I Have been working on charity quilts

The two guilds I belong to both make charity quilts. They go different places. Women's shelters, veterans hospital, child protective services, police departments, sheriff departments etc. You get the idea.


To me making charity quilts has a double meaning. I can give back to my community and I can practice doing different quilting stitches.

Sometimes I pick up kits that the different guilds provide and sometimes I get stray blocks from others to make the quilts.

If your family is like mine, you can't put anything new out without getting the O.K. from the pets in the household. Here is Molly and Squirt giving their o.k. for this quilt passing the softness test. What would I do without them.


Squirt deciding this quilt passes the test.












Of course Molly could not be left out. She has to join in the test taking. This one is flannel so she really liked it.












Baby panel. Oh so sweet.













Left over blocks.
Sometimes they make the best quilts.


I have a few more to complete but need to find some bindings.

Happy quilting, Paula

I Won the Thimble Towne Basket

Last weekend we had our Heart of the Valley Shop hop. At each store you put your name in a drawing for the store basket. I won the basket at Thimble Towne. Here are a few photos of the goodies I won.

Material and patterns galore.

Had to cut into it since it was wrapped really tight.

I can't tell you the number of pattern books then the patterns themselves. A couple of rulers,

templates, quilting pattern templates, ribbon, thread, felt, and on and on and on.

Here you can see a few of the fabric packets. lots of fat quarters. A girl can only dream.

All I can say is thank you to all the shops that participated and THANK YOU THIMBLE TOWNE,

Now to sort through my loot.

Happy Quilting, Paula

Shop Hop Bootie

It is always fun to have show and tell and see what we all bought at the shop hop so I thought I would go ahead a share with you.

The only thing not pictured is the packages of beads that I took. i had already put them away when I decided to take pictures.

Here is my first fabric. The floral and the lime green. Since I was not sure what I was going to make with it I bought 4 yards of each.

I spotted this batik material and took the rest of the bolt. Only 3.25 yards but.....I found these wonderful BALI POPS that go with it oh so nicely.

Can't wait to start something with these.

On to Stonehenge. Saw this fabric line in a quilt magazine and just knew they made it for me.

Bought enough for background 4 yds, strips and borders 2 yards. My hubby will love this quilt

How about some colors. I love bright colors. This would brighten up any quilt.

I did not get much in the pattern department this trip. Did find two. And......you can't forget the new seam ripper. I got it for a friend that got mad at hers and threw it away.....Ha Ha.

Any one for red white and blue. Aren't these too fun. Bright and Cheerful and can go for male or female. Love the rick-rack.

Had to have backings......The light blue is 8 yards, the blue spots is only 5 yards, the green hearts 6 3/4 and the darker green only 3 yards.

Always needs material for backs and these were all discounted fabrics.






Well, that is my haul....There was a lot more I could have bought but.....ran out of money. Darn.

Happy Quilting, Paula

Shop Hop

As a lot of you know this weekend was the Central Valley Shop Hop. We (Brenda, Diane and myself) started Friday morning leaving the house at 6:30 a.m. and opening the store in Maricopa at 9: a.m. Maricopa Quilt Co. is such a unique wonderful store. Out in the middle of nowhere but always a must see store. We always have fun there. Fed my shopping addiction right off the bat. We then drove into Bakersfield, starting at Strawberry Patches. They have just moved into their new store. It is beautiful. So light and cheerful and lots and lots of fabric. Their color wall is to die for. I love their new store. They had a wonderful Baked Potato bar set up for all us quilters. How wonderful was that! Next it was onto the Allen Rd store To Quilt and Sew. Seemed like there was less material than last year. There is also a new store in Bakersfield I think they said it was called Bolts to Bindings but we found out about it after we had left Bakersfield. Hopefully it will be on next years shop hop. We then took a detour to Porterville. It has two new stores (not on the hop yet) but we decided we had plenty of time so took a gander. One was Calico Mermaid and the other Tina's Treasures. Both stores are nice. Very different from each other but unique in their own ways. Have to take a field trip back when we have more time.








On to Thimble Towne in Visalia. You could never imagine the changes that have been made from last year. New owner (Jeremy) lots more fabric, everything is bright and cheerful. Just a wonderful wonderful store. I just hand my credit card over because I never get out of there without some new batik fabric. He has done a wonderful job on the store. Lots of goodies to munch. I could not pass up the popcorn. What can I say, I am a popcorn nut. It was fun to have our photos taken in all the clown garb. Just had to clown around a bit.



From Visalia we went to Quilters Quarters in Hanford. They decorated to the max and it was really darling. They did a bang up job in the decorating department. #1 for best decorated. They had lots of little vignettes with cute items. The color wall is gone now. Did not seem like it had as much fabric's as last year. They also had lots to munch on. I had to try the brownies.



That was the end of day one. I came home, took my shoes off, put my jammies on and called it a day.



