I was in my sewing room Friday, all day Saturday and Sunday and I now have all the blocks embroidered. I have most of the seminole piecing done too. I was anxious to sew 2 blocks together with the light grey sashing. Even though I was tired, I squared up two blocks and then sewed on the sashing. I am pleased with the fabric I chose for the sashing and really pleased with the overall look of the 2 blocks.

This week, Sandy, my quilting buddy from Henderson Nevada, came for a short visit. Sandy and I took a 2 day machine embroidery class with Claudia Dinnell held at the Bernina Connection. The class project was Claudia's beautiful Christmas redwork style quilt called Tis the Season. I am not very experienced with machine embroidery and I was excited to learn Claudia's perfect placement multi-hooping technique.

Tuesday, I stitched the Teddy Bear block which is 25 1/2" by 13 1/2" and required 3 hoopings with the Bernina Maxi hoop to complete the design.


Wednesday, I stitched the Ornament block which is 15 1/2" by 24 1/2" and required 5 hoopings with the Bernina Maxi hoop to complete the design. What a great feeling to have all the stitched designs align perfectly which is a testament to Claudia's excellent perfect placement instructions.



I have 4 more blocks to embroider plus 5 word sashing blocks to embroider. I am planning to embroider at least one large block today so I can reinforce the multi-hooping techniques that I learned in class.

I would definitely recommend taking a class with Claudia Dinnell.

I finished stitching 4 more blocks for the Serendipity quilt tonight. Of these 4 blocks, I think my favorite is the daisy block, the bright white, yellow and green wools look so cheerful. I stitched palestrina knot stitch for the daisy stems and cast on bullion stitches for the daisy centers with a variegated DMC thread. I added some cross hatch running stitches for texture on the rose colored fish. Two of the fish are missing eyes, they will get beads for their eyes which will be sewn on after the machine quilting.

Christmas Goose Quilt Shop in Las Vegas Nevada designed an adorable wool appliqué for the 2015 Row by Row Experience. When I saw the cute little featherweights, I just knew I had to make a small hanging for my sewing room. I pre-quilted the background fabric before I started doing the appliqué, I also made some changes to the appliqué shapes. The Christmas tree is decorated with tiny red ornaments made with cast on bullion stitches. The quilt is 36 1/2" by 9 3/4".

I finished stitching In Full Bloom December 30, 2014 and I have patiently been waiting for the custom machine quilting to be completed by Jessica Jones Gamez. Turn around time for custom quilting is 6 months and sometimes it is hard to wait patiently. In Full Bloom was recently published by Sue Spargo, so I am now able to post a picture of my finished quilt. In Full Bloom was Sue Spargo's tenth BOM and this was my second Sue Spargo BOM. Quilt is 36" x 43 1/2".

In Full Bloom label

I finished stitching 2 of the 20 blocks I have planned for my Serendipity quilt. I made quite a few changes from the original pattern. I discovered some super tiny black buttons, so I decided the birds will have button eyes instead of french knots. I used the double cast on stitch for the watermelon seeds and I embellished the tail of the larger bird with some drizzle stitches.

February 2011, I traveled to Tucson to take a 3 day Bali Wedding Star class with Judy Niemeyer. The plan was to make a king size 116" by 116" quilt which required about 27 yards of Bali batiks for the top. I got a good start sewing the arcs and melons during the 3 day class. After returning home, I continued to sew arcs and melons but a remodeling of my sewing room forced me to pack up the Bali wedding star quilt. As happens so often when a projected gets packed away, it is hard to get started again which is what happened. Last week, I was looking for a new quilting project and I unpacked the Bali wedding star quilt. Again, as so often happens, I could not remember my organizational construction logic. What to do? Luckily, I found a Judy Niemeyer Club with certified instructor Kelly Grant which meets the first Tuesday of each month at Arizona Quilts.

Today, I attended the Judy Niemeyer Club and Kelly helped me to get sewn arcs and melon reorganized. I think I need 348 arcs and I have 124 arcs sewn so I still have a lot of arcs yet to sew. I did have a few blocks sewn together and some of the blocks I pinned together. This afternoon, I put the completed blocks on my design wall so I could take a picture.

The Girls is now quilted, bound and hanging on a wall, it always feels like quite an accomplishment to have another quilt totally finished. I selected the poodle, schnauzer and the golden retriever in honor of the breeds of dogs I have owned from Mixed Mutts, a machine embroidery pattern designed by Angie Stevenson. I refer to Katie and Molly as The Girls, so I decided to title my quilt, The Girls. Machine quilting was done by Jessica Jones Gamez. The quilt is 25 1/2" by 32 1/2".
You can see pictures of Katie and Molly my standard poodles plus pictures of my dearly departed dogs at Waiting at the Bridge.

I started another wool appliqué project. A few weeks ago, I saw Summertime Sampler, a wool appliqué quilt designed by Erica Kaprow. I was drawn by the bright colors and the whimsical nature of the designs. I was able to find other wool appliqué quilts designed by Erica Kaprow but the quilts all had different sized blocks. It was quite a challenge to determine a finished block size for my quilt and pick 20 blocks for my quilt. My blocks will finish to 8 1/4”.

Serendipity means the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.  I decided to name my quilt Serendipity because serendipity describes how I found and decided to stitch this quilt.

I have 2 of the blocks ready to stitch.

For the last few days, I have been making Beads of Courage bags. I finished 20 bags and have fabric cut for an additional 30 bags. Beads of Courage was developed by Jean Baruch while working on her PHD in Nursing at the University of Arizona. She piloted the program at Phoenix Children's Hospital in February 2003. Every year, Beads of Courage provides assistance to more than 60,000 sick children coping with serious and life-threatening illnesses, and their families in over 250 children's hospitals throughout the United States, and in six additional countries.

I will be donating all Beads of Courage bag to Phoenix Children's Hospital, in memory of Kendall, a granddaughter of a good friend.