Well,  Sharon and I hosted our 7th annual lock in on Saturday. It’s the 13th one that’s been held. Janel hosted the first 6 and Sharon and I the last 7. This year Sharon designed the quilt for the class. She wanted to do stars so here’s what she came up with. Hers is the lap size. I did the full size one. (of course mines NOT quilted LOL!) Everybody seemed to have a good time again this year. A few of the ladies had to leave early but the ones that stayed the whole time, all completed at least one block. I took pictures of them with their blocks and border fabric so if you’re interested in seeing the variety of fabrics they used you can view them on my webshots page.  We had 2 of the ladies that made the lap size and they were able to get their quilt tops completed. (not the borders)

Show and tell was great too! I didn’t count the quilts shown, but I bet there was close to 40 quilts brought in and shown. All from past lock ins. Except one that a lady wanted to show. It was a t-shirt quilt made from Harley t-shirts. It looked great!! I took pics of show and tell too.

I’m still trying to recoup from our busy day. It’s a long day and a lot of work getting ready for it, but it’s so much fun!!!

You can see all the blocks and quilts at

http://community.webshots.com/user/alwaysquilts      in the lock in 2008 file.

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

Theresa

I see I haven’t posted anything all month! I’ve been quilting like crazy trying to get quilts done. I’ve also been trying to get 2 of my own pieced. We are having a polkadot challenge at guild on the 10th of April. I have the quilt for that together, except for the borders. I still need to get them put on. I doubt if I get it quilted before the meeting.

The 12th of April is the day that me and my friend host a mystery lock in. We have 66 ladies signed up for the class. Sharon got the lap size quilt made and I did get it quilted. I’m making the full size. I have the rows pieced, now I just need to sew them together and get the borders on. This year Sharon designed the quilt, so I haven’t been as stressed out as I have in past years.

I need to quilt 2 quilts that ladies have made from past lock ins so that they will have them for show and tell. Oh…….I need more hours in my days.

Anyway, that’s it for now.

Theresa

I’ve had a busy week. I guess that’s good because it’s sure went by fast! I can’t believe it’s already Friday. I finished 2 customer quilts this week and the weather finally cooperated and let us have our MoKan longarm meeting. It’s been canceled twice because of bad weather. Anyway, we had it yesterday and our challenge quilts were due. I think there was about 30 quilts there. They were all made of the same fabric and pattern but the quilting was different on each one. Some of them were absolutely beautiful!! They all looked great! It’s always fun to see the different ways that people quilt the same quilt. Here’s mine. I left it for the last minute to quilt, so I had to do something quick and easy. After I quilted it, I thought it was too dull, so I added cystals.

Here’s the center.

Here’s the corner. I wasn’t sure what to do with the corners, so I just kept the flow of the vine going around and getting smaller through the corner area. Then continuing on up the side.

Last night I had my guild meeting and Amy Bradley was our speaker. She has the cutest quilts!!

I guess that’s it for now. I need to get back to work. Have a great day!!

Theresa

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

What a fun afternoon I had! I wrote about going to Italy a while back on my blog, so if you read it you’ll understand this……. Jill was here in Kansas this weekend and Pam brought her to Leavenworth today. They were going to come by my house but they’d been hitting quilt shops and were getting hungry and so I just met them in town and had lunch with them. We talked about our trip to Italy and got so excited. Jill was telling us about people and places and things we could do…….I can hardly wait!! Then we went to the LQS in Leavenworth and I’ve quilted several of the quilts there so Jill loved seeing them. She even had to buy one of my quilt patterns, then laughed and said that “now she knows a designer too”. We all laughed about that!!!!!!  It was fun getting to know Jill better. I had only met her in person once, and then it was when Pam brought Jill and both of their husbands to pick up some quilts. We only got to talk a little bit.  I enjoyed today and getting to know Jill better. She’s sooooo nice!!!!!! I’m so looking forward to going to Italy  this fall.  I hope everything works out for it.

I hope your day was as nice as mine!!

Theresa

Well, I didn’t plan on going anywhere today except the Post office. I needed to mail a few things out that required more than a regular stamp. Anyway, my mom called and wanted to know what I had planned for the day. (We usually go to town on Saturday’s.) I told her I just needed to go to the PO. She said “oh, good I need to take a few things and mail them” I said ok that I’d pick her up in about an hour……well, when I get there she comes out with nothing in her hands……I asked her if she forgot her stuff to mail……she says “no, I didn’t get it ready, I’ll go to the PO one day this week.”……….OK, whatever……….

Anyway, we still went to the PO and then we were just going to get some lunch and head back home. But I decided to run on up to the LQS and say “HI” to the girls because I hadn’t been in there this week. Well……… we got to the LQS and guess what my mom spotted? The new Wizard of Oz fabrics!

