WE'VE MOVED

Finally ... it's been a remodeling 2 weeks ... house and website!

I've been wanting all the components of my website all in one place under one roof so to speak, and I think I'm finally there. So,to celebrate the newly remodeled on-line Mountaintop Quilting Studio, I'm having a GRAND OPENING SALE from now until the end of the month.There are about 30 new designs, some new collections, and more to come!

The next step in all of this moving business is that my blog will now be located with the website and I will no longer be posting here at blogger. You'll still get to read all about my quilting adventures and mishaps, just in a different place.

Visit http://www.mountaintopquilting.com/ for all the details and to check out the new look.And, let me know if you see any typos or missing links. :) ... and remember to bookmark the site so you can easily come back often.

Kay

QUILTING FOR JILL

First ... let's take a look at those quilts I teased you with yesterday. I promised more pictures of the customer quilts I've been working on, so, here they are! Jill has been bringing her quilt tops to me for her for several years now. Jill used to be a fabric rep for a fabric company and found herself with yards and yards of samples when she retired. Jill makes the best use of a variety of fabrics in her quilts of most any one I know in the quilting world. She has a real eye for color and manages to put just the right little bit of zing in simple traditional quilt patterns.

Jill brought 3 quilts to me to finish up for her this time. She asked for simple edge to edge quilting on the first two. I put leaves on the Fall Chain and simple daisies on the purple and aqua quilt. For the life of me, I can not think of the name of this block. Any one out there able to help me?

Jill's third quilt - the red, white, and blue chain quilt features a piano key border with red frames, a 3" white inner border, and a 6" white outer border. She knew she wanted feathers in the white borders and an edge-to-edge design in the main body of the quilt. Some quilters refer to this kind of quilting as border-to-border quilting.

We decided to use a wiggly line serpentine stitching for a faux "stitch-in-the-ditch" to help define the red frames. I also used the same stitch to define the piano keys.

I used a swirling pattern for the body of the quilt and I digitized a new point-to-point feather pattern to use in the white borders. I love how easily this feather pattern sets up in the borders. I designed it to work as a dead-end border layout so I don't have to struggle with working my way around the corner.

The results is a frame of a beautiful feather design that surrounds the quilt in graceful undulating lines.

REMODELING

It's been a very full week!

REMODELING the soon-to-be new guest room on the main floor.
REMODELING my website with a whole new look.
... and ... Lots and lots of quilting.

Things I've learned about myself:
I have no desire to ever have a job that consists of day-in and day-out time at the computer entering data. Redoing a website can be fun ... the decorating part ... but the organizing, sorting, and putting things where they belong in a pleasing display can get to be a little tedious. But, the store is filled; old designs displayed nicely and there are about 30 new designs!

The web master promises me I should be live by Tuesday! Can't wait after all the hard work. Be sure to come in soon and check out the new look and take advantage of the Grand Opening Sale going on until the end of September.

I have no desire to ever have a job in construction (ie: tearing up the room, insulating it, hanging drywall, texturizing, preping for painting or paint.) All I want to do is the decorating part ... you know, hanging the quilts on the walls and displaying them on the bed.

We're supposed to be able to begin painting on Tuesday and hopefully have everything put back together for guests this weekend when I'm hosting a Creative Studio Class taught by Al Hutchins.

I know I have way too many shoes. I think it's time to pare them down and maybe I can have the remaining favorites all sorted in a 25 cube shoe storage unit. It's a thought.

I know I have way too much fabric. What a chore taking it all down into the basement so the remodeling could begin. But, I'm doing my best to use it up in class samples, pattern design, and projects here and there.

But let talk about all the fun stuff ... those quilts I finished up for customer this week. I tell you about the first two quilts tonight and then I'll add more tomorrow.

These quilts are for my friend Juanita. She made the brown and pink nine-patch for her grand daughter Melissa. It is a king size quilt and I think that might be the last time Juanita makes one that big. She always makes big bed size quilts for everybody in her family, but this one was the biggest of all!

The flowers in the fabric were my inspiration for a pattern I called 1003 A NEW DAY DAISY. I love how it goes with the quilt so well. I used it on another quilt again tonight - a puzzle quilt with all batik fabrics. There is a similar flower in the border fabric; these flowers are just light and cherry.

The second quilt was pieced by Juanita's daughter who will be giving the quilt to her daughter Laura. All flannel and a stack and slash which is a great quilt pattern. Everyone needs to make at least one stack and slash in their lifetime! They are so fun and easy to do. I call them instant sucess quilts.

I used a pattern I call 1232 RIPPLES & HEARTS which worked up great with all that soft flannel and a puffy batt. I know Laura is going to love snuggling in her quilt this winter when the temperatures get chilly!

KALEIDOSCOPE QUILTING

Recently I taught a class at Pioneer Quilts based on my kaleidoscope quilt that is published as a pattern in Marti Michell's book Kaleidoscope ABC's. We had such a good time learning how to use Marti's Kaleido-Ruler making it much easier to complete the blocks.

Last week Darlene brought her quilt top in for me to finish for her. I thought you might enjoy seeing the "after class" tutorial I put together for the girls and how great Darlene's quilt looks. The "after class" tutorial is to serve as a reminder filled with those little class details, tips, and tricks we tend to forget the day after class ... but we still have more blocks to piece.

When I made my quilt, I used strips and scraps from a country red and blue exchange from a couple of summers ago. As you can see, this quilt works great as a scrappy stash buster and I love the circular motion created by the block units as your eye travels across the top of the quilt.

