My very talented quilter mom, Ginny Thomas, and I worked on a collaborative project this summer that I can now share with you because the recipient has received it! We did a wedding quilt for a friend of ours, Assi and her fiance Pekka.

We saw each other three different times this summer and did different stages each time we met. The first time, we drew up our plans for a coins quilt, “shopped for fabric” in my stash and then shopped for the backing & background fabrics as well. We planned to use scraps from each of our stashes for the coins, so then Mom had to go home and shop through her stash. The next time we met, we split up the scraps in half, so that we would each have a good mix. Then our “homework” was to make two columns of coins each.

I think we found a beautiful fabric for the backing, that really helped us coordinate the coins scraps. We tried to limit our palette to blues, browns and light greens.

In August we got together a third time and spent lots of time working on this together. We pieced the borders, sandwiched it together on the kitchen floor and then quilted it.

We split up the job of quilting it, so that we could each contribute. I did the stippling throughout the coins columns. Mom did a beautiful leafy vine up and down the background columns. Lastly, I quilted the bottom rows. I tried to emulate Mom’s leaves and vine, then added a flower motif to coordinate with those on the backing fabric.

And last, but not least, we put a label on it. Oh, and notice the pretty navy blue binding. As I was sewing it on, I kept remarking at how beautiful that fabric was and how it was so perfect for this quilt!

It was really difficult to package up this project and put it in the hands of the post office, when I really just wanted to go over to Assi’s house and hand it to her…but we’re not up for a trip to Finland this year, so sending her this package was the next best thing to being there for her.

It was all a really big success when I got the thankful email today from my good friend Assi, saying that she and Pekka loved the quilt. She commented that the colors were perfect for her apartment.

The Reiman Gardens Garden Quilt Show….We called it the best quilt show we’ve ever been to…not because it had superior quilts or more quilts than any other, but because it combined quilts, gardens, and butterflies all in one lovely afternoon my mom and I spent together August 15.

I didn’t take notes, so I won’t be able to attribute these quilts to their rightful creators or designers, so I just want to show you a little quilters’ eye candy.  This show was amazing!

This photo show the breadth of the show…it was housed in the wide atrium hallway of the entrance building. It was a sunny and beautiful place to view the quilts.

I do remember that this beauty above was by Joann Belling. I love the way the large butterfly jumps out of the edge of the quilt. Click to see the colorful details.

The back room had a collection of wonderful sun leaf prints. Above is a gorgeous quilt made with many multi-colored prints, the blue fern below one was our favorite.

We also really liked the glass bottle sculptures. My mom confessed that she had already been saving blue bottles to make a sculpture for her garden. I think she got some great inspiration from this display!

Out in the gardens we glimpsed some butterflies roaming free, and some of the cute little gnomes that were scattered throughout.

Some were hidden amongst the flowers, but this one was hard to miss!

And last, but definitely not least, we went through the butterfly atrium. It was just amazing how many beautiful butterflies surrounded us there. They were flying all around, landing on flowers, shoes or heads and posing for some great photos!

This isn’t a quilting project, but I have to share what my family has been doing this summer. When my Mom came to visit in early July, we went on a caterpillar hunt. Literally, we went on a walk to a nearby swampy drainage ditch and turned over all the milkweed leaves until we found a caterpillar! It was an exciting little trip with my boys and a couple neighborhood kids and we came home with a tiny monarch caterpillar and TWO eggs!

We watched that first caterpillar grow and each after that until they were monarchs. Here are some photos of our “project monarch”…

July 15th, this first photo shows all three caterpillars. You’ll see the first big as you please, the second on the leaf spine straight back from the first, the third is the tiny little blur on the back of the right hand leaf…see it? Be sure to click to see it larger!

After feeding those guys for many, many days we started to see them form their chrysalises. July 26th, we caught this one in action. First the caterpillar attached itself to the top, then formed a J-shape with it’s body, then shed its black caterpillar skin, then started to form the chrysalis.

Here’s a photo of how the chrysalis looks before it’s ready to hatch. You can start to see the monarch butterfly through the shell!

Letting the monarch butterflies fly away was my favorite part! Here are some photos from that fun!

Look at how my boys watch the monarch with such love! They got a little attached!

I just got featured in another well-known blog, this one a shopping blog which I’ve been following for as long as I’ve been an Etsy seller!! I’m very pleased and can hardly believe how good my items look on their large format front page.

Meet Emma Thomas-McGinnis of Quilties on Etsy

What fun to be getting noticed!  Thanks, Erika, for posting about me and my Quilties!!

Before I was a quilter, I sewed. I embroidered, made stuffed toys, sewed clothes and pillows and just liked to try projects with fabric…but I obviously didn’t know any of the rules of quilting….

I just rediscovered an old project I made 10 years ago, while waiting for my first baby. It’s reallly cute, but I obviously didn’t know what I was doing. I made a quilted wall-hanging without a stitch of QUILTING!  I remember taking it down because it had gotten saggy. It’s also a set of pockets, so after years of holding toys and small books, the fact that there was no quilting holding it together made it look bunchy and wrong.

