Pine Needles -- West Jordan UT

Pine Needles is a favorite of mine in the Salt Lake area; almost every time I'm in the area my aunt Barbie and I make a stop here. Located in Gardner Historic Village, the shop combines three crafts -- quilting, cross stitch and embroidery -- all beautifully displayed. In the entrance, there are quilts displayed along with the fabric kits for making them, all ready for that trip to your sewing room!


Right inside the door is the Halloween display -- the pillow below says "Witches are good spellers"...

Cross stitch and embroidery displays are arranged around the fabric fixtures, or is it the other way around? There is so much to see here that a quick trip around the store just won't do it...

The small embroidery designs, all of which have kits for pillows, small framed pieces, etc., just pull you in....

Some are seasonal, some are funny, it's hard to make choices!

Really liked the pink and black baby quilt; there were a lot of quick and easy small quilts on display in the store.



A shelf full of cross stitch kits; nearby are hoops, needles and all the other things you need to complete the designs.



What I bought: Of course, I had to buy the witch pillow! Since it has been a while since I have done any embroidery and don't know where my "stuff" is, I also bought a hoop and a package of needles along with the pattern and fabric kit. The pattern is "Witches Are Good Spellers" from Pine Bough Designs and will make a very cute small pillow with jumbo rick rack trim around the edges.


The other thing I bought was the pattern and fabric kit for the Halloween table top quilt that was displayed with the pillow. It finishes to 24" square and is the "Spooktacular Halloween Table Top Quilt" from Ashby's Attic. Loved the big bat, of course, and it's fun that the witch's hair is made of purple and black rick rack!

If you are in the area, Pine Needles is located at 1100 West 7800 South, Suite 3, in West Jordan UT (ph: 801-233-0551). The shop will be featured in the Fall 2010 issue of Quilt Sampler Magazine -- they are very excited about that! To shop with your fingers, go to www.pineneedlesonline.com

Vacation, Day 3 -- Surprise Birthday Party in SLC

Dan and I were invited to a surprise birthday party for one of the members of the extended Lopez family; I've stayed with Rhonda and Steve several times and one thing I have learned is that you never know whether there will be 4 people or 20 for a normal family dinner, let alone a party! Dan and I got there about 1, visited with Rhonda and Steve and their granddaughters, Aubey, Liz and Taylor for a while before we moved into the kitchen to get ready for the party.

Liz's 13th birthday was July 18, which is just about a lifetime ago when you're 13, but she was still getting presents from relatives who hadn't seen her in a few weeks. This dress is going to be a favorite!

Taylor kicking back after all the decorating.....

The three girls did all of the crepe paper streamers and birthday banners outside on the patio and then the balloon drop inside...

The balloons were designed to drop over David when he went through the archway into the living room; however, the kids were so eager to see the balloons drop that they forgot to hold on to the sheet holding them and dropped the whole thing. It was really funny to watch as the whole thing drifted to the floor!

As far as food went, there was tons of it! Above, Taylor's munching on chips and looking over the tray of corn. There were about 20 people at the party: 3o ears of corn, 28 hamburgers, 5 gallons of lemonade, 5 bags of chips, a couple of dips, Dan and I made about 4 quarts of our famous "If It Doesn't Move, Throw It On the Grill and Chop It Up for Pasta Salad"; there were also various condiments and three huge bowls of fruit with a Cool Whip/marshmallow fluff dip, and, of course, a birthday cake!



Party guests in the living room....

Rhonda making up hamburgers and my husband Dan opening a bottle of wine.

Here's the birthday guy, and Star Wars fan, David! Most of the party decorations had a Star Wars theme...

Riley and five-month-old Cameron; Riley and her husband Chad work at the Nuttall's American Fork store where Chad is the manager...











Joni, who manages the Ivy Place location of Nuttall's....

A lawn + a long piece of plastic drop cloth + a few screwdrivers to hold the plastic in place + a hose = homemade Slip & Slide -- here's Kyle in a signature pose! Kyle runs the service department for Nuttall's where all sewing machines get to have a spa day!

Still showing off, here's Kyle balancing what looks like a brain on a stick, but I think is probably actually a mop...

So, David turned 28, Dan and I got a chance to produce good food and totally mess up somebody else's kitchen and everybody had a good time at the party!

Vacation, Day 2 -- St. George UT to Eden UT

I took this just outside of St. George just because the clouds were very cool; it had rained during the night and the clouds were still milling around like they wanted to drop some more.

We had been told several times that Joshua trees only grew in southern California and in Israel, so we were surprised to see a few on the freeway median just north of St. George. There were only about a dozen, though, so I suspect they were planted rather than indigenous to the area. Didn't get the camera out in time to get a photo.

Dan was also pretty excited that the speed limit was 80 mph for some of the stretch between St. George and Salt Lake City. I'm sure he thought it was a total waste driving my Escape, though. He wanted me to take a picture of the speed limit sign, but I just couldn't get that bitty thing in the view finder -- it's a lot easier to photograph mountains; they don't go by as fast!

