All go on the Charity Quiltathon

I'm really pleased to announce that Scarborough Sewing Centre have donated 10 meters of fabric for our Charity Quiltathon.

Thank you so much Keith, Jackie and family, we really appreciate it.

For anyone travelling to one of our retreats - make sure you add on an extra day and make the trip up to Scarborugh Sewing Centre on Aberdeen Walk - the same street as the Post Office, at the far end. You will not be sorry. Its an Aladdins cave for fabric and currently at just £5 per metre.


Another lovely surprise today in the mail. Philip Anthony Photographers from Tickton, Beverley have kindly donated 5 x £75 vouchers for  us to use as raffle prizes for our quiltathon.    http://phillipanthonyphotography.co.uk/Welcome.html   Thank you so much.

Our press releases are slowly getting the word out. Thank you York Press.
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/eastyorkshire/10863891.Quilting_marathon_dates_at_seaside/?ref=rss


We have been really busy too over the last few days. Several quilt tops have been made and donated to our Quiltathon, so in an effort to get a good start, we have been quilting these on Rodney & Dell Boy (the Innova longarm).

Here are a few pics -

The panto for this one is called Gaiety

For this one I chose a pattern called 'Late Night'. It reminds me of atoms rather than stars, but I really like it.

This is a cute panel which is backed by animal fleece. The pantograph I chose is called Animal Crackers.

 Pattern is called Bubble Bath

 Tumbling teddies

 Wascally Wabbit

 Filigree

Another day and another charity quilt top

Today we decided to have another go with Rodney and Dell Boy.

Here is a Jelly Roll Race top which has been kindly donated to our Charity Quiltathon.

We chose an edge to edge design and three hours later it was all done!

We made two fundemantal errors though - If we had loaded it the other way, then it would not have required so many repeats and also If we had it wound on further for the first pass, we could have complete two passes inbetween winds - but hey how, lots of practice in marking patterns and winding on. Great results too.

Rodney and Dell Boy complete the first quilt

Well its been a few days now since we took Matt from ABM back to the airport, but we have both been suffering with terrible colds which we think we picked up on the airplane back from the States.  We have been dying to have a play with Rodney & Dell Boy, but have just been too ill.

Today, although still being far from fit, we decided today was the day - we could wait no longer.

So here is our first quilt.  Its a charity top I made earlier this year and just perfect to practice on.

We decided to choose 'squewed squares' and auto pilot with Glide in both top and bobbin.

Here it is off the machine not bad for a first attempt.

Matt from ABM Innova introduces Dell Boy to Rodney

On Saturday morning Matt from ABM International flew in to Leeds/Bradford airport via Amsterdam from Houston. He arrived minus his luggage. Apparently there was a baggage handling problem in Schiphol and all flights had to leave with out luggage!

Despite being rather jet lagged he was eager to get started.

On Saturday night we took Matt to the Naked Fish in town for traditional British fish, chips and mushy peas, which he really enjoyed. As there was still no sign of Matts luggage, we had a trip to Tescos for some essentials.

Matt has worked on the machine all weekend and on Sunday night when he powered up we found we tripped the fuses. We need to sort a larger power outage asap.

Matts luggage eventually showed up late Sunday. Yeh, we have the bits and tools he needs now to finish the job.

On Monday, we managed to find an electrician who called in at lunch time to have a look at what was needed.  Due to the fact that Matt is scheduled to fly back to Houston on Tuesday Morning at 6am, the electrician said he would come back after work to do the job.

This afternoon, it was time for some retail therapy, so Tim took Matt to John Bull Rock Factory then to Morrisons for tea bags and Quality Street to take back to the office.

So it's now 7.45pm Monday and the electrician has just finished. Had we of course known about the extra power requirements then we could have had this already sorted.

Time for some food then we are going to have a play to ensure everything is up and running properly, before Tim leaves at 2am to take Matt back to the airport for his early morning flight.

Las Vegas, Longarm Quilting in Utah & LA

We are just back after a superb working holiday to the USA.

We flew to Las Vegas and spent three nights at the Aria Hotel on the strip.

It is a truely massive hotel and involved a mile long treck from the car park to our hotel room, via the casino - of course!

Although Las Vegas was not really our cup of tea, we did enjoy visiting the sights - the canal and gondolas at The Venetian

The Belagio and its fountains - although these were great, we have been spoilt by our visits to Dubai and the amazing fountains there which are much larger.

and of course the Strip itself

So onwards to our reason for visiting the States - St George in Utah. Its around a three hour journey from Las Vegas to St George through the desert. These are a few shots from the car en route.

As you now know, we have purchased an Innova Longarm Quilting machine and St George is the home to Lets Quilt which is owned by Teryl and John and they have an amazing classroom with nine of these machines where they teach their buyers and others how to use their machines and many tricks of the trade too.

We booked in for five days of intensive training.

Teryl's unit also houses lots of goodies including extra wide fabric for backings, pantographs, rulers, dvds, books etc etc

The walls are also covered in beautiful award winning quilts by Teryl, Marilyn Badger and Cory Allender

So we spent the next five days here learning all aspect of the machine from paper pantographs, machine maintainence, free hand quilting, feathers, and auto pilot.

On day one we learnt how to do pantographs - which is basically using a lazer pointer at the rear of the machine to follow a pattern. Sounds easy - but it does take practice!

Day two was spent learning about machine maintenance and then learning how to use the lazer pointer at the front of the machine to follow templates - again the theory was fine, but we both found this alot harder and we sure do need more practice at this!

Day three was all about free hand quilting and practicing various fillers, using different threads and adjusting tension accordingly.

Day four was with spent with award winning quilter, Cory Allender and leaning some feathers.

This is the reverse as the thread shows up better

Day five, we learnt about auto pilot - the computer driven system which we shall be having fixed to our machine.

On Saturday, Teryl had invited her local Longarm people to come along and help with some philanthropy quilts with a Panto Race and we were invited along too.

We had a great time in St George and we were made so very welcome by Teryl, John and their staff and we shall be keeping in touch with some of the other students too.

Joyce, John, Teryl, Teresa, Fiona & Tim

Superior Threads are also based in St George - so it really would have been rude not to have called in.

Here are some beautiful Kimonos which were display in the reception area.

Here are a few pics of St George and Snow Canyon

On Sunday we went to buy Tim a Stetson at the local country store and we were amazed to discover guns openly on sale. Most Utah residents over 21 carry a gun! 

From there we visited Zion Canyon 

The next day, we called in at Lets Quilt to say our goodbyes before heading out of town for our long drive to California. Utah is a beautiful area and we would love to return to explore it some more.

En route we stopped off at Calico - now a ghost town

and then after around 400 miles we arrived in Newport Beach, California where we spent the next week.

and here is our apartment

We had a lovely restful week with a couple of trips out to LA and Hollywood and then dolphin watching at Dana Point.

Santa Monica Beach

Santa Monica Pier and the official end of Route 66

Beveley Hilton - the home of Golden Globe Awards and where Whitney Houston died.

Rodeo Drive

Chinese Theatre

Four Seasons Hotel - made famous by Pretty Woman

Venice Beach

So now its back to the cold in the UK.

Matt from Innova in Houston is due to fly out to us this Saturday and will be staying with us whilst he installs the bells and whistles on our quilting machine. So we should soon be up and running and we will be announcing our new longarm quilting services early in the New Year.

Oh and here is the shopping which we managed to squeeze in to our luggage - wish the allowence was bigger, I really could have bought so much more - lol!!

 and just a bit o fabric - well it really is so difficult not to!