Red and White Flurries

There is a flurry of activity around blogland as many bloggers have returned from New York with glowing reports about the Red and White Exhibit. Also photos! I hated to miss this exhibit, but we can't do everything, can we? So luckily a few of our friends attended. I was going to link to a few of the blogs, but if you go to Sue's blog, I Sew Quilts, she has already done just that. 

 I don't have any red and white quilts to contribute to the frenzy, but I found a block! Honestly, all these red and white quilts are very inspiring. I downloaded an app to my i-pad that shows all the red and white quilts! You can find it on i-tunes. Search under quilts and Folk Art Museum. Very cool! And it is free!

I do use a lot of red however. This quilt just came back to my from my local quilter, Rose Skinner. She did an outstanding job! She actually feathered it to death! Rose loves to do feathers and they look great. The columns are all cross hatched to give a little break from the feathers. This quilt is made primarily from Civil War Chronicles, tho I added a few other Marcus fabrics here and there. If you are going to be at the International Quilt Market in Salt Lake City, look for it hanging in the Marcus Fabrics booth. Yeah, I am excited about that!

Two Versions of the Same Thing

Those little twin boys of ours are growing! Yesterday my granddaughter, Becky, was able to bring them home from the hospital weighing 5 lbs 10 oz, and 6 lbs 2 oz. I think that is pretty darn good! She would be 38 weeks along in her pregnancy, but instead has babies that are 2-1/2 weeks old. Becky is happy about that! They are nursing well and getting lots of love from both Mom and Dad! I love that she labels the pictures. Years from now they won't have to guess!

 This morning we got to Skype together and I was able to do everything but hold them. I watched them wiggle and coo and blink their little eyes and stick out their baby tongues. Adorable! I could almost believe I smelled that sweet baby smell, but that really would be pushing it. I will just have to be content with instant photographs and instant visibility through the computer.

Mary Flynn at Quilt Hollow emailed me this morning and said "Isn't this your quilt?"  She sent me a link to Shakerwood Quilts, and what do you know, Cathi had photos from a quilt show and someone had entered a quilt made from my Saddle Tramp pattern that was in McCall's Quick Quilts last year. I was very pleased to see it made up by someone other than myself, and she did a lovely job of it too. It is blue and done in plaids. Looks great! Thanks for sharing that Cathi! Now we can all see two versions of the same thing, kind of like the twins! 

I plan to have that pattern available soon as I get a good photo of it.  You can see my version of it on my website homepage. 

I always love to see quilts made from my designs, so don't hesitate to share them with me!

Finding Inspiration

 Recently I picked up a DVD at the grocery store. It was $9.99! What a deal! I knew I had seen it before.Turns out I saw it in 1982! It was a TV miniseries called The Blue and the Gray. Yes, a Civil War drama with the very young and handsome Stacy Keach as an aid to Abraham Lincoln, played to perfection by Gregory Peck. It has an all star cast, including Lloyd Bridges, Paul Winfield, Robert Vaughn, etc. Right in the middle of the Battle of Bull Run they focus in on a woman in bed while the battle rages around her home. Of course I focus in on the quilt on the bed!

I loved it! It stayed in my mind and I tried to remember what it looked like as I sewed strips of fabric together from Cocheco Mills, a line from Marcus Fabrics. It didn't occur to me until much later to try for a picture of the quilt. I paused the movie and took a couple photos off the computer. This photo, above, turned out pretty well. 

 This one is my rendition, and except for the hour-glass in the center of the block, it isn't even close! Shows where my memory has gone these days. I like them both, but now I want to go back and make something closer to the original. Meanwhile I will enjoy this version with all those luscious Cocheco Mills fabrics in it! These fabrics are reproductions of fabric from 1882, so a few years after the Civil War.

Yesterday I had a lovely day of sewing with two friends, Joan and Sue. We met at Joan's house and she fed us lunch. I brought fabric and pattern for making a quilt and the three of us went to town on it. Let me tell you, this is the way to make a quilt! The quilt consists of two alternating blocks and we got all 32 of one of the blocks done!

