I have a new grandson, Tejas.  I made a couple of quilts for him.

The nursery will be an elephant theme with teal and grey and some yellow.

A quilt for Jeanine

I went out on a limb and made this quilt for a friend of mine at work.  She had mentioned she would like for me to make one for her and she was in the process of building a new house.  I decided with some input from Jeanine, to make her the Urban Pods quilt.  You use the Quick Curve Ruler to make the curves.  I also was lucky enough to find some quilting patterns for the long arm made for this pattern.  Here is how it turned out....

Aunt Patsy's quilt

I remember my Aunt Patsy saying last summer she would like for me to make her a quilt.  I showed her a few pictures and she didn't like most of them.  She stated, "I want someone to say oh my! when they see it."  She wanted it to be something special.  So I had waited almost a year  before I found a pattern that I liked for this project.  It is called a Periwinkle Quilt.  It is a king size so it took a long time to make by my standards anyway.  Here are a few pictures.  I longarm quilted it and used four different designs.  The white circle is one design, the periwinkles are another and the purple border is leaf and curl, and the light green border is piano key swag.  This one might be my favorite quilt so far.

Citrus Wallhanging Quilt

One of the things about our new house is that there is an echo in the family room due to the high ceilings and tile floors.  So I made a wallhanging to maybe help with the echo....I am not expecting much but I did like the citrus fabrics I found for this one!  Here is the picture:

Birthday present for Beverly

My dear friend Beverly is like family to me.  We have similar interests in that we both like to cook and enjoy antique dishes etc.  We have been friends for more than 25 years and I have the long end of the stick in this friendship.  Her advice is something I treasure and her view of a situation is usually very different from my own and therefore I learn a lot.  I decided to make her a "favorite" things quilt for her birthday.  It was fun picking out the fabrics for the quilt and then putting it all together.  It was also fun doing a quilt that was girly after spending a lot of time on manly quilts.  In case you can't see all of the themes, they include: Mardi Gras, antique dishes, antique furniture, books, gambling, travel, Paris, gardening, flowers, shopping, etc.....

A quilt for Craig

Marty's long time friend was recently diagnosed with a progressive disease that has no cure. It's a very rare neurological disorder.  He is only 50 with a wonderful wife and six children.  Marty asked me to make him a "story" quilt.  The quilt incorporated Things closest to Craig's heart,  church, family, engineering, cabin, mountain biking,hiking, math etc.   Here is how it turned out...this is a twin sided quilt:

A little something for me!

When I was in Houston with Teri, we found the cutest fabric by Lorelie designs.  She has made the most adorable figures of dogs and cats that I have ever seen!  It is a panel so there was no piecing involved.  I freehanded the quilting on my machine and it turned out kind of three dimensional.

Paula's Quilt

In September Marty and I went to Bath, Maine for his 30 year navy reunion.  We had a great time and I enjoyed meeting friends of Marty's for many years ago.  One of Marty's good friends was Tom Elam.  His wife Paula and I became fast friends and we of course ended up talking quilts.  So I made one for her to go in her living room.  It was from a pattern called Narcoleptic in a closet from a UK blog and it has lots of pieces!  It was a very interesting one to put together and it turned out looking like a stained glass window.  I used a rose swirl minky in ivory for the backing.  Here is how it turned out:

Finishing a quilt for Kathy

My friend at work had a quilt that she and her sister and mother had started a few years ago and never finished.  She brought in her finished squares and we agreed that I would finish it for her.  It was really a pretty quilt and I had fun finishing it up for her.  It was red, white and black.  I found a really cool fabric for the backing too.  Here is out it turned out:

Here is the quilt being quilted on the machine.  I used a double swirl pattern.  

The front before binding

Here is a shot of the backing.  

Close up of the quilting design.  

 I forgot to take a picture of the finished product with the binding.  I used the same fabric as the back and it had a very modern look.  :)

Bronwyn's Quilt

This quilt has a bit of history.  I decided to make my friend Bronwyn a quilt because she absolutely loves quilts.  She asked if she could draw it out for me.  This was in September and she put together a really nice drawing with color shading and all.  Here is a picture of that:

So I had a hard time deciding how I could make this into a pattern.  I struggled with figuring that out for a couple of months.  Then I decided to have Bronwyn and another quilting friend of hers come over and help with the layout of at least the fabrics.  So the three of us spent and evening working on the various colors I would use.  We played out just the fabric on a big white sheet.  Here is what we ended up with in early November:

Then I struggled some more trying to come up with a pattern and finally I told Bronwyn it would be the essence of what she wanted but it would not be like her drawing.  I decided to make it and piece the quilt into quarters.  Here is the finished product. 

I used a quilting design called flowing water.  

Christmas Quilt

So I had bought this beautiful Christmas fabric and here it was the middle of December and I had not made anything yet!  I put together this quilt with a beautiful center panel.  I just love this fabric.

My new FUSION HANDIQUILTER!!!

So remember the woman I met in Houston that had the quilter that she would be selling???  Well I ended up buying it.  Turns out she is a Handiquilter rep and she sold me her Fusion which is bigger than the Avante' I was using at the Tech Shop.  Marty and I had to rearrange the entire house to change our living room into my new quilting studio.  I love love love it!!  It is so nice to be able to quilt at home.  My grand plan is to take in quilting for other people. Here are a few pictures:

Another Wedding Quilt this time for Taylor!

Our friends oldest daughter got married in November.  She is such a sweetheart!  Marty and I decided to both make them something.  I of course made them a quilt and Marty made them a beautiful cutting board.  It was a nice combination....here is how the quilt turned out...I used a pattern called film strip out of a quilting magazine.  I

Houston Quilt Show here we come!

So I continued with quilting and Teri and two of her quilting friends invited me to go to the Houston Quilt Show in late October.  We had so much fun!!  There was so much fabric and wonderful quilting machines!  We had a great time.  While I was there I met Linda who had a Fusion Handiquilter that she might be selling in a few months.  I took her card and was so excited.  The next thing was to convince Marty that this was a good idea.  Here are a few things we saw at the show:

art quilt looks like Bella!

Quilted wedding dress

Houston Skyline

Teri, Pat, and Marti

Etsy Shop Idea??

So I started an Easy store but so far after several months have still not sold anything.  I prefer to make quilts as gifts anyway!  It was the idea that I might pay for my new hobby or at least pay for some fabric that give me the idea!  So I made a couple of baby quilts and a couple of lap quilts for the "shop".  Teri also made some things for the shop too.  I quilted all of these at the Tech Shop!