Relief For Earthquake Torn Haiti..

I'm forwarding the following because my heart is in knots as I watch scenes unfold on the news about the Haitian earthquake and the aftermath.

Ruth sent me the following, and I think it is a wonderful cause, and I wanted to put it out there for you to consider. If those who could, could make just one....or work it as a team with a friend, someone piece, someone quilt and bind (okay, that's three friends, but you know what I mean) I feel like we, as a quilting community, can make a difference.

Ruth writes:

I am contacting YOU to see if you, and perhaps women who are involved in your charity work, would be interested in contributing utilitarian quilts through the ausipices of Lutheran World Relief (LWR). Our church guild has been sewing for many years making quilts for the LWR projects. At this time, we are planning to send whatever quilts we already have made up (and in process of making new) - and found out last night that there is a warehouse in St. Paul, Minnesota where we will be forwarding our local suppplies/quilts.

I am enclosing some basic information about this organization with this e-mail, concerning how to contact them, who to contact, etc. IF you are interested or think others may be, I would be happy to TRY to coordinate collection of quilts for being sent to Haiti.

LWR normally asks that these quilts be 60"x80" approximately. They have found this particular size works well in most locations. Cotton fabrics are requested, however cotton or polyester battings can be used. We have been told, in the past, that the quilts they distribute to disaster areas throughout the world are used not only for bed coverings and/or warmth, but oftentime are put on the ground or used as make-shift living quarters when there are few tents or shelters available. So, these quilts can function in numerous ways (i.e. utilitarian - don't have to be pretty or fancy, but usable and washable) and are gratefully received wherever they are distributed.

I realize there are large organizations that do participate in disaster relief efforts. LWR is one that is reputable and already has people "on the gound" in Haiti. It is a worthwhile cause that we personally support, and because we can't physically help at the disaster site(s), or perhaps are not in a position to contribute monetarialy, we CAN sew and give quilts.

Sincerely - J. Ruth Zelenko, Hibbing, Minnesota e-mail dzlett@mediacombb.net

Looking forward to hearing from you - attached is some basic info on Lutheran World Relief


Your gift will be used to respond to the “Haiti Earthquake” crisis until needs there are met. After that, further gifts will be used to help LWR respond where the need is greatest. Please also consider making an unrestricted donation which will enable LWR to respond quickly to the next emergency.

During regular business hours, Monday through Friday, you may also call 1-800-LWR-LWR-2, or mail a check or money order to:

Lutheran World Relief -
Haiti Earthquake
P.O. Box 17061
Baltimore, MD 21298-9832
USA

INTERNATIONAL DISASTERS:
Editors: When listing organizations receiving donations for aid to survivors of major disasters outside the United States, Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands, please include:

Lutheran World Relief, www.lwr.org, 1-800-597-5972

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:
Emily Sollie, 410-230-2802 (office), 443-220-3269 (cell), esollie@lwr.org

Lutheran World Relief is a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), individuals and parish groups in international relief, development, advocacy and social responsibility. LWR is a member of Action by Churches Together.

Please contact Ruth personally about any questions, or answers on where to send your quilt. She is willing to help get them to the warehouse in Minnesota, and they will be directly used where they are needed by those in need.

I'm leaving this with you with no affiliation personally, but I just feel like it is a wonderful way to help those who have been so hurt by this disaster.

Nominated!!!! (updated)

I just checked into my hotel in Casper..I should be napping, but you know how it goes??

I had to check email!

Look what I found!!

CONGRATULATIONS! MQX is pleased to inform you that you have been nominated for the 2009 Machine Quilting Teacher of the Year Award. Attached you will find a “Nominee Logo” for your use. Please feel free to add this logo to your website to let everyone know you are in the running! When this nominee logo was created, only the MQX logo was used, no other reference to MQX is made since this is about you, the teacher and recognition for your work. However, when you put this up on your website, please link it to the Nomination Form (see below). As people visit your site may well add more nominations for you.

