If you're a regular follower you know I have a friend that is an artist, Jan. Jan has painted me some of the most wonderful paintings in trade for quilts. I'm always happy to trade as I know I'm getting the very best of the deal. I treasure those paintings so much.
A few months back Jan brought me a new painting, fully framed. It is a late summer scene showing the bounties of a garden in still life with beautiful China dishes. Things I love. And I really love the frame, too. Jan knew I would want it. Jan is multi talented and can sew and quilt herself but is so generous to share her talent with me. And she is patient. I love that quality. I was super busy at the time Jan brought me her painting. Well, I'm always busy, but I've juggled some time to fulfill my end of the bargain.
This weekend I started on one of the quilt tops I'm making for her. This will be a baby/youth quilt with this great paper doll fabric Jan brought along with the pattern to make the quilts.
I have this quilt to make and another similar. Nine patch blocks are so fun to make. I happily picked out some prints from my stash to go with the paper doll fabric. It was so relaxing and therapeutic to work on a fun pattern with fabric I adore. I feel like I'm taking advantage of Jan since I'm enjoying making this so much.

Now I have to pick out a stop border. Oh what fun.

-nanette
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Hello everyone. I hope everyone has had a productive week. It has been a very very busy week at the hive with most of my family here. My house looks like a bomb exploded but I hope everyone will help put it back together soon. HINT HINT Girls.
Ayumi from Pink Penguin sent me a little package of Suzuko fabrics. They are really fun. Plus I think the pink Alice fabric is from Ayumi herself. Thanks so much Ayumi. If you haven't looked at Ayumi's blog in a few days hop on over and see her vintage and new fabric union jack block. Wow. So inspiring.
These are lovely fabrics. I am really happy to get a little gift from Suzuko. I don't want to use them but of course I shall.
I love the simplicity of the rich colors with stripes. I'm going to save them on my cutting table in my baby colander. Thanks so much Suzuko. I ordered some vintage fabric from Kimberly of Niesz Vintage Home and Fabric. Kimberly always has really wonderful great quality vintage fabrics. I opted for some small scale prints and Kimberly sent me a pack of gift cards along with my fabric.
I love the cards. This is such a great idea for fabric scraps. Kimberly did such a professional job. Thank you Kimberly!
This little yellow bud fabric has tiny butterflies in it. So pretty and petite.
The baby strawberries are perfect for my strawberry fabric collection and my ideas to use them. I just love strawberries. The scale is very simple.
I also got this fabric from Europe. I really need to finish my Red Riding Hood quilt and I thought this might add some whimsy to my quilt. I love the fanciful wolf.

It is really snowing hard here at my house. I was going to Costco this morning but that will have to wait. I have a baby shower to go to tomorrow so I'd better hurry and finish the baby quilt for my grandniece to be. Have a nice weekend everyone.

-nanette
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I've got a busy day today with work, family and Allison visiting me this week but I thought I'd stop a moment and show you what I'm working on. Baby quilts.
Just a peek at this little girl quilt. So fun to use my Flower Sugar by Lecien. I love love love this fabric.
Here is a little boy quilt. I'm putting his name on this quilt by fussy cutting letters. I'm making this quilt twice since this is for the new twins born into our extended family.
Really this is what is occupying my time! Busy, busy, walking everywhere, getting into everything stage of Allison. Opps, time to clean up a little mess. Have a good day.

-nanette
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Happy President's Day. When I was just a kid we had a candy store in the middle of our block in the basement level of a home. They would always decorate for holidays and have seasonal items in the store as well as candy and treats. Each February Mr. Schumacher would get these little double cherry candies in his store for Washington's birthday. I would spend a nickle for a double cherry. They were really fun. I found these (above) at an Etsy shop. They are a little different than Mr. Schumacher's but the nostalgic value is perfect.
Before Christmas I found these little mini colanders. They really are very small. I made it look like a fat quarter pack inside them by folding feed sack charm squares into a bundle and then stringing them together to look fat quarterish. Fun gift idea. I had a really busy family weekend with not much sewing at all. But I did chain stitch some picnic blocks. It feels good to sew even for a few moments when time is limited.

Hope you have a nice day off or just a nice day today.

-nanette
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International Quilt Market will be held in Salt Lake City May 13-15, 2011. Show of hands: How many of you will be there? Oh darn. Too hard to count. Well I'll be there for sure and so will many of your favorite bloggers, suppliers, designers and fabric companies. Quilt Market is a trade show and not open to the general public but there will be fun events that week and maybe you can scrounge a ticket into the show some way.
Utah has so many great fabric bloggers and designers. Calli from Make it Do, Amy from Diary of a Quilter and I have been emailing and had lunch brainstorming a party for a meet-up. And guess what? You are all invited.
The party will be open to anyone that can and wants to come. It is just in the planning stages right now but we are hoping to meet new friends, old friends and talented people that we have admired from afar. We have started a blog and we hope you'll follow to keep up to date as plans evolve. Grab the button on the blog (if you have a blog) and sign up with Mr. Linky to show us you want to attend. If you don't have a blog - it is ok! We want to meet you, too.
We know the week of Quilt Market is a crazy week for those attending and those displaying. Having a place and time to meet up might make things easy for us to get to know each other.
We'll be updating and posting on the Quilt Market Meet-Up Blog as we move forward with plans so keep checking the blog.

