Erin Underwood Quilts

I have very little room to maneuver in my studio. If I want to quilt on the long-arm,  I have to pull it away from the wall and squish everything else in the room. So when its time to quilt, I tend to gang things up. In the queue this turn, are two T-shirt quilts, 7 placemats, one full size quilt, a small wall hanging and a spiderweb.

I thought the placemats were coming along nicely. Love the texture on the black set.

Try to ignore the threads and junk all over the black – its Kona cotton and black is a big, big lint magnet!

Same placemat with a light background. Got to open a luscious new spool of yellow thread for this one. Daisies seemed the perfect background for this light and lint-free version.

I easily filled up the backing fabric that all these placemats were set on. So I took it all off the long-arm and loaded another backing fabric and the first T-shirt quilt. After finishing that one, I am contemplating what to put on the bottom half of the backing and take a moment to trim up the placemats. I’m thinking these have turned out really well …

until I took a closer look…

Totally missed a big section to quilt – and yes, its trimmed – auggghhh! So I guess I’ll have to do this on the regular ol’ sewing machine – sometime, eventually… its not like I don’t have three more… I’ll get to it … soon…

After all, I’ve still got another t-shirt quilt, regular quilt, small wall hanging and that spiderweb thingy…. And then there’s all that binding… yep, I’ll get to it soon…

Mid-appalachian Quilters, that is. This is a great opportunity for all you quilters out there. It is an annual event – every July  – at Mount St. Mary College in Emmittsburg, Maryland. Twenty-five teachers come and offer an array of workshops from machine and hand quilting,  machine piecing, fabric painting and dying, wool work, applique, wearable items, cool piecing techniques, new tools and gadgets to speed things along, as well as just doing your own thing in studio. This unique retreat is put together by a group of volunteers every year, is very well organized and I am honored to be heading out there for my fourth year of teaching this weekend.

First up on Friday is Chevron Garden. It used the Creative Grids 45-degree Diamond Dimensions Ruler and some 2-1/2″ strips!

There’s not a bit a fabric wasted as the applique in the borders is created using the ends of the strip sets.

Machine Quilting is my bread-and-butter class and I am so excited to be bringing it to MAQ for Saturday’s class. Lots of topics are addressed – basting a quilt, different types of batting, thread and needles, resources…. We start out with a simple meander stitch and finish the day with feathers!

Sunday’s class is the classic Cathedral Windows. All done by machine, this clever adaptation of the Cathedral Windows technique enables the quilter to hurry up and get ér done!

Hope to see you there – if not this year, then maybe the next!

Just got this beauty back from the Mason Dixon Quilt Professionals Network Challenge/Exhibit. Reflections of My Life – it highlights all the things that bring me joy – my children, hubby, cats, dogs, chickens and, of course, quilting. Shadow Trapunto and extensive hand beading. Lots of bridal sheers, not much cotton.

I’ve been working and working on these two-toned dresdens.

I am making lots and lots of them. So many that I apparently can’t count. I kept cutting and cutting rectangles… so many  that I had to go buy more gray fabric. And here are the “extras”.  Do you ever have those mathematically challenged days? Well… this was a week… at least!

After I figured out that I only had to sew half of what I cut out, I thought this process was going to be a bit faster. But reality can be deceiving – sort of like math. I currently have sewn all the appropriate rectangles together. Here are some of them waiting to be cut into wedges with my Creative Grids 15-degree Triangle Ruler.

Here is a pile of wedges that have been sewn on the both the top and bottom edges because these are going to be double pointed dresdens. This is just one of many piles that keep growing around here.

The process of turning – it takes a pointy thing, a straight pin, lots of finger pressing and good movies on TV to get this job done. Good thing we’ve got Netflix!

Here’s a pile waiting to be officially pressed into shape. I am planning on sewing them together in circles, not just blocks so I need 24 two-toned dresdens for each circle. I think there are enough here for three circles.

And since I always need immediate gratification to keep moving – here’s the first circle!

I think it has enough WOW factor to keep me going for a while…

Another clever yet affordable Cut Loose Press Pattern! This little darlin’ uses the 45-degree Diamond Dimensions Ruler to strip piece all those wonderful diamonds. It comes together very quickly and NO points to match!

