Saturday Night, Live!!

((From Des Moines!))

An email in my in-box asked in a panicked tone if everything was all right with me since I hadn’t posted since Thursday night, the night of my arrival in Storm Lake for the Quilters Gathering with the Iowa Quilters Guild.

WHAT a whirlwind. I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten you all, I haven’t. And it isn’t that I didn’t want to post…I posted Thursday morning before I left North Carolina, I posted Thursday night,upon my arrival in Storm Lake, thinking that post would suffice as a Friday morning post since it came around midnight Iowa time, which was technically about 1am NORTH CAROLINA time….so really it was….a FRIDAY POST, right? ;c)

It’s been NON STOP here. NON STOP QUILTERS going full speed ahead, running on all cylinders.

My Friday went like this: Up at 5:45 am so that I could go walk the lake with Amy and her mom, Kathy. ((Which is funny, because there were about 14 Kathy’s in attendance this weekend and I kept getting them confused ))

Isn’t this morning view beautiful? We could only go for an hour because breakfast started at 7:30am. There are beautiful parks along the lake shore, and I loved the little statue gathering at the top pic of the blog today. Isn’t that pretty?

I love lakes….Being a Minnesota girl put lakes in my blood I guess. And this lake was just so peaceful and serene.

A quick shower ((OOPS! no hair dryer!)) and a quicker breakfast set us on our way to our class rooms across the campus. We were full both days of classes…and a greart time was had by all.

I have pics of the class projects, but those are going to have to wait to be edited a bit.

Friday went like this:

I went from a class that got out at 4pm straight to setting up for my lecture/trunkshow in another building between 4 pm and 5pm so that I could make it to dinner at 5:30 pm so we could be there at 7pm to greet those who were filling the lecture hall who were already sitting outside the locked doors waiting for their seats when I got there. The lecture and show and tell started at 7:30pm.

By the time show and tell was over ((FABULOUS QUILTS! WOW!!!)) and I gave my trunk show, and finished with a book signing…..it was 10:30pm as we were packing up and heading back to the dorms!

Of course, we couldn’t go RIGHT to bed, there was a birthday party going on across the hall! So what’s a girl to do but join in? :c)

It was midnight by the time I got back to my room and I tried to upload a blog post but couldn’t get an internet connection in my dorm with the wireless air card, nor would it work this morning.

Not that I had time to DO it this morning!! I was supposed to meet Amy and Kathy back at the door to walk this morning as well at 6am, but I didn’t wake up til 6:30 --- I missed my alarm, my phone was still on silent from the night before..LOL. It’s okay. I needed the extra 45 minutes of sleep?

Today was a repeat….Breakfast, workshop, lunch ((And a trip to the quilt shop)) back to the workshop, pack up to leave by 4pm and drive 3 hours back to Des Moines…..

I’m POOPED. Seriously. I’m staying the night with a Guild member in Des Moines, and I’m writing this quickly just to let you know I’m okay ((Thank you for your concern, really!)) and I’m going to bed!

My flight heads home tomorrow afternoon, so I might find time to write another post before I go……so technically…if I wrote friday’s post thursday night, and it’s still saturday as I write and post this…I reallly DIDN’T miss a day, did I?? Why does it feel like I still did!!

Night night All!

Hello, Storm Lake!

It’s been a busy busy travel day, but I’m happy to say there have been ALMOST no hiccups!

I left Greensboro around 11:30am --- I even saw Horace at his shoe shine booth and he said thanks for the post card, that it made his day. That really set my day off with a smile!

The plane was actually early getting into Chicago O’Hare, and it was a beautiful day to fly over lake Michigan --- I love that view as we are nearing the airport and you go over miles and miles of water and finally see the shore and all the buildings…flying over beaches and streets and cars….

I had enough of a layover to wander around, stretch my legs, get some lunch, find my gate…and off to Des Moines we went!

I met Joan as I came toward the baggage claim area, and as we waited for my luggage, things seemed to be right on schedule…

One quilt bag showed up, then my suitcase with my clothes….and……and…..we wait…..and….

No second quilt bag! ((!!!))

