My sweet friend Birdie from Cre8buzz..... has given me an award. She had to choose 5 bloggers who inspire her in some artistic way, and I was one of her choices! This is the award she gave me.....

This lovely statue is called the "Arte y Pico" award which was created to be given to bloggers who inspire others with their creative energy and talents no matter whether it be in the form of writing, artwork, design, interesting material, or contributions to the blogger community. When a blogger receives this award it is considered a "special honor" and, once presented to you, it is to be passed on to at least 5 other bloggers who meet the criteria.
Isn’t it pretty? So now we’ve been challenged to award this gorgeous thing to 5 other bloggers who inspire us. So here it goes:

A Day In Rhonda’s Life
Rhonda is a Mommy of 3 gorgeous daughters and wife to a FireFighter. She works full time, plays soccer, participates in theatre, and STILL has time to do wedding photography on the weekends. Her pictures are goregeous and never cease to amaze me. I enjoy watching her grow as a photographer and can’t wait till she is so booked up that she can quit her day job. See her photography blog at Picture Perfect Photography

Tina Gasperson
Tina first found us and wrote an article about us on grazr.com. Several months later, I happened upon her on Facebook and demanded that she be my friend. LOL Luckily I did, as she makes some stunning jewelery and has recently begun selling on etsy. Check out Tina’s etsy listings here.

Tsoniki Crazy Bull
Tsoniki and I became fast friends on Twitter. She hangs out in the chat room when I host my Live Quilting Show and is a true online friend! Tsoniki runs her own website where she produces crafty podcasts, and a few weeks ago she called me for a phone interview wich you can find here.

Wolf Silver Oak
Another of my Twitter pals, this girl makes the most beautiful hand dyed items and jewelery. She even makes art quilts, which SHE STITCHES BY HAND! Her scarves are stunning, I wish I had the talent to dye cloth. She also sells items on etsy, where you can find her crafty quilty items.

Anna
I met Anna on a site called Quilting Friends. It’s a social networking site that Anna created for quilters to meet and share their quilts etc. She has hosted several fabric swaps, and is currently putting together a Charity Quilt which we all donated churn dash blocks for. She has a beautiful blog and has recently begun doing video tutorials as well.

Whew! That was harder than I thought it would be! I hope you enjoy meeting all these wonderful artists, as much as I have enjoyed getting to know them.

Well it has been quite a while since I did any piecing on my beloved Janome. It seems that since we’ve gotten the HQ16, we’ve made very little time for making quilt tops. My husband, Matt had a quilt project that he had started with some great fabric from Ikea, so yesterday I dug that quilt out and started sewing. My machine was happy to be in use, after I dusted, oiled and changed the needle. Soon I was chain piecing away and boy did it feel good!

Having the 1/4 inch foot is so handy, I can’t believe I ever quilted with out one. My blocks were all turning out really nicely, and I wasn’t even using my fork pins to line up the seams. It turned out that I need to cut a couple more small squares, I was short about 7. So I will get to that ASAP and then I can finish up the blocks.

I had to laugh when I began doing the pressing. The iron was so heavy in my hand. These fabrics are quite thick, not quilting fabric, but more of a home decor fabric. This will make a nice heavy warm quilt for Matt’s sister. It’s a surprise for her, since she loves Ikea so much. It is a really nice pattern, only black and white with a touch of gray. We will do a picture tutorial from the block so you can all see it and learn it too.

My Matty would like to point out that he originally started this quilt for me but we both agreed his sister would appreciate it more. I think he just wanted help piecing it so we can get it on the long arm quicker for quilting.

Now you can learn to quilt in the comfort of your own home at your own pace
I am busy planning and preparing loads of great quilting information for all you quilters. I am dividing it up into easy weekly classes that you can subscribe to through QuiltCetera’s
Yahoo Group.

As I come up with the list of topics, my husband suggested that I share it with the group.
Of course, he always has great ideas! This gives all the members an outline of what to expect and something to look forward to. We are starting with absolute basics to cover all bases. If you are a more experienced quilter, then consider this a review!

◦ Quilting Basics Tutorials
◦ Choosing a Quilting Pattern
◦ Selecting Fabrics for your Project
◦ What type of thread to use
◦ Tools: rotary cutter, ruler and cutting mat
◦ Sewing Machine and attachments
◦ Squaring Fabric
◦ Cutting Fabric including cross cutting
◦ Cross cutting fabric which is already sewn
◦ What is a scant quarter inch seam allowance and how to measure
◦ Chain piecing
◦ Corners and points
◦ Attacing sashing and borders
◦ Sandwiching quilts
◦ Basting quilts pin method vs stitching method
◦ Machine quilting on a domestic machine
◦ Cutting binding strips
◦ Joining binding strips
◦ Attaching binding

Please let us know what you think. Have we missed any steps, or left out something
that you would like to learn?

Hopefully this will create a solid foundation for quilters who are just starting out or
have limited experience.

Are you looking for simple beginner projects to get started quilting? Want to learn to make a baby quilt or maybe a table runner. What ever it is you would like to learn, I would be more than happy to create a tutorial for you.

Simply join in by subscribing to our quilting group and ask me what ever you like about quilting. If you are lucky, your suggestion may even be featured here on our blog.