Jacksonville

Boy, have we been busy for the past couple of weeks. Jan came up and we went to the Chattahoochee Evening Stars quilt show (and worked there for a few hours!) Then we drove to Jacksonville and went to the Jacksonville Quiltfest. Kristen had to give a lecture in St Augustine Friday, so she came with us to the quiltfest. It was a BIG quilt show - over 450 quilts and about 6o vendors. It was fun, but tiring.

And then, on Monday, someone called Kristen to tell her that she had won one of the baskets of quilting stuff that we had taken chances on. But Jan and I won nothing. Kristen hasn't gotten the stuff yet in the mail, but she should soon. I'm so jealous!!!!

While we were in Jax, we got to meet Allyson's new boyfriend - and, wow, is he cute!

Later.

New Grandbaby To Be

Well, it's official! Today was the day of the 20 week ultrasound and the sex of our new grandbaby is.......female! I'm thrilled - now Bridgette will get to have a best friend for the rest of her life! Sean says that, since his house is being overrun with girls, Patrick will have to live with them the rest of his life.

Now I can start thinking about a baby quilt. I found a cute pattern today that has Cuddle bowties on it - it's in a book that I bought. And I've thought of another quilt that was inspired by a quilt in a magazine. It has applique flowers on it in three rows, but I thought maybe putting one row of flowers and a second row of sky, sun, birds, etc. would be cute. We'll see.

Beth, at Tiny Stitches, made the cutest door mats for her daughter and her daughter's roommate. Her daughter, Jessica, is getting a big heart with her name and lots of smaller hearts on it. Her roommate, who is an artist, is getting a paint palette, with a paintbrush thru the opening and pots of paint (and, of course, her name on the palette. Both of them are adorable.

Well, I had dinner with Bridgette tonight - and now I'm home alone. Gene is somewhere in a meeting. So, since I'm alone, I think I'll get busy cutting the fabric for the big squares on Patrick's quilt.

Oh, the best thing of all - Daniel is home. He and Ashley, Patrick, Kristen, Sean, and Bridgette all came over last night to celebrate Gene's birthday. It was so good to see him and know that he's home.

Time to go and change clothes and cut!

Progress on Patrick's Quilt

I haven't made much progress on Patrick's quilt in the last month or so - I've been making shopping bags, place mats, etc. But now, I'm ready to get going again. I printed the templates for the larger squares, since I've completed the 144 4-inch squares that make up the center of the quilt. I think I need about 106 8-inch squares for the outside of the quilt. And tomorrow, I'm going to start cutting fabric for those larger squares.

I really would like to have this ready for Patrick for Christmas - but who knows. Maybe I can sign up for Quilt 'Til You Wilt one of these weeks and just work on these blocks.

Poor Patrick - I haven't finished his Christmas Stocking, either - and I've been working on that for about 15 years (well, I started it 15 years ago - I haven't really been working on it for that long!) I did, however, finish the counted cross-stitch picture of Pinocchio. I saw it the other day when Gene was cleaning off his bookshelves, so I took it and hung it in my quilt room. Makes me happy.

Upcoming Quilt Show Entries

I have never been brave enough to enter any of my quilt into a show - until last week. I entered 4 quilts into the Chattahoochee Evening Stars Quilt Show. Here are pictures and descriptions of these quilts.


This quilt is named Autumn Poppies. I made it in an international quilt mystery series of classes. That month, the country was Turkey. The pattern name was Poppy Fields. Since I made it in autumn colors (orange, brown, and tan), I named the quilt Autumn Poppies. After I entered it, I took a closer look at it, and decided that, even for me the piecing isn't very good, so I withdrew it from the show. So much for good intentions.






The next quilt I named Dreaming of Sunflowers. It was the first quilt I made using paper piecing. I took a class, taught by Barbara Dole, who helped us interpret the directions. I still wish I had made all the centers black, but I didn't. I really like this quilt.










This next quilt is actually larger than the sunflower quilt. I made this for Daniel, who wanted a patriotic quilt. I called this quilt Back in the USA 2009, since I finished it in time for his return from his second tour of duty in Iraq. The pattern is called Carrie Nation, which I thought was appropriate, since soldiers in Iraq are not allowed to drink alcoholic beverages.





This last quilt was made in a class with a pattern called Magical Slice and Dice. It's hard to tell, because I used a bad fabric between the squares, but all of the blocks are on-point. The interesting thing about this pattern is that you make all the squares (they're kaleidoscope squares), sew them in a straight set, then make two strategic cuts, sew the pieces together in a different order and, voila, your quilt is on-point. The border fabric is the fabric that all the kaleidoscope blocks are made from. I named this quilt Bustopher Jones' Family - obviously after the famous character in the musical Cats, which Gene and I saw in London. And the musical was based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by TS Eliot (one of my favorite poets.) The poem begins:

Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones--
In fact, he's remarkably fat.
He doesn't haunt pubs--he has eight or nine clubs,
For he's the St. James's Street Cat!

Christmas in July

Last week was Christmas in July at Tiny Stitches. The store looked so beautiful with all the new holiday projects and quilts. I made a blue table runner for the event, but didn't take a picture of it. Next time I'm at the shop, I'll take a picture and post it.

