Too gorgeous for words.
I just love this happy quilt.

This quilt is called "Blackford's Beauty".
Heidi found it in the Fons and Porters Scrap Quilts Fall 2012 magazine. She tells us she already had a lot of the same fabric colors and the exact same star background on hand.

Mar 06: The quilts arrived 02/27 but just now taking the time to photograph them and do the blogs.
Mar 17: After a long day, I am just sitting here studying this quilt & enjoying it. It needs nothing.
I am stumped as to how to quilt it. Perhaps just SID with a nice border.
Mar 18: EQ7 drawing
Apr 04: This quilt is up but Heidi wants until the weekend to finalize her plan. PLUS she graciously gave her spot to Dorothy.
Apr 07: We have a plan.
Apr 15: Prepped, loaded & basted. Ready to quilt.
Apr 16: Quilting. Got half way not counting side borders. I will turn the quilt to do those.

Heidi is back with two more beautiful quilts.

Mar 06: The quilts arrived 02/27 but just now taking the time to photograph them and do the blogs.
Mar 17: This moved suddenly to the top of the queue. Working with Heidi on IQ pattern and thread selection. We decided on Magnifico #2173 Sandy Brown to give this a slight pick-me-up. Everything is prepped & loaded & ready to quilt tomorrow. The green suited the day nicely. Even got out for a corned beef dinner at a local diner. I had to go somewhere in my green shirt!!
Mar 19: Quilted

Partners & I have now completed 4 bandana quilt projects, i.e. quilts incorporating a bandana like those sent to soldiers in Afghanistan. All bandannas were provided by Celia Gwaltney who obtained them from Operation Bandana. Quilt were given to those who suffered great personal &/or physical loss in service to us all.

Recipents & Quilt Stories

1. Cpl. Cody Stanton (in 3 parts)
2. Army Staff Sgt. Brian Keaton Sr.
3. Sgt. Rodwell Shootes
4. Sgt. Jason Roten (in 2 parts)

If you are interested in making such a quilt, know that I will longarm it no charge & provide the bandana. I think I still have one on hand.

If you have been following this post, know that all is well. LD & I are both smilin'.

LD made this quilt
for her daughter
in her favorite colors!

Jan 20: I first heard from LD.
Feb 16: LD selected Cristofers 1 for her panto, one that is surprising with a larger sample. I bought it because I love it & am so glad it will now be used!
Feb 25: The quilt top arrived. The backing is Minky (i.e. feels as soft as mink). The border is hot pink and the center is light pink. My camera is off on the color. I immediately had a strong reaction to this quilt that felt like CAT!
Mar 01: It was confirmed there is a cat in the home. My gut screamed return this quilt at once! Sweet LD literally begged me to do it & to even wash it if that would help. Turns out several other quilts came in at the same time from homes with cats. Funny after three years of doing this, I have not had this situation. I decided to document my allergy to cats on this site, request no more quilts from homes with cats & to go ahead and do the work already entrusted to me. Something I cannot explain is that I learned Heidi is a cat girl but I had no reaction to quilts I have done for her in the past. I was working on another quilt recently that I was reacting to also. As the customer & I chatted, I learned there was no cat but dogs in the home. As we continued to talk, it occurred to her that her brother for whom she was making the quilt did have a cat. Last August she had taken the quilt to his home and spread it out on his bed. That confirmed that my reaction to her quilt was indeed cat related.
Mar 05: I took the quilt top outside and pressed it using my old ironing board to see if I could tolerated the quilt.  My throat burned the whole time but I did not go into a full blown allergic reaction.
Mar 16: It is time to start this quilt. I got the backing out to load it and decided to take LD's advice and wash it and the top. About to put them in the dryer and hope for a much improved situation.
                                          !! IT WORKED but it took 4 hours !!
Washing stopped the allergies (or so I thought). I have now pressed both sides of the quilt top using spray starch on top. Now the seams are flat & the fabric is flat & the quilt will be flat once longarmed. LD's first full sized bed quilt, she did not know to trim her blocks before joining them. Even so, this should turn out very nice in the end. ... Well, it would if the backing was usable. Finally reached LD. The backing proved to be too problematic, shall we say? LD ordered a beautiful flannel to use instead. I must say she is the most congenial person one could ever dream to meet or with whom to work. I appreciate you, girl!
Mar 17: So what does one do with all that Slinky Minky? Throw pillows, of course!
Mar 28: Finally back at work on this quilt piecing the flannel backing. Batting is cut. IQ is programmed. Quilt is loaded and basted. My throat is fussing Unbelievable how tenacious cat allergens are. I had no idea.
Mar 29: Quilting
Mar 30: Finished.

