Personalize It Kingwood

The Snowflake Quilt

/ lifesloosethreads / Leave a comment

This year, while struggling to keep up with those challenging block-of-the-month blocks, I also completed a quilt for The Village Learning Center’s fall gala. It is their big fundraiser for the year. Unfortunately, when Hurricane Harvey hit in September, it didn’t seem like a gala would be a good idea. There are so many people and businesses that were hurt in our area. So instead, they are holding a “non-event.” The silent and live auctions are being held online this week. I have bid my own quilt up twice. It is my hope they make a bunch of money on this “non-event.” Their amazing day center is a wonderful place where over 100 adults with developmental disabilities enjoy activities like bowling, arts and crafts, exercise and so much more. It is such a blessing to so many and a huge part of Mimi’s life!

This is the first time I have been called by the Village with a special request. They wanted a large lap-sized “snowflake” type quilt. They were originally going to combine it with other things in a silent auction package. So when the hurricane messed things up they decided to let the quilt stand on its own. Fortunately, I have always loved Christmas-themed fabric and seen it as my duty to contribute them to my stash each year. Well, somebody has to do it! Darn if I even had some fabric with snowflakes. I did have to go shopping in July for some additional Christmas “snowflake” fabric which was a little daunting.

The pattern is from American Patchwork & Quilting Magazine, issue August, 2009. The blocks are all 5-inch squares using white/cream Christmas 1-1/2″ strips for half of the blocks (the Rail Fence squares) and red Christmas/snowflake fabric for the block with the four triangles. Top Stitch Quilting professionally machine quilted the quilt with a large “snowflake” all-over pattern. The patch on the back was embroidered by Personalize-It in Kingwood (this business flooded during Harvey and I am hoping Tracey and her business will return to us).

Texas/Louisiana Row by Row Quilt … 2015 version is done!

/ lifesloosethreads / 1 Comment


So today is the official start of the “Row by Row Experience” quilt season. I know … I’ve just lost a bunch of you! So let me explain. I believe the concept started with 20 shops in 2011. This year there are over 3,000 shops participating. I fell in love with the whole notion in 2014. Each year, participating quilt shops from all over the United States, and way beyond … think Canada and Europe … create a free row pattern … and fabrics for the row which you can purchase if you like. But you have to visit the actual shop … which … if you are road tripping this summer anyway … why not! Their website has maps for shop locations and photos of the rows so you can plan your route. I’m pretty picky about the shops I visit. They gotta have a row I wanna actually include in a quilt!

The theme this year is “On the Go” and interpretation by quilt shops is all their show. New this year is a “junior” division for youngsters. Not all shops are participating but this is so cool for youngsters interested in quilting! So eight rows sewed into a quilt makes for an official “Row by Row” quilt. There are also prizes involved if you stitch up 8 rows, quilt it and don’t forget to bind it. It has to be finished! Be the first to bring it into a quilt shop that participates in the project. I’m not so interested in that part. I just love the creativity of the project … and I’m slow!

The great thing about row by row quilts is friends and family that live far will sometimes acquire a row for you! I’ve already made my list of favorite rows and the Houston area has several I am considering to visit.

So let’s chat about this 2015 quilt. My adorable sister, Gretchen, who lives near Victoria, Texas picked up a row. My quilting friend, Michelle, picked up the two lovely rows in Louisiana. Then there was the ever awesome Sally. She and her husband did a row by row road trip and came back with the loveliest of rows. Of course, I put my order in beforehand and wouldn’t have found myself near Bandera, but for Sally!

So on to this just completed row by row for 2015. The theme for 2015 was “water.” Hence, umbrellas, fish, and seagulls, etc. I have a spot for it all picked out! I like to hang my quilts, so I made this one using 5 rows on the front and 3 on the back. Eight horizontal rows just makes for a very long quilt.

Sadly, since I have worked on this quilt for so long, I can’t locate all the photos I took while piecing the rows. Darn! I gotta remember to be more organized when I get around to the 2016 quilt.

