MY MACHINE QUILT FRAME

Hello there !! here I am finally after a long month of working long hours in the shop trying to make space for my Hinterburg machine quilting frame.   I had purchased it while visinting my mom in Oregon back in April soooo this has been a long wait to get it over here and waiting for the right time to get it set up .

In the begging it was just a box sitting and waiting for it to be opened and put together.

I was very fortunate to have Kristine and Thomas come down to Athens for the quilt exhibit that was scheduled on the 27th of Oct. and they came down a couple of days earlier to help me ,since they have one and Thomas had put together a couple of them.  Kristine and Thomas are the couple that organized that wonderfull Quilt convention in Thessaloniki in the city which they live .  It was a challange finding the poles and getting them to fit , they have diff. sizes here than the U.S. We had two to choose from, one was a bit to big and the other was just a tad to small so we had to find some special caps  that went around the smaller ones  to make them fit ,soo finding the poles was the hardest part.

We worked well into the night getting it installed properly .

kristine has been working with that particular frame and she knows exactly how it should be.

And here it is all complete my friend Madelyn came and helped put the wood pieces together  with Kristine ,while Thomas and I went hunting for the poles. 

And this is Thomas resting in my rocking chair , a well deserved rest.  Know you notice the machine is my old Singer since I don't have the knew machine (Janome 1600) has not arrived yet . And to top that my machine had tension problems  so , we couldn't quilt with it ,it would go and then the thread would break .  I looked at it carfully and discovered that a screw is missing from the bobbin case.

Here I am with my quilty friends ,Madelyn,Kristine and I .

 I am happy just getting it installed and ready and waiting for my new machine to arrive.  Since then I  have removed the machine and had it repaired .  I have been sewing a knew quilt top when business permits and that keeps me busy.  I wish all of you well I am very sorry that I haven't been able to visit or  reply to your comments from my last post ,but I will  be back to my old self soon .  xoxo Theodora

First Quilt Convention in Greece

 Hello to all my friends ,I have dropped out for a long while as you can tell.  So much has happened and the most exciting thing is the first ever Quilt Convention in Greece , the organizer is my dear friend Kristine in the city in which she lives Thessaloniki  And the place that hosted it was at the Cities Y.M.C.A  it is a huge beautiful classical building in the center of the City very near the water. I traveled  by train with my friends Madelyn and Rachel and the first thing we did after checking in at our hotel is to go out to eat and there they are above waiting for our dinner to arrive . There were six lovely ladies coming over from the U.S.A to teach various techniques in quilting ,about color theory ,art quilting,Dresden plate,cathedral window,stain glass window,free motion quilting,paper piecing and beginners quilting.

 Women traveled from all over Greece to take part ,my friend Matoula which showed an interest traveled from Aigio which is even further away.  Here we are the day before after setting up the quilts on a ride on an old Sail boat called Liberty which was built in 1934 on the island of Samos and took place in the 2nd world war and is now docked on the port on Thessaloniki , the new owner has turned it into a coffee /bar so for the price of any beverage you get to enjoy a half hour cruise on the  Thermaic Gulf 

 And we also took photos with the White Tower.

 And this is a photo of the quilts displayed ,there were tradition and also a Greek Challenge .  I entered my spider web quilt and a Greek Challenge .  I must tell you that Kristine had mentioned to me she needed a translator and just then Ada which lives in Sparti left a comment on my blog and I got to thinking maybe she would like to come up to be a translator ,so we connected and she came up and we even stayed in the same room with Matoula and I .

Here I am in my first workshop holding Notions Patricia's dog ,we are doing the Dresden Plate  our Teacher was Patricia McCartney from Trinity Texas . Patricia is the best she brought us all mats and cutters and sewing kits along with kits with patterns and olfa cutters it was like Christmas.

Everybody was excited and started working  and Patricia's dog Notions in sitting in the middle watching us ( he is a stuffed toy dog ,but don't tell Patricia that) Notions traveled all the way from Texas .

Here is Matoula proud of her work and Ada is sitting beside her.