Off to the United baggage claim desk we go, to have the gal scan my bag claim checks --- and she said…”well…they’ve all been checked in! Are you sure you don’t have them?” NO! ONE IS MISSING! ((Can you hear the panic in my voice about this time? I’m thinking…okay…how do we do HALF a trunk show, and which bag was it that had the class samples in it?!))

She said…”Well…we show that they were all checked in at the same time.” So…it can’t walk away right? It has to be BACK there. She gets on her radio thing, leaves us and goes searching.

About 10 minutes later, this big guy comes carrying the bag, and having a hard time hauling it! LOL!! I’m sure he was wondering what the heck was IN it for one thing. It must have gotten one of the D rings hung up on the belt and it had fallen off in the back somewhere. So it wasn’t folded up the way I usually fly with them…it was full flat out.

BUT IT IS HERE! And huge sighs of relief from both Joan and I!

As soon as we were in the car I asked her where we could find a Culvers! I was in desperate need of a butter burger and a frozen custard at this point..and I was told that there would be one about 1/2 way to Storm Lake. Okay. Half way is about 85 miles. I can do that.

Miles and miles and miles and miles of farms…and BARNS! With QUILT BLOCKS on them! I am in heaven---it was really a beautiful peaceful drive, and the time flew by quickly.

We pulled into Culvers and I just had to take this photo..I was laughing so hard. You pull right up to…..

Our front bumper was just about TOUCHING this corn…LOL! You must be in Iowa if your Culver’s parking lot backs up to a CORN FIELD!

But the burger did not disappoint either, and I took this little ditty to GO!

Chocolate Almond..Oh Baby!!

((I’ll pay for it in the morning, because I’ve got to meet Amy and her mom at 6am to go power walk along the lake!))

So where am I? Buena Vista University!

This is the location for a Quilters weekend with the Iowa Quilt Guild! There will be two days of classes, and my lecture/trunk show tomorrow night. FUN!

We are staying in the dorms…..my dorm suite has 3 bedrooms, and I’ve got roomies in the other rooms! And….They are SEWING!!

I walked in to find my roomie all set up and ready to go:

As for me….it’s past 11pm East Coast time as I write this….6am is going to come early for that lake walk/jog ---and even if she sews all night, I doubt I’ll hear a thing!

OH, and this is fun……one of my flight attendants was SO interested in my hexagon project today, I showed her how to do it, and gave her links to english paper piecing and hexagon patchwork so she can start a project of her own! She said she needs a project when she travels and is tired of crosswords, paperback books and sudoku puzzles ;c) We might have another hexagon addict in the near future!  ((I do what I can to promote quilt addiction wherever I go, thank you very much!!)) :cD

Night All!

It’s a Show & Tell Thursday!

This morning I’m off on a journey to Storm Lake,Iowa!

I’m Spending a few HOT July Days with the Iowa Quilter’s Guild and we plan to stay OUT of the heat, stay in and SEW! We’ve got a Pineapple Blossom Workshop on Friday, a lecture and trunkshow on Friday night, and a My Blue Heaven workshop on Saturday.

I’ll be picked up about 4pm in Des Moines, and then I’ll be seeing plenty of corn Beautiful Iowa Scenery on our 170 mile drive all the way to Storm Lake!

170 miles?!? When I looked on the map, it didn’t look THAT far!

I mean, I take THIS many turns to get from my house to the grocery store…and it’s only 3.5 miles! I can already say for Iowa --- you have very straight roads, and no diagonal short cuts to get from here to there..LOL Does this remind you of your old etch-a-sketch? It does me!

Never fear, I’ll have hexagons to keep me company all the way. And lots of corn scenery to keep me company! :cD

I’m hoping the weather holds out…I just did some checking and whooooooeeee! Thunderstorms. Let’s hope everything goes well! I’ve got the trunk show quilts wrapped in plastic just in case! Looks like the rain could be the thing that breaks the heat wave that the Midwest has been dealing with this week.

So onto our Show and Tell Thursday, shall we? It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these, and I think it’s time!

Today’s special guest is Andi L!

Andi sent me a few emails with her pictures attached and they are so bright and colorful I’d just love to share them here with you.

A bit of background from Andi:

I grew up in Italy and Germany, came to the US for college and, like many others, never left :-)

I'm a working mother of two, a 9-year old boy and a 7-year old girl, and live in the suburbs of Boston.

