Tension trouble and a few pics from the Dallas Show

I put the quilt on the frame late Tuesday night and started quilting it. I'm having tension trouble and then I broke a needle. I decided it was time to stop so I changed the needle and turned off my machine.  I was going to work on it last night but instead went over to a friend's house for advice. She loaned me her TOWA gauge and  a gauge for the top thread too. She also gave me some bobbin thread to try and some other thread to work with too.  I was going to go home and work with my machine last night but when I got home, my husband was there and I had to cook for him. So, tonight, I plan on checking my tension with the gauges and see if I can figure out the problem.  Tension is a big issue with these machines and I'll be glad when I have enough time to play with my machine to figure it out. 

 I did forget to show you the pictures I took at the Dallas Quilt show, sorry about that. I didn't take too many as I forgot my camera. I took a few with my phone so here are the ones I took. 


                                   A friend of mine made this one and another friend quilted it for her. 

I like owls, what can I say?!

This was a study in Taupe fabrics. Beauiful quilting on this one too.

This modern quilt was great. A color wheel made from Libery of London fabrics and if you click on it you can see some of the great quilting on it.

This is a Memorial Quilt. It belonged to a friend of mine that lost her fight with cancer last year.  She was an Engineer and she made this quilt in honor of her Father about 10 years ago. She won a ribbon on this one and was very proud of this quilt.  RIP, my friend, I miss you.

I like hexagons and I thought this one was great working with all the hexagon shapes.

I love Twister quits and I thought this one was cute.

I liked the cat on this one.  Too cute.

I took this one for the quilting but sorry to say you couldn't see too much of it...

This one was just like looking at a picture, the details were amazing.

I hope you have had a good week and have had a chance to sew. Til next time, happy quilting!

Saturday sewing and a few pics from the Dallas Quilt Show

I wanted to work on pink but I don't have very much and I had to work on some blocks for an exchange first.  My exchange is coming up Thursday night and I had to get all of this done before I could do anything else...I did get my blocks done, thank goodness!  But now, I'm moving some furniture around and hope to get back to sewing some pink later tonight!

I got these 40 nine patches done for one of my exchanges.

Here are the other blocks I had to get done.  There were 5 blocks and a few other little bits and pieces to go with them each month.  We will be exchanging these every month for the next year.  It will be all Civil War fabric and scrappy.  We are doing this quilt out of the current  (April 2012 issue) American Patchwork and Quilting magazine. 

It's called Raspberry Mocha in the magazine and is done in pinks and browns but we are doing it scrappy.

Here's my 5 blocks and the bits and pieces for the month.

Now that I have my obligation blocks out of the way, I can play a little....Before I go, I'll post a few of the pictures I took at the Dallas show yesterday...enjoy the eye candy!  There were alot of Texas Quilts.  This one was my favorite but too many people to get a good shot of it  This one belongs to a friend of mine. This is her pattern and she is doing a Block of the month on this one...it's brand new but I don't remember the name of it...I love it but it's applique (ugh!- I guess I'll have to break down and do it.)

Another Texas quilt.

This was was an interesting quilt.  Alot of it was wool, mostly the animals but some of the backgrounds too. 

This clamshell quilt was interesting too. She put a striped band on each clam. Look below for the closeup...

This one has colored squares that were about 5" big plus the shadow behind it with black/white background fabric that waved...There was another one of these quilts a few aisles over but it was rectangles.  This one was my favorite of the two...

I'll post more later....til next time, happy sewing!

Weekend sewing and the Dallas Quilt Show

I didn't do alot of sewing this weekend as I had other quilty things to do. I did work on my border for the purple baby quilt.  I had made the flower blocks last week  except for the white on the edges.  I had run out of white fabric and had to get some more before I could continue.  I put the white on white on the flowers and they now look like flowers.  I made some leaf blocks too  but I'm not going to use them...I made them 3 1/4" squares with 1 1/2" squares on the corners and these are way too big for my taste. So, I'm going to try 2 1/2" squares tonight and see if I like them better.  I don't want my leaves to over-power my flowers....Now, I have a few leaves to put into some other project and believe me, they won't go to waste. 

I tatted on my flag last night too.  I finished the last row of white and now I'm on the last rows of red.  Only two rows of this red and I'll be completedly finished.  I have been trying to decide how I'm going to do the stars and I've about decided on buttons.  This will be mine and I was thinking I would do them in thread but the more I've thought  about it the more I'm leaning toward the buttons.  I've looked online and at various shops for star buttons and haven't found anything I'm interested in, so I guess I'll make them. Some of the girls at tatting do polymer clay and suggested this to me sometime back...so, I'm thinking that's what I'll be doing.  I've never done this but there's always a first!  I'll be showing you my flag soon, I promise.

