Hello to all on a beautiful summer morning. I have been busy as I'm sure you all are. This weekend we went to visit DS in Wisconsin to watch more baseball and to visit the "new" house. DS and family seem to be settling in nicely, the grandkids have found lots of new friends in the neighborhood which is very nice as there were no children their ages in the old one. All my clients seem to have waited until after the MQ Show to call with their summer projects so there are lots of quilts on the "to do" racks in the studio. I finished one last week that was fun, the colors are super, it is going to be a table cloth. I tried something that one of the gals in my Longarm Guild brought for show and tell a while ago, with a busy pattern and fabric in the center but a plain boarder it worked great. I used a pantograph in the center and then did a free hand floral boarder, doubling all the stitching. What do you think? This week I am going to be working on quilts going to a client in Hilo, Hawaii. Needless to say her fabric choices are always so much fun. They have a quilt show there in July and she keeps trying to get me to come over for it, maybe someday. I hope to be able to work on some fun stuff of my own soon, maybe some handwork while we drive to Montana in a couple weeks. But for now it's off to the studio to work, have a Blessed Day.

What a busy weekend, and it is only half over. Thursday I had a little eyelid lift, it was to correct an error on an earlier surgury and now I'm suppose to "take it easy" for a few days. Well I quilted all day Friday, and EARLY Saturday, like 6:30 a.m. I left the house to go watch GD Nichole play in the State Fastpitch Tourney. What fun! Boo they lost their first game in a tie breaker, then went on the win their 2nd, 3rd and 4th games. So today they start again at 8:00 a.m. but I can't go to watch, but DH is going at least to the first game. They need to go on and win 4 today in order to come out on top. Here is a photo of the girls from an earlier game. They are in the 14and Under bracket and always do quite well. And in between games I went to my longarm guild meeting. We of course have show and tell just like every other quilting guild and sometimes I wonder why I am in this business. There is soooooo much talent in our group it is amazing. We have 2 or 3 national teachers in our group and many others that teach at the local level. A few of our ladies have books, patterns or cds out there for sale. Many of their quilting ideas can be used on your domestic machines as well as on the longarm machines out there. I will soon add their web links to the side bar over there so you can check them out. The next photo is just a sampling of what is available to our local people who want a longarm quilter to do their quilt. This was done free hand by a gal who teaches and designs pantograph patterns and is now working on some digitized patterns for the computer quilter. Today I am going to a bridal shower for a niece so must dress up and act lady like instead of yelling my head off for our girls to play defense or to hit the ball hard. I made my son promise to call with updates all day long. Well must close for now, have a Blessed Day.

Hello everyone. Today I am going to show off a quilt I just finished for a customer, well she's my daughter-in-law too, and the daughter of one of my favorite pattern designers, Marcie Patch of Patchalot Patterns. The pattern is Chesapeake Star and I quilted the one that is on the front of the pattern too. Polly hasn't seen this yet as she is out visiting her Mom in Virginia so I thought I'd surprise her with a photo. The close up shows that I used an all over freehand feather in the center and also a feathered border. Polly, my son Chris and their family are moving to Missoula, Montana in August. She asked if it would be possible to get this finished before they moved so today it went on the machine and hooray, it's done. I have only had it for about 9 months. I am really going to miss all of them, it will be so hard not to be able to just pop over and visit, but Chris says the train goes out there pretty close to them and I can just hop on for a quick visit whenever I want. On another note, I am finally getting my wind back after working so hard at the Minnesota Quilt Show. What fun, there were over 600 quilts on display with 223 of them being judged. I think our show is the one of the few large shows that has a non-judged exhibit and it is so wonderful to see so many quilters, men, women and children that want to display their quilts even if they don't want them judged. We also had over 100 vendors and national 21 teachers. Next year we are in Duluth, you should check it out it is worth the trip. This was definitely proven when we had 5 quilters from France come to the show this year and one of our scholarship applicants was from Malaysia. Just goes to show the power of the internet. I have some photos of a few quilts and the banquet on my photo album if you want to go look. Just click here . Soon there will be photos of all the prize winners on the MQ website. The link is on my list. Well enough for today, Keep Quilting and have a Blessed Day.