So the great thing about this whole project is the skills you acquire while making each row. The row with the seagull and lighthouse from Louisiana was the most challenging. Small fabric pieces on the gull almost made me have to go to confession, but I LOVE how it turned out. Persistence paid off! Basically, each row is a mini-quilt with lots of lessons learned during the piecing. The easiest row was, by far, from Quilter’s Crossing in Tomball which, by the way, has a lovely quilt shop. The umbrellas were all pre-cut with the fusible on the back. Obviously, I did this row first!

Since my favorite long-arm lady moved away … come back soon Kim Norton … I had the lovely Taylor at Cupcake Quilts do an all-over design called “Sailboats.” She used Hobbs batting 80/20 and variegated thread called Signature 99151. I always use our local Personalize It Kingwood, store owner Tracey is awesome, to make my patch on the back.

If you are a quilter and considering participating in the Row by Row Experience … happy travels!

Quilting projects finished in 2016!

/ lifesloosethreads / 2 Comments

pop-pop-and-dr-jacob
So taking a look back on 2016, when the year began I would have never guessed the subject of cancer would have overtaken this blog, and our life. But it did. Hubby is doing great. But he is just halfway through treatment.

So despite how the year unfolded, I still found time to finish five quilting projects. A few of the quilt projects had been started in 2015. For me … the creative outlet of cutting big colorful pieces of fabric into little pieces, and then sewing them back together, is a huge stress reliever. Sounds crazy … I know. But quilters totally get it!

The projects finished include an I Spy quilt for St. Martha’s Catholic School fundraiser. I used a jar quilt pattern purchased from Missouri Star Quilt Company, along with a layer cake of novelty fabric also purchased from MSQC. Kim Norton used the digital pantograph called “Graffiti.” Personalize It Kingwood embroidered the label!


I also made my grandson, Jacob, an I Spy quilt using the same pattern and novelty fabric. I altered some of the “jars” to include a few special pieces of fabric. I named it “I Spy Jacob.” Jake picked out the binding fabric. Kim Norton machine-quilted using a multi-colored thread called Cleopatra. The digital pantograph is called “Circle Swirls.” Again, Personalize It Kingwood embroidered the label.

The Christmas table runner was made out of extra squares placed on point from my “Santa Baby” quilt for my little sister, Gretchen. My adorable sister picked up two 2016 Row-By-Row patterns/fabric for me in her part of Texas. Making her a Christmas table runner was the least I could do! I gave it to her at Christmas. Unfortunately, the photograph of her with the table runner turned out too dark. The lighting in my family room sucks! The table runner was machine-quilted by the amazing Kim Norton of A Busy Bobbin with Raspberry Ripple colored-thread using a digital pantograph called “Star Dance.”

I also finished a 2015 Mystery Quilt for my lovely sister-in-law Bonnie. The block-of-the-month was purchased through The Fat Quarter Shop, one of my go-to online shops for quilting fabric and projects. Bonnie, who lives in faraway Oklahoma, received the quilt in time for Christmas. This quilt was so fun to make and was my very first mystery quilt. Each block was designed by a different quilt designer. I named it “Town Square.” The quilt was machine-quilted by Kim Norton, of A Busy Bobbin, with Canaan-colored thread using a digital pantograph called “Creeping Fig.” The quilt label was embroidered by Personalize It in Kingwood.

My last finished project was for my brand new grandson, Baby Ben. He is a doll! Ben turned two-months-old this week and now he has his monkey quilt just in time for “tummy time.” The quilt pattern is by The Teacher’s Pet in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. After piecing the wide fabrics, the monkey and Ben’s name were fused, zig-zagging around the fused edges. A couple of years ago I made Jacob a baby quilt using their giraffe pattern. So cute. They also have a flamingo and alligator version. Kim machine-quilted Ben’s baby quilt with Limestone-colored thread using a digital pantograph called “Whole Lotta Bubbles.” Personalize It Kingwood embroidered the quilt label.

I spy Jacob!