When my first child was born, I stopped working and took up home dec sewing as a hobby (I had never seen a sewing machine before in my life). Soon after, a friend bought me a book about quilting, and after that, I was hooked. That was in 2004.

Several years and projects later, a local quilter (who was working on Cathedral Stars at the time) told me about your website. I read your Scrap Users' System and knew this was the solution I had been looking for for my scraps.

Thanks to your system, I have completed most of the mysteries you have published, all with fabrics already in my stash. I have made several of your other quilt patterns as well without buying one piece of fabric. I have applied your concept of 'if I run out of one fabric, I substitute another' to almost every quilt I have made since then. At this point, I have friends who drop off large bags of their scraps on my door step, knowing that I will find a good home for them! :-)

Here is Andi’s Christmas Lights quilt! She writes:

In your quilt, you used one red for the hourglass block and one green for the star points- I didn't have yardage, so I used scraps and strips. Believe it or not, initially I worried this might be 'too scrappy'. Then I looked at the quilt from 10 feet away and could see that it was actually very cohesive. In fact, it looked great - so, I'm glad I took the plunge and used up my green and red scraps.

Andi has been a glutton for punishement for a long time….she’s also got a gorgeous Double Delight! ((I can’t get enough pink, can you?!)) About this quilt she says:

My friend Christine and I each made this quilt. It was a lot of work, but it was soooo worth it. This quilt sits on my bed right now :-)

And here is her Oklahoma Backroads, hanging over a wall railing! What I love about scrappy multicolored quilts, is that you can pull ANY color out of the center, use that for your border, and that is the color that takes over. Did you notice how she also did her block corners in orange so that those big red squares really become a design element? Great quilt, Andi!

Andi writes:

When I laid the blocks out on my design wall, I found my eyes needed a resting point - so I made two opposing corner squares of each block from the same fabric (orange).

This is one of my favorite scrap patterns of all time! It uses EVERYTHING! This is Scrappy Trips, and if you don’t believe me that even hideous fabrics can look good….GIVE it a TRY! All of these patterns are free on my website!

Andi’s comments:

My daughter wanted me to make her a quilt and picked several strips from my 2" bin - when I sewed them together to make the first block, the combination of fabrics looked so good, I knew I had to make more blocks right away. As I kept going, no matter what fabrics I pulled, they all looked great in that block setting - I just could not go wrong! This quilt took less than a week to make, quilting and binding included. The backing was pieced out of scraps - it looks like a quilt in its own right.

How about a close up of some of Andi’s fabrics?

The more you throw in, the more you mix it up, the better it looks! Anything Goes!

Here is her wonderful Carolina Crossroads quilt! Andi says:

Once again, a lot of work, but it makes my top 3 quilts in terms of how much joy making the quilt brought me. This was a fantastic project!!!

I love the quilting on this one…and the gorgeous colors of the fabrics. It is just scrumptious! But you know how I feel about orange, right? ;cD YUMMY!

Thanks for sharing your quilts, Andi! They are terrific..((And I bet they didn’t barely make a dent in the scraps either, am I right!?))

Happy Thursday, Everyone!

Evening Edition–Free Kindle Book!

I’m packing like a crazy woman ready to head out for Iowa in the morning!

My kindle is charged and ready to go! And because I am such a fiend for free books ((Yes I have more downloaded than I will probably be able to read in the next 3 years or so!)) I just added this one!

One O’clock Jump-- The first title in the Dorie Lennox series by Lise McClendon.

Book Description:

Dorie Lennox, an operative for a PI in Kansas City during the early days of World War II, tails a bargirl for a possibly mob-connected client. Dorie's prey flings herself off a bridge, but the client wants to continue the case. A ransacked room and personal threats galvanize Dorie to action, especially when the client's jealous wife apparently receives a call from the dead jumper, whom Dorie had viewed in the morgue. A convincing re-creation of time, place, and a hard-nosed, emotionally scarred heroine; for all collections.

Sounds fun?! I think so!

Usual disclaimer: I have no affiliation other than I love my kindle! Please double check to be sure the price is still free when you go to click it, prices can change without notice.

Enjoy!

Callous Control!

