I have been away – I traveled across the country last week to attend a training workshop for work. While spending time in the airports waiting on flights, I worked on my cross stitched quilt. This piece has seen many miles as it seems that I only work on it when I travel. When I am at home I either piece on my Bernina or machine quilt on my long arm. I don’t do much hand work anymore. I have to finish the yellow and orange flowers and then I can proceed to the quilting stage.

As I stated in a previous post, this piece is at least 11 years old. While I was at the Langley Quilt show a couple of weeks back, I spotted a twin to my quilt! I wondered if the quilter had this project sitting for years in her UFO pile and she just recently finished it or if it had been finished for some time and she just chose to showcase it to the public now. Somehow there is comfort in thinking that there is someone out there with UFOs as old as mine! Seeing her quilt finished and hanging in a show has inspired me to work towards completing mine. I think I will do a little more hand work in the evenings just so that I can finish it.
The quilter added solid colored borders to her piece and quilted it following the blue suggested quilting lines that are printed on the top.

My top is all wrinkled (see picture above) from being carried everywhere in my travels. I think it will need to be pressed before being quilted. However, if I touch the top with heat I am sure that I will “heat set” the blue quilting lines permanently into the top. Does anyone have a suggestion as to how I can flatten the top for quilting while preserving the quilting lines and still have them so that they can be removed with washing later? I am also thinking of adding a border to my top. I am not sure what the design will be yet, but I like the idea of a pieced border–perhaps triangles.

This is us 25 years later – May 16, 2006.

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths.

No man or woman really knows what perfect love is

until they have been married a quarter of a century.

(Mark Twain)

I finished the t-shirt quilt. I was commissioned to make this quilt by a customer who wanted a memory quilt centered around her love of running marathons. I have grown fond of it and hate to let it go. I am now going to have to make a quilt for myself out of the collection of old t-shirts that I saved! This block seemed particularly appropriate for today. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all the mothers out there reading this blog!

Today, the weather was sunny and clear. A perfect day for a drive to a nearby community to enjoy their quilt show. My quilt traveling friend, Dot and I headed to Coquitlam to the Quilt Rhapsody on Blue Mountain Quilt Show.

The Blue Mountain Quilters Guild puts a small but very nice show every other year. Dot and I had a hard time deciding which of the many lovely quilts to vote on for Viewer’s Choice. The following pictures are of my pick. The fabrics in this quilt were oriental designs and the whole thing was hand quilted. The piecing was very precise. Very beautiful!

I have posted more pictures from this show on Webshots. If you would like to attend a virtual quilt show, take a look: http://community.webshots.com/album/550344238weRXTl

These pictures are of a customer quilt that I just finished quilting using the Circle Lord Baptist Fan template. I love the look of a curved quilting design on a Yellow Brick Road quilt. The contrasting shapes compliment one another beautifully.