Our Quilt Guild just held a Paint Chip Challenge!  What’s that, you may ask?  Each participant got a paint chip and some simple rules—use three of the colors on your paint chip plus black or white.  Okay, I’m up for that.

Here’s the paint chip I got.

I chose to use the two on the left and the lightest one on the right.  Imagine, I had fabrics in my stash that worked great!

I had seen a tutorial for a cute table runner on the Knitty Bitties blog, so decided to make one.  It starts with half-square-triangles.

Once they were sewn together, I added wide rickrack.

I think the colors are pretty true to the paint chip.

Once the rickrack and borders were on, I layered everything, using the dark purple solid on the back and a scrap of cotton batting that I had left over from another project.

I knew I’d need three threads to quilt with.  I just don’t like light thread on dark fabrics and dark thread on light fabrics!  Once again, my stash—thread stash, that is—came through!

I just did some straight line quilting on my Featherweight.  I used my foot as a guide to quilt a 1/4″ from the edge of the triangles.  For the other rows of quilting, I used the Frixon pen to mark the lines and loved it!

I trimmed away the batting, cut the backing 1″ larger than the top and just did a double fold, bringing the back to the front for the binding.

I wasn’t sure how I wanted to stitch the binding in place so I experimented with a couple of stitches on my Elna.  I decided on the middle stitch, a triple zigzag,but once I started on the actual runner, I had trouble with consistency of size.  So, after about 12″, I decided to tear it out.  Ugh!

Do you know this little trick?  After you’ve cut your stitches with your seam ripper, you can use a lint roller to pick up all the tiny treads!  As you can see, I had a lot!

In the end, I used the buttonhole stitch, and it worked great.

The finished product!

Nancy Goldworthy is a long arm quilter and author.

One of her books is Quilter’s Guide to UFO’s – UnFinished Objects.

She was the speaker last week at the Peninsula Quilt Guild.

She brought lots of quilts for inspiration…

…which I LOVE!

I never get tired of looking at quilts.

Nancy swears that all of these quilts used to be UFO’s.

They languished in her sewing room.

But eventually lived to see the light of day…

…and become finished quilts.

Some were piles of blocks.

Some were from block exchanges.

Some were set on point.

Some were tops that needed quilting.

Nancy even has a chart of what she needs to finish.

It was a real inspiration to all of us.  Thanks, Nancy.

I’ve been saving the selvages from my fabrics and I’m getting quite a bin full.

A long time ago I made this fun Quilt In A Cup, but I haven’t done anything else–until now!

It’s really fun to see my name and Anna Lena’s on the selvages.  I’ve been wanting to do something with them, but it seems like there’s never time for a project that isn’t FOR something–to support a fabric line, for a class, for a book.  So, a few days ago, I decided to heck with everything else, I’m making something with my selvages!  The result is this little bag.

It was more of an experiment than a real project, and I’d do some things differently if I did it again. But it’s kind of cute and I did learn a cool thing when quilting the orange polka dot fabric for the bottom.  If you look at the polka dots just right, they make a perfect diagonal line!  So, I sat down at my Elna and just followed every other line of dots to do my grid quilting, and it worked perfectly.

I think you can see it better from the back.

I’m going to remember that for a future project!

We still had Sunday left, and, as promised, we started it off with a bit of a sleep in.  That was followed by Orange Rolls and Quiche–and I forgot to take pictures!

But, can you believe they’d been here two days and we hadn’t even walked across the lawn to the Quilt Studio?  I’m sorry they never got to visit Anna Lena’s, but this was the next best thing.

They were quite impressed by the rick rack holder Bob had built!

Kasi wanted to finish her wonderful Owl Quilt, so I gave her a quick lesson in stippling and off she went!

Didn’t it turn out fantastic!?!

Kasi intends for it to be a floor quilt.  Some of the squares are Minky–so it will really be tactile for the baby.

While Kasi was quilting, Kathleen was busy trying on my aprons.  Here’s the Saucy Circle Apron.

And the Lilly Apron made with my Butterfly fabric.

This one’s reversible, so she had to model both sides.

Kasi had seen my Garden Trellis quilt in Studio post, and had to bring the first quilt she ever made–a Garden Trellis quilt!  She made it for her mom many years ago.  It was easier to pin hers up than to take mine down!

Since she had only stitched in the ditch when she made it, we decided to put it on the long arm and quilt some flowers in it.

Won’t her mom be surprised!

Here’s Kasi getting a binding lesson.  I wish I had a photo of what Sally was doing during this time–she was Swiffering the floor!  Not that it needed it, of course!

Don’t you love Kasi’s embroidered jeans?  Melissa, this one’s for you!

We had a great late lunch at Full Circle Cafe in Ocean Park,then drove through historic Oysterville. The old church there is so charming.

And here’s one of my favorite houses.

It was all over too soon,but, let’s check Kasi’s list and see how we did.

Kasi’s list.

Tour a cranberry bog ?
Visit the beach ?
Meet Monica ?
Meditate in that fabulous craft space ?
Meet Poppy (now Lola)  Oh no, poor Lola!
Tour the little Swedish cabin ?
Sleep in ?
Stay up late ?
Drink wine – well, I think Lemon Drops count! ?
Eat yummy fun food at fun yummy restaurants ?
Shop all/any cute little stores in downtown Long Beach ?

Well, I guess it’s best to leave something undone–that way there can be a next time!

aka a quilt in a hurry

Every year my dear friend Pat makes a quilt to donate as a fund raiser to a golf tournament.  The tournament is held in Minnesota and named for her brother.  And each year I quilt the quilt for her.  She gives me the top months in advance, but I always wait until the last minute to get it done.  This year was no different, but when I went to the quilt cupboard to get it the other day, it was nowhere to be found.  You can’t imagine the searching that has gone on–all to no avail.  So I made a distress call to Center Diamond and asked them to send me golf fabric and coordinates.  They had a large Alexander Henry print called Augusta.  I took all they had.  This quilt is the result.    I’m still heartsick about Pat’s quilt top.  My only hope is that it turns up and the quilt for next year is already to go–right on the quilt machine, that is!