 As you can see, one block has a four-patch in the center and the second block...well, it is a mystery. It is only partially done, so until we get those blocks completed I will leave you guessing. Haha! I vote for another session with my friends. Those girls know how to sew like the wind! 

Better with Cheddar

I don't know if that is true or not, better with cheddar, but I sure have been eating it up lately! (purposeful pun) I just finished this little cutie that I am calling Button Box Stars. 

 I just ordered pattern covers, so it will be a couple weeks before it is available. I will post it when it is on my website. Meanwhile, I have been getting lots of bounce back from Quilt Hollow and comments on the beautiful job Mary has done quilting my big cheddar quilt! Be sure to see the nice things she says about me too. (Aw shucks) My patterns are not widely available because I am just a little runt  on the totem pole of designers, but most shops are willing to order if someone wants to buy something, so please ask at your local shop and have them call me. Otherwise, purchasing on my website is as easy as can be with Paypal. If you haven't used Paypal before, don't let it scare you, it's easy!

This is the quilt that Mary just quilted for me. She sent me a photo, so I haven't seen it in person yet. But her quilting is amazing. Be sure and see close-ups on her blog. And seriously consider asking her to quilt your next special quilt. You will be as thrilled as I am!

So what do you think, is it better with cheddar?

Photo Ready

I actually went outside today, and it was beautiful! This is a big deal for me as I have been slaving over the sewing machine for hours every day. One project I will be so glad to finish! It is from the beautiful Cocheco Mills line of fabric from Marcus Fabrics. I have had to send away for more fabric a couple of times. I just ordered a different border fabric than what I originally intended. That is because I design on the fly. I think I know what I am doing, but I regularly change plans in mid stream. I am not sure what that says about me as a designer, but the best laid plans, and all that...  Photos of that quilt will be coming.

Today I went outside with a mission in mind. I needed to take new photos of a couple of my quilts. I am working on new covers, getting ready for International Quilt Market and all. The weather was beautiful and sunny and so I headed over to Stoney's Market, which is not officially open for the season yet, but I got great shots there once before, so I thought I would try it again. Stoney's is a garden and vegetable stand that is very rural in appearance, but sits right in the middle of office buildings, mostly doctors. They are very nice about me commandeering their walls and fences and plants and props.

And while I was searching for places to display my quilts for photos, look who was watching me. Goats, sheep and lots of chickens too. The rooster kept crowing me off his turf, so I left him and his harem alone. 

Here is Dream Catcher with a few of the props I appropriated from Stoney's. 

I got a couple shots of Pioneer Trail as well. Not being a photographer by trade, I do a lot of messing around and never know if I will get anything I can use.  I think I like the one with the goat the best, but I can only use that for blogging! Not such a great pattern cover!

Here is a new release. I showed these little quilts a while back and then sent them off to Karen Mowery for photos because she has antique dolls from when she was a little girl. (Hee hee-I'm gonna hear about that!) Didn't she take a nice photo for me? She is talented in so many aspects that I value, and I count on her way too much. In this pattern you can use a focus fabric for the center or cross stitch a sampler from a chart in the pattern.

Getting ready for market has been taking my attention, and I have three quilts out being quilted. You can catch a glimpse of one of them at Quilt Hollow. Mary Flynn is doing her magic on a new one. Normal for her, thrilling for me! You may recall that Mary recently quilted baby quilts for the twin boys just born to my granddaughter. I enlarged one of the designs to adult size just so Mary could do the pattern that you will see on her blog. Awesome is all I can say, just awesome!

Hope your weekend is as happy as mine!

Lets Hear it for the Boys!

Remember that song from the movie Footloose? It has been going through my head because we are so excited about the arrival of "the boys"! And here they are, my granddaughter Becky's twins, born Friday, March 4, 2011.

 I believe they are happy to have a little room to stretch, but still stay close together.

 The miracle of birth never ceases to amaze me!