In an effort to move and cover things in the living room, to prepare for the sanding that is about to commence in the sun room, I moved a stack of quilts --- and felt a guilty pang and a longing for simply sitting and doing some hand quilting.

My poor old Jane Stickle quilt variation called “In The Pink” has sat and sat and sat since winter, because it has been too hot ((Or I’ve been too busy)) to sit at it!

We had a storm roll through last evening, loud thunder booming, rain pounding, wind blowing---and I turned my back on my quilting room in the basement, and settled in for a long evening with some Law & Order, some Criminal Minds – my thimble, needle, and thread. It was a great evening for hand quilting the lazy curves of Baptist fans across these little blocks.

I shared a picture of my progress on the Quiltville facebook page last night…and some questions were raised!

Missy Asked:

Missy, it depends on the quilt. Many quilts don’t need marking at all…if I’m cross hatching through squares or doing straight lines, I can either aim and shoot, or use 1/4” masking tape as a guide. If I’m doing 1/4” outlining within the patch, I don’t mark at all, I just eye ball it.

There is a tutorial on free-hand fans up in the tutorial tab at the top of the blog, but this quilt is more formal feeling, so I am using a template for larger graceful even fans, and a small chalk wheel to mark. If you are going to mark at all, be sure that you mark lightly and that the marks will come out.

There is a lot of controversy on blue pens. If I use them, I mark as I go, and spritz with water to remove marks as soon as I am done quilting that area. I don’t use the purple disappearing ones, can’t trust them! And in this humidity, they are gone too fast! LOL!

I've also been asked why the binding is on the quilt already.

I don't bind the edge UNLESS I am quilting from the outside in, as with doing baptist fans. Fans go from the outside edge, working in toward the center, so once I've done the first round around the quilt edge, I bind. It gets rid of that batting mess and protects the edge of the quilt. You DO have to baste really REALLY well when doing this method --- because quilting from the outside in can push excess fullness into the center, and you don't want that -- not ever! BASTE BASTE BASTE! I baste by longarm machine, doing a super huge meander with a fairly long stitch so it is easy to remove as I hand quilt.

Joan Asked:

These are the 4.5” finished blocks from the Jane Stickle quilt drafted by Brenda Papadakis in her book Dear Jane. This is my 2nd Dear Jane quilt – I was teaching the blocks at a local shop around 2003, and I needed class samples, so a second quilt was started. I changed up the setting by doing the quilt in only 3 colors ((Pink, brown, and one shirting print background)) and drafted the storm at sea sashings and cornerstones to fit the blocks. It finishes about 100” square, so I decided NOT to add the pieced triangles ((They wouldn’t fit right anyway because of the addition of the sashing))

Here’s the first one! It hangs on the wall behind my longarm machine…I used black for the sashings and the alternate triangles. I made the sashing wider because I wanted to use it on a bed ((The original quilt is NOT that big….)) and that meant I had to add a strip around each triangle in the border to make them fit the quilt. It was a challenge!

I started it in 1999, and if you want to read more about it…you can go HERE!

I can’t believe it’s been that long – but time flies, you know?

Here’s a close up of the hand quilting on that one…at the time I started it there WERE not that many Civil War type fabrics, and I just dug through my scraps for anything that looked “old fashioned” that was the color I wanted. These are the scraps that have come through MY quilting life, you know --- so each one is a memory of another quilt I made along my own journey.

And since we were talking quilt marking at the beginning of this post….I used a chalk pencil to mark my feathers on the black fabric…..and I quilted in the black areas with red thread! Why not! I’ve always been just a “bit” of a renegade :c) You can see the faint remnants of the chalk still left as I was finishing the scalloped binding.

I know so many quilters who WON’T start this quilt because they worry over their own lack of perfection. BE SERIOUS!! If you saw the original quilt ((I have, it hung in Houston and I was instantly in love….mid 90’s before Brenda’s book came out)) you’d see that Jane’s work wasn’t perfect either. Her blocks were not even all the same size! Just do it. I learned so much from sewing these little blocks!

I’ll be teaching at the Vermont Quilt Festival next year --- and I am so hoping that I can spend some time with Jane Stickle's quilt again ---

And on to Pam’s Assumption!

