Welcome to Lizard Creek Quilting!!

Hi all and welcome to Lizard Creek Quilting!! Where sunsets in the fall are just breath taking!!

Today is my stop on the New Quilt Bloggers 2018 Hop. Make sure and check out all the other stops to meet new quilting friends you didn't know you needed in your life!!

Click the Happy Stitching Team button on the sidebar to find out more information and where to enter for some amazing prizes!!

I have been quilting for over 25 years. But for many years before that I was into all kinds of country crafting items and sold them at local craft shows around the area. This gave me the opportunity to be a work from home mom, which I am very grateful for!!

Basically I just love to make things--anything!! Even if I have to digitize it myself...who knew I could make felt food!!

Ten years ago, I convinced my husband that I needed to add a long arm quilting machine to the mix of things I do. After coming up with a business plan, showing it could be a reasonable buisness--Lizard Creek Quilting was born!!

There is a small creek that runs through the farm we lived on, and also a piece of property we owned about 1 mile from the farm--you guessed it--Lizard Creek is the name of it.

I just love living in small town rural America!! Having a float in the local parade was a great way to advertise--and all it cost was the 2 five gallon buckets of candy that we threw to kids along the route!!
You can read more about it here.

Designing quilts based on deeply personal events in my family life has been the most rewarding part of my quilting so far. This quilt is called Promise Kept. It is a journal quilt my husband and I took along to Hawaii for our 25th anniversary. On our wedding day he promised me we would go to Hawaii for our 25th. Well I made him keep that promise!! I designed this quilt with spaces where we could journal about our trip. Every night we would each write what we did and thought about the day. Then when we returned home I appliqued pictures of the trip onto the quilt. The background fabric in the center blocks is fabric from our bridesmaid dresses. I made this quilt just for us--but loved how it turned out that I entered it into several shows where it won several ribbons. How cool that was!! It was even a semi-finalist in Paducah!! You can read about my experience to Paducah here. There are a few posts about that trip--just look in April 2013.

Lots of life happened the year I turned 50!! Became a Grandmother for the first time--super cool!! And we built a new house--with space for a new sewing space and an amazing long arm studio attached to the house. The previous long arm space was in a remodeled garage stall in the machine shed. While I felt super blessed to have this amazing new space--it took a while to get my creative mojo back. You can read about that here.

What started the journey back to my creative space was taking a class with Lisa Calle--Divide and Design. I highly recommend taking a class to jump start your creativity if you are in a slump.

This quilt is called--Cultivate your Creativity. It has photos of 6 generations of creative women in my life along with written stories of their life. I pieced the lady blocks over 25 years ago when I was just learning to quilt. They sat languishing in a box until I was cleaning out my sewing room to move. I decided to put them in my guild's rummage sale booth at the quilt show. While going through the booth, I just couldn't part with them yet--so bought them back. Well now I decided they had to be put into a quilt and not back in a box. So--this quilt was designed special to showcase the ladies and how we were all connected through our different kinds of creativity--gardening, canning, keeping a home with a very limited budget, knitting, sewing clothing, quilting, interior design and a budding artist!!

My creativity had come back!! Entering the AccuQuilt Barn Block contest was something I had done for many years--but in 2016--my block--Point of View was the grand prize winner!!
You can read my thoughts about that here.

Being an Island Batik ambassador has been soooo much fun and given me amazing opportunities. Sending off my first printed patterns last fall was a dream come true. Check out the Shop my Patterns tab for what is available now. There are more coming so check back often!!

Something I have always tried to instill to my kids is that--You never know if you don't try!!
I want to encourage you to try something you think is outside your box--or something you think you are not good enough for. Send in a design to a magazine--you never know if your name and quilt might be in the next issue!!

If I am not entering another quilt contest--Runner-up block AccuQuilt Barn contest 2017.
You can read the inspiration behind this block design here.

I will be loving on my grandchildren--add one more born this spring!!

Helping my husband--in this oh so sexy coverall outfit--with all that is required to raise a quality pork product--Hormel is where our hogs are processed--so the bacon you had for breakfast could have been raised by us!!

Or riding motorcycle with my husband. Finding inspiration for new quilts in all the beauty that is around the country.

Life is a great adventure.

What dream do you have that you think is too big to attain?? Tell me about it--if it is written down it might not seem so big--all it takes is one step and the adventure is started!! Where it ends is up to you!!

Below are the blogs for this week. Enjoy!!

Tracy        http://itsatsweetsday.blog
Joni        http://fortheloveofthread.com
Cherie B.    http://cheriesquiltingjourneyblog.wordpress.com
Cindy K.        http://graybarndesigns.com
Karen        http://thequiltrambler.com/blog
Sarah        http://9658textiles.blogspot.ca
Terri        https://meanderingsalonglizardcreek.blogspot.com
Liz        http://www.savoreverystitch.com