International Quilt Festival - Longarm Quilt Class

I attended a longarm quilting class yesterday. The class was called Bubbles, Curves and Straight Lines - A Way to Modern Quilting and the instructor was the award winning quilter, Claudia Pfiel. She is from Germany and she was a delight to listen to.  Her instruction was very helpful. We started by sketching in a notebook which was to prepare us for quilting at the longarmer. Once at the machine, I still wasn't so sure I would be able to do what she was teaching but I did it. The class was worth the $$ and I am glad I got to participate.

Ms. Pfiel gave each participant one of her patterns. Yes, she does that too! Here are the quilts she brought along as examples of the kind of quilting she was teaching.  The last two photos are her quilt up close. What amazing work.

International Quilt Festival - Quilt Exhibit

Last night I attended the preview night at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas. The vendor, exhibit, and classroom space is overwhelming. This place is huge!

The exhibit space has hundreds of quilts on display. There were so many different exhibits that it would be hard to describe them all. Here are some photos of the ones that I enjoyed viewing.

International Quilt Festival - Houston

My husband and I flew to Houston yesterday to attend the quilt festival here. I was happy that he wanted to accompany me to the event. We will spend some time doing those touristy things that are available in the area and enjoy some relaxing time together away from home.

We spent today at the Johnson Space Center/NASA and we had a fantastic time.

Tonight I look forward to the quilts on exhibit...one of them being mine and then there's the shopping. Check out this view of the vendor floor:

The George R. Brown Convention Center is the largest space I have ever seen. 

Here is my quilt at the exhibit. 

I was so excited to see people checking out my quilt. It felt rewarding and I felt a little self conscious and the same time.

Selvage Bag WIP

I've been prepping for my trip to Houston and at the last minute I decided to make a bag from selvage fabrics.

So today I started sewing selvages to some muslin to make some selvage panels.

The bag will hold my sewing supplies for the classes I am taking while I'm at the quilt festival. I hope I can finish it before my flight leaves, ha!

What's on the design board?

I think I might get back to doing some serious sewing. Since I finished cleaning out my sewing room, I have more energy for sewing. That and finishing up all my daughter's quilts!

I started a new quilt using a pattern called Puppy Love. It uses parallelograms in sets of 4 rows. It is going together rather quickly.  In fact, I started this yesterday and I only have one set of 4 rows to go before adding the borders.

Twister Table Topper

Normally I would be at the Senior Center today but I'm staying home today. Every Wednesday afternoon I go there to meet with other quilting ladies and it is most enjoyable. I love the camaraderie and inspiration that comes from the time I spend there. But today I'm exhausted from cleaning out my sewing room and I don't feel like getting ready to head out the door - it feels more like a yoga pants kind of day, ha!

Over the past two Wednesdays I volunteered at my granddaughters' school as the book fair coordinator. It was a big job and I was required to be there every day for the last two weeks. I also missed another Senior Center day because I went on a pumpkin farm field trip with my youngest granddaughter. And next week I will be in Houston so that makes another week missed.

But back to today. I decided I'm going to take this quarter off from the center. Since I will miss so many weeks I'm just going to skip it until the new year. And with my cleaned out sewing room, I am really enjoying sewing in there. I haven't said that in a very long time.

So today I finished this project I found in a stack of stuff when I cleaned yesterday. It was quilted and all I had to do was put the binding on. Lo and behold, I even knew where the fabric was for the binding since the cleaning. I really don't know why I never finished this, but it's done now.

A Clean Sewing Room

I cleaned out my sewing room. To most people it probably still looks cluttered, but trust me, this is cleaned out!

Since I got my longarmer, I just kept piling stuff around the room just anywhere. I stuffed new fabric purchases in cubbies and bins. I had no idea what I had!

Then yesterday my husband left for up north and I decided to take everything out and start fresh. Since hubby won't be back for 3 days I knew this was a good time. I could leave things strewn all over the place until I was ready to put it away.

I sure wish I would have taken a "before" photo. I had stacks and stacks of fabrics piled all over. I sorted, stacked, resorted and restacked until I had collections and colors and everything neatly put away. Surprisingly it took me just half of a day to complete all that.

Then I dusted and vacuumed and got all the other things laying around in order. I haven't felt this organized in a very long time. It also helped that over the last few weeks I finished quilting a whole bunch of quilts and got them out of the way too.

Once I finished putting everything in its place I started a new project. I could pull fabrics knowing exactly where I put them! I also found a few unfinished projects that I now feel inspired to complete. It sure feels good to be organized.

Corner Flower Shoppe Quilt

This is the last of the quilt tops my daughter left for me to quilt. It's from a kit she purchased at a local quilt shop in Racine. 

The pattern is called Corner Flower Shoppe by Quilt Soup. It's so very cute! 

I used some flannel for the back of the quilt and longarmed it using a pantograph called Knit 1 Purl 2 by Natalie Gorman. 

I stitched the binding on it and washed it right away so it is ready for her use.