Category: Blogroll

New apron

On By alwaysquiltsIn Blogroll, Hobbies, Home and Garden, machine quilting, quilts, UncategorizedLeave a comment

picture-4901I won this apron last night at my guild meeting. Yeah! I needed something to help lift my spirits after the last couple of days.

It’s made from a  dishtowel.  We played a game where we all started out with a clothespin attached to our shirt and we couldn’t say the word “Quilt”.  If we did then the first person to call you on it would get to take your clothespin and the one at the end of the night with the most clothespins won. My sister was sitting beside me during the meeting and she said “quilt” so I reached over and took her clothespin, she’s like…..”what are you doing?” Then my friend across the table says “You said “quilt”.  Ah ha! I got hers too! Wow, I then had 3 clothespins, I was having fun at this!!  I was the second one to show a quilt top for show and tell and I was determined that I would NOT say the word quilt while I was up there. Guess what? I said QUILT!  Well, I was then on a mission! By the time show and tell was over I had collected 11 clothespins and won the game.  You know how hard it is not to say the word “quilt”  at a quilt meeting during show and tell when you’re showing and telling about your quilt? Nearly IMPOSSIBLE!! LOL!!!!

Have a great day.

Theresa

technology…what an amazing thing

On By alwaysquiltsIn Blogroll, Hobbies, Home and Garden, machine quilting, quilts, Uncategorized7 Comments

It really is amazing that I can travel down the highway, read blogs, check my e-mail and be connected to the internet all while in the car! I love this. I decided to bring my laptop along on our roadtrip so that I could get caught up on few things. This is nice!

Anyway, I’ve been quilting as much as possible this last week. I finished 5 customer quilts. I also designed a couple of snails trail quilts on EQ. I did 2 different colorways and I like the way both of them look, but I’ll only make one, so which one do you like better?

This is #1

Here’s #2

I’d like to dye the fabric for it, so the colors will be different that what is showing, but I hope it will come out looking similar to what it looks like here. I used 4 shades of each color, going from dark to light.

What do you think? 1or 2?

Let me know your thoughts…………PLEASE???????

Theresa

Festival pictures on Webshots

On By alwaysquiltsIn Blogroll, Hobbies, Home and Garden, machine quilting, quilts, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I finally got around to uploading some pictures on my webshots page, so if you’d like to see more pics of the quilt show and some that I took at the festival grab a cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy the show! I think I put 103 pictures of the village/quilt show in the album.
you can see them at

http://community.webshots.com/user/alwaysquilts

Enjoy!!

Theresa

I dyed again

On By alwaysquiltsIn Blogroll, Hobbies, Home and Garden, machine quilting, quilts, Uncategorized1 Comment

Well, I tried dyeing again. I’m not as excited about this batch. I figured I would try using some muslin this time and cut it into FQ’s. I don’t know why some of them came out looking textured and  some came out almost solid. I was trying to put them all in the containers the same way. See the difference? The first picture shows how some look almost a solid color and the next one shows how some look more textured (which is what I was trying for). I don’t like the muslin.  It doesn’t have a high thread count so it’s not as nice feeling as the Kona I used last week. I’m not sure if that had anything to do with how the colors came out or not, but I know I won’t use it again.

I measured out the dye for 12 colors this time and just poured the left over dye solution in the other containers that I had ready. I put a little of this and a little of that, so some of the colors are real similar. I dripped some in one (on purpose) just to see what would happen to it. Sure enough, I can tell where the color landed on the fabric. It’s the 3rd one from the left.These all came out kind of greenish except the turquoise one.

These are yellow/orange.

And here are the pinkish ones. They almost all look alike!

I didn’t get the variety of colors like I did last time. I’ve been using the 3 colors and mixing them but I think now I want to just order the colors that I want to have instead of mixing the yellow and red or the blue and red etc. I’d like to have certain colors. I guess I’ll keep working at this dyeing stuff. It is fun!!

Well, that’s it for now.  Have a great day!

Theresa

Oh….. on the last post I saw an animals face ( dog was my first thought)  and a tin man character!!

new things to work with

On By alwaysquiltsIn Blogroll, Hobbies, Home and Garden, machine quilting, quilts, Uncategorized4 Comments

Do you like to try new things? Here’s a few things that I’ve picked up recently.

One is a new ruler that has a moveable piece on it so that I can put it at the mark that I want to cut and the fabric doesn’t move under the ruler. Anyway, I think it’s a pretty neat ruler. The yellow piece has little lip type things that click onto the ruler.

The ruler is bendable so it’s easy to move the yellow part from cutting one size to another. The nice thing is that you just butt the ruler right up against the fabric and cut. You don’t have to worry about making sure that you’re on the right mark of the ruler.  Or that the ruler will slip while you cut. Anyway, I think it’s neat.

Another thing, is a little cutter. You can just push the blade out and snip threads. I think it’s great when I’ve chained a lot of pieces together, I can just use this and clip, clip, clip. I have one at my DSM as well as my LA machine. The blade stays out only if you push it to the end. If I’m just clipping a single thread I only push the blade out so far then it automatically goes back in.

The other thing I’ve gotten lately is the little wooden stick thing.LOL. I can’t think of it’s name!! A friend of mine gave these out at guild one night. She said they work great as stilettos. She picked up a bag of 50 for like $1.00. She breaks hers off about 4″ so it’s not so big. But hey, I feel sophisticated using that long stiletto! KInd of like the ladies back in the 20’s that used that long thing to put their cigarettes in. I don’t know why they did that, I guess it made them feel sophisticated! LOL!!