So yesterday, I fixed it.

Because “Once a Quilter, Always a Quilter”, I couldn’t just leave a quilt un-quilted!!

Click the images to see them bigger.  And I apologize, I don’t remember where I got this idea!! I think it was a book but I can’t be certain. If I figure it out, I’ll surely let you know, because I want to give proper credit. It was a great idea! And so fun to make. Look at all those rows of fancy stitches and reverse applique that I had fun with.

It’s still not a masterpiece of quilting. The sandwich, of course, didn’t lay quite flat anymore, so there are some bunches. But I’m now proud to call this a little quilt!

Kind of funny to have finished a 10-year-old UFO that I didn’t even know was a UFO! But it shows there’s always room for improvement.

If you’re not already a reader of the Pleasant Home blog, you should check it out.

Jodi writes a nice blog with lots of quilting inspiration, as well as projects, recipes and ideas for making your house a pleasant home.

Recently she featured Quilties in her “Needle Little Inspiration” section! It was so nice to be “found” by Jodi!! But then even better was that I found her blog by being featured. My friend Doris emailed me to say, “Congrats on your blog mention at Pleasant Home Creations”…so I had to do a quick search and find this blog. Well, I’m a follower now…and loving her latest “Needle Little Inspiration”s.

Here are some other gems from her site…

This tutorial for this super cute “Mini Double Hourglass Block”…

Her “In the Kitchen” Section featuring recipes for lots of yummy & pretty treats…

And she has a shop on Etsy…only a few fabric treats, but worth “hearting.”

Anyway, bookmark it or subscribe or whatever you do, but keep tabs on Pleasant Home Creations!

I just have to brag a little…I won the Project Quilting challenge this week!

First, I won the public vote, with 31 out of 115 votes, yeah! Thank you to all my friends and fellow quilters who voted for my entry!

Then I won the Judges Vote too!!

“First Place Winner is QUILTIES with her Firework’s quilt and an average score of 8.83!

Here’s what the judges had to say:

Judge 1: I love the choice of the batik fabric for the background and the thread and paint work turned out beautifully. The skyline is a wonderful addition as well. I would love to see this in person. The design is well balanced also.

Judge 2: Nice use of mixed techniques to make a simple, but very effective project. The beads and sequins and star charms add an extra sparkle.

Judge 3: I just plain liked this one best. I think it shows that she has an artist’s “eye” to pick a great fabric, as well as great choice of techniques and embellishments to maximize the fireworks effect. The silhouette at the bottom “weights” the bottom edge – I like it.

Judge 4: I love Fireworks and I love this piece.  Your son is so lucky to have this in his room.  The silhouette is unbelievable.  This piece is my favorite of the week AND I feel this week’s entries are the best yet!  Keep up the great work.”

For all the other entries, go to the Flickr Project Quilting Group.

I just completed another Project Quilting entry that I’m quite proud of. The theme is “Stars over America” and that was really the only guideline. The only other rule was that you could use red, white and blue, but you had to use at least one other color (and that you didn’t have to use red, white and blue).

My interpretation the fireworks that were blazing over America everywhere on July 4th (or 5th in Urbandale due to rain!) My boys had the best time with the fireworks this year and I am giving this to my three year old, Brennan, who saw fireworks for this first time this year. The background is a deep blueish, rainbow batik that looked just like the night sky to me, and has big flowerbursts that look like fireworks. Then I used metallic silver and pink paintsticks to do some of the fireworks and threadplay to do the rest. I used shiny rayon threads, that really sparkle and added a little more sparkle with beads and sequins. The silhouette on the bottom symbolizes with America with its trees and houses.

Close-ups to show the paintstik portions, I did with hand-cut freezer paper stencils and quilted fireworks of just thread. I added sequins and beads to a few of the starbursts, and a couple of silver star charms to go with the theme.

That’s the happy boy who gets this “beeeeauooootiful” quilt!

If you’d like to see any of the other beautiful entries, go to the flickr pool.

And pretty soon you will be able to vote at Kim’s Crafty Apple, but I don’t think it’s up yet tonight.

I was having a bad day a couple days ago… I don’t know why, I just was. I’m sure you know what I mean. So it was 7 p.m. on this bad day and I told everyone I just had to sew, leave me alone. Perked me right up!!  Look at this happy little bag I made, too!

Sewing just makes me happy!

Learning to sew new things makes me really happy, and this was a new way to make a zipper pouch that I really enjoyed. If you want to see a great tutorial about how to make it, go to Toni’s blog  “Make it Perfect.” It was really easy to follow, and even though I already know how to make zippered pouches, she did a couple things differently that really made it easy and nice looking.

HomespunIreland just made a beautiful treasury of all things pink and sew-y. I think you’ll love it, so go take a look!