I want to purchase a notion that my quilt shop doesn't carry. I don't know exactly what it's called but its a 'compass' that sits on a 1 inch by 12 inch ruler. It has two parts, one has the needle part that sits on the end of the ruler and the other part slides down the ruler with the marking tool, and you can draw circles of any size with it easily.

Where is the best online place to purchase something like this? Does anyone know what this notion is called? I'd like to purchase it this weekend so it can potentially get here by the 21st.  If this is in the wrong place for a question like this please let me know.

Oh and i'll need to purchase the 1 by 12 ruler that "goes with it" as well.

Hey all, this month is my first quiltversary month and I finally finished my first quilt including the binding.  So it took only a year to get one finished, but the next quilt should take a lot less time if I can just sit down and get off the computer for a while.



The top is from Carol Doak's Your First Quilt Book.  I changed one blue ribbon to red.



In one week I finished all nine blocks of the quilt.



Another week I got the borders on.



The summer I stuffed it under my small machine.  Took a few weeks to quilt it doing some every day.



Here is a close up of some of the quilting.



And some more close up of the quilting.



And finally a closeup of the binding (which was the stage it sat for several months).



I posted a quilt top applique which was my first applique piece, but this is truely the first quilt that I have completed.  Just in time for the late February first quiltversary.

[Quilt Connection]

How many of you listen to quilting podcasts?  Have you heard that there are several good quilting podcasts with widly varying styles for a wide variety of podcast listening tastes?  I find its good to have something to listen to.  Listening to these podcasts, you learn wonderful tips, tricks, and ideas from people who have different levels of skills.  And the audio only podcasts you don't have to look at, you can have it on in the background while you're sewing or thinking about sewing.  Many of them you can find in iTunes (just do a search in the music store) or you can visit the blogs that are tied to the podcasts.  

Come catch the quilting podcasting bug that has completely taken over my life lately.  Audio Podcasts are listed here:

Current Quilting Podcasts
Alex Anderson at Quilt Connection - http://www.alexandersonquilts.com/podcast/
Annie Smith at Quilting Stash - http://simplearts.com/blogs/
Allison Rosen at Within a Quarter Inch http://withinaquarterinch.wordpress.com/
Brye Lynn at Sew Stitch Create http://www.sewstitchcreate.com/
Darla at Scientific Quilter http://scientificquilter.wordpress.com/
Elle at Sew Chick http://sewchick.blogspot.com/
Jackie at Jackie's Quilting Corner http://cvquiltworks.blogspot.com/
Jean at Quilted Cupcake http://quiltedcupcake.blogspot.com/
Jennifer Ruvelcaba at Patchwork and Pacifiers http://patchworkandpacifiers.wordpress.com/
Kelley at The Pioneer Quilter http://pioneerquilter.com/
Marcelli at Whole Lotta Singer http://wholelottasinger.wordpress.com/
Michelle at Quilts N Kids http://quiltsnkids.wordpress.com/
Pat Sloan at Creative Talk Radio http://patsloan.typepad.com/quiltershome/pat-sloans-creative-talk-radio.html
Sandi at Quilt Cabana Corner http://quiltcabanapatterns.blogspot.com
Sandy at Quilting ... for the Rest of Us http://quilter.podbean.com  
Sarah at Stash Resolution http://stashresolution.blogspot.com
Toni at Silly Chick Designs http://sillychickdesigns.blogspot.com/


And don't forget there are crafty podcasts out there such as
Allison Lee at CraftCast http://www.craftcast.com/
Jennifer Ackerman-Heywood at Craft Sanity http://craftsanity.com/
Ruthann Logsden Zaroff at Mirkwood Designs: Adventures in Creativity http://mirkwooddesigns.blogspot.com/
Sister Diane at Crafty Pod http://www.craftypod.com/

Any others out there, feel free to add to this post!

Mark Lapinski is rumored to host a podcast, but we haven't heard anything more about this yet.

Hey!  This is my first official post that I started here on Craftster! 

In August I had the good fortune of making my first applique quilt top in 5 weeks due to a class I was in.  Its only about 44 x 44 in size, but its got lots of pieces for a first applique.  Its Baltimore album style as well with the black as an Amish homage.



That's the finished top.  I plan to edit this post once I get the thing quilted, but first I have to learn hand quilting.

The process of applique is the really long (and a little bit tedious) one.  You have the freezer paper templates of all your pieces, then you glue the fabric edges down to the freezer paper with washable glue, then you glue it to the background with washable glue, then you sew it, finally you cut out the back and remove the paper. I rather like the results so I am okay with the long process.



These are all the pieces in baggies on my ironing board.



This is the backgrounds with the bias bars starting to be basted in place.  I used a cheap white chalk pencil to mark the design onto the front, but I didn't get too mad if I strayed from the 'design' a little bit.  I found that the 'really cheap thread' you get in sewing kits worked well for basting, and I didn't have to go out and buy a new or expensive thread.



This is a picture of the book Mimi Dietrich's Favorite Applique Quilts that I got the design from.  There were some birds later in the book which I just loved, and so I had to put them on the quilt somewhere, and then to balance the size, I enlarged the hearts on the remaining two sides with my printer/scanner/copier. 



Rather than embroider on my piece directly, when I was finished I made a smaller piece to practice embroidery with.  Same pieces as before, just my own placement and embroidery stitches that I learned on http://www.needlenthread.com in the video library section. 

I have a blog and podcast and rather than post the process of making my applique quilt, I did some photoshop techniques with it and so came up with the following 'monochromatic quilt'. 



Hop over to my blog to see my unique style of thinking about quilting and more info about using photoshop for color techniques.  This is podcast post podcast number 2 and I do even more with the colors of my quilt.
Blog: http://scientificquilter.wordpress.com
Podcast post about quilt and colors: http://scientificquilter.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/1-6-podcast-2-colorful-computer-and-camera-tools/

I will eventually update this thread with updated pictures once I get the rest of the quilt completed.  Let me know if its out of line to post a completed top here, rather than a completed quilt (no backing and batting is it really even a quilt?) - I have just been dieing to share it with you all.