/ lifesloosethreads / 6 Comments


Our grandson, Jacob, loves to poke around my sewing room. I make it a point before he is due to arrive to lock up anything remotely interesting and dangerous to a two-year-old like pins, rotary cutters and scissors. Earlier this year he got a peek at the “I Spy” quilt I made for a charity event. Little did Jacob know I was working on one for him also!

The pattern is again from Missouri Star Quilt Company and so is the novelty layer cake fabric of ten-inch squares. With Jacob’s quilt, I added a couple of his favorite Minion fabric “jars.” I also used a mottled black fabric for the background which I love over the flat-looking black fabric on the charity quilt.

After finally getting the quilt top finished, I asked Jacob to pick a binding fabric. The charity quilt binding was black and totally worked but I wanted to try something different. Jacob’s choices were ladybugs or zebra print. Obviously, ladybugs won! The ladybug fabric is by Charley Harper.

The awesome Kim Norton, at A Busy Bobbin, quilted with an all-over digital pantograph design called Circle Swirls using a multi-colored King Tut thread (921 Cleopatra). I absolutely love collaborating with Kim! The adorable Tracy at Personalize It embroidered the quilt label for the back.

I spy charity quilt finished!

/ lifesloosethreads / 6 Comments

At the beginning of the year, I made a list of all the quilts I was going to complete this year. The list reads: two I Spy Jar quilts (one for charity and one for grandson Jake), 2015 Texas Row-by-Row, an adorable mystery quilt from Fat Quarter Shop … and then there is a baby quilt for a new grandbaby that will make his debut in November. I really gotta get started on that last one. Yup … Jake is going to be a big brother! We are like the cow in the nursery rhyme … over the moon!

When I made the list, I thought five quilts seemed reasonable. Then cancer knocked on our front door and I took up knitting in hospital and clinic waiting rooms. The scarf … it is about five miles long now.

In April, I did manage to finish an I Spy quilt I had promised to St. Martha’s School in Kingwood for one of their charity events. Hope it made a bunch of money for the school!

I have several other quilts in various stages of progress. Whenever I have a spare thirty seconds, I’m in my sewing room working on one. It keeps me sane.

But back to the I Spy Jar quilt. The pattern is by Missouri Star Quilt Co., one of my favorite online places for patterns and fabric. Store owner, Jenny, has great online quilt tutorials. The pattern comes with directions for either pint or quart-size jars. My quilt has pint jars. At the time I purchased the fabric, MSQC also offered an adorable fabric pack of ten-inch squares with novelty prints that were perfect for this quilt. Made it so easy and with the 10″ squares I have enough to make four quilt tops in anticipation of future grand babes! I added a couple of novelty Minion fabrics that will appear in Jake’s quilt.

I used the fabulous Kim Norton of A Busy Bobbin to longarm quilt the layers and Personalize It for the quilt label. Oh … did I mention the cute lady bug fabric outlining the quilt label? It is a Charlie Harper fabric. I have provided the link (search for “Charlie Harper”) as they have some pretty cool fabric you might just need to have for your very own!

Village Learning Center’s gala quilt is ready!

/ lifesloosethreads / Leave a comment


This weekend is the big gala for The Village Learning & Achievement Center, the awesome day center Mimi, my sweet special needs daughter, attends. The theme this year is a Texas-themed “Rhinestones and Ropers.”

Every year I donate a quilt to their silent auction. This year I came up with a quilt that has the best of both worlds … cowboy fabric with lots of Texas wildflowers thrown in. I hope it makes a bunch of money!

I used the Disappearing Four Patch pattern out of a magazine from a few years ago that contained 20 projects by Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilt Co. It is a great quilt for charm packs. For this quilt, I dove into my stash of fat quarters, rotary cut a bunch of five-inch squares and sewed them together. I also purchased a great “lasso” fabric to really make the cowboy and wildflower fabrics pop.

If you are going to make this quilt, now is the time to invest in a rotating cutting mat. Made my life so much easier! After the four patch is assembled, place your ruler one inch to the right of the seam line and cut. Repeat one inch to the left of the seam line. Then just rotate the mat and repeat. It makes cutting the four patch so much easier. You will wind up with nine blocks of assorted sizes. Next just swap the large squares at the top. Repeat the swap on the bottom. Then take the small center block and rotate one quarter turn. Join the cut pieces into rows and then sew the rows together. Now just repeat this process until you have 42 squares. Trimming the blocks makes it so much easier to sew the quilt into rows. I also used 2-1/2 inch strips for top and bottom borders.