Now before you go any farther and get all excited..I did some thinking on this. It's a MACHINE QUILTING award...not a piecing award? I teach piecing classes. I've been in contact with Janet-Lee and we think that whoever (or the more than one whoever) did the nominating didn't understand what MQX is all about...

SO, I'm declining. I'm tickled to death to be nominated, but I really have to take myself out of the running because what I do is not the kind of teaching that MQX is about.

But thank you ANYWAY!!! I love you guys!

Oh!! And I got an email from my editor...THE BOOKS ARE IN!!! I should have them in my hands soon, so if you haven't placed your order for Adventures With Leaders & Enders yet....now's the time! They will be sent first come first serve....

(Okay, I'm going for a nap now...book signing tonight.....)

Bad Bad Blogger!!!

It's one of those times where I am almost embarrassed to peek in here and tell you that I have no pictures, I have no time, and I'm on my way to Wyoming in the morning!! How can it be? Where did the last week go?

I hit the ground running when I left for Seneca and Pickens SC. It was SO COLD...I've never BEEN so cold in SC. It never left the 20s...it certainly never STAYED that cold when I lived down there. And I guess it isn't far enough south from NC to make a difference, even though I hoped so!

We had a wonderful whirlwind time, A lecture and trunkshow, a Cathedral Stars workshop, and a Jared Takes A Wife workshop.....

I left from the 2nd workshop and came straight home on Wednesday evening, a 4 hour drive...so I could spend most of Thursday taking care of things here before Randy arrived Thursday evening.

I picked her up in Charlotte (about 1.5 hours from me....so this is more driving and more driving!) and we caught up with each other while enjoying a dinner out at Ruby Tuesday...

Friday morning had us scrambling to leave for the retreat at Camp Dogwood, and we had a wonderful time. I was able to finish 3 UFOs: The applique oak leaf I did all those ridiculous triangles on at Gwen Marston's retreat...a sample for "Nine Patch Split" for a workshop coming up in March at the Gulf States Quilting Association in Baton Rouge, Louisiana...The 3rd one incorporates some string blocks along with regular patchwork and is a candidate for the sequel to Scraps & Shirttails (And no, can't show pics!) And the 4th project I got a good start on, just piecing piecing piecing on something I had kitted up back in August I think, also for the next book...it's all in tones of green/red/rust/burgundy and I really like how it's going to come out!

We returned home from retreat, Where it also barely got above 30 if any...good thing we were sewing all weekend!!.....on Sunday evening. DH had gone to a funeral, so Randy and I decided to extend our girls weekend and enjoy dinner out at a mexican place, and go to the movies! We saw "It's Complicated" with Meryl Streep....and I have never laughed so hard in my entire life! LOVED IT!! It was perfect to see it with a good girlfriend.

Tuesday? Shopping. We headed to Greensboro where we hit some furniture outlets and lighting stores, threw in lunch at Panera and a stop at the quilt shop and then headed to the antique mall...can you tell it was a full day?

That brings me to yesterday. (whew) Another trip to Charlotte to drop Randy off at the airport. I decided that I had NOT had enough retail therapy, and decided since I was only 20 minutes from Mary Jos....to take a detour! I didn't buy much, I got out of there for $30 with some remnants of solids, and some fat quarters. That's it! Let's face it...when you have reached saturation level when it comes to your stash, there isn't much more that you can add to it that you really need.

Today was fairly normal, but I had a ton of stuff to do to get ready for Wyoming tomorrow. I hit the gym....the grocery store (the guys are going to need food, right?) and proceeded to take care of laundry, house work, paid some bills, took care of book orders, invoices, mailing labels for the pre-orders....and that took me to dinner time (and beyond)

I just finished packing. It's 20 til 10pm and I've got to be up at 3:45am to leave for the airport at 4:15 am to get to the airport by 4:45 so I can board a flight at 5:30 that is leaving at 6:00am. It's going to be a long day. I fly Greensboro to Chicago to Denver to Casper.....

Let's hope and pray that all my bags and I make it to the same place, same time! My biggest fear is that the bags won't show up on an evening I have to do a trunkshow.....*fingers crossed*

I'll be back Monday night! Wish me WARMTH!!!