I used regular “cut it out with a template” machine piecing and hand piecing – I used "rotary methods" to simply cut and machine piece some blocks. I used paper piecing, needle turn applique, reverse applique, any thing I could come up with to get these blocks done. Some of the machine piecing required set in “y” seams. Some of the blocks I redrafted to work with the paper piecing or other techniques. It really makes you use your brain to how YOU are going to accomplish the task. These quilts have been my greatest teacher ever---

((And in answer to your question, I think that hand pieced quilts CAN be machine quilted, and machine pieced quilts CAN be hand quilted! Anything goes!))

So back to our title of “Callous Control!!” One thing that a hand quilter never ever EVER wants to do is LOSE her callouses! And over the past several months while this has sat idle…I lost mine! Which means, that after about 4 hours of hand quilting bliss last night, my fingers are sore on my “under hand”. I think I over quilted last night! So – I might have to just piece hexagons instead this evening.

And before you tell me that there are “under things” like sticky tabs and under thimbles and stuff that helps….I’ve tried it all. Nothing serves me as well as a good quilting callous. I have to feel the tip of the needle as it comes through to get the stitch I want – believe me…I’ve tried!

Evening Edition, Free Kindle Book!

Innocent Monster, by Reed Farrel Coleman, is free in the Kindle store today, courtesy of Adams Media.

At first I wasn’t sure of the title, as I am not one who does monsters, vampires or super heros or much sci fi ((What does that leave me? Mysteries and intrigue and some romance on occasion…and always looking for humor!)) But I did stop to read the description, and I think it’s worth a go!

Book Description:

Seven years have passed since the brutal murder that tore Moe Prager's family apart and it's been six years since Moe's brushed the dust off his PI license. But when his estranged daughter Sarah comes to him with a request he cannot refuse, Moe takes a deep breath and plunges back into the icy, opaque waters of secrets and lies. Sashi Bluntstone, an eleven-year-old art prodigy and daughter of Sarah's dearest childhood friend, has been abducted. Three weeks into the investigation, the cops have gotten nowhere and the parents have gotten desperate. Desperation, the door through which Moe Prager always enters, swings wide open. Just as in Sashi's paintings, there's much more to the case than one can see at a glance.

With the help of an ex-football star, Moe stumbles around the fringes of the New York art scene, trying to get a handle on where the art stops and the commerce begins. Much to Moes surprise and disgust, he discovers that Sashi is, on the one hand, revered as a cash cow and, on the other, reviled as a fraud and a joke. Suspects abound beyond the usual predators and pedophiles, for it is those closest to Sashi in life who have the most to gain from her death. Cruel ironies lurk around every corner, beneath every painting, and behind every door. Almost nothing is what it seems.

Beware the innocent monster, for it need not hide itself and it lives closely among us: sometimes as close as the mirror.

Reed Farrel Coleman's mysteries starring Moe Prager have won or been nominated for many of the crime fiction world's biggest awards, including the Edgar, the Shamus, the Barry, and the Anthony. The Moe Prager mysteries were named as part of Maureen Corrigan's Best Books of 2009.

It’s got 5 stars! So SOME people are liking it! As always, double check when you click that it is still free, because things that are offered for free can change without warning ----

Happy reading!

It’s a CIRCUS around here!

Yesterday the guys showed up to finally sheet rock in our sun room! COVER up that eye sore mess of insulation and old broken wall board from the remodel and removal of the heinous sky lights that always leaked!

I have never been so happy to see someone pull in my driveway in my life. Okay, that’s an overstatement, but you get the idea. We’d been dealing with this BAD ROOM since the day we moved in.

In walks our contractor…and a couple of guys to do the drywall….and hammers were flying, and dust was swirling and really, it didn’t take long at all and things looked so much better already!

And before I knew it…they were ALL gone….and I thought that was “IT” for the day, that they’d be back the next day --- but here he comes again, with a different crew this time, a couple short little guys who were here to mud and tape and do all that sort of thing.

And I really got a huge smile on my face when I popped upstairs to see how things were going…and spied this:

Do you see this little guy on STILTS?!? AMAZING! I wanted to try them…lol! It reminded me of the time when I was little and we made “stilts” out of old coffee cans and strapped them to our feet….fun. And I think he could run a marathon in these things! I’d probably fall over in 10 seconds flat.

