Gone to the dogs

     A friend of mine said she wanted to learn to make quilts. I found a simple pattern from http://www.jellyrollfabric.net/ called Patience Corners. My friend is a dog person. I pulled together scraps to make the blocks and piano keys and I used a cream on cream print for the background. My friend came two times and then quit. I took this quilt a year later to a quilt retreat and finished it up. Last week, I quilted it on the long arm. I kind of made up a dog bone shape in the cream areas and used a running around loop line in the squares. I just did straight lines parallel in the piano keys. I took all my b&w scrap binding pieces, sewed them together and used it for the binding.
    I put it in a nice bag and delivered it to her. I am not sure how she liked it, but it is done and gone to another home.
    I am not sure why I have that light circle on some of the photos, the sun was at my back. I am hoping it is not my camera.

Trying to stay warm!

    This isn't news to most anyone, but it is frigid! The sun is shining today, but the temperature is dropping. South of Buffalo got hammered last night with snow and wind and schools closed. I am north of Buffalo, and just got some snow. Makes me all the glad to sew more and those vintage machine foot controllers keep me warm. I am working on a bunch of stuff, as I have 5 machines set up, all with something different going. Hey, woodworkers have many machines set up as they all do different functions. I have a 301 set up for piecing, a 301 that has small comfort quilts being FMQ, a 301 with a large quilt being quilted, a 401 that does zig zag on fabric collages for cards, and my treadle for scrap crumb quilts. These all cost less than my ill bought $2200 P machine that could never quilt well (sold it). Yesterday, I worked on all of them doing a lot of different things.
    I hope some of you visited your local quilt store on Saturday for the national LQS Saturday. I did my part at Pine Grove. I got fabric for my daughter's tote bag and some great grey for putting together crumbs.
    On Friday, I helped my friend, Jan, continue on learning to quilt. We have been working on a dog themed quilt based on the free pattern Patience Corners from http://jellyrollfabric.net/  The plastic guide I bought from Nova Montgomery is a huge help for Jan to keep the seams even; it works much better than the foot with the blade. Here are the blocks on the wall ready to sew.

Blue tape show order of blocks for sewing

    Another quilt I started, You've Got Mail, free pattern and video from the Missouri Star Quilt company, is from a layer cake and 10" white squares cut from yardage. I layed out all the blocks and have 22 out of 42 sewn.The rest are pinned and waiting to be sewn. When they are all sewn, I will put them back on the design wall and break the blocks into two quilts, 4 by 5, for two comfort quilts.

Not in any order, just for pinning

All pinned for sewing

    Since the only kids comfort quilt I had was given away, I started another, because, unfortunately, I will get another request. I decided to do Disappearing Nine Patch, rotating all the kid prints to the center. I bought a pack of I Spy 5" squares on ebay, and am using my own 5" for the other squares. These are how many I have done now.

Needs three more rows

    I don't usually put my paintings on this blog but on my flickr site. However, it is so cold and I thought at least one newer one might brighten the day.

A bouquet from last year's Buffalo Garden Walk