We had lunch breaks and coffee breaks brought to us by Thomas and Kristine ,they were the best hosts ever they worked so hard to make this happen.

Here is Rachel and Ada on the Liberty after the second day enjoying a beverage ,but the ride was short due to too many waves.

Here is the Second workshop and my teacher was Patricia again,we did stain glass window and cathedral window, all the ladies are working hard to finish there windows.

Here is Kristine and Thomas serving us coffee and sweets we were so pampered .

A group photo with our teacher holding Notions .

Matoula with Patricia at the end of all the workshops. we all helped carry machines down stairs and to be taken back to the local Singer shop which was donated by the owner Alex. We visited his shop and purchased some supplies, he carries various products for quilting.

We walked in the rain.

On the last evening we went to Kristine's house to use her quilt machine which was so much fun ,we all got a turn , here is Rachel .

This is Ada having a turn.

And here is Matoulas chance ,Kristine is in the black dress always showing and explaining none stop.

This is my Greek Challenge ,I quilted it in ten days after putting it together and sewed the binding while on the train.

This is Madelyn's Greek Challenge.

This is the morning of the last day and the director of the Y.M.C.A is giving a her speech thanking everyone for there participation.

And here is Kristine which had given a wonderful speech
BUSINESS MISSION STATEMENT
TOQUILTORKNOT.COM
The misson of toquiltorknot.com is three-fold: to bring and expose quilting in all of its forms to the country of Greece, to use quilted gifts to love people less fortunate with the love of Christ specifically orphans, widows, the aged, and women who have been rescued from a life of trafficking, and to help poor, disadvantaged women establish viable business ventures using quilted products as their medium of sale.

 Kristine gave special thanks to the six women that had come to teach .  And her goal to make quilting known in Greece and how it can help women go to Kristine's site on the link above to find out more about Kristine.

It was a most enjoyable four days spent here at the Quilt Convention and I hope it will happen again next year . I also hope women sign up for quilt classes and more and more women start quilting .  I wish all of you enjoyed my trip and hope you have a nice day.

MY LONG QUICK TRIP

Hello there !! I was away ! I had taken a trip to the U.S. .  Specifically I flew to Ontario, Oregon which is a little town on the border of Idaho ,how close to Idaho ? well looking at the photo below you can see the snake river and on the other side is Idaho this picture was taken from my mom's and step father Joe's front porch. My stay was for two weeks , suffering from jet lag I  woke up at 2:00 in the morning almost the whole time I was there.

 

The purpose of my trip was to help my Mom with some items she wanted to ship over here and to  fly back with her.  This trip was planned a while back ,but didn't bother to blog about it .  I was anxious and nervous of the trip  and then thought Hey !! I should take this opportunity to order the quilt table that I have been wanting for a while and I looked up the Hinterberg quilt table and found a dealer near there and lucky me the nice lady by the name of Vicky said that she would order it for me Yay!!!.

 

I got acquainted with some cow's around the farm  ,they roamed around feeding on the  huge pasture around the home.

I went to the local quilt shop the very next day.

 

At  "Charm Shack Quilt Shop" I met Heather which is a very nice lady, since she is a quilter I am not surprised .  The actual store used to be a women's clothing store named Vogue, which still reads the old name faintly   on the other side I  wanted to take a photo of the sign ,but kept forgetting ,my mom used to go in there and shop when I was a kid.

 

And here is heather I had picked up a bunch of fq's I sort of surprised her when snapping the photo.  I told her that I am a blogger so she would understand.

 

Heather had beauties all around, I just didn't know where to look.

 

This is the back part of the store where classes take place  , her mom also teaches applique , and two days before leaving while my mom was at the hairdressers which happens to be two blocks away I ran to the shop and asked if her mom could give me a little lesson on applique ,even thought it was the second day of the shop hop I got started ,bought a kit with all the goodies and completed a flower and I  am now  hooked.

 

These are my purchases on another trip with my sister in law Tina , we went shopping together and I could take my time ,but still I was looking around real fast trying to take everything in.  I think if I stayed there all day it wouldn't be enough .

