Its been quiet here

I have been soo distracted by other things these days, blogging obviously hasn't been top priority.  Its fun to look at the blogs, however its been kind of quiet these last few months.
Life has been quite busy these days, so many things to do, so many people to visit with and places to see.  I have made great progress with my Spring Birds of a Feather project, no picture to share, its a wrinkled mess and I would be most embarrassed to show her in the state that she is in :(  So, maybe next time.  I am almost finished with it, maybe in the next few days??

I have been obsessed these days with quilting though, sewing, sewing, sewing and collecting beautiful cottons for quilts, I have visions of these quilts piled high!  Someday I know I will accomplish this!!  Everyone has to start from the beginning right??  For now, each beautiful chosen fabric is collected-- a stash of cottons like we have oodles and oodles of cross stitch stash (well not even close to that high pile!!  LOL). 

My MIL several months back told me of this great quilting place that was recently featured on the nightly news.  Said that this woman had saved a small town from ruins with her quilting.  What?  So out came the ipad to find out about this fantastic place called the Missouri Quilt Company in Hamilton, MO.  This woman has made her business grow with several dozen folks helping her spread quilting everywhere-- quilting is not hard!!!  I was fortunate to learn the basics from a fantastic quilter about 2 years ago, and wow, what a blessing (and a curse in the pocket book!!) it was to spend time with her.  She is a spitfire of a woman and I have her on my shoulder each and every time I am quilting :) 

I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the Missouri Quilt Company a few weeks back and wow, what a stop this should be on every quilters list!! As of right now, there are 5 shops--each dedicated to specific fabrics.  Ie, the main shop, reproductions, batiks, seasonal and solids.  You walk from one end of the street to the other, looking at all these beautiful fabrics, with ladies and gentleman going out of their way to help you with every thing you might need.  There are restaurants and a bakery, places to stay.  Even the birth place of JC Penny!!  One of the shops-- the solids shop is in the location of his first JC Penny Store!!  (There is a JC Penny museum and you can see where he went to school!)

This gal in MO, has made many tutorials to teach quilting to everyone.   No, you don't need a sewing degree to make quilts!!  I did sign up for her bi-monthly magazine called Block, each magazine is filled with 10 beautiful designs all with easy to use instructions and if I am not mistaken, all have tutorials online?  The year subscription I believe is 36 bucks.

Sign up for her daily door buster email!! 
In the burgundy issue of Block, I am making the Lattice Quilt.  I fell in love with the pattern and knew I had to sew it :)

So here goes nothing!!  I bought the fabric and knew that I wanted to make it bigger then it called for, so away I went.  The mailman has had a hay-day with the deliveries for this quilt, and who doesnt love packages of fabric??  The fabric is from Jan Patek called Front Porch.  The line is older, so piecing it together was a fun task.   I love a good hunt :)

I started out with a layer cake and a charm pack to make it 1 1/2 times bigger then called for and I now have 252 of these blocks sewn together, pressed and ready to go.

Trimming up the corners

There are far more then shown in the above pic, but I had all of them on the floor, chosen to the best they would be without going crazy!!  I have 18 rows of 14.  So today I had some time to spare so I fired up my featherweight and completed 3 of the 18 rows.  Not to bad, 15 to go.  I am hoping to have the top done this month, I am adding a couple of borders to it and ta-da!  It will be ready to be dropped off at the quilt shop for quilting!!

Hopefully next time I will have a finish of 2 kinds, Spring girl and the Lattice quilt!  I hope each and everyone of you is enjoying your summers, doing everything you want and more!!!