Day two we headed north. First Stop was Ceres Fields of Fabrics. We opened their store also. Thank goodness they let us use the girls room before 9 a.m. when they opened. Ceres is a small shop that had two long arm machines set up in the shop It seemed like their was not as much fabric this year in their store compared with last. On to Turlock Cloth and Quilts. Love this store. So Roomy with lots and lots of fabric. They have a huge classroom. They are celebrating 15 years in business in June and are having a one day special June 18th of 40% off their material. On to Oakhurst and Bear Paws. Just a quaint store with some fun fabrics. Could not pass up the gentleman selling opportunity tickets for their local guild quilt. From their it was onto our leisurely lunch at Crab Cakes in Oakhurst. Onto Fresno and Cottage Quilts. Very nice store. Lots of fabrics. Did not get to see as much of it as I would have liked. They had a power outage and everything went dark. Oh well, next time. On to Clovis and Quilters Paradise. I also have fun in their shop. They were ready for us with a Louisanna theme. Always love the selections of fabrics they have. I even got to pet the dog. Just a fun store. Our last stop was in Reedley at the Mennonite Quite center. I hit the sales fabric and found fabrics for three quilt backs. Yea. I seem to always have trouble with backs. We turned in our passports and headed for home.


The first day I did not take my camera so have to wait to download photos from Diane and Brenda. But.....here are a few from day two.



I hope all of you that went on the SHOP HOP had as much fun as I did. Hope to here your reports and what shops were your favorites and why.



happy quilting, Paula

Almost Done

I attended strip club last Saturday at country manor. Our quilt we just finished is called Trade winds.

I made two of them. Different at night and day.

The first one was made with the strips that Jeremy provided. I pieced it and put it together so the secondary pinwheel stood out more than the primary pinwheel. It is hard to see in this photo but the smaller pinwheel is turquoise.


In this second photo I pieced it and put it together so the larger pinwheel stood out. I chose more subdued colors so I could give it to my son or my husband this Christmas. I really like how they both turned out. Totally different from each other.

If you would like to see more of these Trade wind quilts, you can find them here:

http://countrymanorstripclub.blogspot.com/

Thanks for dropping by today. Happy Quilting, Paula

More from retreat.

More photo's from our Los Osos Quilting Diva's Retreat

We would spend the mornings watching the deer come down the hill and into the yards for their breakfast then back up the hill of an evening to their resting place. It was fun to watch all the different size deer. We had babies, teens, moms and dads.



Here are a few photos.










































Before I get started I need to let everyone of the ladies know that one of my disc's is missing.
I was unable to take the photos off of it. So. We are missing about 24 photos.

This is our second day at the coast. We decided to do show and tell after the quilt show (Seven Sisters held at the Madonna Inn) so we could see what everyone purchased. After the quilt show we all took off and went to McClintocks for dinner. All I can say is way to much food, but oh so good. It was wonderful.

Show and Tell

First up was Juanita. She found some beautiful fabrics.










































Here is part of her purchases.














Next up is Kay. Take look at this piece of fabric.

And this bundle of fabric

And this bag of fabric

And more fabric

And a sweet treat bundle

All the photos are out of order plus the missing ones from show and tell that did not come out.

So very sorry.

Try getting everyone together for a photo!!!

Here is a list:

Barbara Graham

Marcella Casaday

Sharon Gordon

Carolyn Brown

Brenda McCutcheon

Juanita Cairns

Suzanne McDermot

Kay Fenn

Jeannie Sisco

Missing is Me (Paula) - I am taking the photo, and Alice. She left before we could get the photo that day.

Alice,showing off the bag she made.

Close Up.

Juanita's flowers. This is a wall hanging she was working on. Oh so pretty.

Brenda's Stack and Whack she worked on from the beginning of retreat. She finished it.....My corvette.

Juanita and her purse. She purchased the material at the quilt show then came back and made it. Too Pretty to use.

Jeannie's Trade Winds quilt. Ask her about her borders!!!

Juanita and her purchases. Look at the number of bags.

Jeannie showing off her purchases.

Sharon working on her Stack and whack.

Jeannie and her cat patterns.

Carolyn admiring the view.

Barbara and Kay. Do we sew or do we eat?

On the morning of the quilt show we decided to have a stress free breakfast built for the kid in all of us. We had fruit loops, sugar pops, raisin bran, yogurt, muffins, juice and milk. Easy and no mess to clean up. Wonderful breakfast.

We had so much food there was no way we could have eaten it all if there were 40 of us. But we sure did our best to try to put a dent in it.

Marcella, sampling a side car. Woo Hoo.

Sharon sampling the fare.

We had four rows of sewing machines set up with three machines to a row. My hubby got a peak when he called me through skype and called us a sweat shop. What does he know!

Sewing late into the night.

Snacking on that punch bowl cake.

Catching up on the news while sewing.

Dishing up the punch bowl cake.

Sharon can't decide if she wants to start on this pattern or not. Oh, that's one she just bought.

Hum.....the pattern or the book?














Sharon's stack.











Brenda's purchases

What do you thinnk about these? Are they too bright? Nah! Nothing can be too bright.

That was just too funny. Notice the snake on the fabric. You had to hear the story to go with it.

This is were we will end. So sorry I wish the other pictures would have turned out. We had more show and tell plus some finished quilt tops.