Millennium Star

I had already written this post once and then blogger decided to crash and I had not saved my progress (boo!) So now you get the abbreviated version.
A couple of months ago my quilt guild held a really nice workshop. Lucky me it was only $20 for guild members. You can bet I signed up right away. $20 for uninterrupted quilting time with no kids? Count me in any time. Of course it helped that we were going to have an awesome teacher. We had Mrs. Pat Speth come and give us an amazing workshop. There were so many choices for projects to work on. I finally settled on Pat’s Millennium Star quilt.
I didn’t really have time to go fabric shopping for the workshop because at that time I was still traveling between two states. So I looked through my stash and found two “12 Days Of Christmas Charm Packs” by Kate Spain. I then quickly drew up the quilt in EQ so I could play with the quilt colors. I settled on adding brown, red, and ice blue to the quilt. I had to pick colors that I knew I would more than likely find at Hobby Lobby since it is the only place to get fabric around here. At least they carry Kona Cottons.
This is what I came up with:



The day of the workshop my very awesome hubby took the kids, baby included, for 6 whole hours! Do I have an amazing husband or what?! This was my very first workshop ever. I had an awesome vision of coming home with a completed quilt top. I mean 6 hours of dedicated quilting time? I should have had that quilt top pieced, basted and ready for quilting right? LOL, how naïve I was. I was able to complete 4 blocks. Yup that’s it! At least they were four very well put together blocks. I think I was the one that got the most blocks done. It may not seem like a lot but the rest of the blocks are in a semi-started state so it shouldn’t be too hard to finish up the other blocks, assuming I could ever find another 6 hours of quilting time!

I’ll post pictures of my finished blocks soon.

~ Norma

PS. Don't forget to visit the Quilty Giveaways Page to see the wonderful giveaways going on in blogland. 

It's about ... time

I finally decided to quilt this top that has been sitting around for the last, oh, 4.5 years! This was the very first quilt top that I decided to tackle way back at the beginning of my quilting career. Back when I was too naive to know I knew nothing about quilting! I knew absolutely nothing about bias, seam allowance, sewing a consistent 1/4" seam, pressing, or even cutting. Back when all I had was a $50 Kenmore sewing machine that would take off at the slightest tap of the pedal.





Well it sat in a "completed sate" for a while because I didn't feel confident enough to quilt it myself. Then it sat some more because I soon realized all of the many mistakes that this quilt top showcased. A couple of months ago I pulled it out and repaired it. Yes, I had to make repairs! There were some seams that in places had no seam allowance. Talk about embarrassing! This quilt top is of course completely wonky and not square because most of pieces have some bias involved. Oh, and I have no idea what I was thinking with the piping on this quilt. I won't even point out that I didn't even know how to attach piping properly.

While I would love to just trash this top, I can't. This is my husband's quilt. When he was 19 he served a two year church mission to Nagoya Japan. The fabrics in this quilt are from the Japanese futon sheets he used while on his mission. I know that he will love it with all of it's wonderful imperfections.

Ok, back to quilting. Hopefully all f the imperfections won't drive me bonkers while I'm quilting.  Luckily all of us quilters know that it will all quilt out right? :) ha!

~ Norma

I'd love to hear all about the perfectness of your first quilt top!

and in case you are wondering the pattern is Spinky's from Quilter's Cache