It is Collabracadabra Time

Welcome. I am a new designer at Polka Dot Plum. Hope you are having fun with our blog train. For those of you living in Canada. Happy Canada Day. Here is your blog train treat for child's play.

Click on the image to download.

Your next stop is: bta designs

Enjoy

Great news

Wow I am very happy, excited, thrilled about this one. I will be joining the Digital Scrap Cafe as of tomorrow. Yes tomorrow. Yippee.

In celebration I am having a 40% off sale there.

Vote for Kathleen!

I don't give Kathleen enough credit here on my blog! She is an amazing person and has an amazing sense of color and fabric style. I can say so because not only is she my right arm but I have had the opportunity to watch her decorate homes and design beautiful works of art from fabric and color for the past 28 years! (She's been doing it longer than that too! ) She is also my mom!

She has entered a quilt that she designed and I quilted for her into the McCalls Quilt Design Star contest and she needs you to help her out by voting for her quilt.

Daisies and Lattice

So, go to this link and vote for her! 

You can keep voting every day for the next month too!!!

Thanks!

Don't miss our sale @ Piece N Quilt!
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Leave a comment, we'd love to hear from you.
~Natalia
{Connect with us}
 

Wordless Wednesday: Quilts on the Line

Les Iles de la Madeleine, Quebec

Hello my quilting friends !

Good Morning to all,

Well, I am up early this morning….. I guess its because I am awaiting for items to show up today from the UPS truck! I also ordered two apple Iphones for my husband and I. This is really exciting for me…. As we do not have a house phone…any longer and my phone is about 5 years old. I cannot call out as not enough minutes.
Well with our new phones I set them up for talking unlimited… plus most of our family is using AT&T already so those calls will be completely free. I am excited!

Did not get much done while Denny was home. It just happens that way. He is like a whirlwind when he hits the door. I just look… and so amazed how the once nice and clean kitchen looks like it was hit by a hurricane. My husband loves to cook, and boy he sure does not clean up his mess.

My son is up in the South Texas, for the hurricane Alex. I have been keeping in touch with him over this. Today I am going to go get his wife and JJ, to take them food shopping. They only have one car, and Jeff my son, took it. I always enjoy hanging out with Kerstin.

That is why I am up early too, so I can work on my kitchen, and some sewing … before I have to leave.

Have a very happy full day! Hugs to all!!!! Hugs Morgan

Celebration of Freedom

Today we're showing one of our favorite red, white and blue quilts.  Judy Laquidara designed and made the "Celebration of Freedom" quilt in 2005. The quilt became the focal point of an auction by The Defense Credit Union Council, with the proceeds going towards the Pentagon Memorial Fund. The quilt brought $4,595 at auction --- a DCUC record for a single item!

We love the vibrant star design in the center of the quilt, and the fourteen interconnected sawtooth stars. See the detail, below, including the fabulous machine quilting. Isn't it beautiful?

The star centers were fussy cut from the star-and-bunting fabric shown below.

We're excited to announce that Judy is revealing the directions for "Celebration of Freedom", with a new and different border... today on her  blog, the Patchwork Times. The Patchwork Times is loaded with quilting tutorials, recipes (she loves to cook), and - of course - quilt patterns. We had a chance to interview Judy about "Celebration of Freedom", and about her love of quilting:

Quilt Inspiration: What was your inspiration for Celebration of Freedom?

Judy Laquidara: The fabrics were part of the Moda Challenge for 2005 (I think that was the year). The packet contained 4 or 5 different fat quarters and the challenge was to create an original quilt using those fabrics, plus more of any of those lines.

Q.I.: The design is quite distinctive. How did the design come about? 

Judy Laquidara: I design using Electric Quilt software. I find it harder to design a quilt with a specific quilt in mind and prefer to design a quilt, then choose the fabric. Actually I cannot remember how that particular design developed. Usually my designs happen just by playing with a block or two, adding sashing, and working those elements until the design pleases me.

Q.I.: Have you made other red, white and blue quilts? 

Judy Laquidara: I have. Here are a few links:  Finish #3, Finish #4, and Quilt for Fort Hood.

Q.I.: What is your favorite part/element of the quilt? 

Judy Laquidara:  I love it all! In the evenings I sit and "doodle" with Electric Quilt and do most of my designing then. I look forward to that in the evenings when I'm sitting with no pressure to finish a project. I love the piecing. There are times when all I want to do is piece even if projects waiting to be quilted are piling sky high. I love the quilting and once I get a quilt loaded on the longarm, I don't want to stop until it's done. I don't mind the binding but I often let the quilts needing binding pile up. The good thing about binding is that once it's done, I have a finished project! Of course, buying fabric is lots of fun too!

Q.I.:  Thanks so much for your inspiring work and for your blog.... we love reading the Patchwork Times!

I'm using....

Quite often I'm asked the question "What do you use?" So today I'm sharing what I'm using.

The most asked question I get is about my quilting. No, I do not quilt on a conventional machine. I have a Gammill Premier with a stitch regulator. I have been machine quilting for three years. I have actually never tried quilting on a conventional.

Look Bonny, it's your quilt!

