Tuesday 26 June 2012

Flower Power blocks

So many tiny little points...very tedious, but I'm happy with how it's turning out.  Only 10 more blocks to go!



Block #3

Tuesday 19 June 2012

IQA Raffle Quilt

Back in May of 2010 my very good friend and fellow HQ Educator Linda recommended me to a friend of hers to quilt the IQA Raffle quilt.  The friend is Martha Norstrand who had been asked to design the IQA raffle quilt for 2012. 
 Martha is amazing with stitching and hand applique and has designed many patterns over the years.  Also involved in the project was Stevii Graves who has been involved in the quilting world for many years.  She has been a juror and judge for many quilt shows in the U.S.  She is also president this year for the IQA (International Quilt Association).  She is also a very talented quilter herself. 
So I was asked by Martha if I would be interested in quilting the 2012 IQA raffle quilt!!!  Wow!  I was very interested and at the same time VERY terrified!  The quilt arrived at my house around May of 2011.  I had to have it quilted before we moved out of the country at the end of August.  It took me weeks to even load it onto my machine, because I was so terrified.  Once I got started on it I started to relax and away I went.  It took me about 80 hours to quilt it and there are over 1 million stitches in it (thanks to my handy stitch counter on my HQ Fusion).  I'm a freak about stats on quilts that i work on :)
When it was done and shipped off to Stevii who squared it up and stitched on the binding.  It looked awesome all done!  The IQA decided that they would enter it into The Road to California show and if it won any money it would also go towards the raffle ticket pot.  It ended up getting Honorable Mention, I was thrilled.  Then in the March edition of Machine Quilting Unlimited it was put in an article about balance in a quilt.  It was sooooo cool to see it in a magazine!
So this year the quilt "The Yellow Rose of Texas" will be travelling to the International quilt shows in the States and they will be selling raffle tickets on it.  It will then be raffled off to a lucky winner at the Houston Quilt Show in November. 
So that is the story of how I got to quilt this amazing quilt and be involved in the project.  What a great experience!













Flower Power

Well I've embarked on yet another project!  In the April/May edition of Quilters Newsletter there is a quilt called Flower Power by Jane Zillmer.  They are doing it as 7 part project...I just couldn't resist!  It will be the most intense applique project that I've probably ever done.  Jane Zillmer had machine appliqued hers but I've decided to hand applique mine.  It is taking me quite some time to do each block, probably about 3-4 days per block.  There are 13 blocks in total and the border has a least a gazillion leaves and vines to applique.  I'm hoping to keep on top of the blocks as they come.  Because I started late I'm hoping to have the 1st 5 blocks done before the August edition comes out??  We will see :)



Block One




Block Two