Now I'm a Westalee Accredited Teacher!

I've got some great pictures to share with you later, after I plug everybody into their chargers and my iPhone gets down to sharing pics with the iPad, but couldn't wait to share this particular tidbit: Along with four other Westalee instructors, I flew to Sew Steady headquarters in Eugene OR and attended a two day seminar with Leonie and Bill West, designers of the Westalee foot and ruler system.

Geraldine Wilkins (Living Water Quilter), Donna McCauley, Pam Varner and Donelle McAdams were the other four teachers who received our new bling:

Leonie assured us that the ruler foot is functional and we can sew with them, but I don't know if I want to!

There are other Westalee accredited teachers, but I think they are in Australia; the five of us were the first American teachers to complete this process. So here we are -- all ready to come to a store or guild near you and teach ruler classes!

Good Couple of Days!

I've been going back and forth this weekend, quilting on the Q-20 and piecing on my Dream Machine, working two projects at once. 

Grabbed this out of the Partially Quilted stack. The pattern was published in the April 2011 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting from Better Homes & Gardens; it's called Posey Patch. I did the piecing, my friend Tiffany Hayes of Needle in a Hayes Stack (great pattern line and she is a fellow Craftsy instructor) did the applique.

Yesterday I finished the curvy lines in the background; still deciding on what fills I want in them. Today I quilted feathers in the floral area around the inner star and did a freehand design in the pink squares that I found in one of Angela Walters' Shape by Shape books. Those books are a gold mine of ideas!

This is another design from one of the books; I did this with a ruler foot and a straight edge quilting ruler from Westalee Designs.

I started by marking two lines. The top one is 3/4" from the tip of the triangle, the second is 1-1/4", so they are spaced 1/2" apart.

I was able to do two adjacent triangles before cutting the thread and moving to the next pair.

Started in the corner where the two triangles joined, then used the spacing gauge tool to make sure I would hit that first mark. I'm using the 1/4" leg; since the outside of the ruler foot is exactly 1/4" from the needle, one side of the spacing gauge tool (let's call it a SGT, OK?) touches the ruler and the free edge shows the path the needle will take as you stitch along the ruler with the ruler foot.

Stitched to that top mark, then moved the SGT to the corner to align the ruler properly for that section.

Moved the SGT to the lower of the two marks and aligned the ruler to stitch to it.

Then stitched to that mark and back to the beginning to finish that boomerang shape. Repeated it on the other triangle, then cut the thread and did the rest of them. There are only 5 pieced blocks, so it didn't take that long.

Dan decided that this would be a good day to hang all of my stencils up on the wall next to the new machine, so I moved over to the other machine and stitched a few triangles.

Now they're easy to get to!

Back to the Q to stitch that same boomerang shape in the border triangles. Then I cut, sewed and pressed the binding. I'm having foot surgery in a couple of days and thought that maybe I could do the hand sewing on the binding while I can't use the machines.

Yep, it's my right foot, so no driving for two weeks! Maybe I can teach myself to sew with my left foot?

Appletree Quilting Center, Columbia MO

Millie and Wendy, owners of Appletree Quilting Center, are two of my favorite people in the whole world! Whenever I get to spend time with them, it's a great thing! I flew in to Kansas City last Thursday, picked up the rental car and drove to the shop. Three days of teaching by day and sewing by night -- what could be better?

I don't show as many teaching pictures as I should, the problem being that I get totally caught up in the teaching and don't remember to reach for the camera. But my Ruler Play 3 class, which is a reverse applique class using the Westalee rulers, was such a cool class! Everybody just unleashed their creativity to make the project their own after we did the basics:

There's the class photo; now for some individual closeups:

Linda did some close Baptist Fan type stitching in the corners and then cut out a little more of her top fabric to expose the red in the corners. Gave another little pop of color to her piece!

Suzanne added feathers in the corner and was considering what sort of a background fill she would do in the rest -- maybe crosshatching in the turquoise thread? On Sunday I taught Beyond the Basics, which takes crosshatching to a whole new level and really makes gridwork sing. Can't wait to see what Suzanne does with this!

When I first looked at Sandy's fabrics, I went "Yikes!" Just couldn't imagine how that strong diagonal print was going to work as her background.

Once she got her satin stitching in, though, it seemed to anchor the whole thing. On Sunday, she was working on gridwork in her background, so again -- send me pictures, please?

Shirley was in my Feathers class on Friday, skipped Saturday and then came back Sunday to learn detail quilting. She had asked my opinion on Friday about the border quilting and then came back Sunday with it all done! No grass grows around her feet, I'll tell ya! She did a great job in a beautiful thread that coordinates with the pieced work in the center of the quilt. I think maybe she didn't eat or sleep between Friday and Sunday....

Sharon also took the Feathers class and then Beyond the Basics, so she did the feather work on Friday and then continued on the same piece to do her background fills on Sunday. Wish I had taken a picture of the fabric she was planning to use for binding -- picked up all the colors of the variegated thread and looked awesome!

Robin is making this for her daughter; started the work in Ruler Play 3 and then did the background fills in metallic thread in Beyond the Basics. Way fun and her daughter will love it!

So I taught by day and sewed by night -- next post I'll show you what we were working on!

Settling In With My New Machine

The cabinet to the Q-20 arrived Thursday in three big cartons. Dan hauled them all upstairs and assembled it on Friday.

