Freehand Quilting

I donated my time to quilt this rather large charity quilt for one of my Montana guilds. I didn't want to use a panto, but I also didn't want to spend too much time doing custom. After I decided how I was going to  quilt each individual block and getting that done, I used

those very same flower motives in my border plan. I used Bethanne Nemesh's book, If You Can Feather, You Can Freehand for the border plan.

 I highly recommend it! Although I have quilted other motives very similar to this it was her book which was the catalyst for me to get this done.

 Thanks for stopping by and I hope you are having a great quilting day. 

One of many new WIPs

I took a great class last Saturday from a National quilt artist, Barbara Olson http://www.barbaraolsonquiltart.com/ 

I am so inspired and motivated now (as if Road 2 CA wasn't enough!). I want to make five of these now. OK maybe not five, but I did learn her process, and I think I can apply it to other images whether it be a photograph, or a drawn image which I have created, or a copyright free image that I find. It was really fun and got my creative juices flowing again!

It is also nice to have something to work on at night so my husband and I can spend some time together watching movies and I can be doing some handwork with this.

I have not been able to do any machine appliqué on this because I do not have a blanket stitch on any of my five yes count them five sewing machines that I have here with me in Montana. I have one machine in Arizona that does a blanket stitch, and I think my daughter may have one that someone left her. So I will be trying to get my hands on that machine soon.

Have you taken any fun new classes lately? I'd love to hear about them. Oh I almost forgot I also started an online class with Lisa Calle, it is called divide and design, and that is for my machine quilting.

Quilting Education and Information

First, here is my latest finish.  I think I showed you my first string quilt earlier, and since I had so many strings left over, I made another.  It was really fun to just stitch away without having to think.  

Now, getting back to the title of this post...

Wow. I have recently allowed myself to dip my big toe back into Facebook and I read a post that mentioned an Academy of Appliqué. So being the curious person I am, I googled that, and came up with not one but two of those. That then led to at least four different online quilt class websites, two of which I had never heard of; Academy of Quilting, and iquilt. Geesh, who knew there was more than Craftsy? So that led me to YouTube, and from there I ended up on some site called, ICAP. International Association of Creative Arts Professionals. WTH? Then there is QNN and the quilting show.  

I feel like I already spend too much online time absorbed in quilty things, and yet I am unearthing so many organizations and classes and people that I feel like I am just a newbie. If you compare names on labels at quilt shows to names of people teaching in person and online...and then there are the magazines...wow!

I don't know why I find this so mystifying and overwhelming. Do you take advantage of these classes and organizations? How did you learn to do what you do? I see that many people offer free tutorials, videos, advice. How do you manage your learning vs. creating time? Does anyone else feel the same way I do?!? 

View from our little California home below.

I attended Road to California a couple weeks ago.  30,000 people.  1000 quilts.  700 vendors.  It was fantastic, and I'll have a post about that next.