Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Cre8tive Quilter: Rosemont Wrap up

Haha! Check this out!

Cre8tive Quilter: Rosemont Wrap up

Jen put me in her blog and linked to mine!!! I feel famous! Thanks Jen! (you're now my roommate for life! For better or for worse, til death do us part!) :)

More college era quilts

When I was in college the closest place for me to get fabric was Walmart. Not only did they have fabric, but it was $2.00 a yard. That was probably the biggest draw for me. I know there's a HUGE difference in feel between most Walmart fabric and all quilt shop fabric....but if I spent my senior year college tuition on quilt fabric, I have a feeling I'd come to regret that soon after! :) Needless to say for $2.00 a yard you can still make some pretty things! Here's a couple....

This one is for my nephew, Brayden. Although I didn't know if I would have a niece of nephew when I made it....so there's not much blue or pink! ;)

Then there was a blue dotted fabric that I love. There's also a coordinating stripe and then some marbled basic colors. I made a few log cabin blocks and arranged them in different ways and I have NO IDEA which one to make! I think I like arrangement #2 the best. What do you think?

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That's just a project that I pulled out when I had nothing else to work on.... Now that I'm a "genuine" quilter, I have more projects than I could shake a stick at! For every project I finish I think I acquire 15 others. For all of you non-quilters you may think I'm exaggerating.....but for all you quilters, 15 is probably an understatement! :)

Monday, April 19, 2010

Internation Quilt Festival, Rosemont, Illinois

This last weekend at the International Quilt Festival in Rosemont, Illinois, was AMAZING! I've never seen so many quilt shops and vendors come together before in my life! There were about 475 different shops with all sorts of goodies to sell! And boy did I buy! :) I found some great angelina fiber colors, and of course some Bigfork Bay Cotton Company quilt kits. A few yards of fabrics, including a neat rainbow trout print! And then I purchased and had Kaffe Fassett and Liza Prior Lucy sign his (& her) newest book!


Then of course I tried to sign books.....nobody bought any! :)


At the end of the day we stayed at the Double Tree hotel right next to the expo center. It was almost midnight when I crawled into bed and felt something bunched up at my feet. The sheet on top of me was bunched funny, and I HAD to fix it. When I pulled back the sheets I realized that where the fitted sheet should be (on the bottom) there was only a flat sheet, and it wasn't even close to reaching the foot of the bed! There was a good foot of mattress pad showing! Well, I had to fix that too. There I am at midnight making my bed in a Hilton chain hotel....and after a long day of over 11 hours on my feet, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and go to sleep.


While I was tearing the sheets off of the bed and trying to make it again, I noticed something dark on one of the sheets. Upon further inspection I realized there was a huge hole in one of the sheets! Seriously?!?!? At a Hilton chain??? Give me a Holiday Inn any day. Needless to say I provided much entertainment for my hotel roommate! :)

Friday, April 16, 2010

I'm ready for the weekend!

This weekend I'm lucky enough to be able to go down to the International Quilt Festival in Rosemont, Illinois!!! :) I'll be working in the Patched Works, Inc. booth, but hopefully I'll get to run around and take some pictures! I'll post the good ones sometime next week.

Meanwhile, catching up on my other quilts that I've made.....

In college I made a couple of quilts for my boyfriend Scott. The green and blue one is a larger one, probably queen sized. If you have a queen sized bed I like to make a king sized quilt. I also turned this one and then tied it with embroidery floss.


His other one is a couch quilt....larger than a lap quilt, but not exactly a twin size.....although my lap quilts usually turn out to be lap sized, almost full sized! :) I made this one for him while he was guiding up in Alaska. During his college summers he would go up to a lodge that's set right next to Denali National Park and be a fly fishing guide. Quilting helped me fill the time until he came back!


And here's a picture of Scottie in his Alaska gear. He's been charged by grizzlies a couple of times, and he always has his Charles Daly rifle and a .40 caliber pistol on him because of them. He always took lots of pictures for me. Isn't he great?!?!? He's definitely quilt worthy!!!

Saturday, April 10, 2010

In the beginning.....

When I first began quilting, there was a ton of techniques that I didn't know about. Such as binding! The teacher in my first quilting class in high school taught us to turn the quilts instead of binding them. My favorite colors were orange and blue, which ended up being the colors of my undergrad later on! In 2001 and 2002 I created this first pinwheel quilt.... The backing is just a full sized sheet that I had bought to match the colors.


Then the next year I took another sewing class, but liked making quilts so much that I took an independent study and made another huge monkey wrench quilt. This one I put flannel on the back....and I fell in love with the cuddly softness!

Friday, April 9, 2010

Good Morning!

Hi There!

Welcome to Mussergirl Quilts! First of all, I suppose I should explain my blog name. Back in my home town, I grew up on Musser Lake. And it's always been my screen name. Anyhow, I'm new at this, so I suppose I'll be trying different things out.