Retreat Hazards

I should warn you that there are some negative aspects about going to a quilting retreat. The longest lasting problem is sleep deprivation. I was exhausted from all the laughing, staying up late at night sewing more blocks, giggling with my roommates until the wee hours of the morning, and then the early morning risings - because I don't want to miss out on any of the fun! I am still catching up on my lost sleep. I was lucky that friday was a "snow day", which meant that my children didn't have to go to school, and my quilting classes were cancelled, so we didn't have to get up early...and I could catch up on some much needed sleep.

A second problem is that the scenery is so pretty out in the country, that it is tempting to spend lots of time staring out the window. It was such beautiful winter weather, snowing gently for most of the time. On the right is a photo of the path to the dining lodge....you can see the snow flakes falling on the way to supper.

Many of the quilters enjoyed going for peaceful walks on the trails. Here are two anonymous walkers! It was cold!

But if you spend lots of time enjoying the weather, you have less time to sew! So much fun to be had, and so little time!
The third problem is that I was so inspired by the projects of everyone around me that I have an uncontrollable urge to go fabric shopping, and to start new projects. This is a problem because I am working on reducing my UFO pile, not increasing it! Fortunately for me, I am too busy right now to find time to go shopping, but I have started a list and can't wait to buy some new batiks.
The fourth issue for me is that I feel so happy and relaxed when I'm at the retreat. Here I am sewing my "quilt-as-you-go" blocks on the last day, surrounded by my scrap fabrics, sitting in the sun, listening to the laughter and conversation of quilting friends....really, does it get any better than this?!?!

So why is that a problem, you ask???

Because the re-entry into my regular life is brutal! It's a shock to the system to feel so happy, calm and relaxed and then to have to hit the ground running when I get home....dog to walk, food to cook, house to clean, my paid job to catch up with, the children to pick up, homework to supervise....back to my reality. It's a tough transition.

But I have made progress on my quilting endeavours and have lots of wonderful memories with quilting friends from my retreat days.

So I will happily endure these challenges...when are we going again?!?!?

Retreat Fun

I am back from my 3 day quilting retreat. I sure had a great time at the retreat...did lots of laughing, visited with old friends, enjoyed yummy food (for which I didn't have to plan, shop, cook or do any dishes!!) and revelled in the seemingly endless time for sewing. I always learn a few new tips and get re-energized about quilting when I see all the beautiful projects that everyone else is working on.
I brought a pile of teal scraps and fat quarters that were donated to the charity quilt program at the guild. I don't have any teal fabric in my stash and have never made anything in teal, so I thought this would be a good challenge for myself. The first evening I cut the 2 1/2" strips to make the scrappy bargello quilt on the Quiltville website and started to piece the strip sets. This is a photo of me sewing the second strip set....the first pieced panel is behind me on the design wall. That was a fairly boring job, but made fun by the other quilters comraderie and encouragement. I didn't have enough fabric to make the pattern as shown on the website which has 4 panels, and I had to do some piecing together to get enough squares to make it 3 panels. It turned out okay, but by the second day I was really
hating teal even more!

When that top was finished I got out an old UFO, which is a small quilt for the Memory Quilts program at the guild. I had pieced it years ago, and it was quilted by Ruthanne Finnegan. After I sewed the binding on, I hung it on the design wall with a note asking if someone was willing to hand sew the binding down. Miraculously it was a finished quilt within the hour! Don't you just love binding fairies?!?! The finished quilt is on the right.
Then I had a real change of gears and opened up a new miniature paper piecing pattern, which was a gift from my retreat roommate. She thought it would be a challenge for me and she was right! It is a Carolina Lily pattern on pre-printed tissue paper. I have done tons of paper piecing and usually really enjoy it, but this was quite a challenge. I have never sewn on tissue paper before and it was quite fragile....ripping easily. And the seam matching was difficult. I had to sew a main seam twice, and even then it didn't quite match up. I'll try to fix it with a green marker! The pattern had 24 blocks in it, and since the first one took 3 hours, I'm guessing I won't be making all 24 blocks!!

