Angela Walters featured me on her blog today!

Hey there! If you are here visiting me from Angela Walters blog Quilting is my Therapy WELCOME!!!! I am thrilled to have you visit.

Angela is my very favorite quilter in the world. She is brilliant. I know her from the KCMQG. I was pretty flattered when she wanted my opinion on how I would quilt her featured quilt. Go look at her blog and you can see pictures. I sent her a little sketch as to how I would quilt the tree quilt.

I have another blog where I feature the quilts I have quilted on my Long arm. It is Tia Curtis Quilts. Go have a look if you feel like it.

Have a great day!

What is the difference in pantograph quilitng and custom quilting?

Here is a little video with me explaining a bit about the difference in the two long arm quilting techniques.

Another little sewing bag

Hey there! I made myself another little (well, not so little) sewing bag. I have been going a bit crazy in the evenings when I don't have something to work on while watching tv with the kiddos (the voice and american idol...and some Downton Abby after the kids go to bed if we are still awake).

I actually have a ton of little projects that are floundering that could use some hand stitching, but they are scattered all over the sewing room and I don't have the patience to get them sorted...so I thought to myself...you know what you need Tia? You need another zipper bag! You should drag out some of those orphan blocks that you had such big plans for ages ago and make them into something. I have quite a few zippers so I have some zipper bags in the works. I like this one. My little old scrappy triangles are safely stored away by the sofa ready for some love.

If you would like to make your self a really easy zip bag there is a great tutorial HERE.

We are going to the rodeo tomorrow!

happy sewing!

My Swoon Quilt top

Hey there! I was getting ready to post a blog about a bag I just finished, but saw that I never added my finished Swoon top. It is folded up and ready to be tossed on my quilting frame...but I have a couple more pressing quilts to finish first. The hard part (figuring out HOW I want to quilt it) is already done as I have know how I am going to quilt this beast since I first started making blocks. I can quilt your swoon top too! Just send me an email and I will send you an info sheet. It is more affordable than you may think.

Swoon quilt so far

 Hey there! Are any of you following along with the Swoon-Along? I am. This is the first quilt...probably EVER that I have actually followed a pattern for.  You would think that after making 9 of these blocks I would have the system for making the blocks down and memorized? Nope. On the 9th block I was still having to refer back to the instructions on how to position all the half square triangles to end up with the proper pattern.

I love clicking through the Swoon group to see all the wonderful blocks. I don't think any 2 are alike yet. It is amazing how just a simple change up of fabric can totally change the tone of a quilt block. I choose to use Lotta Jansdotter's Echo for most of my blocks...but after I finished #3 I knew that if I was going to finish this project i was going to have to add some other fabric to it. I just so happened to have a stack of my Map fabric (I printed it out with Spoon Flower months ago) on my cutting table and something about the tones really appealed to me with the simplicity of the Echo fabric.

 I made a dreadful mistake with this block by not measuring the fat quarter before I started cutting out my squares and rectangles. You see the whole Swoon pattern is based off using fat quarters (you can use yardage as well). Anyway my fat quarter was too small, so I had to patch it up with a strip of another print. Personally, I think this is my favorite block.

 I have maps from Ft Bragg and downtown Heidelberg, the grey of the background is fabric that I dyed myself...and I ran out of that quickly as well. That is why you will see about 5 different greys in this quilt. I am just going with it. It gives it a bit more interest.

 The map in this block is from Ft Lewis. It is the Tenino map. It is the one I trained with in college ROTC. I have spent years of my life looking at this map.

 See, Tenino!

This map is from one of the drop zones at Ft Bragg. The other map that is in this quilt is a training map from Hohenfels, Germany. I bet you guessed already, but this quilt is for my dear husband. He helped me make the fabric from all his old maps, and I think it is pretty manly. It does have some pink....but my husband likes pink things from time to time.

I do have most of this fabric available for sale on my spoonflower if you are interested. I had some requests to make it available. Just don't rely on the maps to be accurate. They are all outdated and I would hate for you to get lost.