This week, I've been working on a doll rag quilt for Bridgette and a matching one for the princess herself. I don't have quite enough flannel to make it large enough, so I bought a couple of fat quarters last night. If it's not enough, I'll just buy more. Here's a picture of the doll quilt.

I'm also working on some star squares for my quilt guild. Like a fool, I chose one that's harder than I want to do - but, as usual, I'm doing it regardless! I also made several tote bags to be sold at the quilt show.

Japanese Wallhanging

Yesterday, I had to go to the Hope Clinic for a follow-up visit for the H1N1 flu study. Since the Hope Clinic is in Decatur, I always treat myself with a stop at InTown Quilts. I saw this wallhanging there - it's made from a Robert Kaufman panel and different fat quarters. There were two different panels, so I bought them both and the fat quarters to go with them. I made this wallhanging mostly last night, but finished the piecing this morning. It makes me feel the way that a really beautiful sunset makes me feel - at peace with the world. I can't wait to quilt and bind it and hang it in my sewing room.

Rural Jardine Quilt

Here is a picture of the quilt I made for Tiny Stitches. It's my first attempt to make a quilt that will be shown in the store. I think it turned out pretty well. I took it to Karen Williams to be quilted yesterday and she's going to quilt the border with feathers - and an all over feather pattern in the center, I think. Then I'll scallop the borders and bind it. I'm really excited to see it finished. It's larger than I expected, but its really pretty. This picture is just one corner of it as it was hanging over the railing in my stairwell.

Several neat quilting things that I learned lately:

I met KimDenault the other day at the store. What an interesting lady. She 'invented' a quilting method that can be done by children - using their own artwork. She modified the method using textured paper, so that blind people can also use it. I added her website to my links. It is handsonquiltshow.org.

I also went to the Quilt and Quack yesterday and learned how to make prairie braids and a nifty way to make prairie points. And as an added bonus, Karyn (the head quacker) taught us an easy way to make 4-patch blocks. Here is a picture of my prairie braid (another square for the Christmas Quilt.)

For those of you who don't know about my Christmas Quilt - here's the story. A wise woman I know said that, whenever you need to make a sample square - to be sure you know what you're doing or to test the size of the square, etc. - you should make it out of Christmas colors. Then eventually, you'll have enough squares to put together as a sampler Christmas Quilt. The stash of patches for my Christmas Quilt is growing slowly but surely.

I joined an new quilt guild last night. Beth Peck said so many good things about the Chattahoochee Evening Stars that I took a chance that they'd have an opening and went to the meeting and joined. The speaker was Charlotte Angotti - and she was hilarious. By the end of the meeting, my face hurt from smiling and laughing so much. Besides Beth, I actually knew or recognized a few more people. I think I may have convinced Meredith Burdulis to join, too. Meredith is the woman who helped me with my very first quilt - the quilt for Cadence.

Anyway, I'm adding a new link to the Chattahoochee Evening Stars - look for it!

I worked on the quilt I'm making for the shop - It's going to be lovely. I'm making it in red and off white (cream) and the fabric is gorgeous. I'll try to photograph a couple of squares tomorrow.

We talked to Daniel earlier tonight. Ashley, his girlfriend, went up North to see him this weekend. They went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC - I hope they got some good pictures. If they did, I'll post them here when I get them. It sounds like Dan had a good birthday. I wish we could have been with them - although we had a good Easter ourselves.

We went to Kelly's parents house for Easter dinner. The food was good and plentiful, the wine flowed freely, and a great time was had by all. Tom and Beth are really nice folks - which is why Kelly is such a sweetheart. By the way, if I haven't mentioned it earlier - Kelly is Patrick's girlfriend. We're all love her, and we love Ashley just as much.

Bridgette thought that all the bubbles were sooooo funny!

You can almost hear Bridgette thinking, "And now that I know how to pop them, I need to figure out how this bubble-maker thing works."

I started making a quilt for the shop tonight - my first one that will be displayed in the shop with kits for other people to make. I hope I do it well. Tonight I started cutting the fabric.

But that was after Kristen, Sean, and Bridgette came over for dinner. They brought a bubble machine and BB was so cute chasing the bubbles. She would zero in on one bubble until she caught up with it and popped it. A couple of times, she almost chased one right off the deck. Kristen took lots of pictures. Hopefully, by tomorrow, I can post one here. It's so hard to believe that BB is already 22 months old. Won't be long before we have a 2-year-old birthday to celebrate.

Tomorrow is Easter - and Dan's birthday. He's at Ft Meade in Maryland right now - and through the summer. So we won't be able to celebrate his birthday with him until a couple of weeks from now when, I think, he's coming home on leave. Happy Birthday, Daniel!

This is a big week for birthdays. On Friday, the 9th, my mother turns 93 years old. I think Gene and I are going to take her out for lunch on her birthday, if she wants to go. She doesn't really want to do much of anything anymore.

Happy Easter to everyone. I hope you find lots of eggs in your Easter basket!

Hello for the first time

Well, here is my first posting. I'm playing with this blog so that, when I create a blog for the quilt shop I work for, it'll look OK. I've already figured out that I need to add a font that isn't available here - I'll work on that later. For now, I'm just starting to get my feet wet (both figuratively and literally, since I just shampooed the carpets.) Let me know what you like and don't like.