Finished in time!

I have been a blog slacker and didn’t publish a picture of my 4th of July wall hanging that I finished.  I blame the loss of time on my innocent ,16 pound, 13 month old grandchild; how sad is that???

Addy took an ambulance (via 911, of course) from Flat Irons Shopping Mall to Avista Hospital in Superior, Colorado where she traveled via helicopter - 

to Children’s Hospital of Colorado in Aurora.  It took Mom and Dad a good 45 minutes to drive the 30 miles across town[s] to find Addy doing much better. 

Piper has been to almost EVERY clinic at Children’s (she has missed the cleft palate clinic, cancer and a couple others…) and now Addy is adding neurology to their mix.  Gad zooks!  With all of the testing done so far, it looks like the event was a one time deal, but oh the drama!

Piper stayed at our house waiting for Mommy, Daddy and Addy to come home from the hospital.  She was so sleepy and ended up staying the night.  It was a very long day for sure!

 

Did I mention that Piper has surgery scheduled for August 15th? It will be at Children’s, of course!

Oh, by the way, here is my wall hanging, grin.  it doesn’t show well on the crème paint in the front room, I may move it next year to the family room.

Robbie Marie

Favorite quilts make your heart sing!

I hate to put this wall hanging away for the year.  It was sooo much fun to make!  Its colors are vibrant and the piece jumps off my wall.  I love it!

The pattern is called “Jubilee” by Details by Diane.

Each piece is machine applique stitched with Floriani machine embroidery thread.  It was a tad hard to handle with the fusible, but the drama of the sheen was well worth any extra work! 

I quilted it on my frame with a black batting outlining each piece with black cotton thread.  I bound the quilt with more black Kona.  I can’t wait to make another quilt with this method!  I have patterns ready to go! 

So many quilts, so little time!

Robbie Marie

Nichole Webb Inspiration

This is one of my favorite wall hangings.

The pattern is called “Here comes Santa Claus” by Nancy J. Smith & Lynda S. Milligan of Possibilities. 

I got the pattern at a long arm quilting group pattern exchange.  I didn’t know how to quilt the open spaces behind Santa until I saw this video by Nichole Webb. 

I confess, I stitched the holly using polyester machine embroidery thread and when I was done I did not like the color!  It was too light.  What did I do?  I colored each stitch with a darker green fine Sharpie marker.  Yup, I did!  Now I love it!  The Sharpie is permanent and the piece was saved without froggin’ (ripping out) all the background stitches just to change the color.  Win Win!!

Holly Bough by Nichole Webb

It was easy and fun!  If you like her videos, here are 2 more, her Lobster Claw Flower and Swirly Hearts.  Have fun!

Robbie Marie

Time to get ready! Christmas is coming!

Santa Claus is coming to our house on Thursday, December 1st, so Grandpa get the trees up!

Putting up 4 trees every year is a bit of a challenge, especially in a small home, but by golly I do it!  I have a 7 foot traditional tree, a 4 footer with embroidered snowflakes and balls, a 6 foot tall western tree, and another 4 footer that has been a patriotic tree, but last year turned turquoise, purple, bright green and hot pink!  It’s been awhile since my son and son-in-law were in the Navy and Marines and now we have grandkidlets, so I upped the color quotient!

I have lots of wall hangings and table runners, and quilts for the season, too. This is one of my favorites.  It is an Art to Heart pattern; ya gotta love those books, and I have a bunch of them!
This wall hanging is called “Merry Christmas Quilt” from I Believe by Art To Heart.  I appliqued the bits by machine with a tiny blanket stitch. I then stitched an inch thick piece of poly batting to the under side using wash away thread in the top and cream on the back around each letter.  Next, I trimmed meticulously around each letter so there was no batting behind the background, only under the letters and leaves.  Next I loaded the piece on my frame as usual (backing, cotton batting, and the top) and stitched around each letter exactly on top of the applique stitching in the same dark thread as not to show.  I did not do any stitching in the cream background as the design was small and didn’t need it to poof the letters out.  I worried that more stitching would take away from overall design and distract from the letters.  I achieved the trapunto effect without it effectively here probably because of the size.   I think the buttons are my favorite part, along with the turquoise fabric because it is unexpected.  Choosing and cutting a different fabric for each letter took as much time as appliqueing these pieces, but I like the variety.  I quilted piano keys in the outside dark border and used trapunto in the red border for dimension. 

Art to Heart patterns make me look good!

Robbie Marie