It’s available here in my store or at your local quilt shop. Remember, its new so if you don’t see it in there, just ask about it. Shop owners are always happy to hear about new things!

Missed Quilt Market but this little darling was there – debuting in the Cut Loose Press corner of Checker! Hope it enjoyed its first time away from home! And did you notice the heirloom silver goblets – they are just tarnished enough to look really good with the yellow and grays! Looks like that’s a good enough reason not to polish them!

Dining Dresdens

And yes, it uses the Creative Grids 15-degree Triangle Ruler but the best thing about it is – Its quilt-as-you-go and reversible! You can do spring on one side and fall on the other! That is pattern #19 I’ve made for the ruler so far – one is still in the works and don’t forget this one – its Free!

Totebag

This is my Kaleidoscope Star pattern using striped fabrics. It has been hanging around for  months, maybe even a year, waiting to be quilted so today it was! It uses the Creative Grids 45-degree Diamond Dimensions Ruler.

Straight lines in a sea of pebbles! Really more like river rocks though…the bigger they are the less time it takes to quilt fill the space. Glad this one is finished. But alas, it can’t come off the frame yet as I tend to gang up quilts on one backing and there are still a few more to go on this one before its done.

Time to get stitchin’ again!

Got the quilt quilted and bound. Found some really cool beads and now I will spend the day with thread and needle putting the two together – It is days like this that I am grateful for cable TV!

I love to add beads to my quilts. Although can be tedious, the beads add just the right touch to create the elusive WOW Factor.

Sometimes it is to just to add a little sparkle to the quilt …

But more often, I find I am creating fringe and edging treatments.

Wonder how it will turn out today…

Many years ago I lost a good friend of mine in one of those slow, downhill declines that only cancer can do. Her family and mine have moved away but I’m pretty sure her husband and mine still share jokes via email. Every now and then I hear little tidbits about her youngest daughter, whether directly from her or through my own daughter who has seen her some where out and about. It is always good to know that she and her brother and sisters are doing well.

Last fall I was lucky enough to hear from that young lady again. She had a quilt her mother had made for her and because she had loved it soooo much, it was falling apart at the seams – literally… And she was hoping I could fix it. Naturally, I said yes and she sent it to me.

Not only was this quilt falling apart at the seams but in many, many and many more places, the fabric was shredding!

I was totally surprised about this – since I knew the fabric was only about 10-11 years old. Why, I had even contributed some of that fabric to the quilt – I recognized it right away when the quilt was returned to me.

I will digress a bit here and tell you that ironically, this is a quilt I talk about often in my classes when the To-Wash or Not-To-Wash debate comes up. My friend made this quilt mostly out of batiks that had not been washed and used a cotton batting that needed to be quilted an inch apart, so we knew it did not have much of a scrim in it. After the quilt was finished and bound, it was washed and shrunk 6″!!! It is still beautiful and wonderfully crinkly and soft too – very antique-y looking.

But back to the current issue, that fabric looked like it was a hundred years old. We’ve all seen what I’m talking about. Holes in the fabric or nothing left but what was sewn into the seams. And it was several different pieces of fabric, not just one troublesome color. I am attributing the short shelf life of all of this fabric to the its origins and especially to where it was purchased. Hint, Hint: You can get fabric there rather cheaply especially when you have a coupon.

So I spent several hours appliqueing pieces over the shredded pieces – hopefully this was the right thing to do, rather than removing it. And thankfully, since my friend had just wildly meandered all over the quilt, I was able to add more quilting in the same fashion to anchor down all the applique then cover the binding which was worn and splitting too since it was made from the same irksome fabric in the quilt.

So the moral of this story is you get what you pay for and if you really want it to last, pay for it!

My cat has agreed that this quilt was definitely worth saving!

I am honored to have been included in Shannon Shirley’s new book, Celebrate the Day with Quilts. The quilts from the book will be traveling for a while as a collection so check out those quilt shows and see if you can find them or better yet visit Once in a Rabbit Moon and see them for yourself!

Voices in My Head – Multiple Personalities Day, March 5th