As we continued on to Salt Lake, the clouds got more ominous.....

A shot of the mountains that we would cross today....

We stopped briefly at the Nuttall's Bernina store at Ivy Place in Salt Lake City so that I could introduce Dan to Rhonda and all the other people who work in the store and to set up a time for us to come down on Sunday for dinner. It was a quick "hit and run" store visit because we got there around 3:30 and needed to be in Eden by 5:30 to check into the condo. We also expected rain on the way, which we got, and traffic would be a little slower because of that.

One of the pretty canyon views as we approached Eden....

Took this as we were driving by the lake you can see from our condo; there were a lot of boats on it, so it's evidently a water sports kind of place.

Here's the view from the porch of our condo -- all green and scenic. Not much at all like our view at home in the desert!

Today's Day 3 plan is to run out for breakfast and then down to Rhonda and Steve's to hang out for the afternoon and meet everybody for dinner -- Dan will be grilling, probably along with Travis, Nuttall's shipping & receiving guy. They'll be doing hamburgers and such; I also suggested to Rhonda that we make what Dan and I made the other night: An assortment of grilled vegetables (we tossed chunks of zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms and asparagus in olive oil, salt and papper, and grilled then in a mesh basket), chopped up and combined with cooked pasta and a vinaigrette. It was really good and easy to make for a crowd.

Vacation, Day 1 -- Palmdale CA to St. George UT

Dan and I left yesterday around 1 in the afternoon and drove the first leg of our trip, Palmdale to Mesquite NV, to have dinner with my friend Dawn. From 2000 until she moved to Mesquite two years ago, Dawn spent one day a week getting my customer quilt tops ready for me to machine quilt. So she sewed backing fabrics, did a LOT of pinning, did the binding if the customer required it -- in other words, everything except the actual machine quilting.

We passed through Las Vegas around 5 and I took pictures of some of the landmark casinos. Dan and I don't really like to gamble, so on the rare occasions we go to Las Vegas, it is for a totally different reason, such as when we went a few years ago so that he could drive a formula one race car on a track!

Mandalay Bay was one of our favorite hotels because there were really good restaurants, including a small shop that was nothing but chocolate desserts -- YUM!

We stayed at the Luxor on that trip -- you can barely see the top of it over the cars in this picture. Look at the sky -- the weather was absolutely clear and beautiful, the downside being that it was around 112!

You can see Excalibur in the background of this picture.....

...and New York New York with the big roller coaster here.

Caesar's Palace is one of the last big "distinctive architecture" casinos as you leave the strip. Mesquite is about an hour drive from Las Vegas; we hadn't visited Dawn before this, so she gave us a tour of the house and then we went out for sushi. Her home has beautiful desert views out almost all of the windows, but again, the drawback was that it was 115 and she said it doesn't cool down a whole lot at night. YIKES!

After dinner, we drove to St. George and stayed the night, then were ready to start Day 2!

Tension Settings for the Bernina 830

I've been asked by several people to send them a list of the tension settings that have worked for me while quilting with various threads on the Bernina 830 machine. So here goes....

All of the quilts worked on had Warm & Natural batting in them. Tensions could change if you are using a different batting, but these #s are a good place to start.

I have had great success using the Mettler Silk Finish 100% Cotton 50 weight thread in the bobbin with the various threads that I use. I have used poly and other threads in the bobbin, but not been as happy. I am currently testing Invisifil from the WonderFil thread company as a bobbin thread and have used it in a couple of quilts; it is working well and blends in nicely.

The first thread listed will be the one threaded through the top of the machine, the bobbin thread is in parentheses. The number will be the tension and the Auto or Manual refers to the needle threading method.

First, two water soluble threads used in trapunto by machine:

Vanish Extra from Superior Threads (Mettler Silk Finish 100 Cotton 50 wt) 2.0 Auto

Wash-A-Way from YLI (Mettler Silk Finish) 1.5 Auto

Next, a few monofilaments:
Wonder from YLI (Mettler Silk Finish) 2.0 Auto sometimes, but not consistently

MonoPoly from Superior (Mettler Silk Finish) 1.25 Manual (worked best with the thread net covering the spool)

Sew Art (Mettler Silk Finish) 2.0 Auto

Sulky (Mettler Silk Finish) 1.0 Manual

Jenny Haskins (Superior King Tut) 2.0 Auto

Invisifil (Mettler Silk Finish) 2.0 Manual
Invisifil is not technically a monofilament, but it comes in 30 colors and blends in beautifully without the shine of a monofilament thread.

And, finally, some of the decorative threads:
Glitter by Superior (Mettler Silk Finish) 1.25 Manual

Mettler metallic (Mettler Silk Finish) 2.0 Manual

Sulky rayon (Mettler Silk Finish) 3.0 Auto

830 stitchers: Please share your settings in the comments to increase everybody's knowledge of what works best....

