Promotions...and demotions

I'm proud to announce the addition of three new Quilters to the Quilting World - Natalie, David, and Anna - and Quilting Apprentice Rebecca. Here they are with their first quilts, and I am pronouncing them spectacular. But I did make an error with their ages and must do a little demoting. David, while eager to be in junior high, will actually be a fifth grader in the fall. Natalie and Anna will both be in junior high in the fall, as soon as they finish 6th grade this month.  I'm truly amazed at how terrific their quilts are!

Here is David's Bear Paw Quilt, a very tricky undertaking.  I'm proud of him for his vision and his execution.

Anna is working on tying her quilt with embroidery floss, and Rebecca is picking through the scrap basket.

Natalie is working at my machine quilting the edges of her quilt.  Not only did both Anna and Natalie piece their quilt tops, they both did machine quilting, too. 

Good Quilting Fairies come in all shapes, sizes, and ages. And moms often make good ones. Here's Natalie, David, and Rebecca's mom working with David on tying his quilt top.

Natalie's "Flying Geese" Quilt.

Didn't they just do the best job on these quilts?

Anna's "Flying Geese" Quilt.

The Good Quilting Fairy - Who Also Happens to Make Purses

Donna, the Good Quilting Fairy of the Western Suburbs, has been busy.  Of her current three junior high students, one of them chose Bear's Paw.  Donna underestimated the difficulty of this pattern for the first-time quilting.  She has had to play the Good Quilting Fairy so that David can experience some success with this project.  Lots of trimming and truing up, but it's now ready for him to assembly-line construct these six blocks.  Sister Natalie and Anna Best are doing Flying Geese - both girls will be over shortly to assemble their quilts - their homework was to make blocks of their geese.  And today we will connect their blocks with sashing strips.

Once my fairy work was under control, I tried a new purse pattern.  With the exception of a too long strap, this hobo bag turned out nicely.  I'm especially pleased with the free-motion quilting on both the purse body and the contrasting band.  In preparation for our trip at the end of the month to parks of the West, I made a pocket for my iPad on one side of the lining.

I again used Soft n Stable by byannie.com and am crazy about this product for purse/bag construction.

This bag is 18" across and 20" deep.

This last picture shows the bag in relation to the iPad.