Author: Wild Rose Quilter

I’m a simple woman…at least that what my DH (Dear Husband) used to say about me…I was a wife, I am now a widow, mother, step-mother & step-grandmother, quilter, and have a full time job in criminal justice. I lost my DH on May 22nd, 2011. I live in a small town in Texas. I love piecing quilts, I love quilting quilts. I have a serious addiction to fabric. I’ve been quilting since 1998, and purchased my first longarm, a Gammill Premier, in 2004. I upgraded to an A-1 Elite, named Corky, in March, 2007. I am in the process of rebuilding my life after losing my spouse. All photos and content in this blog are my own, and I request that you not download, copy or otherwise use anything here without my permission. I hope you enjoy visiting my blog and would love to hear your comments. Thanks for stopping by!
longarm quilting · quilt top · quilting · quilts · stash busting

Just Catching Up A Little

Wild Rose Quilter8 Comments

I hope everyone had a good weekend! I was going to do a Valentine’s Day post, and just never got around to it.  I also didn’t get around to my stash report yesterday, but it’s unchanged from last week, so no biggie there.  Thanks to everyone who participated in my thread discussion.  I enjoyed reading the comments.  I spent most of Valentine’s Day working on a customer quilt and/or playing with my new IPOD Touch, that my sweetheart gave me for Valentine’s.  My son gave me some candy and an ITunes gift card.  He helped me get it set up, and we went through his song library and transferred what I wanted from his list, and then he taught me how to get my own music.  There are times when it’s really helpful to have a teenager in the house. 🙂

The customer quilt is a rather challenging one for me, as it’s completely outside of my tastes, but perfect for the youngster who will be ending up with it.  Say hello to Spiderman.

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My customer wants “light custom” that includes some spiderwebs. Cross your fingers for me that my interpretation of that meets her expectations.

Of course, yesterday was the Daytona 500, so I watched that.  It’s always kind of a let down when those races that you expect to have an exciting finish, end under a red flag due to rain.  Congratulations to Matt Kenseth.  At least it wasn’t Kyle Busch one of the drivers that I can’t stand that won. 🙂

My son made a new discovery this week that tickled us both.  Starburst came out with FaveReds.  A bag of all the yummy “red” flavors, with none of the yucky ones in there.

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Hope you have a good week ahead! I need to go spend some quality time with Spiderman.

quilting

Thread Tales

Wild Rose Quilter17 Comments

Oh boy, oh boy, ohhhhh boy…

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Ohhhh, So Fine, so pretty!

My blog has been kind of boring lately.  I am still battling sinus headaches, and just feeling completely drained lately.  So, I thought I might liven things up by inviting you to participate in a thread discussion with me.  All of the above thread is So Fine, a beautiful polyester thread from Superior Threads.  I love this thread.  It comes is so many beautiful colors, and is perfect for that quilting where you need a thinner thread.  One example would be motifs that require a lot of backtracking.  With a thinner thread, the thread buildup is not as noticeable.  So what are we discussing?  What are your favorite threads and why? Are you a cotton purist? Or do believe the more kinds of thread the better? Do you love lots of color, or prefer muted, neutral colors for quilting thread?  I have some customers that don’t care what type thread I use on their quilts, and some that want cotton only.  I love Signature cotton and King Tut cotton.  There are some quilts that I much prefer to use my Signature cotton, as I want the stitching to really show up.  I like prominent quilting stitches in many of my quilts.  The poly’s seem to have many more color options.  I know some people worry about using poly threads on cotton fabrics.  I have read, and been told, that this is true for your piecing, where the fabric and thread rub together in the seam, but that it’s not an issue for the quilting thread.  I don’t worry about this too much in my own quilts, as I figure they will all outlast me, at the very least.  How do you feel about it?  Are most machine embroidery threads poly?  I know the ones I have are poly.  I’m not going anywhere with this.  Just thought it might be an interesting topic and would love to hear any thoughts you may want to share about thread.  The floor is now open for discussion! 🙂

(BTW, Superior Thread is having a Valentine’s drawing for a $50.00 gift certificate–check it out on Mother Superior’s blog!)

fabric · longarm quilting · quilt top · quilting · quilts · stash busting

Stash Quilting Report, 2-8-09

Wild Rose Quilter7 Comments

I used 2.75 yds adding the borders to my 2nd 9P & stripe quilt.  I had zero yards come in.

  • Incoming Yardage to date: 0 yds.
  • Outgoing Yardage to date:  20.5 yds.
  • Total Stash Busted to date: 20.5 yds.

This will be the next top of my own to go on the longarm.  I have some customer work coming this week, that will go first, however. I think I am seeing some crosshatching & some feather.  Not sure what else.  What do you think?  I even toyed with the idea of just doing a panto on this one, but I think I’ll stick with custom.  I intend to use this quilt in our bedroom, as our fall quilt.000_8157

quilting

Thanks Mom & Dad

Wild Rose Quilter19 Comments

The item Greg & I purchased with our Christmas money finally arrived yesterday.  It’s a linen cupboard I ordered from Plow & Hearth. Finally, someplace to display and store our quilts.  It came in several different colors, and I was really torn between the red & the black options.  We ended up going with the red, as both hallways off of the living room are red.

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embroidery · freehand quilting · longarm quilting · machine quilting · stash busting

Sunday Stash Report, 2-1-09

Wild Rose Quilter5 Comments

I used 1/4 yard up making labels this week, and 1/4 yard making guild name tags for myself and my friend.  So my official “out” for this week is only 1/2 yard.  However, I am plugging away on stash quilts I have going, and soon should have some big numbers to post.