Now if you paid attention to the tittle of this, you’ll see that my mom’s name is Dorothy……..and she was born and raised in …….yep……. good old Kansas!!!!! She always tells people that she meets, that she’s Dorothy from Kansas!!!! (They seem to remember that!!!LOL!!!) Anyway, to get on with the story. She tells me that she needs a quilt made out of that fabric. (Mom’s not a quilter, but sometimes she’ll buy FQ’s if she thinks they’re pretty) …..By now if you’re a good guesser, you’ve probably figured out that —Yes, I bought the kit to make her the quilt. Like I really have time to do this. Anyway, my plan is to have it finished for Mothers Day. I HOPE anyway!!!

Here’s a shot of the fabric.

I like another print that wasn’t in the kit, so I bought some of it, I’m going to make some of the blocks out of these squares. I bought the backing for it too.

That ended up being one expensive trip just to say “Hi” to the girls! Oh, Mom did buy some fabric. A fat quarter of the ruby slippers fabric! LOL!!!!!!!!

Theresa

I’ve come to the conclusion that my life is either too busy or too boring to keep up with a blog! I never know what to write. When I do get on the computer, I feel guilty about being on it and not getting my customers quilts finished. I have one on the machine now that I need to get done. They come in faster than they go out. I’m not complaining!! I just feel like I need more hours in everyday!!

As far as getting my own stuff done. I never have time for that!!! But, I’ve decided that this year will be different!! So far, I’ve finished the MoKan challenge quilt and I’m sewing the binding on another of my UFO’s. I finally sewed the borders on the quilt and quilted it last week. I’m determined to get some of my unquilted tops finished!! I have 40 of them! I also want to use up my stash fabric. Here’s the quilt I’m putting the binding on.

I bought the newspaper quilt fabric several years ago and started making the quilt. I had the first border sewn on and then quit for some reason……anyway, I finally put the rest of the borders on and used the leftover fabric for the back. I didn’t quite have enough fabric left to do the whole back , so I added some black on the sides to make it big enough. I did use up all the newspaper fabric!!! One

piece of stash fabric gone, a whole lot more to go!!!!

I guess that’s it for now.

Theresa

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything. I quilted my mystery quilt, got the binding on it and put a label on too. It’s completely finished and we’re using it on our bed. I decided to put a panto on it just to get it finished and to practice doing a panto. The quilt is queen size and I felt like I was never going to get it quilted. Anyway, here it is.  I think I was supposed to have  the 4  star points in each block be the same color. Oh well….  After all these years of having it sitting in the box, it feels good to have it done.

My DD was home for 10 days over Christmas. She made her first quilt!! She has some physical disabilities so for her to sew a straight line was quite an accomplishment. I did all the cutting and pinning and she sat at the sewing machine and sewed. She’s already talking about making her next quilt! Here she is with her quilt. It has cats quilted on it so we call it Here kitty kitty.

I guess that’s it for now.

Theresa

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

I had a great Christmas. Sunday my Dad and his wife came up and we gathered at my sisters house. Had great food!! Monday, (Christmas eve) we all went over to Mom’s and had a houseful. Almost 40 people in her house. Had great food!! We were only missing one nephew and his wife. (he’s a fireman and had to work) and then I have one stepsister that lives out of state. Otherwise everyone was there. Today was Christmas so I fixed Christmas dinner and Mom and Stepdad came over to eat with us. Food was great!! I think I’ve gained a few pounds this week with all the get togethers. But it’s been nice. We also had a white Christmas. What could be better? Hope you had a wonderful Christmas.

Theresa

Yesterday my DH and I headed from KC to south of St Louis. We left at 5:30 am and knew that they were forecasting heavy snow for KC.  We  had to get down there and back.  We were making good time  until we got back to Oak Grove and from then on what should have taken us and hour to get home turned into  about a 2 1/2 hour drive. Cars were going about 30-35 miles and hour on I-70. We heard that I-70 was closed west of Topeka and I-29 was closed north of St Joe. Both because of 30 car pile ups.  We didn’t have any problems until we got in our driveway, the snow had drifted so deep in front of the garage that we had to make about 5 runs at it before we made it into the garage.  But we made it!!

I took my mystery quilt with me and hand sewed the binding down in the car. It is now finished except for the label.  Yeah!!!  I put it on the bed when we got home and we slept under it. I used a wool batting.  I like it.

Anyway, that’s it for my exciting travel day. I’m glad we made it home and I’m glad my mystery quilt is done.

Have a great day and drive safely if you’re traveling for the holidays.

Theresa

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