The Labyrinth Quilt Top I pieced in May 2012 will soon have a home with a local couple, Sgt. Jason & Tiffany Roten. I met Tiffany today and learned of Jason's service. This quilt is going to the couple as it rightfully should. Tiffany is helping me with the details while keeping this a secret from Jason for the time being.
    Since the top is already finished, I am going to incorporate this bandana into the backing. I learned Jason was a proud tanker so that theme will be incorporated into the backing too. Nope-didn't happen that way.

Feb 25: Met Tiffany. Decided to complete this quilt as a bandana thank you quilt for her husband's service including Afghanistan.
Feb 26: Just spoke to Celia Gwaltney who will send me a bandana this week. The bandanas are part of 
Operation Bandanas | Psalm 91 bandanas for our Troops  only I use them in quilts for soldiers who have come home.
Mar 02: I have just appealed to the Intelliquilter group for pantos for this quilt. Trying to get an eagle to hit just right on the front center and the bandana on the back is not a good idea. I want something as special as custom yet a panto that incorporates the same themes & most of all a says a HUGE THANKS to Jason and all those he represents. Hey, I can dream!!
Mar 03: From Tiffany: Linda, Hey, just looked at the QOV patterns and saw the one labeled Tanks. I didn't have to look any further. He was a tanker and I know that is the one he would want! Thanks again! Tiffany Roten. Hmmm.
Mar 06: Celia tells me the bandana is now in the mail so it will be here in plenty of time.
Mar 07: Met with Tiffany and showed her the quilt. She shared the significance of tanks to Jason, a tanker & a collector. Did some research online & found images that can be printed on t-shirts, patches, pins...all kinds of things. We settled on the Eagles On High panto and will incorporate tanks into the backing somehow.
Mar 08: Got the panto and played with a couple of layouts. Also researching army armor/tanker images to print on t-shirts & then incorporate into the backing.
Mar 09: We have a final plan (NOPE) if there is such a thing. Meanwhile, Jim Goodson, an artist who sells on Zazzle under the name Arklights, is busy putting his designs on shirts for us. A huge thanks to Jim! His artwork will make this quilt very special for Jason.
Mar 12: Ordered 4 t-shirts for the backing. Oops ... something went wrong. Zazzle will not print the army insignia on the shirts. Bandana came in.
Mar 13: I am glad now I didn't get to order the shirts yesterday. Laying this out on the bed, I see now that I need smaller images that will fit in a maximum 8" wide border. I also like the on-point layout, something I didn't think about before. Also much easier to piece.
Mar 14: When Zazzle wouldn't print Jim's images on shirts, he sent them to me to put on t-shirts &/or fabric myself. My t-shirt gal can't print on black so I need a light color that coordinates. The good news is that I can use any cotton fabric rather than t-shirts. This proved too complicated.
Mar 18: Just came across some newly released army fabrics that offer potential here.
Mar 19: Still in love with Jim Goodson's work, I ordered a clock with the emblem so meaningful  to our Army Tankers. Zazzle allowed it without issue & it will here in one week, i.e. Tue Mar 26.
Mar 20: We have a new final plan that I hope this time is fail safe. The importance of this quilt is validated by the difficulty and road blocks to getting it designed. Let's hope that piecing the backing will be seamless - well, it will have a few seams of course. 

