No Sewing today.

I am taking my daughter and my grand-son to go see my mother today. She lives close to Kalona Iowa so maybe we can sneak in a quilt shop or two. :)
The weather looks perfect, a beautiful autumn day.
See ya soon,


Ps. I did get my Sept. BOM done. Will post a picture soon.

Monday, Monday!!!!

Hi Everyone,
I hope your week has gotten off to a good start.

I finally got my house back in order after husband being home for 3 days and then me off working all weekend. It's amazing how much better you feel when your house is in order. I feel more in control, more empowered, able to accomplish anything....

And then I got to my sewing room. AArrgg!!!

I have a quilt on the long arm to be worked on, bags to finish up if I ever want to sell them on Etsy, paper pieced blocks to finish up since we dooo have a meeting this week, my quilt that I finished quilting last week that needs the binding put on, 3 quilts in various stages of work that I could pick up on and a pattern for those neck pillow things to make for the hospital. YIKES!!!

Got the tea pot on and I am sitting in my chair pouring out my quilty woes to all of you out in blogland. What will I do when I get done here??? Probably read some blogs to get inspired and start a new and more wonderful project than what I have going on now. HELP!!!

Okay,okay, so I will get a grip here and prioritize a little bit. Paper piecing first since that meeting is this week and I do want to show I have been working on our project, then I will finish up the quilt on the long arm. Now how's that for a plan?

If you need help getting organized, better see one of those blogs on getting more organized (i think I will check those out too), but if you need sympathy for being disorganized and not planning your sewing day, you have come to the right place. I am here for you and I feel your pain. :)
We will get through this together.

Leave me a comment and let me know what you are doing to get your projects in order. I would love to hear from you.

Thanks for stopping by.

Glad for a new day.

I am sure glad yesterday is gone and today has come. Not that I want to be wishing my life away but I sure had a heck of a scare. I thought I blown up my brand new Gammill Vision!!  The computer part, that is.Whew! Thankfully I didn't..
I called my trainer in Beloit, Cathy, nearly in tears and said "I think I broke my machine". Cathy, being the calm person she is said "tell me what happened". After I told her what had happened, she walked me through how to fix it and then said "Didn't I tell you, you can't break these machines?"

I was so relieved to have my machine fixed that I was hugging her through the phone. Thanks Cathy!!!!!

Apparently I got a piece of lint and thread caught behind the bobbin assembly, so the machine got stuck and shut itself off. Once I got that cleaned out and pushed the reset button she came right back on. YAY!!!

I thought for sure I had knocked something out of whack sewing this denim throw. I am over half-way done and will finish it up today. Then I think I will have a binding party with the 2 quilts that I will have completed. :)

Now onto another topic that I keep forgetting I want to tell you about. I started a small group of people who like to foundation paper piece and we meet on the 4th Thursday (usually) every month. We aren't meeting tonite though because the gal who wants to have it at her house wanted to do it next week. Our project is the BOM by Carol Doak called Radiant Block of the Month. Carol has a yahoo group and every month she posts another block. It is really neat to see the different ways these blocks are coming together in our group.
Here are the blocks I have made so far.

This is the June block. This project started June 2010 and will end May 2011.


This is July's BOM.


Here is August's BOM.


September's is out and I have it downloaded and printed up, ready to go. I still have to put the 4 blocks together for August, as you can see. When this is done we will have 12 different blocks and there are 13 connecting blocks that are like a background to set off the BOM's. This should be a pretty cool quilt when it is done.
It's nice to have a group to do it with. You feel a little more motivated to get things done. I also love the group we have put together. They are so different and yet we all share a common interest - quilting.


That's all I have today, though I wanted to share a few gratitudes because I have much to be thankful for.

1. I am thankful for Cathy Kleinschmidt. She is an expert with Gammill machines and has a lot of great stories to tell. Thank you Cathy for helping me to get my machine up and running again.

2. I am thankful for my new Long Arm sewing machine, I am getting my quilt tops quilted so fast, and with each top I am getting more skilled with my new machine. I may never be an award winning quilter, but I pray I will be able to quilt for others so that they will be able to enjoy their finished quilts as well.

3. I am thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ, my Shepard. Help me Lord to be a faithful servant.

Thank you all out there in blogland for stopping by.
I hope You have a great day.

Quilt #2 on The Long Arm

Yesterday I put the Denim throw on the LA machine. It took me most of the day as I was trying to do a better job getting it on.