After supper on the second day, I took out the guild Blocks of the Month from October, which were blue 9 patch blocks with a white centre. I cut the blocks into 4 equal pieces, an idea which I first saw on the Quilted Forest website for a mystery quilt. Then we had a chance to play around with possible block layouts on the design wall. By the time all the blocks were ready (one had to be re-sewn to be the proper size and two new blocks were made to make the number of rows we wanted) it was getting late, so I selected the layout that had the fewest number of seams to match, and the easiest construction requiring the least amount of brain power....which was the bottom right layout. A big thank you to Barb for all her late night help with the unsewing, and seam pressing.
On the morning of the third day, I started a quilt-as-you-go project to try and make a dent in one of my scrap bins. I used 6 1/2" pieces of leftover batting, a variety purple pieces for the backings, and made one half of the block dark scraps and the other half light scraps. I only got 14 blocks finished before it was time to pack up and go home. I'm not sure I like the black and white pieces as they really jump out at you...I might remove those. But it is looking like a happy quilt and will be a good demo piece for the guild "newbie day" demo.
So those are all the projects I worked on at retreat. My next blog entry will be on the downside of quilting retreats....believe it or not, it's not all good!

My inspiring brother

I am posting about my brother today. He is a very inspiring person, both as an artist (he is a writer and guitar player) and in terms of the perseverance and bravery he has demonstrated in all that he has faced in his life. He has been sick off and on for about 25 years due to a congenital illness (arterial vascular hemangiomas) requiring numerous surgeries over the years, resulting in a permanent traech tube, which causes him untold suffering in his struggle to eat and breathe.

Here is a photo of us from a couple of years ago. (Don't look at my "post-tobagganing hairdo"!!) This is the photo mosaic quilt I made for his birthday based on photos that I took of him writing on the beach. I used Ami Simms photo transfer paper to transfer the photos to fabric. I cut the photos into squares and rectangles, and added in some commercial fabrics that fit the colour scheme and theme of writing. (See blog entry from Jan. 23 where I talked about making a quilt for another one of my favorite people using the same technique). In the border around the centre photo, I wrote (free motion machine quilted) the names of his four favorite poets.

He is quite sick again and I am sending him lots of loving and hopeful thoughts for a quick, non-surgical recovery from his recent symptoms.

My quilting time this weekend has focused on getting myself organized for a quilting retreat (Monday to Wednesday). What to take?? What to take??? How many UFO's can I work on in 3 days? How much sleep do I really need?

More "Connecting Corners" Quilts

In January I wrote about my enjoyment in using the connecting corners piecing technique (see posts from Jan. 14 and 16). This week the students from one of my miniature quiltmaking classes brought in their amazing finished projects (from the previous class in January). I am always so thrilled with the creative ways in which these women interpret each project, through their fabric selections, design ideas, and quilting choices.

In that class, they had a choice of block size and block design based on the connecting corners technique. The smaller scrappy version used a block size of 1 1/4" (unfinished) with corner pieces cut at 7/8"! These are the three finished projects from the quilters who braved the really mini version:

It was a challenging size to work with and didn't they do a great job on their quilts?!?

The larger version used 1 1/2" squares and required more coordination of the fabric colours to form hugs or kisses, whichever they preferred. Again each quilt is unique in terms of colour selection (notice the chocolate kisses in the middle of the bottom row??!?), use of sashing (or not) and in terms of border treatments.

They are beautiful miniature quilts, most of which were finished in time for Valentine's Day. And those that are still "in progress" will be ready for next year's Valentine's celebrations!

Quilts in the mail...finally!