YTD totals:

  • Incoming Yardage to date: 0 yds.
  • Outgoing Yardage to date:  17.75 yds.
  • Total Stash Busted to date: 17.75 yds.

I have border and backing fabric for the 2nd of my 9P & stripe tops, in the dryer as I type.  I pulled this  yummy Robyn Pandolph flannel from my stash, for the backing. My current plan is that this will be the next quilt of my own to land on the longarm.

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I’ve been sewing on my Boston Commons top, during my lunch hours, and have all the end triangles sewn to the 72 strips.  I have started sewing them into the big rows.  I am surprised at how quickly this is actually going together. Please ignore that I haven’t pressed the seams yet.  That is why it looks wonky.  It isn’t really.
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I also got the memorial t-shirt quilt quilted.  Here is a snippet of the freehand quilting on the back.  I will post a pic of the whole quilt after I get it completely finished.
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I have to say that t-shirt quilting is not my most favorite.  I feel like my machine is moving through sludge when I hit the shirt areas, and I had some thread breaking issues. That said, the quilt came out nice, and I know the family will love it.
My friend Betty and I needed name tags to wear to our guild meetings.  I loaded a small “quilt sandwich” on my longarm, quilted it up, and then used my embroidery machine to finish our tags.  They came out cute.  I finished mine out by just stitching a satin stitch edge around, in the lighter green thread, after I took this pic.
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Such a small project, but it still took me almost three hours to do these.  I enjoyed it, though.  And while I had my embroidery machine out, I made labels for two quilts that I made for my Mom, but gave them to her before I had the labels on.  She reminded me recently that I still hadn’t brought the labels to stitch on.  So next time we go to visit, I have some labeling to do!  🙂  One of her labels took 99 minutes to stitch out.  The other was almost an hour.  Embroidery is fun, but it’s not fast.  I love that I can work on other things at the same time, though.  Good job to my hubby for getting me the stand alone machine, rather than the embroidery upgrade for my Aurora.
Tomorrow starts another week at the day job.  I hope y’all have a great week!
freehand quilting · longarm quilting · machine quilting

Isn’t it Friday yet?

Wild Rose Quilter28 Comments

It’s only Wednesday, and for some reason, I woke up more tired than when I went to bed.  I feel absolutely exhausted this morning.  I just want to crawl back in bed, but I have to go to work.  It’s only 14 degrees outside, too.  Good day to stay in bed, all warm & snuggly.

I finished Joanna’s quilt, and it is in the mail on it’s way back to her.  Thought I’d share a couple of pics right quick.

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fabric · pretty fabric · quilt top · quilting · quilts · stash busting

Stash Report, 1-25-09

Wild Rose Quilter5 Comments

This week my fabric busted is gifted fabric.  3 yards for a birthday gift to a guild member, the one who gave me that awesome reindeer ornament, and another 3/4 yds. to another recipient, and another 1.5 yds to another recipient.  But the last two don’t know it yet, so I won’t say who.  I did start that little applique block of the month, but I haven’t figured out how to count that yet.  I had to use bits of two fat quarters, but the rest I am using scraps.  I have a feeling I will be using the rest of those two fat quarters in the project, but will know more when we get the next block.  If I use more of them, then I will count them as busted, in a later report.  At least they are off the shelf.

So my report for this week is:

  • 0 yds. in this week
  • 5.25 yds out this week
  • 0 yds. in ytd
  • 17.5 yds. out ytd
  • total busted ytd is 17.5 yds

I have made some more progress on the stash projects I started right after Christmas.  I cut up some more of the fat quarters for my Gracie’s Star, and they are all ready to sew into blocks.

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I have these left to cut up.

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I cut my Kona white into these.

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Started sewing them onto these.

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I had to go ahead and sew one corner together, just to make sure it was going to work.

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I’m really enjoying my time spent working with these fabrics.  I love them!  I hope to enter this quilt in some shows.  At least some smaller, local area shows.  And I may even get brave and send it somewhere like MQS next year, to get some judge’s comments.  We’ll see.

applique · embroidery · longarm quilting · quilting · quilts

A Tisket A Tasket…

Wild Rose Quilter8 Comments

I started a little basket.

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Lord knows I needed another project to work on right now, so he made sure I stumbled across this one from Bunny Hill Designs…lol.  It’s called a Tisket A Tasket, and it’s a free block of the month.

A Tisket A Tasket, Twelve Months of Baskets

http://bunnyhilldesigns.com/dynamic/?page=Free%20Patterns

Applique is really a struggle for me, so mine may not get any further than this, but I’m going to try.  Just one a month.  We’ll see.  That tiny little carrot nose almost did me in.  I am using the Sharon Schamber applique method, which involves a stabilizer under each piece and lots of washable Elmer’s glue.  Right now, glue is the only thing holding mine together.  Also, there’s the issue of the hand embroidery that has to be done.  Not sure how that is going to work out for me.  Succeed or fail, I will keep you posted!  But isn’t it a cute project?

I am still quilting on Joanna’s Five & Dime.  I have one last paisley/peacock filler block to finish with the lighter thread, and then I will finish the flower blocks.  I have the swirlies done.  There are a few blocks that I will use a darker thread in, the pinkish blocks, and the three long strips.  After I finish with the rest of the flowers, I will start quilting some feathered hearts, using a hook type feather in the remaining blocks, that measure 9.5″ square.  It’s been going well and I’m anxious to see it unfold, so to speak.  It’s fun watching the transition from unquilted to quilted.  I never get tired of it.

Enjoy your Saturday! Try to spend some time doing something you love!