Floral Visions -- First Block

Dawna called me last week to see what I was doing on Monday, her day off from Bolts in the Bathtub. I had been to the store to purchase my fabrics and threads for the Floral Visions quilt with a two-fold purpose in mind. One: I will get more comfortable with the machine embroidery process; Two: I have not been happy with the way most of the machine embroidered quilts are quilted and would like to quilt one "properly" so that it hangs well.

Feel free to comment on this, but my observations have been that the quilting on most of these quilts skirts around the edges of the embroidered motifs and then stipples everything down around it, probably to minimize any puckering caused by the embroidery itself. The combination of heavily quilted areas with very lightly(or unquilted) areas causes the quilt to buckle and hang poorly.

I absolutely love the Master Hooper and I have one for each of the two brands of machine that I use for embroidery. It has a weighted base and a clip designed for the brand of machine you use. You clip the bottom part of the hoop into the base, place the top part of the hoop on your fabric and then move fabric/top of hoop to the base/bottom, fit it all into place and tighten the hoop down. What I like about it is that the base is very heavy, so your hoop isn't scooting all around when you're trying to get it settled and tighten.

Hooped with the edges rolled and pinned so they won't flop over and get in the way -- has that ever happened to you?

Starting the first color -- we're working on a Bernina 830 with the jumbo hoop...

Second color is a really pretty gold/yellow; I picked the colors out of the wallpaper border at the top of some of the rooms of my house. When we bought our house seven years ago, it was in the process of being built, so we had choices to make as far as cabinetry, carpet, tile, etc. We took a piece of that wallpaper with us and coordinated all of the other interior colors with it.

Love the plum/purple with the yellow.....

My first finished block! The surprising thing to me was how long it took to embroider -- it was an eight thread change design that took almost three hours. At one point, we were discussing stabilizers and whether what we were using was going to be enough to keep the block from puckering. Dawna said "Oh, if you don't like it, you can use it as a pillow and stitch out another one!" I don't think so! It gave me a new respect for the time and dedication it takes to produce one of these quilts!

I also decided I really like the jumbo hoop, which is a Bernina 830 exclusive, and the fact that I can stitch out one of these blocks without having to re-hoop. Can't wait to get the stabilizer off my block and see how it looks!

Dawna's Kitties & Ribbons Quilt

This is another one of those quilts-in-the-making that I have had around forever. Dawna Harrison brought it to me in January of 2006 -- I'm not the speedy choice to get your quilts done! I've been home a lot this summer, though, so am trying to catch up on the backlog.

Dawna is teaching a class at her shop, Bolts in the Bathtub, that uses this pattern. The quilt pattern is called Red & Butter.

Of course, Dawna and I both liked it because of the whole pink and black color scheme. Dawna loves kitties and found this focus fabric that incorporated some of her favorite colors, too.

For all of the decorative stitching, I used a pink Glitter from Superior Threads in the top of the machine and Mettler Silk Finish 100% Cotton thread in color #803 in the bobbin.

Tried a new stencil for the border; I'm not sure, but I may have purchased this at the quilt show in Chicago in May from the Golden Threads booth.

Here's the back of the quilt with the feather stencil; loved the heart print! Dawna was happy to get the quilt just in time to show it at her Moda University class yesterday afternoon....

Skein -- Pasadena CA

Friday was a shopping day with my friend Tina in Pasadena -- We went to the Coach store, then to Cache where I found an adorable black & white print jersey summer dress, a cute little boutique called Gossip that had trendy and inexpensive clothes, DSW for shoes and then to the Yardhouse for lunch.

Tina has been taking knitting lessons and making scarves and socks and enjoying it a lot, so we went to Skein where she buys yarn and patterns and takes her classes. Skein is located at 1101 E. Walnut Street in Pasadena (626-577-2035).

Susan Adams is the person that has been teaching Tina her knitting skills and she showed us a few projects that she was working on. You can take either group or individual lessons with Susan right here at the store. If knitting is one of your interests, you might want to visit her blog. She says she isn't good about keeping up with it, but I thought it was fun to read and had some interesting links. The link to her blog is http://unraveledgal.blogspot.com. Another blog that Susan recommended is http://brooklyntweed.net/blog/ I could spend hours on that one.....

In what seems like a past life, I used to be an avid knitter -- I learned when I was about 8 years old and by high school, I could do fisherman's knits and eyelet patterns and made a couple of attempts at multi-color knitting, although that was never my favorite. I still have a lot of sweaters I made years and years ago, but they keep forever in the cedar chest.

So it was a lot of fun wandering around the store and looking at all the colorful yarns. I looked at the scarf kits and all the books and felt a little nostalgic for what I totally turned my back on 20 years ago when I learned to quilt. Quilting became my passion and knitting was one of the things that sort of fell by the wayside.

So I bought the yarns to make a scarf -- it's kind of a wide scarf with big needles and should go pretty fast. The patterns utilizes a "yarn over" technique so that your loops are really big -- that makes it even go faster. The yarns are gorgeous and I'm rationalizing this by thinking that whatever is left over I can put in with my embellishment yarns!