 Mary is now an aunt and my daughter, Polly, a grandmother! They look pretty pleased about it all!

 More little bits of the family and babies! A very exciting event!

And the best news is that everyone is healthy and doing well!

They are in Provo, Utah, so I get to see them when I go to Salt Lake City for spring quilt market! I can't wait!

Share a Story

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!

One quilt top revealed

Well this is silly, but I just took several pictures of one of my baby quilt tops and went to download into the computer, only to find out that I had removed the SD card. Meanwhile, I had already packed up the quilts to ship off to be quilted, so no retakes for now. I usually don't report on the stupid things I do daily. Better to forget. Last post I showed the middle sections of two quilts with the promise to show them completed. 

 So here is one of them. I love checkered borders, even tho they take a while, still, they are worth it. The second quilt now sports a sawtooth border, which is another favorite. They are packed up and ready to fly away to Mary at Quilt Hollow so she can do her magic on them.

Mary is a long-arm quilter, and she has quite a talent, as you can see from the photo above. Lately my Fish Creek Cabin pattern has been flying off the shelf thanks to her showing it on her blog with her magnificent quilting on it. She turned a humble little log cabin quilt into a stunner. My own Fish Creek Cabin quilt was quilted in straight, stitch in the ditch quilting. Sad, isn't it? But I love mine very much. I do what I can, and when I reach a point where I can't, then I call in the experts!

Be sure and check out Mary's Quilt Hollow blog, to see how she quilted Fish Creek Cabin, and lots of others!

If you are interested in purchasing the pattern, go to my website on THIS PAGE!

Back to the sewing room. Can you believe I still have more to do in there?

Two much fun!

After completing the big queen size Celebration Stars, shown in my last post, I hopped to and began making scrappy baby quilts. I don't make the traditional cute and cuddly teddy bears and lambs. I make baby quilts like I make everything else, scrappy and happy. That is my style, so deal. I may have mentioned that my granddaughter, Becky, is pregnant with, not one, but two babies! Both boys, and yes, identical twins. She is thru the moon with happiness and I am grateful that she is young and healthy! So here are portions of the quilts I am creating for this double bundle of joy. Becky, if you are reading this close your eyes NOW!

 So far the center measures 30 inches. There is more to come. Such a little boy quilt, don't you think?

 

Here is number two baby quilt, again 30 inches in the center. Both will have pieced borders. I am having such fun with these little quilts! You may notice a few fabrics from my Celebration Stars in these quilts. Well, the fabric was sitting right there saying "me-me-me"! It is hard to say no to fabric. The other sweet thing about making these quilts is that I have my boxes of pre-cut scraps standing by waiting for the chance to go on stage. In this case I used pre-cut two inch squares. I stayed with the same blue in both quilts for uniformity, and the same light background gives the scraps a chance to sparkle. 

OK Becky, you can open your eyes now. (I sure hope she like them!)

Stitchin' Time

The most difficult thing about pattern  making for me is getting a good photo of my quilt for the pattern cover. Seriously, it is a pain! I have spent the evening uploading photos and nothing is coming together for me. DPI? What the heck is that? I have Photoshop, an inexpensive version, and I am constantly struggling with how to use it. This is definitely not my area of expertise. Give me a pile of scraps and watch me go! I can even write pattern directions! I just have a big problem when it comes to the covers. I would love to have someone else take over the production of the pattern covers. OK, enough whining.

 This one actually came out pretty good. I just got  it back from the printers and feel good about it. I still have to put it on my website, but for those of you who were interested in this pattern, it is now ready!

Here is what became of all the stars in the previous post.I made this one big enough for a queen size bed so I can sleep with it someday! The fabric line is Civil War Chronicles, from Marcus Fabrics. I LOVE the line! And Pati at Marcus Fabrics very generously sent it to me to play with. I loved making all those stars. They were so much fun! And I really think the sawtooth border gives it a great finish. I love pieced borders! I also love RED. Can you tell? I am naming this one Celebration Stars to honor Marcus Brothers Fabrics as they celebrate their 100th birthday!!! I for one am really glad they are still here to keep providing us with great fabric! And it just keeps getting better and better!