Kim Norton of A Busy Bobbin is my go-to longarm extraordinaire lady. She had a great all-over machine quilting pattern that was cowboy-themed. See if you can pick out the boots and stars machine quilting. I also use Personalize It Kingwood to stitch up my quilt labels. And yes … I know … as the quilt name suggests … two-stepping through the bluebonnets would probably get you arrested if you did that in an actual field of bluebonnets, the state flower of Texas. But you have to admit it fits the quilt!

A quilt for Emma

/ lifesloosethreads / 1 Comment


This is a story about Emma’s Autism quilt. If you look close, you will notice there are only two kinds of fabric in the quilt top. The one fabric brightly-colored with a puzzle piece design, the symbol for Autism. The other fabric, a solid, used to quiet the other. Emma is like the solid fabric in her quilt … quiet and encouraging. She has always offered practical ways to apply behavioral and social training encouraging those with Autism to thrive and belong.

It was earlier this year when Mary came to me with the idea for making Emma a quilt and two yards of the puzzle fabric. She wanted to in some small way thank Emma for years of encouragement, friendship, and her willingness to share her expertise while working her daughter, Michelle. Actually, Emma has over the years touched many lives in our community. How do you thank someone like that?

While my own daughter, Mimi, doesn’t have Autism, we have our own happy memories with Emma. Years ago Emma came to our home to care for Mimi so my husband and I could go on a date. Emma gave Mimi the nickname of “Meemers,” which is what many at the day center still call her.

Of course I was “all in” on the project! It took me a while to figure out a quilt block to complement the busy Autism fabric. I figured whatever quilt block we used, the black fabric would make it pop. The churn dash quilt block was simple enough and worked well with the busy Autism fabric.

Mary and I even scheduled some time together so I could show her how to piece a few of the blocks. Once the quilt top was finished we went to a local quilt shop, Quilts & Creations, and picked out a backing. The bright green worked perfect! Next we met with Kim Norton, of A Busy Bobbin, to pick out a machine quilting pattern. We all loved the variegated thread and swirly quilt pattern. Personalize It Kingwood made the quilt label and we were finally ready to give Emma the quilt.

After bouncing lots of options off each other, Mary came up with the perfect name for the quilt. “Emma’s Gift of Hope” was our way to say thanks to a very special lady who has spent a lifetime giving to people with Autism.

2014 Texas Row By Row Quilt complete

/ lifesloosethreads / 2 Comments


I finally finished my 2014 Texas Row by Row quilt and just had to share! Now just so you know, an official Row By Row quilt has eight rows. But for my purposes, the quilt would have been way too long to hang in my sewing room. So I decided to place five rows on the front and three on the back. I always like it when I flip a quilt over and there is a surprise … don’t you?

The fabulous Kim Norton of A Busy Bobbin suggested the bluebonnet quilting pattern. The thread choice is a light blue and really looks striking against the Texas flags row.

Did I mention that I use Personalize It to make my quilt labels? They are also great to work with and seem to know when I walk in the door that I have finished another quilt! By the way, they have a lovely shop! I bought Jake’s monkey blankie there and they had his name on it the next day. It is great being a grandma!

So the 2015 Texas Row By Row is starting up in a couple of weeks. Basically, it is a shop hop that lasts all summer and into the fall. It starts June 21, and lasts until September 18. Each participating shop offers a free row pattern they have designed with a fabric kit for sale. I have provided the link above if you are interested in participating!

I have been keeping track of what quilt shops are coming up with this year as the website rolls out the rows to see which ones I might want to visit … or “pretty please” a friend, or family member, to visit for me if the shops are too far away. This year the theme is “water.” Sounded like a challenging theme when I am craving cowboy boots and more Texas flags but I remain optimistic!