Fat Chick Quilts by Liz

My baby girl, Becky came home from PNCA for Christmas break.  It has been great having her home, or having her stop by the house ever so often to change clothes and eat.

We all went to Dallas to my sister's house for Christmas Eve and Christmas day.  We got to play with the twins, drink alot of alcohol, sing along with Singstar on PS2.  The drinking must commence ahead of the singing...

I made alot of the gifts this year.      

My sister asked for standard bed size pillow shams to match her indigo quilt.  Done.... 

I made my brother and his wife Christmas stockings.  They didn't have any and all of the ones I made for the rest of the family are all facing opposite of all commercial stockings.  Go figure.  It fits our family being so backasswards.  They are hand quilted.  Susie's is "two turtle doves" and David's is the "drummer drumming"

Becky got a wool quilt made from the scraps of my sister's Japanese Indigo quilt.  I was attempting to make machine quilted feathers.  It all got out of hand.  But it is warm.  I put little scraps of kimono fabric in between the pieces of the indigo. 

I also completed my good friend and former office mate's quilt that took me over a year to hand quilt.  Glad I finished because I found out he is quitting his job at NASA and moving to the Round Rock area.  :(  We are all going to miss him so much.

My only remaining kitty, MsKitty, went in for some dental surgery today, but has to go back next week for more.  Poor baby, but hopefully this will take away the pain she has been having.

Saturday the Houston Modern Quilt Guild got together to sew 8 quilts for the Quilts for Kids project.  It was alot of fun and we actually got some sewing done.  I think we will be making pillowcases for Conkerr Cancer next.  I have made pillowcases for them before and it is so simple and fun.
I screwed up my quilt top in the picture, but hopefully it will not be judged to harshly.  Apparently, I cannot talk and sew at the same time.

My baby girl is taking off to Portland, Oregon where it is cool and wet most of the time.  So I made her this quilt to keep her warm.  I call it Peaches and Cream.  The quilting is very tightly quilted little swirls.  Since the fabric was bought at the Houston Quilt Festival 4 or 5 years ago, I do not know the name of the fabric and I need more!

This one is called On the Go. That's the name of the fabric and it is totally precious.  I made this for my little nephew, HD, or Henny, or Henry.  It took me forever to quilt this thing.  I followed the prints in the fabric to outline the houses and trees, etc.  Since the main fabric panel is made of a canvass type of material, they can use it as a rug.  Whenever I get the darned thing mailed.  Hope he likes it.  He is the twin of Gigi, the one I made the Doll Dresses quilt for.

My first born, Sarah is 23 years old today.  We are going out to eat tonight and give her appliances!  She is trying to get stuff for her apartment and needs some basics.

I worked on my Flickr account and added some of the student photos.  Still need to look for others.  I also joined some Flickr quilting groups.  I want to make the kalidescope quilt in the Sugar Stitches Kaleidoscope Quilt-Along, So I ordered the $25.00 ruler.  It looks pretty useful.

The other thing I did and am doing...I have filed for my dba to make Fat Chick Quilts a business.  I will need to have some kind of money making venture in the near future, so I was going to set up an Etsy account.

That is it for now.

Went to the Houston Modern Quilt Guild meeting today.  Great BBQ compliments of Amy's hubby!  Ben and Becky joined the group for the food.  Thanks Amy.

Still working on the Sultry quilt with the hand quilting.  I used a dinner plate for the template.

I am almost finished with my nephew's On the Go Quilt.  Turning out really cute.  This is to go with his twin sister's Doll Dress quilt.

I am ready to mail two more Quilts for Kids (pictures below).  Pictures to follow.  

My new fabric came in.  Park Avenue by 3 sisters.  Though I didn't know it at first, it is Christmas material.  Beautiful.  I ordered a Layer Cake and some yardage. 

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Way too many projects going on right now.  It's overwhelming.  I screwed up my sister's Japanese Indigo Quilt.  The bobbin tension was way off, and the quilting is horrible. Now I have to make her another one.  I guess Becky can take the messed up one to college.  It is huge and warm.  

This is a small quilt I made for an auction to help pay medical bills for a Mom who lost her son.  Hope it can make a little money for them.  I have made many quilts from this Emma's Garden material, and taught someone to quilt using it.

Happy Saturday!  Last week was awsome.  1.  It was my birthday.  2.  I took a day off work and sewed to my hearts content.  3.  Tons of fabric that I had ordered came in.  4.  Almost finished a baby quilt for a charity auction. 

Is it wrong to roll around in new fabric?  Hope not, because that is practically what I do.  I pile it up on the bed and play with it.  My sewing room is out of control.   Today I need to organize...yeah right.   And I have to take a trip to Joann's to get thread.

Well tomorrow is my birthday...wow.  Anywayz, I just got an awsome gift from my sister.  The City Quilts Book by Cherrie House.  She is in my quilt guild and I feel like she is a rock star!!  I am so jazzed to get this book and I am getting it autographed at the next Modern Quilt Guild meeting.  I am already planning on one of the designs that must be made.

Also, new material came in.  I am in total love with Rouennieres by French General by Moda.  I ordered a butt load!  But mainly I got 2 yards of the birds in linen/cotten.  It is scrumptious (sp?)  And the fabric came in 1 day cuz I ordered it from the Fat Quarter Shop.  I cannot say enough good things about them.  They have never have gotten an order wrong and only once did it take more that overnight to get it. 

OK, my little On the Go quilt for my nephew is in work.  It is so cute and bright.  I will post pictures soon.  I hope it turns out as good as my imagination has it.  Thinking about making some little cars and planes to go onto it, but still pondering.

The project that is taking my time right now is my Daiwabo taupe fabric.  At the last quilt show, I bought the kit for the bon bons.  It is all little triangles in those subtle taupes.  Most likely it will take quite a while to get all those triangles made.  Pinwheels is where I order that Japanese fabric.  They are so nice and pretty fast.  At the Quilt show, I got to talk to them for a long time.  The quilt on my bed "Ben's Bees" is from the Daiwabo Taupe from two seasons ago.

Then the Japanese Indigo Quilt for my sister is in work.  The machine quilting is taking a long time and I am not sure it is going to be evenly quilted.  I ran out of thread, so it is resting. 

I am attempting to get my blog started again.  There is alot I want to blog about, but my mind goes blank whenever I start. 

First of all, I will be unemployed as of October 1, 2010!  Yay! and Oh no!  No money, lots of time.  What to do?  I am thinking of several options.  First is to teach quilting, and I mean very rudimentary skills.  Since I am not all that accomplished, I cannot teach difficult techniques, but I can teach getting started.  I am thinking about the Leisure Learning in Houston as a jumping off point.  Waddaya think?    The Other thought is to try to get a job at High Fashion Fabric and ask to reorganize their quilt department.  In my humble opinion....it freakin sucks.  I can never find collections all together, and I have no clue where to begin.  Lots of ideas in my head everytime I go there.  They have tons of space, but no observable theme or plan.  Not saying I have much knowledge in that department, but I know what I look for in a quilt shop.

OK, now for what is going on with me.  Two trips coming up.  One in August to take my Number 2 daughter to Portland, OR for college.  She is going to PNCA, Pacific Northwest College of Art.  Long way away and she is my baby.    Next trip is in October.  Hubby and I will be touring the East during the fall foliage.  Taking a train from Boston to NYC to Montreal to Toronto and down to Buffalo, NY.  Since we will be empty nesters and I will be unemployed, this will be our first real trip together since our 3 day Honeymoon in 1985.  Wow.