Binding Police?!

Well, the binding saga continues here, and it will probably for quite a while! I've currently got 4 quilts awaiting binding, and not enough time to sit and do them all continuously, so I try to get in one side a night or something. Keep it manageable?

Still, it makes me wonder, and ponder, almost in amazement, no it can't be possible...how many MILES of binding have I sewn down in my quilting life time?! The sheer enormity hits me like an anvil on the head (remember those road-runner cartoons?!) Can it really be that much? Oh yes. When you make BIG bedsized quilts, the amount of binding increases much more than you think it would....

I bet it's miles, don't you? I certainly think so!

There is something soothing about hand stitching down a binding. And my binding rarely varies...I cut the same sizes of strips, continually. They are all joined the same way...their extra "cut off" bonus triangles placed in that tall pretzel jar by my machine like colorful confetti, waiting for a project to use them up. The binding is stitched to every quilt by machine in the same way. Somehow I like to play Russian Roulette, just starting my binding somewhere down one side, and stitching bindly to the next corner, just hoping..praying..that I won't get a dreaded seam IN the corner. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't....but I must enjoy the gamble, because I don't find myself doing a test-run first so I can adjust those seams AWAY from the corners! (What does this say about my personality?? No....don't tell me...I don't want to know!)

This picture is of Oscar on my legs as I proceeded to bind this lovely.....I wasn't sure whether he was telling me to hurry up, or to just stop and pet him, which I ended up doing, because I couldn't move the quilt around with him on it. (And I think he knew that too!)

I had a lovely day at my friend Karen's house yesterday....we shared a lunch, worked on projects, gabbed, gossiped, laughed and enjoyed the day. Thanks Karen!

I leave Monday for Seneca and Pickens, SC! First trips of the year...and tho it isn't far, I'm greatly grateful that it is somewhat SOUTH of me. It's way too dang cold here this morning. Something like 28? at NOON? Nope. Not going out.

I've been tackling paperwork....cleaning...reorganizing...trying to get things ready for my friend Randy who comes in from California on Thursday! She is attending my Bee's retreat with me next weekend....oh FUN FUN FUN! Can't wait to see her. It's the first time she's come to see me since I moved to NC. I tend to catch her everywhere else on the planet, but she is actually coming to my HOUSE! And we have much fun planned....

Happy New Year!!!!

I don't know if you have a tradition for what goes on on New Year's Eve, but here....usually all bets are off as DH has to run reports for Year End at his work. Month End and Year End always seem to loom ominously.....and the hours take their toll.

So...he worked today....told me he would be late...and I decided, it was a good day to break with tradition and go grab some Mooshoo Pork to go at the hole-in-the-wall chinese take out place near me. MAN...it's been a while since I've had it, and it's messy and wonderful and I was reminded all over again how much I love Mooshoo Pork!! If you have never had it, try it this year. It's almost like eating a chinese burrito....the stir fry yummy-ness is wrapped in a rice wrapper much like a tortilla and a hoisin sauce is spread over the top before wrapping...truly a taste treat!

At the end of my feast, I grabbed MY fortune cookie, eager to see what the words of wisdom would hold for me on this last night of 2009.

"You will have gold pieces by the bushel."

Quickly my smile spread ear to ear.....Gold pieces by the bushel?!?? What else could they be talking about other than my SCRAPS!?? Whoowhooo....that's the right kind of fortune for me...bring on those gold scraps, and throw in some cheddar ones and some orange ones and some yellow ones....I'm ready! :cD

Buried in Normalcy!

Here I thought I would have so much time to post with being home, but with Christmas, the kitchen remodel, the addition to the quilting machine, and everything going on, my computer time has been severely limited!

But that's okay....you can imagine me enjoying my evenings hand stitching bindings...endless bindings...to my heart's content.

The only hard part is convincing the males of the household to watch something OTHER than sports, or ice road truckers, or alaskan state troopers or whatever it is. Can I PLEASE have something with a PLOT?! We have settled on things like Law & Order, NCIS, CSI, and all sorts of other shows abbreviated by initials.

