Madrona - Finished quilting

I've managed to finish quilting my Madrona quilt, yipee!! It's washed and has dried while being laid out on the floor (on painter's plastic to protect the carpet), and is waiting to have a facing and sleeve sewn on.

All knotted up

No, I haven't stopped weaving, it's knots in the way of progress, not to mention quilts with deadlines and getting ready to go to Quilt Market in a few days, which I'll save for separate posts!

First, the lovely braid of yarn ready for the loom:

Now the knots, which I believe was caused by fuzz on the yarns, but became knots, because I didn't notice early enough, and of course, I tugged it tight before I looked on the other side of the loom (probably wouldn't have happened if I'd had a helper (or anyone just watching the other side).

So, I still have a way to go, before the warp is beamed, let alone threaded and ready to weave, but I'll get there eventually...

Where to go from here?  When I get back from market, and have the time to patiently work on it, I'm going to try to pick it out.  If that doesn't work, my current backup plan is to break the yarn and knot in another length that will be replaced as I weave, in the same way that any broken warp gets replaced (maybe I'll use a different color thread for the temporary warp length, so I don't miss it).  If you have any other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Book Signing and Party pictures

For those that weren't able to make it to my book signing party yesterday, I thought you might like to see a few pictures, because it was the most beautiful, over the top book signing ever!  Gathering Fabric and my friends Ellen and Becky outdid themselves with all the decorations, food, flowers, and even a couple gifts, that I'll save for another post!

On the way into the shop, there was a mini-gallery, and tables full of food so that everyone could stop and have a snack and drink,  including a beautiful cake, which was decorated with the cover of my book!  Everything was beautiful, and it was so nice to be able to spend time chatting with everyone!

Most of the quilts from the book were hung in the front corner of the shop, where they have a sofa, so that quilters could sit and have their picture taken with me, if they wished.

From left to right, Susan, owner of Gathering Fabric, Ellen, Lynn (me), and Becky.  I had hoped to post one of the pictures without us holding the book, but this was the best one (I wish I had had my camera with me, but didn't, so these are some of the ones my husband took, and I'll post more later, if others have some they can share).

   

Here's my pattern section.  Amazingly, I have 24 different patterns there, and more on their way, as soon as I finish writing them up!

The back of her clasrom is where she has most of my quilt samples, but my smaller, more embellished fish quilt is on the table, along with Wine Country Picnic.

Book Signing and Party

Tomorrow, October 14th, Gathering Fabric, in Woodiville, WA is having a book signing and party to celebrate the release of my new book, Flower Show Quilts, published by That Patchwork Place (Martingale) from 12 - 6pm.  Almost all of the quilts from the book will be there, as well as the quilts and projects from my patterns and of course, some of my one of a kind quilts will be there as well.   If you are in the area, please stop by and say hi, I'd love to meet you!

Soon, I plan to write a personal review of my book along with a giveaway, but today will be spent preparing for tomorrow's party.  Hope to see you there!!!

Some Assembly Required

Crawling all over a quilt on the floor to pin baste the layers together is getting very old, and also hard on the knees.  Since I have had my old quilting frame still sitting in a box in the garage, I decided it would be a good thing to set it up in the new studio, even if I only used it for quilt basting.

I had bags of the small parts, but it had been put away long enough that I thought I'd lost the instructions, and began laying out the piees on the floor, trying to figure out the best way to begin, and also wondering why two of the bolts were marked with black X's.  Well, what do you know, good packing paid off, and I found the instructions on the machine table, just under the canvas that is used to pin or sew the quilt tops and backs to!   That made the assembly easier:-)

You begin building the frame upside down on the floor,

and then turn it right side up, to finish the assembly. 

The quilt top on the floor was folded in half, temporarily, just so I could measure it for batting and backing, and then all tree were pin basted to the canvas leaders, which were attached to the bars with velcro.  I did have to do a little fiddling, since my leaders were shorter than the quilt, but between now and the next quilt, I plan to purchase and prepare new ones that will be the width of the frame (well, at least set up at this width, I'm also going to need even longer ones that will be used when the frame is extended to king size, which I'm going to need to do when I'm ready to baste my new bed quilt tops).

Once the quilt was on the frame, pin basting went quickly, which was great, because I didn't have much time to get it done!

In case you noticed the machine in the frame, and were wondering why I didn't just machine baste the layers, well, there are really two reasons for that.  The first reason, is that my old Bernina isn't meant for use in a table, and I was just going to give it a shot, which I did, but quickly gave up, when I decided I didn't have any more time to spend.  I do have a newer Bernina at home, that has a start / stop button, and I'm planning to try it out in the frame next time.  The other reason was that I didn't happen to have any water soluble thread, which I was hoping to use, so that I could just run a few rows of quilting, and end up with a basted quilt, which I could just quilt and then wash the basting out, instead of needing to stop, clip, and remove the basting as I quilted.  Well, it's something new to try on another quilt.

Sue Andrus, you're a winner!!!

It's time to pull a new winner.  Sue Andrus, you're the winner of Skinny Quilts & Table Runners II!!!  Please contact me to claim your prize (I'll also try to contact you too).

My Book is Here!!!

It's here!  It's here! It's here!!!!!!

Imagine opening a whole box of your very own books.  Not one, or two, or three, a whole box!!!

If you pre-ordered a book, and didn't ask for it to be endorsed to you or a friend, please let me know asap, as I'd like to get them all in the mail as quick as possible, so you can hold it in your hands and start flipping through it!

If you didn't pre-order, and would like to order a book from me, signed, or signed and endorsed to you or a friend, please contact me, and you can either fill out a snail mail order form and mail it back to me with a check, or you could pay me through Paypal. [Unfortunately, my hope to finish my website updates and get a shopping cart is not complete as yet, because my computer decided to die, so I'm busy reinstalling programs and moving the files I had saved on a portable drive into the new computer.  I'll continue on when it is ready, but I also need to get lots of things done for quilt market, because I'm doing a schoolhouse presentatio, and have things to finish for that as well.]

If you plan to purchase my book from your local quilt shop, or elsewhere, they should be arriving soon, if not today, as my local quilt shop received them this morning.  If they haven't ordered them yet, I'll bet they would if you asked!