I'm also trying to plan a sew date or even two at Alpine Quilt Retreats for those of you that come to market and want to spend time sewing and have more time to play. We may schedule one day to sew during the week of Quilt Market and maybe even one day the Monday after wards. It depends on who is interested. This would be a little day retreat. So keep that in mind as you think about scheduling your time that week.

It is so exciting thinking of all that is going on. I really hope to meet some of you.

-nanette
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Isn't the combination of blogging and the internet just the most amazing thing? It is incredible to realize that people around the globe could turn on their computer and see what Nanette in little Alpine Utah recently made! It is almost magic. It is hard to imagine that the first pattern I recently sold for Dreaming Princess was to a quilter in Sweden. It is like bringing the world into my sewing room.

Two international experiences recently came my way:

Last year I had an email from Tineke, the editor of a quilting magazine in the Netherlands called Quilt & Zo. Tineke asked me if I would provide the magazine with a photo of my String Spool Quilt and let them publish the tutorial for the quilt in the magazine.
Quilt and Zo is a fantastic magazine with wonderful projects. I was very flattered and happy to have my quilt published in the Netherlands for people with interests the same as mine.
They did a lovely job with a full page color photo of my quilt and then instructions on the opposite page. It is written in Dutch, of course, but you can access my tutorial here.
I really love this quilt. This quilt is one that I thought of in the middle of the night. I hadn't really had exposure to string quilting before I made this quilt years ago. I just had the picture in my mind of what I wanted to make and that I wanted to use my scraps to make it.
It is an easy quilt and very dear to my heart. I remember my mom, Freda, having some olive green wood spools of thread in her sewing room that I thought were really pretty compared to the natural wood spools. My quilter, Wren, did an amazing job quilting it. I think this quilt is 6 years old or so.

My 2nd international experience is shared with several women from all over the world and was sparked by Ayumi from Pink Penguin. If you haven't been a follower of Ayumi, you simply must start. She's an amazing, lovely girl (and newlywed) with a fantastic eye and boat load of talent.
Ayumi and I have a love of fabric that overlaps. We like much of the same types of fabric including Suzuko Koseki fabric. You can read about Ayumi's project that she involved me in here. Ayumi asked me if I wanted to group with other women and make coasters to give to Suzuko. I also blogged about it here.
This is the photo from Ayumi's blog where she talks about the wonder of meeting Suzuko and seeing her talent first hand. You've got to go read about what is going on in Suzuko's studio.

It is incredible to me to have my coaster living with Suzuko in Japan and the photo and tutorial to my string quilt in the Netherlands. Fantastic. Isn't life full of surprises?

-nanette
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I'm so incredibly excited to be teaching this year at the Panguitch Utah Quilt Walk Festival. Panguitch is one of my very favorite place to teach. The women are so incredibly nice and talented. I feel so at home there and welcomed as a teacher. I really am crossing my fingers that my classes fill up and I hope you'll consider coming to sew with me in Panguitch. I'm teaching Friday and Saturday. Take a look at the classes here. There are so many fun projects to choose from.
I'm teaching Freda's Flowers. This is the retreat class I taught at our family retreat last summer. It uses a jelly roll plus background fabric and border. You can make it any size you want.\
Everyone probably has a jelly roll they need to use. I have several! It is an easy class and you can make a lot of progress on it during the class time.
You can make it scrappy too. I'm excited to use Lori's fabric when it is released this spring in making another.
I'm also teaching a butterfly tutorial class. These have been everywhere and I loved making mine so much that I'm anxious to make another quilt. Again you can make it any size you want.
The class will be spent making as many butterflies as possible then class members will take them home and decide how to put them into a quilt project. I'll have lots of photos and ideas. It is a quick and easy block to make and we'll have a great time in class making them.

My friend Jan took my Mixed Bag class last year at the Quilt Walk and she has a blog all about what is going on at Quilt Walk. Go to her blog to see about teachers and classes. She's posted about ME! It is such a sweet post. Thanks so much Jan. I simply can't wait.