Mar 26: I just got in the Military Salute Army Vehicles Patches Black fabric. It is beautiful and very good quality. I don't give up easilyy but the bandana just does NOT look good with this new backing. The backing doesn't do justice to the bandana & the bandana spoils the theme of the quilt. TIffany knows the tanker theme is far more meaningful to Jason so tankers it is. And a bandana on the side!! OH! And the clock is here!
Mar 31: Cleaned my machine. Selected, loaded & tested the thread. Batting is cut. Backing is ready to load.
Apr 01: Prepared and loaded the top. Everything looked good on my test stitches but alas, the tension is way off on back. Did a small partial row and the start of a full row before I realized it. So now I'm backing up and undoing what I have quilted so far. Good thing I went ahead and ordered extra thread. Back to the beginning and stitched another test. Will try again tomorrow.
Apr 02: Starting over with the quilting. Still having tension issues when the needle is moving in one particular direction that I hope I have now tweaked out of the stitching. This quilt will take three hours of just stitching time alone (not including rolling and basting) & that is a lot. Those eagles wing are going to give my system quite a workout. I will also be out several hours today getting mice &/or their nest cleaned out of  my car's heater venting system. Yuck! The guys said the nest was the size of a basketball!! Have learned mice flee from peppermint oil & my garage & car now smell wonderful!! Hopefully, problem solved.
Apr 03: Quilted. Only the binding is left while Tiffany plans how we will present this to Jason.
Apr 04: Squared the quilt. Binding is ready to attach.
Apr 05: Attached the binding.
Apr 06-11: Hand binding.
Apr 13: Tiffany & Penny conned Jason into coming to the cabin with them today. Turns out he knows a lot about quilts & quilting from his grandmother's hand quilting. Jason is such a gentle soft spoken man. Can you believe that I was so caught up in enjoying my company that I forgot to take final quilt pictures or pictures of the recipient couple? Instead I photographed the card Tiffany gave me as they left. This was a truly wonderful project & it could not have turned out any better in the end.

A couple of days ago, Friday to be exact, I went out to ship a quilt and decided to go on into Boone for a bite to eat. There it was! Yes...NO...yeah...nooo...hmm...why not?...Okay, why not. You know how it is when you are in the vicinity of a quilt shop. The staff in this one came up with the idea for Cody's colorful quilt and I don't stop in very often. I was in the mood.

I enjoyed chatting a bit and browsing and browsing and browsing. I spotted a very unusual fabric with deep emeralds and golds. It had my name on it. When I asked what coordinated with it, they were sold out of the panels. I was also hooked by an awesome book of log cabin quilts. I made my purchases and headed home to look up what those coordinating fabrics might be. Also thinking simple & fast & let the fabric do the talking, I was imagining another feature fabric center with a couple of borders. Period. Also thinking I could longarm a scene on this like one would on whole cloth.

Hope your next adventure in a quilt shop has you saying D--- or better, Ssshhhuuugar!

Feb 15, 16, 18: Purchased these fabrics from two different shops.
Feb 16: EQ7 Rendition.
Apr 20: I cut the borders & panels for this simple quilt.
Apr 21: Today, in 2.5 hours, I had a new quilt top.
Jun 15: Pieced the backing. Ready to load. I searched for pottery and southwest patterns but didn't find anything I like any better than the eagles. Definitely open to suggestions !! I am also rethinking the backing. Geez. Better take a break!
Jun 16: Selected my thread. Loaded & basted. 
Jun 17: Waiting for Digi-tech to digitize the simple pottery panto. Yes! Jessica came through for me. I made a few modifications. Now quilting. Quilted. 
Jun 18: Pictures, such as they are..
Jun 19: Sold Joan some of this fabric.
Oct 02: Binding finished.
Dec 23, 2014: Gave this to Myra Trivette when she fell instantly in love with it.