All of my piecing and applique is done on my Bernina Anniversary Edition. I have had this machine for about two years and I LOVE it! Definitely a little pricey but I have never had a moments trouble with it and it gets it's share of use.

Batting, I prefer to use Quilters Dream Blend batting, it's a low loft batting and it lays, washes and quilts beautifully. On occasion I do quilt with more lofty type batting's and I prefer Quilters Dream Puff or Wool for loft.

Thread, I love So Fine by Superior Threads. For the most part I piece, quilt and bind using So Fine!

I know someone will ask how I store my thread. Well, I buy in cones so the best storage I've found so far is a Super Satchel Art Bin. They have removable cone holders and I love them for my thread storage. I got mine from United Notions.

I've had a few of you ask about binding. Here's our little secret. If the quilt is going to be judged or in any show then we attach the binding by machine to the top and then do a whip stitch using So Fine thread on the back.

If the quilt is not going to be judged or in a quilt show then attach by machine all the way. To attach by machine we attach our biding to the back of the quilt first then to the top using So Fine thread. Just make sure you've got a thread that matches very well. I also like this style of binding for quilts that are going to be heavily loved.

Click here to see how we prepare our bindings.

Hopefully this answered some of your questions. 

If you have more I'd love to hear them and I'm more than happy to do another post like this.

Don't miss our sale @ Piece N Quilt!
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Leave a comment, we'd love to hear from you.
~Natalia
{Connect with us}

and the wrens go marching on . . .

Something happened at the house this week that reminded me of another funny 'wren' story that I'd forgotten to share, complete with photos! It happened Mother's Day weekend, and I think I had some blog apathy and then the accident happened, and one thing led to another and . . . well, you know how that can go!

Anyway, Todd and I had been out and about around the camp site -- I think we'd had a group up there -- and as we returned to our site, we noticed a bit of a commotion at the hitch end of the RV. And it sounded a lot like a wren commotion!

Sure enough, as we got closer, wrens became more vocal, and we could see something odd sticking out of the hitch . . .

Just to put it in perspective, I've put a black square around where the hitch is in the following picture . . .

So we got a little closer, and what do you think we saw??

Lots of homely baby wrens!! Evidently, when I inadvertently chased the wrens out of my door wreath (I blogged about it first here, and then again here) they moved their nest to the inside of our hitch! When we found them, babies were falling out of the hitch, hitting the ground fluttering!

Baby wrens are nicely camouflaged when they hit the forest floor. I put a black square around this one little fellow who was doing his utmost best to get away from me!

Mom and Dad Wren were standing sentinel on nearby trees, alternately fussing at us for being there and encouraging the kids to get a move on it!

I was clicking like crazy to get pictures, but these little fellows are FAST! Most of my pictures showed either blurred blobs, or absolutely nothing by forest floor!

So, a month later, at a different location, what reminded me? Well, I rolled into the kitchen one day last week, thinking I was hearing a wren very close by. I went to the window above the sink to see if I could see it, when I realized it WAS IN THE WINDOW! Haha! It had managed to squeeze in through a hole in the screen and was between the screen and the window. No wonder it sounded close!

Three days later I rolled into the kitchen and thought something looked a little funny at that same window, but my flowers were blocking whatever it was . . .

See there, in the right corner of the window, behind the flowers?

So I pulled them out of the sill, and I had to laugh.

Now I understand exactly what that silly wren was scoping out -- a new home!! I guess Todd and I are just people who have 'wren' experiences!!!

That same Mother's Day weekend, up at Camp MACOBA, I stumbled upon these beauties growing at our new site . . .

Peonies! They smelled heavenly, too!!

And finally, of course, my little bit of heaven on earth . . .

He's certainly figured out how to beat this southern heat!!

Splish-splash!!

:)

Pinwheel Baby Quilt

 One of my sweet customers made this darling Pinwheel Baby Quilt using Jodi's tutorial. I machine quilted it for her and I love how it turned out!

I think I have self diagnosed myself with a horrible medical condition I've got.....

It's called QADD

Quilters Attention Deficit Disorder.

Yes, remember last week when I told you that I had two quilts in the works, well today I started another one. Help! Are you this same way? How do I stop starting projects?

Don't miss our sale @ Piece N Quilt!
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Leave a comment, we'd love to hear from you.
~Natalia
{Connect with us}

A much needed break!

I haven't touched my computer since Friday morning and let me tell you it was so nice!

My husband is always telling me I spend way to much time on it so I decided to take the weekend off, no answering e-mails, no Facebook, no twittering. Nothing! I didn't even know where my phone was most of the weekend.

So, now you're wondering what I was doing that was so nice......

Babysitting.

(Left, my daughter, right my niece)

Yes, it was so much fun! My sister needed someone to tend her cute little girl so she came and we had a slumber party, with two-two year olds it was very busy! They went everywhere in tutus, we went and fed the ducks played at the park, went and visited grandpa & grandma and payed in their new stream and giggled!

Now, I'm feeling refreshed and I feel like I can take on another week!

Hope you had a productive weekend, maybe lots of sewing or playing with kids!

Don't miss our sale @ Piece N Quilt!
For more fun updates sign up for Piece N Quilts newsletter.
Leave a comment, we'd love to hear from you.
~Natalia
{Connect with us}