I have finally finished the Strawberry Shortcake quilts for my nieces. The first quilt (on the left) went really quick. With the exception of the backing folding back on one corner, I had no problem and enjoyed working on it. The second quilt (on the right) was a nightmare...really it was the worst quilting experience I have ever had! Even as a beginnner, I never had this much trouble with machine quilting. I could not quilt a 7" block without the thread breaking 2 or 3 times. At first I thought maybe it was the new varigated Coats thread I had bought...so I changed the thread. I tried Sulky, Gutermann, Mettler, two types of YLI, and Aurofil. But each of these threads kept breaking. And of course I tried changing the needle. I tried a universal, a microtex sharp, a metallica, a stretch and finally settled on a quilting needle because it felt like it was going through the quilt easier, but the thread was still breaking. Even quilting at a snail's pace didn't keep the thread from breaking. After spending more than a week trying to quilt this thing, I believe the problem was the batting. For the first time I used a "Warm and White" batting, because my regular choice of "Warm and Natural" wasn't available. This was the only thing that was different between the first and second quilts.
I created a new quilting design (photo on the left) since I get bored quilting the same pattern over and over, and it would have been a fun design to work with, if not for the thread shredding problem. On the right is the backing fabric for the second quilt.
I cannot tell you how happy I was to finish the bindings and finally hand the box of quilts over to the post office ! Now...on to more fun and creative projects!

Happy Valentine's Day

It's a cold and snowy Valentine's Day here...cold outside, but warm inside! The roses my husband gave me are just beautiful and he even left little treats and cards for the children...he's a keeper!
It started snowing last evening and I was too nervous to drive to guild meeting so I missed out. I spent the evening sewing the binding on the Strawberry Shortcake quilt #2 and will be so happy to get that in the mail to my niece. This second quilt has just been my worst quilting experience ever....I will post more details and photos of the finished quilts soon.
On the left is a photo of the mini quilt that my son is taking to school today for the Grade 6 Valentine's Day raffle. I hope it finds a nice home! My son refused to give Valentine's cards to his classmates as he finds the whole Valentine experience "disgusting"...instead he has chosen to give out gummy tarantulas! He is a character!

I was quite sure they would cancel school today, but schools are open, so early this morning I ventured out to drive the kids to school. This is how my car looked before I started digging it out! Good day to stay inside and quilt!

More Paper Piecing

I was demonstrating paper piecing at the local Michaels store this afternoon. I picked up a couple of project bags to work on, and one of them was this block from Linda at Paper Panache. This is one of four blocks you could get from her site around the Christmas season. She surprised us by posting different blocks depending on when you downloaded your pattern. Now there is a new block (larger and more complex) posted and I will work on gathering my fabrics and then put everything in a bag for when I have a few minutes to work on a project. People often ask me how I get so many things finished and I am often asked "do you sleep"? Yes...I sleep 8 hours every night, but I do sew or do hand work almost every evening after I put my children to bed. It is often the only time I have to relax and have quiet time to myself. Also I run down to the machine if I have any "found time", even if I only have 5 minutes to spare. It's amazing how much I can accomplish with a few minutes here and there!

Ice and Snow

Maybe the icicle fascination is getting out of hand!?! These are some recent photos I took around my neighbourhood. You know it's too cold when your dog refuses to go for a walk! But I still enjoy looking for new icicles...longer spikes, more points in a row, unusual shapes, etc. I like the shot on the right because of the shadow on the wall. And the icicle on the left is getting bigger every day. Okay...one more photo...from this morning...the ice crystals on the inside of my screen door. They were so beautiful and sparkly but difficult to photograph.

And on to my recent quilting endeavours...after all these years of quilting, I still really enjoy paper piecing and always have a few of those projects on the go. During the Super Bowl I finally sewed the faces on these snowpeople. I had great fun rummaging around in my bead box to find tiny beads that looked coal. This pattern is by Wendy Vosters and it was definately not a beginner project. The blocks were a little tricky to sew (4 separate pieces) but fun to work on.
However, the trickiest blocks to paper piece are those that have multiple pieces (more than 6) with lots of diagonal or partial joins...and when you don't even know what you're sewing! On the right is one of the mystery blocks from one of my favorite paper piecing sites Paper Panache. Every two months or so Linda posts a new (free!) mystery block. I love to select the fabrics, prepare the pieces and leave everything in a baggie beside my machine, so that when I have a little time to work on it, I can pick it up and continue from where I left off. I still have the Christmas block (which is a 6" square) sitting there waiting for me. Fun Fun Fun!