 

This is the main street I snapped a photo while crossing the street in front of the Charm Shack, Tina tried to step ahead ,but I had my  quick finger on my camera.  I used to ride my bike up and down this street ,if you drove down about four blocks  and three blocks to the right that is where our house was, and three blocks down and two to  the right was a Dairy Queen my friends and I used to go there all the time ,but it isn't there anymore.  

 

On the second day of my stay we went to Nampa ,Idaho to pick up my quilt table and met Vicky and her daughter ,we had spoken on the phone a couple of times and I was so happy to meet her in person she is a sweet lady.

 

On our short visit there I asked if I could see some of  her quilts and she gladly  took some out ,here is my mom taking a close up look at the applique since she used to applique 

 years ago.

  

 Vicky's quilts are proof that simple is beautiful ,I just love her crisp cool lines and her bright and fresh color palate ,the white speaks here, my mom was also having a good time looking and helping hold up the quilts  for the photos.

 

Isn't this too cute ?

 

And here is another one of Vicky's beauties  those squares are only one inch  !  Joe is in the background getting a quick intro on quilts Ha Ha !! He was probably wondering how much longer we were going to be there.

 

This is the first photo I snapped while walking in to her studio ,I was taken by her organized stash and her bright and beautiful fabrics.  I wish I could have  visited  longer ,but mom and Joe took me there and  staying all day was out of the question.   Vicky thank you so much for ordering the quilt table for me and maybe on another trip I'll be able to visit a bit longer ..

And on the 15th of April there was a 50% off on the clearance fabrics , at Joann's  Tina and I went the day before to check out the selection. On Sunday they opened at 10:00 and we were there ,I even talked Tina out of going to church . We each got our own cart and as I  bent over to look at the lower shelf , I stood up and looked at Tina's cart full of fabrics .  I said Tina I knew you were a pro ,but how did you manage to throw those in there so fast LOL.

And here she is getting her yardage cut by Sheryl ( which turned out to be an old high school chum )  and yapping about quilting ,it sounded as if they were having some kind of a contest on who knew more quilting tricks and short cuts, I of course couldn't stand still looking at every direction ,trying  to take everything in.

Here is my cart I found some real cuties and got plenty of yardage.

We also went to a good will store and I found this  gorgeous one with the Saint of Guadalupe. I had seen this fabric when blog hopping and I got a yard of it for one buck ,they had a  50% off sale I couldn't believe my luck.   I beat Tina to it and she gasped when she saw me holding it, I was fast this time, sorry Tina

On the first day of the Shop Hop the first  shop  we went to was Cyndy's Quilt Shop in Caldwell Idaho.    

Here is Tina ! she just found the clearance rack and I went over quickly and found a nice piece of fabric at a great price .

Our next stop was at the "Bluebird Quilt Studio"

Our third was Nancy's Quilts out on a nice country road in Nampa , Now this was a house and  Nancy and her husband  had transformed the whole lower level into a quilt shop except for the kitchen.   And a funny thing is that I mentioned to them that I came all the way over from Greece to go on the Shop Hop , boy were they impressed , they insisted that I sign in noting down that I was from Greece....... and then the owners told me that they had just sent a package over to Greece ,Nancy told her Husband to get the address and he did ,the location was on an Island Naxos   they sent that twisty yarn that makes a scarf  I told them that they have tons of it where I live ,they just don't have many fabrics they thought I would be interested in that yarn LOL  since they sent a big package of it over there , I am a fabric person for sure.   Thinking back on that incident it was weird that it was the first time they had ever shipped something to Greece and the very next day I walk in there shop ,what a coincidence .

These are my purchases at Quilt Expressions  and they were at 40% off , Tina found the clearance section as always .

There is  Tina watching the automatic quilt  machine at work ,I couldn't pass up the chance and  joined, it was amazing to watch .  This shop is huge like a super market and there was plenty to see.  I I took the photo below just to give you an idea of how huge it is. Well dear friends I hope I didn't bore you with my extra large post of my extra large trip , I wish all of you well and I'll be back in the saddle trying to finish some ufo's soon ., wish all of you many pleasant hours of stitching .