-nanette
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When I was a kid I loved Valentine's Day. Getting that pack of store bought valentines and my "class list" was so exciting. I would sit at the kitchen table and paw through the valentines picking out valentines for each classmate that matched my friendship or feelings for them. Ahhh. Good times.
Valentine's Day is pretty low key. I love red and love those vintage valentine images. When my kids were little we'd do fun things with them and for them on Valentine's Day like red scrambled eggs and new underwear.
I did make some cookies for Mr. Hive and a friend brought some over for me. Mr. Hive doesn't like sugar cookies and prefers plain oatmeal. So that is what I made.

I think my valentine this year is Allison. She's such a sweetheart.

-nanette

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Whew what a stressful few weeks we've had. I hate to get negative on my blog but life happens. I won't go into details but I'm certainly ready for a change of luck and praying for blessings.

On to Fabric Friday. I am almost done with my checkerboard for the Game Board Quilt. If you want to sew along or follow, see Syd's blog at Alpine Quilt Retreats. It is going to be a fun and unusual quilt to make. (I swiped some of my photos from Syd's blog, go see her quilt for more pics.)
I was auditioning sashing for my block. And I decided on the green scallop inside with the stripe outside. If you notice I solved the mitered corners problem by using a stop blocks in the corners. It worked out great and I love the look and will probably take that into all my blocks.
I used some interesting striped fabric and fussy cut it for the shashing. I made a mistake when I sewed the outside strip but I'm not fixing it. I didn't notice it until days later so I figure it is okay. At least I did the same thing on opposite sides. Oh well. Mistakes happen and sometimes add character. I like how the stripe makes it look like I stitched several fabrics together for multiple sashings.
I'm trying to decide now on the very last border for the block. I wanted a kind of bias twist to the very edge cut very narrow so it kind of looks like that outside tape they put on the edges of a game board. I like this fabric above for the edge.
I also like this fabric from Sandy Klop. I've had this waiting for the perfect project. I love the tickets too. Maybe I'll incorporate them somehow into the quilt as well. This fabric is on the bias but it might be too wide for the very edge.
The nice thing about this Sandy Klop fabric is that in this 1 yard cut there are 4 different fabrics to choose from. I love bonanza fabric like that with several prints in one. I'll make a decision today on what to put on the very outside of the checkers block but I'm leaning towards the first one.
I'm starting to plan my other blocks as well. I have the same bird fabric Syd used in her Hi-Ho Cherry-O block background. I might use that. I have another fabric I've ordered that hasn't arrived yet. So I'm kind of undecided about the background still. But this is the next block we are making so I'd better decide.
I am going to use this cherry print above for the trees. Syd used wool for her trees. And I understand why - so she could punch holes in so the cherries would stay. I'm not sure yet how I'll do mine but I really want to use this cherry fabric since I already have it. I think that check on point/bias will make a nice sashing for this block. I guess if I just laid the cherries on top of the trees that wouldn't be so horrible (with no holes). Any other suggestions?
I'm thinking ahead to Chutes and Ladders. I'm going to use wool for the chutes and ladders like Syd did for sure. That looks like the easiest path.
I want to really make the game board choppy and piecey (not a word) so I'm going to use several fabrics. I had this fabric above for another project I'm working on (will post eventually about that). It is a Riley Blake fabric and the colors are perfect for fitting the baby quilts I'm making. So I think it will look okay if I fussy cut the numbers and use them with.....
these number fabrics. I'm going to fussy cut the one on the left. I'm not really into sandal and swim suit fabric but I love the fact that the numbers will be easily fussy cut. The smaller number fabric I'll have to see how it works into the project. It may really very very piecey.
I haven't thought about the Parcheesi block yet. We've never been big game players so I have to tell you I've never played Parcheesi, even as a kid. I wonder if I could make a Candy Land block? Hmm. What do you think? That was a game I loved. It would be typical of me to just add my own thing. I'm going to just make a bag for the game board pieces and put them all into one bag. I think that will be easier than attaching them to the quilt.

Have a nice weekend everyone. Shelbie and I have Allison today. So it will be a fun day for us. I hope to get some sewing done this weekend. And hopefully things will turn around and life will be more sunny.

-nanette
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I really loved our 2010 Alpine Group Quilt Project designed by Jina Barney. I am really proud of myself for keeping up with the project and completing the quilt in a timely way.
I love how it turned out. We started the quilt in the center and every month added blocks onto it. I kind of backed myself into a corner when I started the quilt with that black dot border in the center. But it worked out when I chose the big dot for the outside border.
The quilt is really huge. So big (long) that it needs a California twin bed! But I love the life in the design and love the colors. The blocks were incredibly fun to make.
I hung it on this wall to photograph only. You can't really see the bottom but I love the stockings laying on the floor. I'm not sure where I'll use it because it isn't the size of quilt wall hanging and we don't have twin sized beds at our house anymore. Everyone has a full or larger. It really was one of the most fun quilts I've made.

-nanette
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