Feb 15, 2013: Purchased fabrics. Love them. Popped them into EQ7 to see how they look together. I reversed the glaze fabric putting the yellow edges together to get the effect shown here.

Mandy is new to the cabin
and most welcome here!

Beautiful fabrics.
Beautiful piecing.

Can't show the whole quilt on my full size bed.

Feb 04: First contact. This is what I get--a beauty to longarm--when someone else drags her feet too long. Mandy already knows she want black thread & Deb's Swirls 1.
Feb 11: Received the package complete with batting.
Mar 05: Loaded the backing and batting.
Mar 06: Loading the top then programming IQ. Now quilting. The quilting is virtually invisible but that doesn't stop me from trying.
Mar 07: Working hard on last 3 rows so I can ship this today. Done!

Feb 05: CG sent me her layout photo.
Feb 09: Fabric arrived. I literally have my work cut out for me on this one. Started piecing column 1 (blocks 1-8). Only able to do blocks 1 & 7. I sewed the squares in block 2 but had to take it all out. This one and the other blocks in column 1 had knit fabrics which must be stabilized.. I went ahead and removed all the blue painters tape which caused unavoidable and significant unraveling. When I have used such tape to mark blocks, I use only a small square and never put it on the edge but in the middle of the fabric. Sorry CG. I did not know so could not warn you. It never occurred to me that you would use it to tape the blocks together. So one hour of work got me ready to iron the rows in 2 of 8 blocks. Going to do that now and then complete those blocks after ordering some fusible interfacing to stabilize the knits.
  I pushed myself to stack the squares in column 2 (blocks 9-17) for piecing. Three of these blocks had squares that needed stabilizing. I remembered I had a small amount of what I need that Joan sent me. Yes! So I pushed myself to stabilize and re-squared a whole bunch of squares. All 8 blocks in this row are ready to sew. 4+ hours already devoted to this project & still only have 2 blocks of 56 done. Yikes!
Feb 10: Have the rows together for the 8 blocks in Col 2. Also had enough fusible to do one more block in Col 1. Before completing the blocks, I am going back to removing blue tape ever so carefully on several more columns. Laura Mourning shared a technique this evening that should help tremendously since I have to use fusible interfacing any way. Talk about "just in time." The blue tape is now all gone, I have touched every square of fabric & feeling organized. I will piece the few blocks I have already started in the traditional way and then wait for the fusible to get here probably on Tuesday.
Feb 11: Thanks to a photo from Laura and online research, CG was able to get the fusible interfacing we need at her local Joann's.
Feb 12: Finished blocks in column 2 plus 1 more in column 1 making 11 total. That's it until the fusible comes in by this time next week.
Feb 14: Fusible interfacing is here via PARCEL POST in 2 days from NH. Wow!
Feb 18: It's back to work as I start cutting the fusible in 13" squares. All blocks for 2 columns are done. I prefer to join blocks in a row first and then connect the rows but I can go ahead and pair up and sew the first two blocks in each row. I am ready to see fewer pieces to this project.
Feb 19: With Laura's advice, I am on my way to connecting all the squares left into one great big patch. I will then sew long seams & be done much quicker with much greater accuracy. Row 1 is connected. Columns have been reorganized into rows of five.
Feb 20: Columns 3-7 of Rows 1-4 are connected. Columns 3-7 of Rows 5-8 to go.
Feb 21: Did Row 5 before my quests came.
Feb 22: Row 6. Only 2 to go...tomorrow.
Feb 23: Up early for me & hard at work. I am determined to get everything ironed down this morning. DONE! Rows are ironed & started seaming them. Need input from CG on how to position her label. That is now settled.
Feb 24: Will be seaming the rest of the row and then will cut them open and press flat. The column seams will be done the same way. I have one tricky piece to work in that is equivalent to 4 horizontal blocks & then need to add columns 1 & 2 that I did separately. Whew! That's a lot. HA! Didn't do anything. Took the day off since it was so beautiful outside.
Feb 25: Another day lost to necessary chores & life in general. Don't worry--we still have plenty of time.
Feb 26: The power was off awhile due the ice cover outside. Row seams are done. Now I need to cut them open and then press them open. I opened enough to stitch the first 4 vertical seams so I could insert a special piece. I've been doing that in my sleep for a week so I am glad it is done. I find cutting the seams and ironing them flat is not as bad as I feared. 
Feb 27: The horizontal seams are cut open. Next I iron them flat. Done. Next I press the vertical seams. Done. Next I sew the long vertical seams. Done. This is taking hours and hours. It's 9:30 PM & I have been at it all day. Enough.
Feb 28: Next I cut open the vertical seams. Done. Next I press the vertical seams open. Done. I turn the top over and press all the seams. Done. Next I piece together the sections of columns 1 & 2 I did back on the 10th. Done. Last step is to merge these first two columns with the large section. Done. Oh, and fuse the card on the quilt top. Done. And thus the quilt top is finished. Backing is loaded. Tomorrow is quilting day.
Mar 01: Finished loading and basting. Quilting.
Mar 02: Finished the last hour or so of quilting. Prepared & attached the binding. Only the hand work remains.
Mar 03-05: Hand binding. Finished 2 PM 2/5/13.