One last thing. How’s this for an iron? LOL!!! Mom and I were out running around one day and stopped at a Quilt shop and they had these near the register. I don’t know that I’ll ever use it but I bought it just cause it was CUTE! And you know some day I might need just a little iron for something.

Ok, that’s if for my gadgets. Let me know if you have any of these and if you like them.

Theresa

Mom’s quilt is finished!!

On By alwaysquiltsIn Blogroll, Hobbies, Home and Garden, machine quilting, quiltsLeave a comment

Just a quick note here. A while back I posted about buying the Wizard of Oz fabric and wanting to make my Mom (Dorothy) a quilt for Mothers day. Well, I got it done!! I finished it up Sunday right before we went to Mom’s. I quilted it using the cotton candy panto pattern. I thought that was appropriate since my Mom LOVES cotton candy!! Anyway, I thought I would share a picture of Mom with her quilt.

Here’s “Dorothy from Kansas.”

Have a great day!!

Theresa

polkadot night at guild

On By alwaysquiltsIn Blogroll, Hobbies, Home and Garden, machine quilting, quilts1 Comment

Tonight was my guild meeting and we had our polkadot challenge quilts due. We had 14 quilts to vote on. It was hard because they were all good! Mine ended up taking 3rd. Yeah!! They didn’t have to be quilted, but I decided yesterday that if I didn’t quilt it for the challenge, who knows when it would ever get quilted. So I quilted it yesterday. I did a quick all over on it.

The last picture is mine. sorry, you have to see it twice. I can’t figure out to get the 2nd picture off! Oops!


That’s it for now. I need to get off here. I have one more day before the lock in. Then maybe I can get back to normal! Or at least slow down!!

Theresa

ice storm

On By alwaysquiltsIn Blogroll, Hobbies, Home and Garden, machine quilting, quilts1 Comment

Well, they are calling for us to get an ice storm tonight. Southern Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma have already gotten hit and now it’s heading towards KC. Right now it’s just raining outside but we’ll see what happens by morning. They’re already closing most of the school districts around. Mine was one of the first to cancel. Yippee!!!! That means I can stay home and quilt all day tomorrow!! Well……that is unless the power goes out. We have the generator ready to hook up if we need it. Hopefully we won’t. Anyway, I’m just glad that I don’t have to get out in the morning. My DS’s college has closed for tomorrow too. That means DH will be the only one that has to get out in the morning. Poor guy. HEE HEE. I get soooooo much more done when he’s not home. Luckily he only has to drive 7 miles to work.

I loaded a quilt today but didn’t have time to start quilting on it. I thought I better go to the store in case I get iced in for a few days. I was running low on diet coke!!! I can live without alot of things but not that!! LOL!! Wally world was packed. I think everyone decided to stock up on things.

I guess that’s it for now.

Theresa

http://community.webshots.com/user/alwaysquilts

Crocs

On By alwaysquiltsIn Blogroll, Hobbies, Home and Garden, machine quilting, quilts, Uncategorized1 Comment

I always have the hardest time trying to come up with a title for the blog! I think I should update it more often, but then I never know what to say. Do you really want to read that I bought a new pair of crocs?  Well, Saturday, my DH asked if I wanted to go to Cabelas with him and I said “Yes, I need to get a new pair of black crocs.” ( I’ve worn the bottom of my black ones smooth. ) Anyway, he asked why I wanted another pair because winter is coming and I told him that last winter I wore  knitted slipper socks with my crocs to keep my feet warm. Of course with holes on the sides I couldn’t wear them in the snow. Well, we got to Cabelas, and look what I found!picture-1599.jpg

They are lined with the holes filled in on the sides and in my size!!! Yeah! I’d never seen crocs like these before. Have you? I love crocs and wear them everyday. So I was happy to find these in my size and in the color that I wanted. How lucky was that????

On the quilting side of life, I now have 15 blocks pieced on my 8 yr old mystery and I’m on clue 6 on the new mystery.

I also did 2 quilts with pantograph patterns on them over the weekend. That’s something I NEVER do!   99% of my quilting is custom. Sometimes I do freehand allover designs but not pantos. Anyway, I think they came out fine.

I guess that’s all for now. Have a great day!

Theresa

yee haw!

On By alwaysquiltsIn Blogroll, Hobbies, Home and Garden, machine quilting, quilts, Uncategorized3 Comments

I found out yesterday that I won 2nd place in the wearables category at Innovations!! I entered my Wild Onion jacket. I entered 2 quilts too, but they didn’t win. I’ve had pretty good luck with this jacket. I entered it in 2 local county fairs and received Grand Champion ribbons at both of them. Now I got my first ribbon ever at a BIG quilt show. I didn’t think I’d ever get one because I don’t have a stitch regulator on my machine so for me this is such a great feeling of accomplishment. I think I’ll start planning my next jacket! I do have some ideas running through my head. Oh well, enough of that.

I didn’t work on my 8 year old mystery at all yesterday, so I better work 10 minutes on it today! LOL! I did get this weeks clue finished for the current mystery quilt that I’m doing. Plus I quilted on a huge customer quilt yesterday. I’m almost finished with it. Maybe another 45 minutes to an hour and it will be done. Then I have to put the binding on. (sewn down by hand) Hopefully I can be done with it and deliver it at guild tomorrow night.

I think I better get off here and get to work. Hope you have a wonderful day!

Theresa

http://community.webshots.com/user/alwaysquilts

Update for today….the mailman delivered my quilts from Innovations. Here’s my jacket with it’s ribbon.  picture-1550.jpg