ON THE ROAD-LAST LEGS

To finish up the last legs of our wonderful adventure driving across country ...

a brief overnight stay in Pittsburg and drive up 28 on some beautiful country roads on our way into Boston. As you can see, the CRV was packed from front to back with all of Toby's horns, mutes, and a couple of tubs of music - scores, experpts, and arrangements for his brass groups, lessons, and master classes.

I had fun trying nightime pictures while driving in the car. I think this one would look kind of cool done up in fabric!

Boston on a good day is such a great place to visit. I had been there once before briefly just for a day, but now it gets even better because grandbabies are there to play with as well as visiting with our son and his wife.

We did the usual touristy things ... walked almost all of the freedom trail and thoroughly enjoyed listening to Toby during his regular night time practice session in the hall. What a wonderful inspirational place whether you're making music with your horn or with your needle. I want to have some fun developing a digitized quilting collection from the elements of ornamentation in this historic much-loved symphony performance hall.

ON THE ROAD-THE GATEWAY ARCH

At the last second we decided since we were driving through St Louis we might as well stop and check out the Gateway Arch. I wonder how many of you have driven through St Louis as tourists. It seems like the freeways catch us up every time we've driven through the fair city.

It only took us three times around ... across the river and back before we finally caught the right exit the get to the Arch. Mike is stubborn and perservers and we eventually made it to the landmark!

I love the color and changes in the sky in these pictures to say nothing of the form and shape of the Arch from the different perspectives.

After enjoying the view from the top of the Arch we visitied and had dinner with a family friend who works at an up and coming restaraunt that must be on your "have to go to" list when in St Louis. Justin works at Niche located about 3 miles from the Gateway Arch. We were treated royally with absolutely the best food of the whole trip and the chef came out to speak directly to Mike about his gluten-free dietary needs. Chef Craft (recognized in April by Food & Wine Magazine as one of 2008's Best New Chefs in America) then commenced to serve Mike with a gourmet gluten-free meal including homemade ice cream for dessert - a favorite Mike doesn't get to enjoy much any more.

AUGUST DRAWING WINNER

Wow, lots and lots of names to draw from for our August Freebies! This month's winner will be choosing from two options for prizes: a copy of one of my books (Curves That Connect or Blocks that Connect - your choice) ... or 3 Statler block designs of your choice.

Carol, Chris, Lisa, Frances, Andrea, Tonya, Sandra, Jackie, Debbie, Julie, Donna, Karen, Nancy, Callie, Kristin, Sally, Erica, Becky, and Jan are all hoping to see their name in lights on this post. In fact, because I'm a week late in posting the name of the winner, I'm going to choose two lucky people. So let's get to the drawing - the lucky winners are ...

BECKY EVERETT and CALLIE HERNANDEZ

Becky and Callie, drop me an email or post a comment to let me know what prize you would like.

The September drawing will be for 3 fat quarters or an E2E design for your quilting machine. Just post a comment to any post during the month of September or make a purchase from the web store to "get your name into the hat!" Drawing will be held on or near October 1st.

Keep those machines purring and humming and enjoy the Fall crispness that is in the air.

ON THE ROAD-A QUILT SHOP STOP

It's not often a quilt designer from Oregon will make a personal delivery on an order from a quilt shop in Amarillo Texas ... but ... since it was on our route east we made it a scheduled stop for a break and for dinner.

Sisters' Scraps Quilt Shop was easy to find right off the interstate and what a cute shop. As you can see from the picture the walls are covered with lots of beautiful samples and there are rooms and rooms filled with bolts and bolts of fabric. Their classroom is spacious and well lit with room for everyone to spread out with all of their sewing gear and have a fun time creating with friends. Thanks Nicole, Kim and Peggy for a great shop tour and good suggestions for dinner spots in the area.

What pattern of mine will you find at their shop? They ordered one of my top sellers Sweet Nothings which you can find listed in the pattern section of their website, or you can order directly from me. As shown here, Sweet Nothings is sewn up using 30's Reproduction fabrics, but it looks just as stunning done up with batiks on a black background. The quilt as designed finishes at 51" x 67", a perfect lap size quilt for napping, but could be easily enlarged by just making more blocks.

The pattern also includes the templates for the optional applique border. Another border option: a dear friend of mine Irene made lots of half square triangles from her scraps and then created a sawtooth border for the outside edge of her quilt.

If you're ever in the area you'll want to be sure and visit this shop. You won't be disappointed. Not traveling on the road? Be sure to visit them on the web at http://www.sistersscraps.com/ .

ON THE ROAD-A COLOR PALETTE

Miles and miles across the great Southwest with gorgeous color palette inspiration.

ON THE ROAD - TREE TEXTURE

I love looking for color and texture inspiration outdoors in nature. Enjoy the look of color, value, and texture in this tree study from the Grand Canyon.

ON THE ROAD-GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK

It lives up to all of the press hype and advertising. I do believe this is the most amazing natural landmark I have ever seen. We visited Yellowstone National Park just a couple of years ago. We saw lots of different bubbling mud pots, spectacular canyon views, geysers and animals ... but ... I have to say, the Grand Canyon views top them all.

At the first view point we were treated to not only amazing views but a thunderstorm off in the distance with lightning and booming thunder claps rolling and echoing through the canyons.

I love finding little "window views" with my camera viewfinder.

The awesome power of wind, water and weather.

A flat faced cliff and a steep wall of rock in every direction you could look.

Isolated tableland jutting out from the edge of the canyon ... or ...

... standing as a lone tower up from the canyon floor.

You'll definitely want to include Grand Canyon National Park on your adventure list.