I'm back!!!....Part One

Well I'm back from my most wonderful quilty retreat at
Rae Ann's cabin in beautiful Star Valley....one of my favorite places.
I can only begin to tell you about it now because my laptop has been under the weather with a little virus....poor thing. After a visit to the doctor laptop is feeling much better.
You can see in the picture above where my workspace has been for the last 10 days or so...
The projects for this trip were all about using up my stash and getting time to do a few quilts that I have been really wanting to get to.
I went a few days early with Rae Ann to help her set up for all the girls, so I got a good head start on my projects......the first thing I got out were my pre-cut strips to start on a new quilt pattern that will be out for publication very shortly...

You can see here part of it here...... we each had our own design wall to work on and this one is mine.

This is the first quilt that I finished but I won't show it all to you just yet....I'll wait until the pattern is ready.....just a little sneaky peek for you.

Then I moved on to a different quilt that I have been wanting to do using these 2 "snippets" turnovers.

Here are some of the blocks on my design wall....they are 15" blocks and I made 20 total and completed the quilt.

Next I moved on to stitching together a queen size quilt out of 400 charm squares that I have recieved over the last 2 years through "charm square swaps" at my Clothesline Club at Quilts Etc.

All I did was cut 800 2 1/2" squares and stitched them onto opposite corners of each charm square....a very easy scrappy happy quilt.

Here it is complete.....no borders for this one...just a quilting and a binding is just what I want.

I can't decide if the blocks are x's or o's......(hugs & kisses)....it just depends what your eye decides!

I also started a another quilt pattern with "flower sugar" fabric....more to come on that later....this is also just a sneak peek. The pattern will be out soon and I'll be sure that y'all are the first to know!

Here we all are just working away.... we had so much quilty fun together even though this picture looks very serious. We are all missing Judi who had to leave a few days early (we were all so sad)....and as you can see...my flower sugar wheels kinda rolled over to her design wall.

Starting on the left is Nedra.....Jackie.....

Suzann.....and Rae Ann.

Tomorrow I will show you more....but for now I am just waiting for Jodi (Pleasant Home) to pull into my driveway!...I know exiting isn't it? I'm so excited to meet her....she is one talented gal.

Jodi and her husband are on a roadtrip and are in Utah right now so we have made arrangments to meet up and have a fun day at the quilt shops together. Joining us will be Rae Ann, Nanette, Judi and Kim.

We are so gonna have some quilty fun don't ya think?

And so is Mr. Honey. He is taking Jodi's husband fly fishing for the day on the beautiful Provo River....

Oh...I have to go...I think I hear them now!

Queens for a day...and a little trip away...

Yesterday I went and did a little shop-hopping with my partner in crime ...aka Nanette.
We started out early at Material Girls where they crowned us Queen for a Day...(along with everyone else there!)...they were WAY BUSY!!!


Then we went to Quilts Etc and lastly Pine Needles before we did lunch.
I did a little bit of damage in the way of a few fat quarter purchases.

And I bought a couple of pair of cutie pie flip flops from my cutie pie niece Sara at Material Girls...and a cute necklace that Nanette and I are modeling above.

Nanette treated me with a really fun vintagey gift....she knows what I love!...thanks nanette:)

Whoooops....let me take it out of the cellophane wrapper so you can see all the goodies.

Fun huh?....I think the 3 ballarina's are me, Nanette and Nadine.......lol!

Now for the little trip away part....I'm packing my bags for a get away with my friends Rae Ann, Nedra and Suzanne ...plus 2 more friends that I havn't even met yet...Judi and Jackie.

Quilting supplies ...plus some embroidery.

I have 5 quilts all cut and ready to go...yes...I said 5! I plan on getting alot done while I'm in the beautiful Star Valley, Wyoming.

Here's a sneak peek at one of the projects....a cutie pinwheely vintagey kind of block.
Sooooo....I am taking a little blog-cation and I promise to catch you up on all of the happenings at the cabin when I get back....TTFN!

Rotary Cutter Tutorial..(the fastest one ever!)...

The other day I picked up some new fabric ...it's so cute I wanted to show you...it's called "Kiss the Cook" from David Textiles and I got some fat quarters that I think go together well and will be really fun for a cute little quilty project...

Cute huh?....and now for a quickie tutorial.

This cute red rotary cutter by Fiskars caught my eye and I decided I was in need of a new one.

I'm getting ready to go on quilt retreat in a few days and I thought that I would like to take a new toy along...

I love the red and white together.....and look at the cute little flower button on the other side.

I thought it looked like it was missing something...so...

I added some bling for the flower center.

There...it looks better now.

If you want to add some sparkle to your quilting tools....grab your bottle o' bling....

...and your zots...

step 1. place zot on bling

step 2. place bling on flower on cutter

step 3. feel sparkly while you are cutting fabric

And there you go...the fastest tutorial EVER:)
Have a quilty kind of day!
xxLori

Glitter Toes Tutorial...

This is what Kass has been up to this week...glitter toes...

she paints her nails (one at a time) with polish and then sprinkles glitter and lots of it on it before it dries....then goes on to the next nail.

After she has put glitter on all of them, she lets it dry good then puts several coats of clear polish over the top...letting each coat dry well inbetween... she uses a glitter tray to catch the leftover glitter to put back in the bottle.

Tomorrow she gives me "HOT PINK" glitter toes.....yay!

She needed a hair flower to match a certain outfit she wanted to wear to school so she whipped this one up.

She chainstitched 2 strands of yarn together for the hairband part...

and then used her little flower loom to make the flower ....and then she covered a button to go in the center.

And she's good to go!

I'm so proud of her, she didn't even ask me for help ...she just showed me after she had made her hairflower and painted her nails.

Good job Kassidy...you go girl!

New Paper Doll block...

Last week I spent some of my time designing a new block for my Paper Doll quilt pattern that will be ready in August. This is the fabric that I chose from Material Girls.

Tracing a layout from my drawing...all ready to go!

Making sure that my fabric selections are what I had in mind....

Preparing my appliques...

I number them in the order that I applique.

Yellow baby ric-rac for the telephone cord and tiny white pom-poms for the pillowcase trim.

Prepared circles for the records...ready to applique (when it's thier turn!...lol)

The completed block....

baby doll pajamas...check

pink bunny slippers...check

yellow princess phone...check
vintage pillowcase...check

freshly popped popcorn...check

groovy tunes...check

I think that the Flower Sugar fabric worked out great for the pillowcase...don't you?

I was so excited to use the

pom-pom trim finally...I've had my eye on it for quite a while now.

This is the second to the last block...

next month will be the last and then in August the borders go on ...

and then the quilt and also the pattern will be complete!