On insurance...

Insurance is important. We can all agree on that. Do you insure your items when you ship them? I insure my important things and I will insure orders when that is requested by the client. Well, months ago I sent my Bernina 820 out to be repaired. The Bernina shop in Kansas said it was working perfectly when it left their shop. When I took it out of the box (the original box the machine came in with all the Styrofoam and official packing material) at my house in Texas it was not working well at all. The only ones I can blame is the Fed-ex company for their poor handling of my precious machine. My machine was insured for $5,000. Now that the Bernina shop has once again repaired my machine (and apparently it is working like a dream) Fed-ex is refusing to pay the repair costs. The REPAIR costs! I am not requesting them to buy my machine, I just want my machine repaired and returned to me in proper working order. So those costs fall to me to pay. I am furious. I rarely get furious. But at the moment I am so livid that my vision blurs. I feel powerless and impotent. All I want is my sewing machine...and I want it to work correctly. I have played by the rules and I pay my bills and taxes, I am a good person and I make wonderful things, but Damn it! I hate having to beg and jump through flaming hoops to force others to play by the same rules.

I am a tiny business...so small almost to be see through. I rely on my sewing machines like most companies rely on their employees. My machines are my employees. Right now I feel like my Camp Follower Bag and Quilts Vice President is being held hostage for ransom. Are there any available SEALS willing to go on a rescue/recovery mission with me? Or an attorney? Someone with powerful writing skills and an official looking stamp?

Due to my frustration with much "bigger and better than me" companies I will be spending the day with my old and reliable Gammill. She is a machine that I can fix by myself in my garage...no insurance claims or fancy Swiss repairmen required.

Hayes Order

 Hey there! I finished the Hayes order today. I put the last stitches in the bag before going out to the long arm and spending the rest of the day quilting.

This set was ordered by Emma's teacher from Kansas. She was so sweet and just a really gifted teacher. Emma loved her. Well, she had her first baby back in September (a couple months earlier than expected). Emma and I worked together on this order. She picked most of the fabric with her teacher in mind. 

 We used Amy Butler's Nigella for the bag. I do love this fabric so much. I will be sad when it is all gone from my fabric closet. I also added some little squares of leather to the base of the straps to reinforce them some.

 The inside of the bag has 3 pockets and it will look great inside out if Jennifer feels like flipping it.

 Now, lets talk about the quilt. I LOVE the idea of just a name on a baby quilt. Don't you? I have wanted to make name quits for people for ages, but I am doing so many things it is hard to announce "I want to make Baby Name Quilts!!!" Free piecing letters is really fun too.

 I did get a bit carried away with the quilting, but I love it. I would have loved to have has a quilt like this when one of my kiddos was small. Maybe I should make them each one now.....Something to think about for sure.

 I freehand stitched the first 2 names then quilted the heck out of the quilt. I did all the quilting on my little Bernina (the Artista 165 since my 820 is still in Kansas). I have another quilt loaded up on my long arm.

 Aren't those feathery vines fabulous? I am so excited to know how to make them...now I want to put them on everything. This particular type is new to me. I started out with a small project before I turn to my Gammill. I may do some of the Quilts Of Valor like this That would be good, right?

 This is the other side of the quilt. After all, why should a quilt have a back and a front...they should just have 2 sides, each one wonderful. Emma is responsible for all these awesome fabrics. She hit my Japanese collection hard. There are bears, mice, pigs, chicks, farms, owls, trees, birds and balloons.
 I think this will be a great I Spy quilt. The other side is a sacking, so it will balance out some of the heavier substrates that are on this side of the quilt.

This is the other quilt I have been working one. I kinda love how the quilting is going. I am going to make Welsh pineapples all around the boarder. I have already finished 2 boarders....very man like. This quilt is John Adams'.

OK, have a great weekend. I don't think we have anything big planned. I have a spider bite on my 6 o'clock.  so I probably will not be doing much running. Maybe I will just quilt the weekend away. I hope your weekend is awesome.

xo,
Tia