Gammill and have a pretty good idea what I'm going to order for spare parts.
More batting is on the way! The wool batting is no longer back-ordered and I've decided that a roll of Quilters Dream #4 Select, 92"w, 100% cotton would be an asset.

Quilting Tip: If you have an all black (or very dark) background on your quilt, consider using a black batting. Bearding (the batting poking through) will happen to some degree at some time on most quilts. Even a tiny bit of white bearding on a black quilt can be annoyingly obvious.
(okay, this is a bit of a plug, I do have a poly/cotton black batting folded on a board in stock, it is 96" w)

Pins & Pine Needles Quilt Show Winners

I had a request for pictures of the winning quilts. I thought I would just post them on the blog. My apologies for the quality and funny angle of the pictures. I took them before the show and didn't think to grab my camera for the winning pictures. I do know that other people were taking pictures then. Also, I'm not absolutely sure on the spelling of the winners names, so my apologies if I get them wrong too.

The Bright Challenge was won by the red, black and white Heart Bargello made by Donna Buchanan. The Best of the Show Viewers Choice was won by the floral/trapunto nine-patch made by Michele Sneddon.

Our lovely fall wallhanging door prize was won by a family from Blue Ridge (not mine).

Pins & Pine Needles Quilt Show

After many hours of hard work and a few late nights preparing, the Pins & Pine Needles Quilt Guild's first quilt show was held. I had two quilts that I made hanging in the show. I had the start quilting class samples hanging behind my table as well as Jackie's queen size log cabin quilt. The log cabin quilt looked fantastic with it's oranges & browns set in a barn raising setting with creamy logs. We got lots of compliments. Thank you Jackie!
I talked to a lot of people about my business. I'm glad I went to the effort of making up a poster showing the longarm quilting process. Here is a picture of it. I think I handed out over 100 brochures, and that's not counting the ones that are going to the shops.
The 100% cotton, double batting was won by a lady named Joy from Barrhead. There was some interest in the quilting class.
After it was done, I went out to celebrate with my family and my parents to a new Chinese restaurant in Whitecourt. We enjoyed the food and the kids were very happy to eat the carrot roses that decorated every plate.

Sample Quilts & What's on the Gammill

The first class sample quilt is nearly finished - hurray for binding without hand sewing! It still needs a label and maybe a hanging sleeve, but I thought it turned out pretty good. I did a freehand ribbon meander over the rail fence and the border. The thread colour is Baguette.

The second class sample quilt (Square Dance) is currently on the

Gammill quilting machine. I'm quilting it with Purple Jewel thread

using a pantograph called Fantasia.

Class Sample Progress

I'm working on my samples for the "Start Quilting" class that I'm teaching at the beginning of March. I've finished piecing the Rail Fence sample, it's red & white with a hearts border. I am planning to load it tomorrow. The second sample I'm doing is the Square Dance, it's in batiks - purples & blues mostly with a bit of yellow and pink. The Square Dance blocks are all pieced, tomorrow I will join the blocks and put the borders on. Glenn has put a shelf up in one of my studio closets and tonight we will get the second one put up.