His buddy, up there on the scaffolding, could MOVE the scaffolding simply by shimmying side to side to side to get it to roll with his own momentum. Another acquired skill I am sure, I would have tipped the whole thing over.

So --- needless to say --- yesterday was fairly hectic around here, workers coming in and out, and me trying to get the pattern directions written for the Cruise that is happening in August….COMING SOON! I’m so happy to say that it is FINISHED and will be mailed out to my cruisers on August 1st. Get ready girls!

I finished the binding, hanging sleeve and label on the quilt for the German magazine last night also….

Here’s the back, hanging on my stand outside! I admit, my photography isn’t great, and if they don’t like the photo, I’m going to just have to pack the quilt up and send it off to Heidelberg or wherever—but I’m hoping it doesn’t have to leave me. Can you see the gently scalloped edge?

I even made the hanging sleeve out of the trimmed off left over backing! We use it ALL, baby!

I have had SO many questions asking me how to keep the whole thing centered, do I worry about block parts being chopped off or uneven in the quilting/trimming process. Does it look like I keep it centered or worry about chopping off bits? ;c) NO!! And that's the fun thing about being RANDOM. Truly random does not mean "EQUIDISTANT" You can't spread things out evenly and call it random. I just make it big enough to do the job, and let the edges fall where they may.

It was a surprise when I had applied the binding, and then went to trim 1/4" past the binding seam to start to turn the binding to the back to hand stitch down ---just WHERE those curves had cut into! And I like it that way. To me it's more interesting this way, than it would have been to make a backing, frame it with a huge wide border simply so I could "attempt" to center it on the long arm ((which is nearly impossible anyway, those of you who long arm know that!)) and have everything perfectly symmetrical.

Did you ever do those tie-dye shirts or little picture canvases at the fair? They go into that spinner thing and you squeeze the dye or the paint and you don't know what it is going to turn out like, but you can't wait to see it? That's what piecing this back was like. I had no control over where the edges were going to be...I just went with it. It's fun! Try it! Give up control just a little bit, and see what wonderful things can happen.

Here’s a close up view! I was told that the Magazine should be released at the end of September – and they are sending me a few extra copies, so yes, we will be doing a giveaway when I get them in my hot little hands, so stay tuned! I know it’s a couple months away yet, but I know you can hang on that long!

Today more of the same will be going on around here. The workers should be back to sand and prep the room for painting. So I’ve gotta stick around. I’ve got today and tomorrow to prepare for my trip to Storm Lake Iowa on Thursday! This week is already flying by way too fast. I did my laundry at Randy’s before leaving to come home….and my suitcase is still sitting in my room packed. I’ll repack a few things for Iowa, but at this point I’m still living out of a suitcase!

My dream for today?? Kit up some of those cheddar bow ties! ((I linked the post up in the pattern tabs above at the top of the blog if you are looking for it)) I’ve seen scads of people just knocking them out like crazy and I haven’t had time to even cut into my cheddar yet! So….with any luck…I’ll get to press and cut and fondle and maybe piece some today. :c) Think I can use those as my leader/enders while I TRY to get some momentum going on my Floribunda? We’ll see!

Top to Bottom, Front to Back!

Yesterday in a round of silliness, we had a very funny discussion on our facebook Quiltville Friends Page!

My Question was--- If a Quilt TOP is called a TOP, why is the backing not called the BOTTOM? And the silliness got more hilarious from there…but my most favorite response of all came from Laura V who said:

“Is that like --Why do they call them control TOP panty hose when that's not what's in them?????”

<<<GUFFAWWW!!!>>>

Oh, how I love these Quilters! hehehehe!

And all of this came about because I went back and forth about really wanting to piece a backing from a stack of orphan blocks for the quilt for the German magazine, instead of just slapping some ole thing on there and calling it good. I mean --- Why use 6 yards of ONE THING --- When you can clear out a bunch of old stuff, have a great time doing it, and really make something one-of-a-kind wonderful, right?

In the end, the orphan block digging won out!

And I found myself on the floor, with a bin of stuff around me, digging for anything that would fit the color scheme of the quilt ---Mostly looking for Pinks & Purples, but those all seemed to come with Lime green attached…Which is okay by me. And it is also okay to throw in some blue and a bit of yellow, and well, you know how color just takes over in my world…so Here we go!

