SEASONAL CHANGES

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SUN COMPASS FREEBIES

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WHOLECLOTH FUN

What a fun day playing with one of my new wholecloth designs. I love this shiny red fabric. I've got to go back to the store and read where it comes from and more detail about what the fiber content is. I know it is mostly cotton with some shiny threads woven in for the glitz.

I first heard about this fabric from my friend Dani. She quilted a Sun Compass quilt using a creamy yellow metalic color of the same fabric. I had to beat feet down to Fabric Depot to find some for me. I found both the creamy yellow and this yummy red that is perfect for a holiday wholecloth. I even found the perfect backing fabric on the 50% off rack.

Now, that was fun ... trying to get good pictures of shiny fabric! Enjoy!

Quilting detail at the bottom of the wallhanging.

Closeup of 1237 Ornamental Feather

Closeup of 1236 Circle of Angels

Closeup of 1229 WB Medallion

1075 Bead Strings was used in the border and 1077 Touching Beads was used for the sashing. I couldn't get a good picture of the 4th block used ... 1233 Pine Cones & Berries. Sorry. This sample is just a 4 block sampler with the blocks being set in at about 17" and the wallhanging finishing about 38" square. It could easily be enlarged to bed size. Wouldn't this be yummy on the bed during the holiday season after Thanksgiving all the way through New Years!

A NEW DRAWING ...

Elaine made her choice ... here's what she had to say:

OH MY GOSH!!! I never win anything. Thank you, Thank you!!! I’m just so excited, I can hardly sit still!!!!

I have just been drooling over your patterns! I would just love your “1190 Leafy E2E” I can just see it on a quilt. I even think it would look wonderful on a whole cloth quilt.

I’m just having a hard time believing I won!!!
Again,
Thank you, and have a GREAT 4th!!!

Elaine Reed
Glad to be a SS..

And this is what her pattern 1190 Leafy E2 looks like:
She's right about using this pattern to create a wholecloth quilt. Isn't that a wonderful secondary trellised design that is created when rows are simple repeated across the quilt fabric. Again, CONGRATULATIONS to Elaine. Looking forward to seeing pictures when you use the pattern on a quilt.


And now it's time to empty the hat filled with names for the June drawing and start a new drawing for the month of July. All you have to do to get your name in the hat is to post a comment to one of my postings on the blog or make a purchase from Mountaintop Quilting. Easy as pie! For the July drawing I'll be offering a free medallion quilting pattern of your choice OR a free piecing pattern. (That way, everyone who reads gets to participate ... Statler quilters and piecers alike.)

Have a safe and happy Fourth of July if you are celebrating the holiday here in the USA!

Lots of Fun Stuff to Check Out

What a fun-filled great day ... work sandwiched in with play is a good balance. We had two students play their trombone solos today for league competition and they did so well. They have 5 more weeks to polish everything up before district where they compete to qualify for state.

Lunch out with my hubby is a very rare happening and is always a great treat ... followed by a quick but careful drive through the snow to get me back home and Mike off for his afternoon trombone students.

After a quick chat with my friends Al and Barb in NC I spent the rest of the day at the computer getting all the pdf's written and uploaded to my yahoo newsletter site so you will all know about the SALES, NEW DESIGNS, and FREEBIES I just uploaded to the "store" and my yahoo file sections.

I didn't want any of my blogger friends to miss out on the good deals, so I'm posting the list with links here, too. You'll find ...

All the new designs I've created over the last month in the CATALOG 1 folder

Two new wholecloth designs complete with directions and tips in the WHOLECLOTH folder

Two free patchwork projects that are great for stash busting and using up batting scraps in the FREE IS GOOD! folder

A free Statler pattern in the FREE IS GOOD! folder

A sales flyer in the SALE!SALE!SALE! folder ... and you might want to bookmark this link to have handy while you go through the sales ads.

And yes, I did have way too much fun creating my little valentine guy with AutoSketch.

HAPPY FEBRUARY!

TREASURES FROM THE TRUNK

We all have them; we save them; we protect them in acid free paper; we shield them from sunlight and dust. We may even bring them out every year or so just to re-adjust the folds and admire them ... and then back into hiding for another long year or two.

I'm suggesting we rescue our treasured linens, quilts, our keepsake family heirlooms from the dark recesses of our trunks, attics, and closets. Bring them out and enjoy them. Fill them with love. Honor the makers of these priceless family gems, our connections to the past, be it our personal family legacy or our community of quilters and needle workers.

Respect, honor, and treasure all that is contained within these simple pieces of cloth - the workmanship, the love, the memories, and ties across the miles that say "I will always remember you; I will always love you; you'll always be a part of my heart and a part of my life."

Karen did so with her grandmother's cross stitch tablecloth ...




A word about the "technicalities" of quilting a piece like this ... I used the very lightest weight thread I could find and quilted right through the cross stitching patterns. I recommend So Fine for the top thread and Bottom Line for the bobbin area to work with minimal thread breaks and tension issues. Both are from Superior Threads.

I find I need very little adjustment in either area when working with these threads. I do have a bobbin case that is just for my pre-wound SuperBOBS so I don't have to reset the tension when using these threads, and I find I don't have to make any adjustments in the top tension when switching from King Tut to So Fine. Each machine is different. Don't be afraid to experiment to find the best settings for tension to make your machine "sing" when using these threads.

Holiday Wholecloth Snuggles

This last week I found myself a little overwhelmed with all the holiday have-to's, want to's, traditions, and expectations. It's the year for cutting back and simplifying - taking joy in celebrating our blessings as we honor our family traditions in a more simple form.

Last year was our turn for the kids to be home for the holidays. It was the first time in several years. What a treat and so many great memories to sustain us through this year when it will be just the two of us again. And, on the positive side, having just the two of us makes it much easier to scale things back a bit. And to that end ... I mentioned to Mike that we might not bother with a tree this year ... "Let's just have a few things up and not go crazy with putting up Christmas all through the house."

Later in the day I noticed he had his new train set boxes out and was pulling the sousaphone out from beneath the grand piano for "just a small" set up. Then I heard him making several trips down and back up from the basement arms filled each trip with Village boxes. Okay, I thought ... we could do a small village set-up. I'll just watch and see where this goes. Meanwhile I kept quilting the wholecloth design I was working on from my new collection ... Anniston Iron.

Now this wholecloth has had a mind of it's own from the very beginning. Things can always look very simple on the computer screen. I must continually remind and ask myself ... "But can and how will you stitch this out, Miss Kay?"

Suffice it to say ... after much monitoring and adjusting, my beautiful throw size wholecloth is now a 2x2 block wall hanging, a table runner, and very long skinny throw (probably will be changing that one yet) and the left-overs from cutting the original wholecloth into smaller units has become the "snow" under the village/train set-up.

Actually, I think I've hit upon a great idea for all of you quilters out there. The houses, the train, and especially the people do much better in the wholecloth snow than they have done on batting in the past - much more stable. And the quilting design looks like swirling snow all around the figurines. So now I'm going around making mental notes to myself regarding sizes of buffet tops, desk tops, table tops, and display shelves that may need a "dusting of quilted snow" for the Santa collection to rest upon next year. And everything will all be in place for the snowmen to take their places in January.

Oh, and Mike said he would be bringing in the tree later this week since we finished up with Mistletoe Magic 2007 on Saturday. (more on MM07 to come.)