Quilt Rotation

It's time for quilt rotation...every month I change the quilts hanging in my home. I have taken down the January ones and put up the Valentine's theme quilts. This is still one of my old favorites that I called "Heart Patches"...a very simple miniature quilt with 1.5" 9 patch blocks on point, with hand quilted hearts. It is hanging in the dining room.
On the left is another old favorite from my days of block swaps. In the centre are 6" swap blocks

from a Valentine's Day exchange in 1997 and around the outside border are 3" blocks from a "Nine patch Niblets" block exchange in 1998. It took me a long time (years!) to put this wallhanging together and was my first experience with the large range of measurements in the quilting world. A 6" block to one quilter is a 5.5" or 6.5" block to another! I finally figured out to sash the 6" blocks to make them go together, and the 9 patch blocks I just trimmed liberally and made them fit. This quilt is hanging in the living room.

I really learned a lot from my block swapping days in the 90's and it was always lots of fun to get the "squishies" in the mail. I still have lots of blocks sitting around my quilting room...everything from the hourglass and 9 patch block exchanges, to beautiful star blocks. I had to stop participating in the swaps because I just couldn't keep up with using up all the blocks and getting the projects quilted...too many UFO's accumulated.

This week I am starting to plan which projects to take along to a quilting retreat coming up at the end of the month, and I'm sure at least one of those projects will involve using up some of my blocks from internet swaps. At last year's retreat I stressed myself out by setting goals that were too ambitious. I think I took 9 projects to work on, and tried to do some work on each of them. This year I am taking fewer projects and focusing more on the relaxation part of the reatreat. I hope February passes quickly!

Distracted by sparkles

It is very cold these days, with lots of snow to shovel. This was the view looking out my bedroom window. The sun coming out during the day melts the snow on the roof and makes wonderful icicles from the eavestroughs. As I walk the dog every day I admire the wonderful sparkling icicles on the homes around the neighbourhood. It sometimes interferes with my driving too, as I have been known to stop the car to admire icicles!

And inside I am trying to get those flannel quilts done. But it is boring, so I take frequent breaks to work on a teaching sampler for a beaded bindings class I am teaching this semester. These are some of the miniature quilt bindings for which I have either added beads to the binding or used beads for the binding. My favorite book and inspiration is "Beading Basics" by Mari Stori. I made my first beaded binding before I bought this book, and only came up with the idea because I made a quilt that was round, and not knowing how bind a round quilt, I came up with the idea to use beads to finish the edge. Then I found this book and realized my idea was not original at all! Well...I have a few minutes left in the day. I will tuck the kids into bed, walk the dog (and check out the icicles), make some tea, and get out the beading tray!

No inspiration this week...only boring quilting!

Didn't I say that I was done with flannel??? For some unknown reason last fall I bought a package of assorted 8" flannel squares, some having Strawberry Shortcake fabrics. At the time of purchase I was thinking...this would make a quick quilt for a baby. Then I started reminiscing about how much my nieces loved Strawberry Shortcake in the early 80's and thinking that they would really love a quilt with these fabrics. I waited for the idea to go away, but it took hold, and I knew I couldn't make a quilt for one niece and not the other, so I had to make two quilts. I remembered my lesson from my previous experiences with shrinking flannel and I prewashed all the squares. After washing, the squares measured 7 1/4". I started to figure out how much more fabric I would need to make two lap size quilts, instead of one crib quilt. Since I had nothing in my stash to match this stuff, I found myself shopping for fabrics to go with, for borders, backings and bindings. Oh brother...I have so many other things on the go, why did I pursue this? I hate when this happens...I get an idea and it won't leave me alone, and I get excited about it, not thinking of how much time it will actually take me! On the right is my sewing machine set up to do the quilting on my dining room table...sorry family, no cooking or eating until the quilt is done!

