Monday, July 28, 2014

IQF Houston 2014

It's never too early to start getting ready for Houston. When I say Houston all quilters know that means, the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas.
This will be my 7th year teaching at Festival. What an honor it is to be part of this amazing  faculty.  I'm teaching 6 classes this year which is the most I've ever done. Yes, I am crazy!

Quilt shop booths at the IQA Show.
I thought I would share with you, a little bit about each one of the classes.
Zinnia and Bluebonnets
First are the Zinnia and the Bluebonnet classes of course, are back. The flowers from these classes always turn out great no matter what skill level you're at. Which I had no idea when I designed these quilts. The photo above was sent to me by an ingenious student who took both classes last year and incorporated the Bluebonnet and the Zinnia in 1 quilt. It always amazes me how creative my students are. Which makes teaching so much fun.
The Bluebonnet has always been a fun class. There's so many different ways that you can customize this pattern.  It is turned out really great. I will be hand dying fabric kits for all these classes.
Making the Bluebonnet.

Bluebonnet and Indian Paintbrush
 I have remade the Indian paint brush pattern to coordinate with the Bluebonnet pattern. this is a separate pattern you can purchase to go with the bluebonnet.
Bluebonnet
I thought that some of my students that have taken both of these classes in the passed, would  like to try something new. So this year were doing the Clematis flower. Which can be done in many colors, not just purple. So I'm hand dying fabric packs for this class in at least 3 different color ways. I cannot wait to see how these flowers turn out. They hopefully will be beautiful. At least in my head they are.
Clematis
Then like this isn't enough.  I have 3 Renegade Thread Play class. Yes, I said 3! What was I thinking!
This is going to be great because all 3 classes will be in the BERNINA  room. Which is my favorite sewing machine.  In this class we will go through all the techniques you need to know, to finish your flower quilts. Then all the students will receive in their kit my Fresh Picked Pansy pattern to try out these new techniques on a flower. We will only make 1 or 2 pansy flowers to practice on and then they can make the whole quilt at home.
Fresh Picked Pansy's
Hope to see you in one of my classes. If you have any question about the class supply list, please email me at: melbula@comcast.net and hopefully I can answer your questions. If you can't get in the class, I'm sorry ahead of time.  But I have no control over that process. 
You can always invite me to your guild and we can make beautiful flowers there also. 
See you soon!



Tuesday, July 15, 2014

In The Heat Of Summer!

Well summer is here and it's been really hot at my house. I've been spending time planting flowers and watering them the best I can when your are in the middle of a big drought. Our neighborhood looks pitiful. Well, it always did, but now it's even worse because nobody is watering there lawns except on Tuesdays and Sundays.  You can hand water all you want. So my flowers don't go thirsty.  But our lawns are dead and nothing is worse on a hot day of 103 to look down the street at a dry, desolate, dirty, neighborhood that you are paying way too much to live in. Yuck!

 Today when I woke up I noticed my house shows the signs of a quilt teacher getting ready to go out on the road. The living room is filled patterns, the dining room is filled with patterns, and even the family room is filled with patterns. So if you're waiting for an invitation for dinner you better think again.Unless you want to help fold patterns. And it's pizza again tonight.
Being an entrepreneur is exciting, inventive and a lot of hard work. And when you work out of your home that creative endeavor somehow takes over every nook and cranny of your house. Then add on top of that, the beginnings of remodeling your kitchen. You can just shoot me now.

Family room.
The guitar, banjo, and ukulele have also arrived with my son for the summer.

This was a beautiful dining room at one time.
So when my best friend called over for the 4th of July and mentioned she was in town and of course, I want to get together with her and her family.  I tried to explain to her, really I have no room for you.  i can make dinner but where will we sit? And I meant it.
Thank God for my sweet husband who puts up with all this. I'm pretty sure it's because I'm finally making some money for us.

So my summer has been filled with planting flowers, designing some new patterns and trying to update our kitchen. So far, the flowers have been the easiest thing to achieve. Oh, and I almost forgot. On top of everything else I've been trying to put together an online quilt shop that highlighting my patterns and hand dyed fabric kits. Plus a place where you can get the fusible web I use and Sulky thread. You can click on the shop link at the top of this page if you'd like to check it out.
So I guess I'm looking forward to being back on the road so I can catch up on my sleep and live in a clean hotel room.
Now! What's for dinner?