D9P Top Almost Complete

 Top just needs borders added then its complete.

The Queen has Arrived

ELNA 7300 Pro Quilting Queen

Has Arrived

I initially was so very excited.  However the box was missing the foot pedal and the manual so I am kinda bummed out, was looking forward to a fun sewing weekend.

Here she is so far

 

Fabric Cutting

Well I went out on a gamble and won.  I bought an Accuquilt Go! die and tried to adapt it to work in my Spellbinders Wizard Machine and it DOES!!!! I just needed to add the rubber pad on top of the plastic one to have enough thickness.

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Cost for the Go Machine is $249 Cost for the Spellbinders Machine is $109.  There is one limitation which would be i can only use dies 6" wide or less so the larger ones such as strip cutting die etc wont work on here.  Also, 

my machine will also use on many other brands of dies that can be adapted to cut 

either fabric or paper.  However I have no intentions of trying out paper on the accuquilt dies since they cost so much more than scrapbooking ones.

Celtic Medallion

Ok here is the final auditions.. The orig blue fabric i wanted to use for bias strips is old and wont hold up for applique use so had to do some rethinking.  I am now going to use a new blue for backround and the gold Stonehenge gold fabric for my bias celtic work.

New Project - Idea Stage

I am working on creating my own hand applique project/pattern. 
I found this free public domain Celtic image and thought that would make a great wall hanging or a medallion centerpiece for a quilt.  

The Gold fabric is from a line called Stonehenge 
and the Celtic fabric my mother purchased for me overseas.  

I am going to use the gold for my backround and the solid blue for bias strips.

   

Here is a closer view. 

Opinions and suggestions are welcome :)

D9P - And the winner is....

I have decided on a placement for the blocks
I just have a few more blocks to fix then good to go...
Thank God for Design walls!!!

Lessons Learned, Moving On... D9P Progress

Well for right now the mystery quilt was just stressing me out so I decided to put it aside and go back to working on finishing my Nieces D9P Quilt.  Oh..and these fabrics are all the same line, so no messing up my color combos....lol

I have played around with the blocks for a while and came up with this design.

Throw Me A Curve Mystery Solved

I came up with this design on my own using blocks from the mystery. Every person in class had to design their own so no 2 were alike. However I was voted by Mark Lipinski to have the ugliest fabric in class.  (ok ok, I am mistaken, see comments below from Mark :)  )

Class is over and overall the week was beyond fun. 2 days of class, learned new things, Laughed a lot, cried a little....attended an insanely funny lecture and an interesting Guild live auction later and I survived.

I was really happy to learn to to sew curves with absolutely no pins, and I took a lot away from the class that will stay with me. Some good, some bad. This class was definitely out of my comfort zone for quilting, and I think I top the list for nearly most embarrassing question asked of me by Mark...lol I pushed myself in class to create something from nothing which I had never done before. After the class was over I had a quilt top design I was satisfied with.
At the end of the 2nd day there was prizes for best design, etc. and then the shocker, the prize for ugliest fabric and I got to be the not so lucky recipient. I should clarify, I think it was that I did a surprisingly good job with the ugliest fabric and was able to pull it off or something like that. My heart sank right after hearing I had the ugliest fabric and beyond that I honestly cant recall what else was said. I wasnt totally satisfied with my fabric choices to begin with but I didn't think they were totally ugly. Maybe I am just not meant to pick out fabrics.

Throw Me a Curve Mystery Quilt (Mark Lipinski Class)

Getting close to class time. Only ONE more week to go. I bought my fabrics yesterday. I am destined to get to this class because the transmission on my van went dead AFTER i bought my fabric!!! (hubby blames my quilt shopping on the failure..go figure...)

I needed 3 Fabrics in distinct values of light medium and dark and I wanted 2 things. 1) wanted it patriotic and 2) wanted to finally utilize something from the stash i inherited when my grandmother passed away. I have accomplished both..yipeee. The dark and lights were my purchased fabrics and the medium blue is from my stash.
hmmmm do i get any points for partially stash busting?? hehe

Well I have not had a real update in months. Had a lot of issues with the family going on and have really not felt quilty at all for some time. My stepson is now living with his grandmother which has reduced a ton of stress with the other kids and in the house. Those of you who know whats going on, thank you for the support and prayers. It also doesn't help that both of our vehicles are in need of major major repairs. Hopefully in the next week we can find a way to fix one of them.

To try and inspire my quilting bug, I redid my sewing room a little with a small budget and a fun trip to IKEA, which by the way is almost my favorite store of all time!!! I am starting to get my quilt bug back and going to try and post more. I am very excited about next week. I am taking a 2 day class with Mark Lipinski, although its "out of the box" for me because the quilt is a mystery one so no clue how it will look just know my colors needed. I will post new photos of class and mystery quilt soon.

I also have put a sewing machine on layaway. I am getting an Elna 7300 Pro Quilting Queen. I got like $800 off on it and I am so excited I wish I could just have it delivered today!!! I have 1/2 paid up and soon will have the other 1/2. It may be a while yet, but it is definitely something good to look forward too.