The older nieces' birthday was on friday. "Your gift is coming" I said to her, "it's not done yet". She is used to me saying things like this and she always says something like it makes the birthday fun last longer knowing she has a package to look forward to. I finished quilting the first one today. I quilted an "all over" pattern trying to make shapes that look like "S" ( for Strawberry Shortcake) which I am trying to show in the photo on the left. The quilt is very heavy with all that thread on all that flannel. I was happy with the striped pink binding fabric that I found. This is a photo of me happily sewing down the binding. You can see the backing fabric that I found and my little quilt-snuggling dog! I was coming around the last corner and found this mess!

The corner of the backing fabric had folded back on itself and I quilted over it. Now I have to decide if I will remove the binding, and rip out the quilting, then requilt and rebind the corner - or leave it. I'm pretty sure I will leave it as it is and sew a label over top! While I tried to calm down about that, I basted the other quilt, so I feel like I am in the home stretch now. The second nieces' birthday is Groundhog Day...do you think the quilts will arrive in New Jersey by then?!?!

Inspiring People

At my quilt guild this month we had Sybil Rampen as our guest speaker. I must say that she is one of the best speakers I have ever heard! She was inspiring, her work was unique, she was generous with sharing her ideas, and she was very entertaining. In addition to being an accomplished fibre artist, Sybil is also an author and has written a book called "The Grannies", which I am giving to my Mom for her birthday. She has also written and self published a book of fibre art techniques called "Milkweed Angel" and I have ordered that for myself...let's call it a Valentine's Day present for myself!
After the meeting I was thinking more about sources of inspiration. One of the guild lectures I provide is on my sources of inspiration... I talk about 14 of my most used sources of inspiration, and show the quilts I have made from these sources. Many of the original quilts I have made were inspired by people and special occasions. Such was the occasion at a "big" birthday party for my friend Louise Hopkins...I won't give away just how "big" of a birthday this was! Louise is the person who introduced me to quilting many years ago when we met at the hospital where we were both working....she was an occupational therapist and I was a family therapist on a treatment team. At the time I met her, she was hand quilting a huge log cabin quilt. I loved to hear her talk about her quilting and invited myself over to her house to see that quilt. Louise encouraged me to buy a sewing machine, believing that I could learn to quilt. And because she believed it, I thought it must be true! Having never sewn a thing, I bought a sewing machine! From that day on, I have become more and more addicted to quilting...rarely does a day goes by that I do not work on a quilting or beading project. And because I owe my introduction to quilting to my friend Louise, I wanted to make her something special for her birthday. I started with a photo of her children that she had sent in her Christmas card the year before. I made photo transfers of that photo plus a few other photos I had taken of sunflowers. I added in some of my hand painted fabrics and some textured commercial fabrics, and used one of my favorite designing techniques. I cut a variety of fabrics into squares and rectangles, generating approximately about twice the number that I will actually use. The size of the pieces are based on a 1" finished measurement, so the squares start at 1 1/2" and the rectangles start at 1 1/2" x 2 1/2". For larger wallhangings I cut some of these smaller pieces and then increase the sizes so I have a variety of colours and sizes. Then I organize the pieces in a way that pleases me and sew them together. On quilts as small as this one (7" x 8") I do a minimum of quilting, and this quilt I finished with a two colour binding. There are a lot of things that are symbolic of Louise and her values in this little quilt and although I can see things that I would change now, I still smile when I see this photo and think of all the inspiration and encouragement Louise has given me over the past 17 years. Thanks Louise!

