Evening Edition! Free Kindle Book!

And the long road home….I drove and drove, getting home about 3pm.

I unloaded the car….stuff is in piles everywhere and totes and luggage need to be unpacked and laundry attended to.

I left it all ---and took a nap in my own bed that beckoned --- the ceiling fan whirling silently on medium speed, creating just enough of a house-bound breeze to require sleeping with just the sheet in this summer heat.

I woke up about 5:30, finding my afternoon gone!

A simple supper of grilled cheese and tomato soup was decided upon, and here I sit – trying to make my way through snail mail that has piled up over the past 18 days I’ve been gone.

It’s going to take a lot of digging to get out from under!

I only made a couple of stops on my way home – could you guess that I was just wanting to GET HERE? Those photos will come tomorrow. Right now, my phone is dumping over 900 photos taken on this past 18 day jaunt onto my external harddrive so I can edit today’s pics down tomorrow.

Let’s face it. It’s been a LONG trip, even as great as it was – and I don’t feel like editing photos tonight. I want to park my butt on the couch and watch the olympics and do NOTHING ---all the busy stuff can happen TOMORROW!

But for those who would rather read than watch, I did find something to download that you might like:

Keeping the Peace by Hannah Hooton is free tonight in the Amazon Kindle Store.

Genre: Drama/Romance

Book Description:

London waitress, Pippa Taylor has no interest in horses or country-living. But when she inherits Peace Offering, a hopeless racehorse, she embarks on a career change in order to see her late uncle’s wish to run him in the Grand National come true.

But having talked her way into a job as racing secretary to champion National Hunt trainer, Jack Carmichael and moved to the West Country, Pippa finds herself faced with more daunting obstacles than even the Grand National can throw at her.

The most challenging of them all is her relationship with her new boss.

Jack, although easy on the eye, is moody and fiery-tempered and certainly not easy on the ear. After a Christmas they would both rather forget, danger and deception threaten Pippa’s life in the country and as her time at Aspen Valley Racing Stables draws to its conclusion she discovers Peace Offering is not the only thing she must fight to keep.

Check to be sure it’s still free before you download…..and have a great evening!

Midnight Flight Fun!

This picture comes with a special hello to our friend-in-common, Darlynn!

One of the marvelous things about being a quilter is that whole 6 degrees of separation thing. Have you heard of that?

Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of "a friend of a friend" statements can be made, on average, to connect any two people in six steps or fewer.

Or in other words, I know someone who knows someone else who knows another person, etc ---who knows you, and through them, we know each other!

I met Darlynn when I taught for their guild retreat up in Madison, Wisconsin a few years ago. But it turns out we’ve got other quilters in other places in common too – because Darlynn used to live in Georgia, and that is where I originally met this sweet lady, who also knows Darlynn!

You might remember me mentioning Darlynn because she joined us in Sun River Oregon for the Sisters Quilt Show a few weeks ago ((Has it only been that long? It feels longer!))

So from Wisconsin to Oregon to Georgia to Williamsburg --- there was a whole lot of connection going on!

This is another block that can boggle the mind, and it is so easy to turn triangles the wrong way!

Midnight Flight was found in Volume 5 of 100 blocks – copies are still available from the Quiltmaker.com website.

Spirits were high as we sewed our brains out ----and since it was our last day, we were treated to a cheesecake table at 2:30pm for treats – just what we need to keep our energy up---CHEESECAKE! LOL!

Lucky for us, the cheese cake table was right outside our classroom door! Really, the Hospitality House Hotel and Conference Center here in Williamsburg has done a fantabulous job behind the scenes for us. The staff is friendly and helpful, the rooms are spacious, the food was really good…..I’d come back here to stay in a heartbeat!

Here’s our photos from yesterday’s class:

		Midnight Flight, Williamsburg 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

So --- I did what I said I’d do. I slept with no alarm clock. I wanted to sleep a bit longer and wake up by myself and get this day going. Guess what? I slept in maybe only 15 minutes longer than if I had set my alarm? I guess you just can’t fool a body clock!

Several local ladies told me that I should go home via the Jamestown Ferry – that it is a cool thing to do, good photo op, so I may head out that way. It’s about a 6 hour drive home for me – who knows how long it will take! There are some neat historic areas to drive through, but many of the places I’d usually stop may be closed on Sunday.

Time to pack it all up, load it all into Shamu and point this girl homeward!

Our Farewell Supper!

