Mom's Millinery Marvel"

So say that three times fast!  (My son learned about alliteration last week :)

So, I have mentioned my amazing Mother-in-law, Barbara, here many times.  She is my "Hand Stitching Fairy", my creative consultant, my teacher's aid, my traveling companion, and an amazing quilter herself.  Here is her Starburst quilt that she made with the Quilt-A-Long, and yes, she quilted all of those stunning feathers on her home machine.  Stunning!!

But what I haven't mentioned is that she is also has some mad skills when it comes to the art of Millinery, aka hat making :)  Barbara has been making hats ever since her children were little.  And now she even teaches a classes at the UFO on millinery history and techniques.

Saturday, she brought this stunning hat up to ask me to model it before she gave it to her friend to be used at a Pink Hat Tea.  Her friend requested a hat a la "My Fair Lady".  I think Barbara hit it right on the nose.  It is absolutely gorgeous !  Barbara creates these hats from scratch, and I mean from scratch, as in she builds her own frames.  It is really amazing to watch how she creates these!!  So ya, I foresee a few millinery classes for me in the future.  

And of course, the girls wanted to model as well.  Jessica :)

And Kamryn.  Giving their best Eliza Doolittle impressions :)

Follow Follow Me

So I have been trying to figure out what all of this Google Reader not being around anymore means.  We still have till July so don't stress to much if you aren't sure what you want to do.  Seriously, this stuff makes my head spin.  I never used Good Reader but I know a lot of people use it to follow Happy Quilting.  From what I have come to understand . . . Those friends that follow me through Google Friends Connect and read my blog posts on Google Reader will now need to find an alternative way to get my posts.

So . . . Here are some alternatives . . .

You can always get email updates by clicking on the button that looks like this over in the Follow Follow Me section of my sidebar

Or, you can follow me on Twitter or Facebook, as every time I post here at Happy Quilting, it is updated there :)  Same idea, just click on the button that looks like this in the same section

  

Or, you can use any Reader that you prefer to follow along with by clicking on the RSS button that looks like this in the same section.  

And . . . Since it seems like Bloglovin seems to be the newest thing . . . I am going to look into understanding it and have "claimed" my blog there so you can Follow my blog with Bloglovin by clicking on the link.  I will try to add a widget of some sort in the very near future so it is in the sidebar as well :)

And last, but not least. . . . You can always do it the old fashion way (which is what I do because I am old school like that ;)  and just visit here by actually coming to my blog address :)  

Thanks to all of my wonderful readers :)  Here's hoping we don't lose to many of you in the transition.  I hate getting lost in technology and I know I struggle with these kind of changes so I am sure some of you do too :)

What Quilting Rut??

Remember how I had that little quilting rut where I couldn't decide how to quilt my "book" quilt??  Well that  evening I was having a little discussion about it with Barbara (my sweet MIL) and after some back and forth, I had my quilting vision.  I just love how being able to discuss my ideas and concerns with a fellow quilter always seems to get the creative juices flowing and the brain blocks broken down.  It's the greatest!!  I am fortunate to have my MIL so close so we often help each other out in creative ruts.  Do you have someone that helps you out when your feeling the creative blank??

So after I had my quilting vision, I headed back home and got to quilting.  And two days later, I am done!!!    The quilted is bound, washed, and ready to be loved!!  And oh my goodness, this quilt was so much fun to quilt up!!  I am so excited with how it turned out, and I promise to show a full reveal next week,(hopefully Monday) along with that tutorial I keep promising :)

But for today, here is some of the fun I had with the quilting.

Some square tile action.

Good ol pebbling.  

My first attempt at wood grain, not great, but not bad.

Some vines and leafs, so much fun!!

And one of my personal favorites, scroll work!

So, from all of these little peeks, can you guess what kind of quilting concept we came up with??  Can't wait to show you the whole thing :)

Linking up this quilting finish to Amanda's :)

Modern Madness, You Gotta Love It, Baby!!

Most of us know about March Madness . . . Well  have you heard about Modern Madness????

John, aka Quilt Dad, annually sets up a Modern Madness tournament over at Fat Quarterly.  He takes 64 of your favorite fabric lines from the last year and matches them up in head to head battles until one emerges victorious!!  Readers vote throughout the process and it is an all around great time!!  So pop on over to print off your brackets and follow along with the Modern Madness fun!!

These are my picks!!  Some of these picks were really hard because my favorite fabric lines were matched up early and so one of them had to fall.

My Champion . . . Notting Hill by Joel Dewberry!!  Bring on the Modern Madness Mayhem!!!

Rolling With It

Yesterday, my plan was to start quilting my "book" quilt, but when it got to nap time and I started to load my bobbins, I realized I had a problem.  I could not decide how to quilt it.  I pondered, I drew sketches, and after about 20 minutes I was still struggling to come up with an idea I liked.

So . . . not wanting to waste precious nap time, I decided to roll with it and move on . . .  to Jelly Rolls :)  (I know, lame joke, but it still made me smile :)  So out came 2 Natural Bella Solid jelly rolls and 2 beautiful Mimi jelly rolls.  Mimi is by Chez Moi for Moda and will be arriving in stores in July.  But my wonderful friends at Moda sent these to me to use for another secret project :)

So off to the cutting races I went.   I really love cutting out pieces for quilts.  I love all the math of trying to figure out how much I can get out of each strip and how I can have the least amount of scrap.  I was so glad to have the Solid Jelly Rolls for all of this cutting because it saved me a ton of time!! (seriously, some of those stacks are 96 pieces high)

After the solids it was time to cut into the beautiful rainbow of Mimi!  Oh my goodness, this is such a pretty line.  I just loved cutting it up and have already played with mixing and matching the prints.  I can't wait to start sewing.  This line is perfect for my design and I really think it is going to come out just stunning!!

Sadly, because of the secret nature of the project, this is the last I will be able to show of it until the end of summer.  Sorry to tease but hopefully, if what I have envisioned turns out,  it will be worth the wait :)