Here I’ve got the blocks assembled into rows down the length of the quilt. The rows aren't sewn together yet...I was just measuring to see how things would look. Was I big enough? I like to group “like things” together…for one thing, it helps that they are usually the same size as each other….so separating by style and size works for me.

Row 1….not quite enough blocks in that size to finish the row, but if I added fabric at each end it would work, and that excess fabric was the “over hang” that the backing needed anyway.

Row 2…started with that big tie-dye looking star…16.5”! So that set the size width for that column, and I set about making all the other odd blocks fit that 16” width.

Row 3….Well THIS was easy breezy beautiful! A whole row of orphan Scrappy Trips blocks! I thought I was setting them zig-zag fashion, but I screwed that up with the top two blocks…they are chaining the same direction. Did I want to pick it out? Nope! It stays!

Row 4….Someone had gifted me these batik star and 9 patch hour glass blocks, and the stars were not the same size as the hour glass blocks and needed trimming down, and I lost some points in the process, but it is a happy pink & purple mess --- and I like it!

Row 5…..a bit more of everything….and we sew it all together!

I needed to add a bit more to the sides to give me the excess backing width I needed….so here we are! Doesn’t this look fun?

And I turned it around so you could see the Top ((Or the Bottom, or the End of the Back, or the Bottom…you get the picture!)) Here:

I’m really happy with how it turned out and what I was able to use in here…and just because I was in a “Gotta get this stuff out of here” mode….I pieced the batting too! ((Though I don’t know which end is the Top, The Bottom, The Front, or The Back!))

Yeah, it’s a wrinkly mess, but it hung out over night to relax a bit more. That box of batting scraps is pretty much empty of everything bigger than placemat size! Maybe I SHOULD get into doing small quilts to use them up? ;c)

I can’t show the top just yet for this one --- When the Magazine is released I will. In the mean time, I’ve been having a lot of fun with a gently scalloped binding on it. LOVE this soft and subtle curved edge!

Pictures, Pictures!~

As things from the trip to Oregon settle in, there are more pictures that are exchanged via email with messages like “Love this one of you two!” “Thought you all looked so cute in this one!” “Sending these to you as well!”

And I’m happy to share them here, because they DID turn out so cute, and we had such a great time ((Are you tired of hearing all about it yet?))

I love this picture of Tonya and me in front of one of the Gees Bend quilts at the Stitchin’ Post! It’s just such a Tonya quilt to begin with…..it makes a great backdrop don’t you think?

I'm so proud of Tonya! Her book and quilts made with its inspiration are hanging all over the inside of the Stitchin Post! Way to go, Ton!

And this one….what is a Sisters Photo Op, without the wonderful old style buildings in the background? ((I'm already missing that blue blue Oregon blue sky!))

Yeah, and that’s my dorky hip bag! ((Thanks to Brit friends, I learned long ago NOT to call it a fanny pack!! LOL!)) I know it looks like I’m wearing a seat belt…but..I travel light! All it holds is my wallet, a chapstick, and an extra crystal light packet for my water--Fashion stops below the NECK as far as I am concerned ;c)

We only had a couple of hours to wander together and catch up because Ton’s caravan was headed back toward Seattle in short order---but we made the most of the time we had together and it was great seeing her in person again!

I also love this one of Lori, Randy and I in front of Randy’s “Sisters 9 patch” quilt! She was with me that first year that I saw the antique red and yellow top that sparked the desire to make that quilt as a leader/ender project in the first place. And it was SO FUNNY – I didn’t recognize it as HER quilt…I said “Oh look, SOMEONE made a Sisters 9 patch like the one in my book” LOL. It wasn’t until I read this label…..that…well…DUH!!

It was a very DUH moment, and I have to admit --- the older I get, the more frequent they become. You just have to laugh at yourself to get through it you know? A LOT!

Don’t we look blissfully quilted-out? This is one that Randy took….I don’t remember which day, but we were definitely high on quilt overload! And Lori, I’m still laughing at that bunch of lavender just hanging by the thread…it looks like it is floating in mid air…goofy!!!