You know that kind of high you feel when you’ve completed something really big --- when it’s been pulled off without a noticeable hitch ---when new friendships have been formed and continuing friendships strengthened in every area?

This is how I feel tonight! We had such a great time, all of us as instructors ---from the Quiltmaker Magazine Staff, to those of us who have participated in the magazine and were asked to be instructors for this very first of what I hope is many Quiltmaker Block Party retreats!

There was talk and discussion of how we all felt it went ---where we would like to maybe see this take place in the future…what locations? What time of the year? How to fit it in with existing schedules? Will any of us have our paths cross in our teaching travels in the near future so we can get together? I hope so!

We all left the hotel about 5:45pm after class was over and various boxes and bags and quilts and cases were emptied out of classrooms, loaded into our cars or prospective hotel rooms.

Weary and exhilarated at the same time, we walked out of the covered entry way, and out into the balmy Williamsburg August evening air for a 15 minute walk to The Trellis where we enjoyed a YUMMY dinner and animated conversation.

We did it! This event has been hanging on the horizon for a long time ---and we did it!

I hope you can tell by the picture how happy we are ---the only one missing is me, I’m taking the picture.

Tomorrow morning I start my journey home….that is AFTER I sleep til I wake with no alarm to buzz me.

Thanks, Quiltmaker! It’s been wonderful and I can’t wait to do this again!

I also can’t wait to play with the set of rulers given to me personally by Monique Dillard of Open Gate. She is such a sweet lady, and I really enjoyed getting to know her!

Right side of the table: Carolyn McCormick, Debbie Caffrey, Nancy Mahoney, Linda Howell.

Left Side of the table: June Dudley, Monique Dillard, Diane Harris

Not pictured: Me, Jennifer Chiaverini who left eary to go home, and Carolyn Beam who’s hubby arrived in town this afternoon and they were off enjoying an evening alone together. ((How romantic!))

Travel home safe, girls – let’s do it again!

iPhone-o-Gram! Midnight Flight Morning!

Day three at Quiltmaker's Block Party is Midnight Flight!

Some of the ladies are repeats from other classes we've had this week but many are new!

It's really fun to see what fabrics and colors they are pulling together and how great their blocks and quilts are going to be!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's slide shoe--all we've amassed at this point is a handful of four patches and a bunch if half square triangles.

After lunch we mi e on to diamond in a rectangle type units and block quarters will start coming together!

Winston Ways in Williamsburg!

SEW MANY FOUR PATCHES!

It’s like

Death-by-four-patches!

But there is something really soul centering about sewing pairs of scrappy red and neutral strips through the machine…choosing and matching and slicing and dicing and rearranging and sewing back together into the little 2” finished four patches we were working on.

Sew them all uniformly, spin the seams all in the same direction, they all automatically oppose seams when placed side by side by side.

Four-patch awesomeness!

Throw in a mess of half square triangles, along with a lot of trading to build more variety, and our blocks were taking on a life and personality all their own!

I have to chuckle at those who signed up for Winston Ways AND signed up for Midnight Flight ---because….tada….two of the units are the same, the 4 patch production and the half square triangles – so they will have everything I have said drummed into their heads for two days straight!

And I love spending time with them all. We had whoops and cheers of joy from one quilter when her half square triangles were turning out straight and measuring correctly –with NO SLIVER TRIMMING DOWN! Those are the best exciting moments.

The same goes for the quilter whose 4 patch strip set measured a true 2.5” and not 2-3/8”!

It’s the cutting AND the sewing that work together to give us the sizes of units we need. Remember not to skimp on the width of your strips when cutting!

These blocks were not for the faint of heart --- there are 104 pieces in each 12” block – and last night at the show and tell after Jennifer Chiaverini spoke, they proudly stood and showed off their beautiful blocks…..I may be a little bit biased, but I do think that my classes had the best blocks to show and share!

Class instruction also included some demos on how I sew my blocks with the rows of each block being chained, or webbed together. We spend a lot of time making sure that the triangles are turning the right way --- don’t mess it up in the assembly! Chaining them keeps them from getting out of order for me.

The pic at the top of this post shows two gals with their blocks webbed together, ready to sew those rows to complete each block!

Here’s what we got up to in class:

		Winston Ways, Williamsburg VA 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Today’s Midnight Flight class is the perfect ending to our first ever Quiltmaker’s Block Party ----stay tuned for more info on our next one to be held this coming spring in the Pacific Northwest! As details unfold I’ll let you know…

Have a great weekend everyone!