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Tuesday night I had a very nice time speaking at the Peninsula Piecemakers Quilt Guild in Newport News, VA. I forgot my camera, so no photos. :(  They are a lovely group of ladies and made me feel very welcome. My voice has been acting up the past two years in that I sound like I am hoarse and losing my voice. They had a mic, so that helped a lot. I showed my quilts and talked about them and told a couple of funny stories. For example, I told them about Karen Dianne at LeeHaven and the time she was sewing in her kitchen and used a cutting board to press her fabric, and then realized that the odor of onions had permeated her fabric! I told them she cries whenever she uses that quilt, which probably isn't true, but sounds good!  I also told them of living  in Minnesota and the things people do to keep their car's engine from freezing, like covering it up with a blanket. My sister-in-law was driving down the street one night and saw that someone had placed an old quilt across the hood of their car. Being a lover of quilts, she drove home and picked up and old blanket, then drove back and grabbed the quilt off the car and threw the old blanket on it and drove away. Clearly this person was not "quilt-worthy". I would love it if any of you have funny quilt related stories to share. 

I have decided to re-release this pattern, called Our Home. I measures 14" x 16" and contains some patchwork and some simple embroidery. You can personalize it with your own name and year of marriage. It will be on my website on pattern page #5.

Dream Catcher, that was in McCall's Quilting last year is also now available for purchase at my Patchalot Patterns website. Of course if anyone out there has a shop and is interested in any of my patterns please give me a call. (See website for phone number)

 Also, Mary at Quilt Hollow has completed baby quilt number two for my soon to be born twin grandsons. Her work is beautiful! Hop on over to her blog for more photos! See the funny photo she took of the quilts lined up together. You will see how alike, yet different they are. Both quilts measure 40 inches square. What will I do if a baby does what babies do on these quilt? I will close my eyes, smile, and take it like a grandmother!

Frosting

For those of you who love to piece quilts, like I do, and then send them to a long-arm quilter to be finished, you know what a thrill it is to have your quilt come back even more beautiful than you dreamed! I am blessed to have a short list of terrific ladies who are very talented indeed! Mary Flynn at Quilt Hollow is one of these! Not too long ago I sent her two baby quilts for the upcoming twin boys that my granddaughter is bringing into the world. She sent me photo of the one that she has finished so far.

Mary's brain is on a totally different level than mine. Just look what she has done with my simple little quilt! My brain simply cannot come up with these kinds of patterns. Much better to leave this to the experts and let me focus on what I can do!  I was surprised that she stitched those little arcs inside each square in the border. Those are one inch squares! I told Mary that no matter how good the cake is, it is the frosting that sets it apart and makes it exceptional. Mary makes great frosting!

Check out Mary's blog and see more photos of this quilt and lots of others!

 

Meanwhile, the babies are coming along!

Fantasy Fabric

I have been very single minded this past week and worked as tho I had blinders on to nothing else but quiltmaking. I had so much fun making those scrappy stars for the baby quilts that I decided to keep making them. I enlarged the stars from 6 inches to 8 inches. 

Then I switched the snowball blocks to cheddar. Ooooowee! That is one bright quilt! When you walk past my sewing room there is a glow emanating from the room! And the lights are off! What an electricity saver! Hey, maybe that was the whole point of cheddar! Orange has never been a favorite color of mine, but call it cheddar and I am all over it!
Another fun thing about this quilt is that I have been able to use some of those five inch squares that I have been saving. This is the perfect project as you can quarter them into 2-1/2" squares and use them to make the flying geese star points, and also the snowball corners. It enabled me to get a wide variety of fabrics with out pulling out yardage. Oh yes, I did use my box of saved 2-1/2" squares and 2-1/2" strips as well. It is very efficient to have a scrap-saver system of some sort.

 Meanwhile, my friend Joan has coined a phrase regarding all that fabric we have sitting on our shelves. She calls it "fantasy fabric". It is the fabric we love and can't get rid of because we might want to use it someday! Whatever we may call it, a stash, a collection or fantasy fabric, it is our treasure and we love it!