Marianne...An Opportunity

I met this pattern's, http://www.fabricconfetti.com/shop/HappNstance.htm, designer, Vanessa Fromm, in St. George when I attended new owner classes.  Honestly, I was exttremely honored when she asked me if I could help by quilting this sample.  Her 83 year 'young' uncle did the appliqué and piecing.  This bed runner will hang in her booth at the Houston Market in the fall.  

I was inspired by Bethanne Nemish, of Allentown, PA.  I studied her quilting creativity, and applied it with my own style.

I love, love, love feathering!

The pattern is so beautiful, and I love Vanessa's choice of fabric.  I know nothing about embroidery, but it's my understanding that she is digitizing the 1939 hand embroidery patterns for machine embroiderers, as well as making fusible appliqué patterns   Gosh, I hope I have used all the correct terminology.

PS, my second attempt at blogging from my iPad via the blogger app.  It's pretty easy once you have downloaded  and resized your photos.  

Family Heirlooms

I was honored by Dean's family when they gave me these family quilts.  Dean's mom was the only daughter in a large Mormon family in Idaho.  I don't know anything about these quilts since they don't have any labels on them.... dang.... I need to start labeling my quilts.....

I got them out of the closet to take pictures since I will be showing them at our quilt guild's show in the bed turning display.  

The log cabin is pieced by hand and I think it's uniquely done, however, I'd love to hear from anyone reading this if they know more about this technique.  Each strip, or log, is stitched on by hand, then the fabric is folded over the stitching so it's not visible.  It is made with old men's suiting fabric, velvet, satin, and it is really starting to show its age.  The back is made of a very rough fabric and it has quite a few holes in it.  I am not sure how, or if, I should try to restore it.  It is really, really heavy, too!

The wedding ring quilt is made from feed sacks, I believe, as you can see in the faded words on the back.  I have no idea its age, either.   It's hand quilted, and parts of it are hand pieced as well.  

Do you label your quilts?  I have done a few, only to find that the printing washed out after the recipient washed the quilt!  You know, the ones that you print in your ink jet printer?  I haven't had luck with those.  

I appreciate the simplicity of the quilts that are finished by hand.  Sometimes we way over do the machine quilting (guilty!), don't you think?  

 Here's that closeup of the print on the feed sacks.

Blogging from New App

I dislike not being able to sleep at night. After only 5 hours of sleep my mind woke me up this a.m. It also kept me up late last night....... 

In the wee hours of the night I've learned that I can blog from my phone---at least that's what the App Store says. 

Check out this incredible Ace Hardware shore in Colstrip MT, pop 2000. The fabric selection is great!!  

Colstrip has almost 30 parks and bicycle paths everywhere. 

I think this is the park with the zip line. That is really fun !

I haven't figured out how to delete a photo so next time i'll have to make sure I like them before I post them, huh?  

Robyn's Fall Quilt

I finished this cute little quilt a few weeks ago and it was a fun one to do.  Thanks for allowing me to quilt your top, Robyn!

I recently started a facebook page for my longarm quilting business. I am just learning how to do all the facebooky things.  I've tried to stay away, mostly because I do not need another online time sucker, but thought it might be a fun way to advertise my business.  

check it out here:   https://www.facebook.com/quiltingbymarylandon  

down to the wire.....52 minutes to go... bloglovin

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Let's Quilt in St. George, Utah

I just got back from the Let's Quilt INNOVA Longarm Training Center in St. George, Utah.  My head is just swimming with new ideas and techniques.  I cannot remember being so tired. This old brain was trying to absorb as much as it could, for up to 10 hours a day.  I came back to my hotel room absolutely exhausted each night. I had no idea that I would learn so much, or to put it another way, I had no idea all that I didn't know.

This is an amazing place, and everyone at John and Teryl McKnight's facility is really great to work with.  I bought a few things, and as soon as I am done here, I am hopping on that longarm to finish up a customer's quilt, and then to stitch out more of what I learned from Teryl.  She is one incredibly knowledgeable person.
I was fortunate to learn alongside five lovely ladies.  Beth, Vanessa, Harriet, Jackie, and Judy. I just noticed you can barely see Vanessa in the pictures.  Sorry Vanessa!  Vanessa is an extremely talented embroidery and applique pattern designer.   Hopefully I will be able to show one of her designs here on my blog as a finished product.

I sure wish I lived closer to these women so we could get together once in a while... to bounce ideas around, get advice, and laugh.   The quilts in the background are Marilyn Badger's quilts (possibly Cory Allender has one hanging here as well).

I hope to post some of my class samples soon.

How Do You Display Your Quilts?

Karen, over at http://chezstitches.blogspot.com  is hosting a fun linky party, and I can't resist.   Karen's displays are really unique and creative, and her photography is great, too.  I think I am going to start looking around for more creative ways to display my quilts since I have quite a few in the closet.  I need to get them out, huh?  If you don't have time to link and post, maybe you can help me to get more creative...

How about this?  When you don't want to buy curtains, and you have lots of unquilted tops, what do you do?  Well, I use them as curtains...  adds a bit of color to the room, doesn't it?  I sure hope I can get time to get them quilted and give them a proper home...

of course, you have to utilize a quilt hanger, don't you?  this one has sentimental value... my dad made the hanger, and the pewter collection was my mom's.

Here's that fun church pew my daughter gave me for Christmas.  She refinished it, and I LOVE it!  It doesn't normally hold quilts, but I have been cleaning and had too many quilts laying around with the bindings unfinished... they can rest here for awhile...

 Nothing too exciting about this blue applique, but I like it.

Finally, here's my favorite.  My wholecloth.  It's the one that really makes me say, hey, maybe I CAN do this longarming stuff...  It has a cherished place next to my Green Bay Packers pennant, and a cool picture of Nemo.  Love Nemo.

Thanks Karen for hosting this fun party.  Now, I have to get back to the longarm.

Montana!

My daughter Christina made this cute quilt, and I just quilted the panto Honeycomb on it.  I enjoyed doing that panto.  I listened to an audiobook by Ruth Rendell, and thought about my daughter.  Both of our daughters have just decided (within the last three months) to move with their families (all four of our grandchildren)  to Montana.  Wow!!!  That is a long way from here.  We aren't going to talk about how much we will miss them all.  Nope.  

I am naming her quilt for her, The Road to Montana.  Isn't it cute?

Why is a Baptist Fan Called a Baptist Fan?!?

I like to think of myself as a wannabe history buff sometimes.  Other times a wannabe etymologist.  So I want to know where this term came from.    I spent some time this evening researching, but no luck.  I could easily lose hours upon hours searching for something on the Internet. 

I quilted this cute little Thimbleberries top for Joanie, and used an old-fashioned Baptist Fan quilting pattern, (which has recently made a resurgence among "modern" quilters).  It's a great edge to edge treatment that works great on many quilt tops.

Baptist fan...  As in an actual fan used in a Baptist church?  Where the heck did this name come from?  Do you know?  Please share with us here if you do know! 

Lotsa Feathers

I really LOVE this quilt!  Joanie made it, originally asked for a simple edge to edge treatment, but then she agreed to let me do more!  I fell in love with the colors and fabrics, and had so much fun on this one.  I took tons of pictures - it always helps to finish a quilt in the day time so you can get the best lighting without a flash.

The border...

the corner,,,

simple feathers

hump and bump feathers 

the back

more of the back

a little bit of 'back and forth"

I really, really, really LOVE my Innova with LS!  

I saw the spiral feather wreath and the "L's" in the squares on Jenny Pedigo's blog:  http://jennysdoodlingneedle.blogspot.com/  Thanks for sharing, Jenny!