​Just got  home from an adventure at Ye Olde Forest Quilt Shop.

The fabric is a brushed cotton jelly roll by Moda Christmas Spirit. The quilt top pattern is Cozy Quilt's Daybreak by one of my favorite IQ pattern designers, Georgette Dell’Orco at Quilters Niche.

How to Video making the block. She says it is "that easy" but of course I made it a whole lot harder.

Feb 07: Had a casual day playing with design options. Took me awhile to get the blocks right. My first design is with the wrong blocks as if there is any such thing in quilting. Decided on 5 with a definite favorite. Which do you like best?
Feb 08: Dang, I'm cold!! Time to start cutting. Got everything cut for the main quilt. Started piecing...barely. Completed my cutting chart.
Feb 09: Did another design since I have plenty of the lightest color. The pattern calls for two background colors, one slightly darker than the other. It calls for alternating backgrounds for every other 16" block. I am having much more fun mixing it up.
Feb 12: Had time to do some more piecing.
Feb 13: Thanks for the votes!! Posting my choice.
Aug 07: Finally getting back to this one inspired by Dorothy's Remembrance quilt.
Aug 10-12: Been working steadily while my IQ x-motor is being replaced. I now have a bed layout and am piecing then squaring the quarter blocks.
Sep 06: Coming together as I assemble the larger blocks. Six of twelve are done.
Sep 07: Big blocks are together. Or so I thought. When I added the first border, I noticed the tension was off. I had to go back and overstitch all the connecting seams. I don't know where all that red fabric in first picture above went but I had enough strips to do the border. I have enough green for a 6" border and the backing. Tomorrow!
Sep 08: Borders are done, back & batting are loaded, top is ready to load. When I went looking for a pattern, I decided on Ellen Munnich's Twelve Days of Christmas. Now I just need an outer border I like to go with it.
Sep 09: Found a border I can use but it took all day to find it. Quilting. Can't see much of the blocks for now but posting anyway.
Sep 10: Custom quilting today using a Magnifico thread to highlight the Twelve Days of Christmas block patterns & two Curls patterns. Turning quilt to do side borders. Quilted. 
Sep 11: More photos.
Sep 12: Binding is attached and ready for hand binding.
Oct 02: Starting the hand binding. It is already clipped and ready.
Dec 25: Finished the binding. I decided to go ahead and wrap the quilt, thread, scissors & clips & give it to my daughter as was. With the drive behind me, I spent Christmas Day afternoon. finishing the binding. I wanted her have a super soft cuddle quilt through the winter months & now she does.