February Flashback

First of all, Happy Valentine's Day! 

I hope you are spending the day, or at least part of it with someone special, two-legged or four. 

 

As the title implies, I will be flashing back to February of last year.  As I was getting ready to post this, I felt a twinge of guilt, because Lilly was watching me from the "window box".  I felt guilty, because I forgot to tell you all that not only is it Valentine's Day, but it's also Lilly's birthday! My sweet Princess Tiger Lilly turns 7 today! I can't believe it's been so long. (not the greatest pic. Blame the cell phone and the sun being behind her.)

 

So in keeping with the "flashback" theme.  Here's Lilly when we brought her home; she was 6 months old. 

The inspiration for this post was that I promised my friend Stella to send her pictures of my finished quilt, that I made in a class we took together, when I visited her in Phoenix last year. I flew on Valentine's day and stayed through President's Day. It was a fun, fast trip. We always have a great time when we get together. We've been friends since tenth grade and even though we don't get to see each other much, when we get together, it's almost as if no time has passed. She is my dearest, most treasured friend. She has more recently moved to NJ, so I'm excited about the possibility of a trip to visit there and see what kind of adventures we will have.

Stella is one of those fabulous people, who is creative, smart and fun. She is always up to date with stuff and of course, a terrific friend. She is into quilting, x-stitch (she taught me in high school), knitting, photography, travel and food (and more, but those I know for sure). I think she should have her own show, but I might be a little biased. 

 He we are (that's me on the left), at dinner on Friday night. 

Here is my finished quilt. The picture is much darker than the actual quilt. the lighting is bad. The only free wall space in the entire tiny house, happens to be right next to the bed. It measures approximately 44" x 58" We made the whole top in the class and even got to sandwich it. The instructor even taught us how to baste it with spray adhesive. I've never done so much in a 4 hour class.

 

Here's a close up of the quilting. It was an image I found on Pinterest. I had only tried to free motion quilt once before, so I cheated a little on this. 

I adjusted the size to what I wanted and arranged several on a page, and printed. Then I "traced" the image with my needle.  I didn't connect them, so there were a lot of thread tails to tie and tuck, but I like the way it came out.

 

Riley was supervising my work. I think he was wondering about those weird flat birds. 

 

The back. 

 

I just wanted to show you my thrifty smarts. I bought these 3M Command Strip Clips (I think I found them at Office Depot) to hang my quilt. I planned on using them to hang my design wall, and thought it would be good for photographing the quilts as well. The best part is, unlike the spendy, magnetic quilt hanger I bought, I can move these easily, without leaving holes in the walls. The quilt is still hanging there, and Bruce even admitted he liked having it there. We have nothing on the walls in there, but tons of furniture. And of course, critters. 

 

We took the class at this fantastic shop, in Mesa, called etc. Scrapbooks, fabric & more. And the name really does say it all.  They have lots of great stuff and a really nice classroom. Here are some of the goodies I got there.

On Monday, we did our own version of a shop hop. There were quite a few quilting stores in the area. I was so jealous! One of our stops was at Zoe's Trunk.

Another stop: 3 Dudes Quilting was wonderful.  They had free coffee and cookies and it just so happened that on that day, they had a free pattern and quick (really quick) tutorial on the pattern. They obviously knew we were coming.

 

And the final stop was 35th Ave Sew and Vac. They had a surprising amount of fabric and some good bundle deals. 

I found this cute sewing machine fabric, that I bought to recover my ironing board. Of course, it's still sitting in my drawer, waiting me for get to it. Maybe it will be my NewFO this month.....

There was more than quilting during my visit, but I've decided to make a second post, since there are a lot of pictures.

Thanks for stopping in! ~Amy