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.