Bumped up a generation

I just realized this week that I have been bumped up a generation. I am no longer invited to the weddings and baby showers of my cousins and friends. Now I am being invited to the celebrations of the children of my cousins and friends! How did this happen so quickly?!?! My children would say "You know you're old when...."! Today I feel old. I went to a baby shower to celebrate the birth of my cousin's new grandson. On the right is my cousin's daughter Darcy and her new beautiful son Benjamin. I remember very clearly holding Darcy when she was a newborn and now she is a mother! Of course I had to make a quilt for Benjamin and started by sewing together 6" squares. Then I cut out some shapes (heart, bear, moon, star, bib, block, sun, block and bottle) and buttonhole stitched around the shapes. I love the buttonhole stitch, and although it is faster to do by machine, I still enjoy stitching by hand. Then I quilted using my walking foot and straight stitched in all the seam lines. I hope Benjamin will enjoy napping under his new quilt! I'm going to have a nap now, because I am old and old people need naps too!

To complain or not to complain!

Thanks to the readers of my blog who have encouraged me by telling me they enjoy reading about my quilting adventures, and those who encourage me by buying me pins to wear about blogging...one of my quilting students gave me this button which says "I'll be blogging this later"!
I can hardly type tonight because of all the snow shovelling and ice scraping I've been doing lately. I shouldn't complain about it because we have waited so long for winter to arrive this year..but I will! I was on call for the Sunday night shift, and got paged to come in to work in the middle of the ice storm. That meant not only going out in the middle of the night, but scraping layers of ice off the car at 2 am to drive in to work, and then coming out at 5:30 am to scrape the ice off to drive home, and then getting up at 8 am to scrape the car AGAIN to take my daughter to school. I was exhausted and the muscles (or lack thereof) in my arms are protesting all this "non-quilting" type of activity!
But this morning made up for it, even with the sore arms and sleep deprivation! I taught a miniature quilting class and the students brought in their finished projects from December. This was the project they had picked to make a quick and easy Christmas gift. Once again they did a fantastic job of adding their own touches with borders, and embellishments such as ribbons and beads.
And they started their new project of the month using the connecting corners. I gave them two versions to chose from, one based on an this old quilt I taught years ago that I called "Candy Kisses", which uses the connecting corners techniques, with the background fabric on two corners and the "kiss" fabric on the opposite corners . "Candy Kisses" is a lap size quilt and I donated it a couple of years ago to a children's charity. In today's miniature class, the version they were making used an easier and much smaller version having a block size of 2 1/2". Their other layout option was the quilt I showed in Sunday's post (Jan. 14), having a finished block size of .75".
The students were so preoccupied with talking about the weather and winter illnesses that they forgot to complain about the tiny pieces they had to cut for this month! Or do I dare to hope that they actually love it as much as I do?!?!

Connecting Corners

One of my favorite techniques to play with, especially on a miniature scale is "connecting corners". I first tried this technique in the late 90's, when I made a mystery quilt written by Susan Druding called Four Star Square. (Susan attributes this technique to Mary Ellen Hopkins.) On the right is the mystery quilt I made from this pattern. It is a 40" square wallhanging.
Since then I have had lots of fun playing with the technique and have made many miniature quilts over the years using variations of this block...
starting with a square and sewing a triangle on one, two, three or all four corners, then playing with layout designs. Also, by changing the size of the connecting corner, you can get different effects. On the left is a quilt I finished last year called "Flower Children". The flower blocks are made of four petals. Each petal has three white connecting corners and one dark green connecting corner.
Below is a scan of my latest miniature quilt using connecting corners. The blocks are .75" finished and the finished quilt is 6.75" square. (See Dec. 10th blog for photo of some of the pieces sitting on my ruler ready for sewing.) I played with some design ideas on EQ5 until I found this border that I liked. The binding is made from a piece of ribbon.
I am teaching this miniature pattern this week to other miniature enthusiasts, who will hopefully enjoy making their version as much as I enjoyed making mine. However, one of the quilters has already emailed me to say that she has cut the tiny pieces for the class, but instead of calling them squares, she calls them "swears"! I think that means she's not enjoying it so far!!!