Meanwhile, I continued on the Wishing Tree.

Got the light triangles done...

...repeated the curvy narrow border and then did the outer border. I'm trying to keep roughly 1/4" spacing on everything so that the quilt will lay flat when I'm done. And I'm sure nobody noticed that my binding is a couple of inches short? All of the leftover fabric was pieced into the back, so I didn't have any more of that one. Chose one similar, added it in, and if nobody looks at the upper left hand corner.....

On Saturday, the machine head was delivered and installed on the table. My friend Rhonda (who I love like a sister!) was at Bernina University in Las Vegas last week; when that was over, her husband Steve joined her and they came here to bring the machine and to visit for the weekend. So while the guys got the machine all set up, Rhonda and I went to my local quilt shop, Bolts in the Bathtub.

This is Dawna's latest LeMoyne Star quilt -- spectacular! She's piecing one for me, but it's way different from this because my fabric has skulls and crowns and roses and we're setting it into a black background.

The Southern California Quilt Run was going on so there were periods of quiet and then all of sudden there would be 10 people at once. Traffic was pretty steady, but I still managed to buy some fabric....duh!

This is the classroom and it's where everybody was greeted, got their passports stamped, could get cookies and water to keep up their strength....the theme for the run was camping oriented, so Dawna set up the tent and put up picnic tables -- fun!

It's always fun to go into the classroom and look at all the quilts.

This is a fun adaptation of a pattern that features a flag in the upper left corner.

 
Here's the pattern pic -- what a switch! It's one of the strip club patterns from Cozy Quilts.

After we got back from Bolts, I tested the machine to make sure it was running beautifully and then Rhonda and I sat downstairs and chatted while she did the hand sewing on a quilt for her granddaughter Ava and I did the binding on the Wishing Tree.

After they left on Monday morning, I did the straight line quilting with a Westalee ruler in the dark triangles. Of course the best way to learn a machine is to thread it up with metallic thread, right? I had to mess around with needles, but finally found the needle that worked well with this thread. A 100/16 Jeans/Denim needle from Schmetz turned out to be the one; I tried Topstitch in a couple of sizes and brands, but the thread kept shredding. I kept telling myself that patience is a virtue!

Then I started the last border, the one between the triangles and the first little narrow one. I was saving it for last because I haven't stitched this design before. I kept practicing on sample quilt sandwiches but just couldn't get the look I wanted. Drawing it out doesn't help me because I sew so much better than I draw; I just don't seem to internalize the motion with paper and pencil. So I kept stitching and practicing until I was ready to go to the quilt. It's a serpentine pattern, spaced about 1/4" apart for a few lines and then about 1/2" to make room for some circles. I'll get that finished up today and get some more photos.

Then I can wash it, block it and it will be ready to go to Missouri with me on Thursday! I'll be teaching for three days at Appletree Quilting in Columbia MO. I've taught there several times and love the owners, staff and customers, so it should be an awesome experience as always!

What kind of stitching do you like to do in borders? I've been making a few quilts lately that are mostly borders so that I can practice designs that can be stitched without marking. I've always done stencil work with a little bit of freehand, but I want to become more skilled at the freehand stitching -- I certainly have the machine to do it now!

Howell's Sewing & Vacuum, Auburn CA

Last weekend I got to teach ruler classes at Howell's Sewing & Vacuum. There were 11 ladies split between two classrooms.

Eight of them fit quite nicely into the main classroom...

...and the other three were in the "annex". I think the annex ladies got the better deal; it was in the 100's and the annex was much cooler than the classroom. Air was on, fans were whirling, but....did I say it was in the 100's?

That didn't stop them from totally excelling in the whole feathers thing:

I thought what they come up with during playtime was awesome!

One lady made what she said was a mistake, but that I can see could easily be turned into a feather in the shape of a heart, so I sat down with my rulers and played with that a little. Need to practice, but will look forward to adding that to my demonstrations on feather days.

Howell's is a Babylock, Janome and HandiQuilter dealer and will beat any competitor's price! 

Barbara was my most able helper and that's Marylynn, the owner of Howell's, photobombing the pic. Speaking of Marylynn, if you are in Auburn around the end of July, she is having a super Birthday Sale to celebrate, well, of course, her birthday! Sale will be July 28-29 and everything in the store will be on sale. Her website promises drastic price cuts and floor model clearance for machines, new fabric on sale and.....mimosas, brunch and treats! Auburn is scenic and fun and end of July would be a great time to take a weekend trip and find some great bargains.

Howell's is located at 13555 Bowman Road, Auburn CA (ph: 530-885-9624).

Marylynn is one of the most energetic people I have ever met -- when there wasn't a customer in the store, she was madly at work on a couple of quilts loaded on her longarm:

I was excited to see that Howell's is a Mettler dealer and she carries almost all of the line. It seems that 60 weight (fine) cotton thread is hard to find in a lot of areas, but Marylynn loves it as much as I do and carries quite a few of the colors. I use 60 weight for piecing all of the time, in both the top of the machine and the bobbin; it is just as durable as the 50 weight, but since it is finer, there is less thread in the seam, your piecing is less bulky and presses flatter.

Now that I'm home, I'm back working on the Wishing Tree quilt.

I think I may be done with the background. I'm starting on borders today; once I get those done, I can go back to the panel and decide if I need more quilting. Will probably do a little bit of texturing on the tree, but haven't quite decided yet.

What do you think?