The reason I didn't do alot of sewing this weekend was the Dallas Quilt Show.  I went Saturday with two of my friends and we oogled and oggled at all the beautiful quilts.  In my opinion, this was the best show I've been to in many years.  The quilts were all great and it wasn't the same thing, over and over....Everyone is getting so good!!!  There was lots of eye candy to look at and I had a hard time deciding on which one I liked best.  I had several favorites.   Yes, I have pictures and I'll upload those later tonight when I get home.  So for now, this post has no pics but come back later and you'll see lots!  Have a great day and go get some sewing time in!

The Dallas Quilt Show

I went to the Dallas Quilt show on Saturday. I didn't take alot of pictures but thought you would like to see some of what I did take....Ah, lovely quilts!

Raining, the Dallas Quilt Show and tatting group

Yeah, it's raining! I am so glad to see the rain. I don't like to drive in it but we sure needed it. I wish I could stay home and enjoy it more but I'll suffer and stay at work and listen to it and look at it fall outside the window at my office. It's turned a little cool too and that's refreshing. I guess this will be our last cool off before hot weather gets here. I had to pull my jacket out again this morning. I'm glad I didn't pack them away yet. Keep on raining!
I heard it was going to stay like this for at least 2-3 days. I just don't want it to flash flood. I remember 2 or 3 years ago (I don't remember when it was but it is the same weekend we had the Dallas Quilt show) and it rained so hard that part of the building flooded. Several cars were flooded too. One of them belonged to a friend of mine and she had to have all new interior put in her car. She made out pretty good. They had to re-do something with her motor and it's like having a new car. Anyway, there were no quilts ruined and no one hurt in the flood and that was the important thing. Attendance at the show will probably be down because of the rain though and that will be a shame...We'll see what happens.

The Dallas Quilt show is this weekend, March 13-15 at Dallas Market Hall. If you get a chance come to the show. I will be working at the show for the quilt shop, so come see me. I'll be at the Quilters Connection booth....come say hi and tell me you read it on my blog. I would love to meet you.

Last night, I went to my tatting group and as usual, we had a great time. We worked on beading last night. I went home and finished what we did at the group and I will take a picture and post it this afternoon. We worked out of a book by Nina Liben? I'll correct the spelling later. We made a snow flake. I didn't know it was a snow flake. I made mine using navy blue thread and blue beads so it will classify as a night time snowflake. This was fun to do this one. Beads are very pretty but they are cumbersome to work with. It's like tatting a little bit....at first, it's hard to do and you feel awkward then after a while, you kind of get used to it. You become more comfortable, I guess that's what I should say. Anyway, there were 6 of us doing it and one of us finished it in class. Of course, the one that finished it is the teacher's pet. Yes, Mickey, I am talking about you! All of them are turning out very pretty and next week, I'll ask everyone to bring them and I'll post them for all to see. Ok, I have to go look out the window again and watch the rain before I go back to work, til next time.....

Dallas Quilt Show, New Books, Old Magazine Find, QNN and QuiltersTV

The show was great. Beautiful quilts, great vendors and good friends, can't beat anything like that! I was going to go to the show with some friends and they all backed out. They went on Saturday and wore themselves out and couldn't go on Sunday. I went and walked around and took my time to admire all the beautiful quilts. There are so many talented people in the quilt world, it is amazing! I was able to pick up the two Civil War books I have been wanting. Our local shops have been sold out of these books so I got them at the show. I picked up Civil War Love Letters and The Amish Circle Quilt Book, both of these written by Rosemary Youngs. I'm still working on my Civil War Diary Quilt blocks but didn't want these books to not be available when I wanted them. Also, this way, I can read the books ahead of time and enjoy the stories. I might even start on these blocks and work them along the way too....too many quilts, not enough time!

Several months ago I joined QNN, Quilter's News Network and I have been watching the videos on this online quilt program. Fons and Porter are high profile on this site and you can watch their videos 24/7. One of the programs was a basketweave quilt and I just loved this little (it was a baby size) quilt. I saw the quilt made up at the show and the shop had kits made up with the old magazine (Jan/Feb 2007 issue) included in the kit. I did not want the fabric and was able to sweet talk the shop owner into selling me the magazine. Nice lady! I think she got tickled at me....I saw the quilt from across the aisle and I practically ran into her booth. I didn't even wait for her to quit talking to other customers , I just blurted out, "Is that the same quilt that was on the Fons and Porter Video?" She laughed and said yes, it was! I was so excited about it that I think it thrilled her too. I ended up with the magazine and there are several other good patterns in it too. I am so pleased and can't wait to give this pattern a try...Isn't it funny how something so minor can make us so happy?

I like QNN but you do have to join that one. Another site that I go to is QuiltersTv and it is free. Try that one out...Both are good. I found one on Saturday, it is Kay Woods TV but I haven't watched it yet so I can't say if it is any good. I'll start watching that one and let everyone know...'til next time, quilty hugs.