Celebration Stars

I don't always post this often, but since I have a few things to show, and I thought I would do it before I am knee deep again.I showed a few stars a couple posts back that I am making with Marcus Fabrics. They are mostly from the Civil War Chronicles line, by Judie Rothermel. I began assembling block units before I actually assembled the stars because I had to order additional red for the corners, as I wanted them all to be the same. Doesn't that look nice and neat? One would draw the conclusion that I am very organized in my sewing room. Don't assume. It became necessary in this case, which I guess means I am capable of organization, but it just doesn't happen all that often!

That box of block units turned into this. It  is pretty set like that, don't you think? But I have other plans, and they are almost completed. Come back next time to see the completed top!

Your local quilt shop may carry this line, and you can find some of these fabrics at Sew Unique Creations. Check it out! Tara carries all my favorites!

Catch you later!

Catch Me Too!

I have really enjoyed seeing all these blocks pop up around blogland. I had to hurry and catch up! So here is mine. Catch Me if You Can!

I am so excited that Barbara Brackman is offering this sew-a-long. If you are unaware, please note that she has created a new blog to devote to this, and will share directions for a new block each Saturday.  Both of these are great blogs! I'm a fan!

To simplify:

Barbara Brackman's current blog, Material Culture

Barbara's post explaining her new blog

Her new blog Civil War Quilts

What I Read Last Year

In 2010 I decided to write down each book as I read it so I could keep a record. As you can see, I have some favorite authors whose books I read whenever I find a new one, or one that is old that I haven't read. Harlan Coben is a favorite and so is Lisa Scottoline. They both write good mysteries and each has an enjoyable sense of humor, which goes a long way when fictitious people are getting murdered. Michael Connelly also writes good mysteries with interesting characters. Maeve Binchey and Jacqueline Winspear are wonderful, with characters and places that you really warm up to. I highly recommend them both.

 I also really enjoy historical fiction and this year I have had some really good books recommended, or loaned to me, and I would also recommend these to you. I "bolded" the best ones in the list below. I am not sure they all fall under historical fiction, but they were out of the ordinary and very good!

• New York by Edward Rutherford
• 9 Dragons by Michael Connelly
• The Other Side of the Sky -Farah Ahmedi
• The Reversal-Michael Connelly
• Sarah's Key-Tatiana de Rosnay
• Play Dead-Harlen Coben
• The Burning Wire-Jeffery Deaver
• Bad Things Happen-Harry Dolan
• Mistaken Identity-Lisa Scottoline
• I Capture the Castle-Dodie Smith
• 1000 White Women-Jim Fergus
• Daddy's Girl-Lisa Scottoline
• Among the Mad-J. Winspear
• The Faithful Spy-Alex Berenson
• What Matters Most-Luanne Rice
• An Incomplete Revenge-J. Winspear
• The Forgotten Garden-Kate Morton
• The Scarecrow-Michael Connelly
• Heart and Soul-Maeve Binchy
• Caught-Harlan Coben
• The Second Opinion-Michael Palmer
• The First Family-David Baldacci
• Suite Francaise-Irene Nemirovsky
• Messenger of Truth-Jacqueline Winspear
• The Boleyn Inheritance-Philippa Gregory
• True Blue-David Baldacci
• The Help-Kathryn Stockett
• The Lincoln Lawyer-Michael Connelly
• Bone By Bone-Carole O'Connell
• Water for Elepants-Sara Gruen
• Shanghai Girls-Lisa See
• The Lost Symbol-Dan Brown
• Pursuit of Honor-Vince Flynn

I am currently reading Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill. It is a gripping story about a young girl captured and taken on a slave ship to America. It is very well written and extremely interesting, not to mention heartbreaking and touching. If you are looking for a good book, don't miss this  one!

So what have you been reading and what recommendations do you have to share?