"Time of Your Life" - Challenge Quilt

Oh my goodness...I have had quite a frustrating day with Blogger today. I have heard about the problems other people have had, but this is my first experience with it.
I enjoyed the peace and quiet in my house today since the children are back to school. I spent time thinking about my New Years Resolutions/Goals, both personal and quilting related. Two of my quilting goals are: to set aside time once a month to have a "try something new day". I have lots of ideas, but don't give myself to time to just play and experiment. The second goal is to finish the challenges issued in my two online groups - on time!
This is my last quilt of 2006, which was a challenge piece that fit into two of my group themes
1) to make a quilt based on a song and 2) to make an abstract quilt based on the theme of "marriage". I chose a Green Day song that my son likes to play on the guitar called "Time of your life".
Some of my favorite lyrics are:
So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time ...
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
In the centre of the quilt I put a photo transfer of our hands/rings on our wedding day, as a symbol of our commitment and enduring bond. Around it I made a "clock" of grey and maroon (colours from our wedding) shapes from light to dark, symbolizing the time that is passing, from our newlywed light and carefree days to our darker days in later life, facing the regular life challenges that everyone has. I machine quilted with Yanmet thread, which is a beautiful thread that I love for machine work. It is sparkly and rarely breaks, no matter how fast I quilt. I had purchased many beads and embellishments for this quilt, but much to my annoyance, the cheeky quilt refused to let me use most of them! It did allow the 12 bicone swarovski crystals around the photo and a simple beaded binding. On the right is a close-up photo of the beaded binding based on an idea from one of my favorite books "Beading Basics" by Mary Stori. The quilt measures 9.5" x 10.5" and will be hanging as part of a group exhibit in Nebraska September 2007.

New Years Resolutions

I am getting close to feeling desperate for some quilting time!
For the past week I have been helping my daughter renovate her bedroom. I have always tried to nurture my children's creativity but this week, I realize I may taken this a bit too far! Nothing is straightforward with her...she has a billion ideas for how to do every step of redecorating, most of which involve lots of shopping (ugh!), and piles of money. This is a photo of my daughter, who got up early one morning to paint the 9 drawers on her new storage unit...each drawer a slightly different shade. She looked just like me when I am painting fabric, and she was just as happy!
Tomorrow they go back to school and I get my life back!
In between shopping, painting, and moving furniture, I have been thinking about my New Years Resolutions, reviewing last year's accomplishments and activities, and planning for the coming year. Maybe tomorrow I will have more time to write about that. Right now, I must go and put the new handles on the dresser drawers

Happy New Year!

The celebrations are all over and all that is left now are the memories, the photos taken on my new digital camera (thanks to my husband for the perfect gift) and the big mess! We spent time today trying to make some space in our little house, take down the lights, and put away the decorations. I also have to put away the Christmas quilts, including this wallhanging in the dining room. I made this quilt exactly 10 years ago. My husband's family had rented a lodge in Red Bay and when we arrived we discovered that they had a big fluffy cat at the lodge. Because I am very allergic to cats (can't breathe!) I had to leave the family fun, and head back home. Feeling quite sorry for myself, I thought I would cheer myself up with a brief stop at The Hobby Horse. I found this pattern, bought all the fabrics, and spent the next couple of days piecing the top. Although I missed out on the lodge memories, I sure enjoyed my quiet days sewing by myself! I still enjoy this quilt, even though the quilting leaves much to be desired. The free motion quilting is a disaster...the tension is a mess in most places on the back, and the "motion" is not at all "free"...it is very spastic, uneven, and bizarre in places! To make things worse, some of the border is quilted, and some is not. It needs more quilting and every year I say I will finish it, but I haven't. Maybe this year!
I almost forgot to write that while I was in New York, I stopped in at the Calico Gals quilt store. It is in an old barn and looks kind of scarey from the front! But inside it is an amazing store created in the barn lofts, having an unparalled collection of Batik fabrics. I bought lots of fabric for my stash and enjoyed visiting with the friendly staff. I almost signed up for a mystery class because the price and fabric bundle was just too irrestible, but the class was already full!