I started quilting it today.

This is the greatest picture of the quilting, but then the quilting still looks pretty amatuerish. I probably won't try a quilt like this again because of the "lump"s. The places where 4 seams meet. I pressed it, I thought, really good and yet I still am running into the "lumps"

Oh well, back to the sewing table. :)
Hope you have a great day.




P.S. This is my 50th blog. YAY!!! At my 100th, maybe I will have a give-away. :) Okay, maybe the 75th.

Getting my Quilt for Jesus done.

 Hello everyone,

Just thought I would give a little update on my LA quilting.
My machine has a timer on it that tells me how much time I have spent sewing on her. I can clear it when I start a new quilt and then know exactly how long it takes me to quilt that particular quilt.The actual time I have been quilting on this quilt is 2 hours and 14 minutes. I didn't work on it over the weekend because I had to work my part-time job and it is 2-12 hour day. Kicks my rear everytime but oh well, it gets me out of the house.
I am more than half-way done on this quilt and will finish it up today. YAY!!!

I may have told you the story behind this quilt before but just to refresh , Back in 1994 I took a strip quilting class where I first was introduced to a rotary cutter, mat and the various rulers. This was my very first quilt that I pieced. Since it was my first pieced top I dedicated it to the Lord. I started hand quilting it and only got about 1/4 of the way through until I set it aside. This quilt has sat in a box all these years. When I got my new machine I thought it only appropriate to finish this quilt on it. So I took out the hand quilting, replaced the old batting and will finally after all these years get her done.

I can't wait to see this quilt finally done. I am so excited. I hope you all have a terrific day.

Thanks for stopping by.

2 days in Wiconsin - At The Heart of Quilting.

At The Heart of Quilting in Beloit, Wisconsin. This is where I have been the last 2 days, getting training for my new Gammill 22 long arm quilting machine.

 I left my home on Monday at 3:30 am and arrived at the shop in Wis. at 8:40 am, just in time for training at 9:00 am. There were two other ladies, Mary and Char, also in the training class. Training went all day until 5 pm with a lunch break at noon.

The morning of the first day we practiced setting up and sewing pantograph patterns. In the afternoon Cathy (the instructor and owner) went over machine maintenence. She was so thorough with step by step instructions that I wanted to go home that night just to oil and clean my machine. I realized that I hadn't been doing it properly but alas had to wait another day until I could get home to rectify that. Cathy also gave us some tips on starting a business of our own. Day one was worth the trip just in itself.

Day 2, we started right away loading up a small top that Cathy had prepared beforehand with areas drawn on it for specific stitches and techniques that she wanted us to learn and practice. I thought I was pretty good with some patterns that I had been practicing at home but quickly realized I still needed a lot more practice. We ended the day around 4:30 and I was back on the road to home by 5. My car was loaded with my roll of batting that I got with my gift certificate and a few extra items to help me along on this adventure of owning a long arm quilting machine,

After picking up my dogs in Des Moines from my daughters house I finally arrived home at 12:30am. I was soo tired right before I pulled into the driveway but by the time I got the dogs settled back in and the car unloaded I couldn't wait to go and oil my machine. I had to tell her (my machine) how sorry I was for not giving her enough oil and hoped that from now on our relationship would go a lot smoother. By 1:30 am I was ready to go to bed.

7:30 this morning I was up, letting the dogs out and checking my machine. No oil drips!! She was dry. WOW!
I have spent all morning practicing various stitches and winding bobbins and now at almost noon I am getting ready to load my first quilt.

Here are a few pictures of At The Heart of Quilting Shop and Classes.


This is the one side of the shop. They carry a lot of thread for the LA quilter and machine parts for your machine. I bought another bobbin case and an item to clean my rails of oil and lint. They also carry batting by the bolt and I got a bolt of 80/20 cotton/poly batt for all of my quilt tops at home.


This is the classroom and as you can see it will accomodate at least 6 quilters - 2 at each table.



Here is Cathy teaching different stitch techniques. She had a lot of great stories that made it all so interesting. The time really flew.



Cathy showing us a different way to draw leaves.
That was my training in beautiful Wisconsin. What a great 2 days and now I am home ready to get started.

Here is my machine all loaded and ready to go.




So now I am off to go a-quilting.
I hope you have a wonderful day.

Thanks for stopping by.