During the days I've been quilting, intermittently interrupted by poundings, hammerings, drillings, sawings, planings, and other multitudinous man noises.

The granite was installed yesterday and it is BEAUTIFUL. Still no sink..tho we should remedy that today. I bought a sink and faucet that included a soap dispenser as it's 4th hole accessory....but it had to go way on the right side of the sink...I have my garbage disposal on the left...and the soap dispenser is just kinda...ehhh...SO! Today I went and decided to install an instant hot water tap there in that 4th hole instead. May as well go all the way, right? I have loved it at my friend Randy's house....and I didn't think I was going to have room under the cabinet because of the space the garbage disposal and the dishwasher take up, but turns out we can do it, so I am SO anxious to have hot water on tap, much better than having a built in soap dispenser!


I've had emails asking to see how I quilted Carolina Christmas, so I'll post a couple pics here for you. The pieces are fairly small, and it's a busy quilt..and I am limited on TIME mostly, so a beautiful pantograph really adds a lot of nice texture to this quilt and gives it a vintage delicate feel without being too "stuffy" you know? Let's face it..if I'm going to do fancy quilting, it's going to be in big plain areas where it will show. It's the same reason I don't generally stitch in the ditch either by hand or by machine....I want it to show! :c) So here you go...

I've got a fire burning in my wood stove here in the basement studio. Toasty warm! It was 28 degrees when we went out for the hotwater tap.....I have no desire to go out there again, I just can't get into gear when my FEET are cold! And if you think that's funny, just wait until I fly to Wyoming mid January for the Windy City Quilt Festival in Casper! Doesn't that just sound....balmy? :cD I'm bringing my warmest slippers!

Miles of Binding To Go!

If children have "visions of sugarplums" dancing in their heads...I've got miles of binding dancing in mine!

Bring on the "Home Alone" Marathon! I'm ready! Bring on Holiday Inn and White Christmas...I'm ready!

These are the 3 projects that have come off the machine so far.

First up? the Blue Lady of the Lake variation. I've loved this one for a long time, but you know what? that border was REALLY woooooeyyy....This top is at least 7 to 8 years old. I've learned a lot in that time frame....I quilted it with a floraly kind of design that took oodles of thread and I don't know how many bobbins to do. It took 45 minutes for one pass of the machine, and about 2 days for me to quilt it. Way too dense of quilting for my liking, but hey, I'm still learning.

I'm loading a 4th...the Old Kentucky Album top that was just featured in the latest Quiltmaker Magazine. what you saw there was just the TOP..so now, I think I'm going to quilt it with the baptist fans. I LOVE fans, you know I do, and look how cool they look on this quilt!!

This quilt doesn't even have a name! It was a shop sample that I made before I left Texas I believe. Again...really wide borders and wasn't inspired to do anything in them really. I LOVE the fans.

Funny thing is....I can't put the red binding on this quilt, until I get the Old Kentucky Album one going as well! I think having a quilt running in the machine is just like leaders & enders. You have to have something there so your time is being used in the way it should. Or something like that.

This little ditty was the first. Stephanie from my guild in Columbia gave me a bag that had all these ENDS of pieced panels...you know how it is? You can get so many sections cut from a pieced panel, but what do you do with the odd ends? I made this Kaleidoscope top with them years ago as well. There are orientals and batiks and some others in it. There is one piece of oriental fabric that I just love..it has a waving white kitty that reminds me of Oscar! He only appears in that one section of the quilt. Fun. The orange binding was sent to me from a friend knowing I loved orange,it was what was left over after she used one of my patterns. So it was fun to use it as the binding on this quilt.

On the kitchen remodel....well...the guy just left from doing all the planing work to level the cabinets. It's nearly Christmas, so I won't be able to get the granite installed now until next week...maybe the week after because of New Years? Oh well..it will get done.

Jason and Kim can't make it for Christmas, he has to be to work early the day after, and it's just not worth it for that long of a drive up here. Besides, I'm not cooking! No counters, no sink, right? So...Sounds like the Hunters will be hitting the Fire Mountain All You Can Eat Buffet for Christmas this year! (And you know what? I'm fine with that since there are only 3 of us anyway!)

Happy Christmas Eve, everyone!

Dear Santa!!

Thank you, Santa for finally giving me a way to clone myself when I didn't think there was a way I could carry on and get it all done!

The Compu-Quilter has been a life saver! Since last (a week ago) Tuesday I have completed the quilting part on 2 quilts, and the 3rd is 3/4 done. In true clone fashion, today I was able to sew, press, attach a binding to the big 106" square blue/white lady of the lake quilt while the third one was happily being quilted on the machine AT. THE. SAME. TIME.

I am a convert! Oh sure, I'll still do a lot of freehand feathers here and there. I love them, and it's easier to freehand that puppy in there than to resize and rotate, but for all the other nifty things this machine can do.....

Thank you thank you thank you, Santa for putting a new spark in my life long love of quilting and making me a very very happy little girl this Christmas!!

I promise to be really really good.....so that next year you can send me something that will cook, clean, vaccuum and do laundry (not to mention fold it and put it away too) for me, deal? :cD

And if THAT is too much to ask...I'll settle for a machine that can bind these quilts by itself instead! ;c)

Love,

My Wish For You...

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

What a year it has been....and what a year we have coming!

I'm trying not to think about the (*&#@$(*& filthy animal who rear ended me, hit and run style, on Peters Creek Parkway about an hour ago. It just brings me down how someone can just up and take off as soon as I got out of the car to assess the damage!

Luckily it wasn't much. could have been worse.....and I'll even refrain from wishing it was worse on his car than it was on mine!!! Cuz....it's Christmas DANGIT! *feeble smiles*

Maybe my mood is NOT that down, because they opened a BRAND NEW Goodwill complete with Clearance Center on Peters Creek Parkway, and not even a hit and run from behind could wipe this smile off my face!!!!

Okay, so I only bought a couple shirts and a pair of XL pajama pants...all 100% cotton for cutting up for quilting! Throw in 2 blouses for me, and a pair of jeans, and a bill of less than $5 and I'm happy!

Part 7, The Big Finish!!

You can get to part 7 HERE!

You know, with the snow storm that came through, I completely missed my opportunity to take any decent OUTSIDE pictures! and this is a big quilt. I was able to put it on the rack in my sunroom, which is NOT heated and was more like an ice box than a sun room at this point!

So here you see the front......and the back! The hanging sleeve is even made from the left over cut off parts of the backing after the quilt was quilted.....


I really REALLY love the back! Yes, it could have been a whole nuther quilt, but how many big Christmas quilts does one girl need? And this will travel alot better, two for one. I was happy to find a home for the house blocks that didn't fit in the "Welcome Home" quilt either. And you know what? I used lots LESS of the Christmas fabric I originally thought I'd find a home for too, so guess what...it can wait til next year!

It's been fun working on this with the snow falling outside the past couple of days. We've got the new wood stove fireplace insert installed and upstairs is toasty warm!



This has been a really fun mystery to run for ya'll....how bout we do it again, same time next year? :cD

Compu-Quilting!

I feel like a little kid on new skates for the first time, afraid to let go of the rail!

I'm now loading an older quilt top I finished years ago, and I'm going to quilt a simple pantograph on it. The thing that scares me the most? Broken threads & running out of bobbin! I'm so used to being able to just grab that machine by the handles and moving it off, or moving it back and starting where I left off, and now it all has to be directed by where I set the computer and it's a bit frustrating right now.

At the same time, it has put new life in my desire to continue long arm quilting as I go into 15 years of long arming. 1995 can't really be that long ago, can it? I guess it can!

I'm working on the directions for the pieced border for Carolina Christmas. It's about 1/2 done....I hope to get it uploaded by this evening, as last evening just didn't happen! My thoughts here are....get the quilt quilting, and in between, work on the pages for the border. Can I really multi-task this?


On top of everything else, we've been pounded with snow and it is sure beautiful out there! The sun is coming out, just making everything sparkle. Yes, it feels like Christmas in the Carolinas!