Women of Grace & Charm Finished!

2003 – 2018.  About time!

I rediscovered this quilt top while pulling fabrics to help Mona assemble a back while she was here a couple of weeks ago.

Was it only a couple of weeks?  It seems like last month at least!

I so enjoyed the three days that she was here – we quilted up SIX of her projects!  Two large quilts and 4 small projects were then trimmed and made ready for binding so she could do that part at home.

And because I was SO in the mood to continue hearing the hum of the machine, I pulled this one out.

I always knew it would be great for the queen bed at the cabin SOME DAY – but with so many of my own quilts around, and fearing this one needed “Custom” quilting (that I didn’t have the time or desire to do with deadlines toward my own designs looming..) it had sat.  And sat.  And sat.

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November QuiltyBox Gift-Away in a Hurry!

Hurry Hurry!  November is almost over!

I returned home last evening to find my November Quilty Box sitting on the table beckoning me to OPEN, OPEN, OPEN!

And I did!

Oh my goodness!!  It’s got Tula Pink, a fun Clam Up zipper tote pattern, the beautiful zipper included that perfectly matches the fabric in this bundle!

Even the liner fabric is included – and I’m sure this will be enough to make MULTIPLE bags as gifts for family and friends.  Whoowhoooo!

And since November is ticking quickly away – we better get on this!

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The Last Days of November -

Things have turned incredibly cold!

All of those plans for hikes and vistas turned into “Let’s go to the movies and sit in the dark and eat copious amounts of popcorn followed by sodas bigger than our heads and send our sodium levels soaring to new heights!”

I don’t know about you – but anything below 40-something is just NOT something I enjoy getting out into.  Best tolerated from the inside with some hand quilting in my lap and a fire in the stove.

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Mystery Monday Link-Up and a Cyber Monday Sale!

Good Cyber Monday Morning, my friends!

This post comes with a warning – it’s going to be a long one as we’ve got a lot going on today. Grab a cup of your favorite and pull up a seat!

First things first – I have put another 500 PRE-ORDER copies of String Frenzy in the Quiltville Store.  Books are on the truck – they should be delivered this week and I will get in to filling orders in the orders that they were received as quickly as possible.  

Orders from today's 500 will be filled and posted as wave TWO – and it is likely 10 days to 2 weeks before that order filling will happen. 

Please remember you are placing a PRE-ORDER!  Orders are filled in the order that they came in and it could be that there are several hundred orders in front of yours being filled by yours truly.(With some help from some friends and family!)  I will do everything I can to get orders out as quickly as possible.

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A String Frenzy Trunk Show!

Happy Last Sunday of November!

I feel like we are doing this String Frenzy Trunk Show thing a little bit inside-out, but it was too much to post along with Friday’s mystery post – and Thanksgiving was in the mix, and let’s face it – the books are still on a truck and haven’t arrived here yet!

So once again I am flying by the seat of my britches and shoveling this in on Sunday, so we can do our first Mystery Monday Link-Up for our Good Fortune Mystery tomorrow!

I’ve loved writing this book.  I’ve loved even more – making the quilts for this book, and I know this isn’t the end of my own love affair with string quilts.  String quilts are just the most fun I have ever had in my quilting life, and there is no stopping this string piecing train.

To get the detail photos for this post, I had to go back to my google photo albums, back to September of 2017 when I was getting the quilts ready to send off to photography for my Quilter's Date Keeper.  This book writing thing takes a LONG TIME!

And so my friend - this is what you are going to find within the pages of String Frenzy.

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And What a Thanksgiving it Was!

Our Turkey Day Crew:

Rick, Mona, son Jeff, Dave, Me and Dad!

And yes – we were out in shirt sleeves – it was 50-something outside and sunny.

Last night as I went to bed there was ice falling from the sky – what a difference a couple of days makes. it has now warned UP to 35.  Oh boy!

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A Blessed Thanksgiving!

Found in West Jefferson, NC.

I took my dad on a little jaunt to Jefferson/West Jefferson North Carolina yesterday afternoon – there were a few odds and ends to pick up, and then we met with the rest of the family who were inbound from Winston Salem – deciding to have dinner at our favorite Mexican Place in Jefferson.

Only upon arrival we saw that they were CLOSED.  No worries – in the same plaza is The Winner’s Circle – and you can find just about everything you could ever wish for on their menu with portions so large you could feed a family of 4 on one platter.  No lie.  Half of it came home!

But before we ate – there was some time to kill.  We hit up an antique mall I love to frequent to just to see what holiday decorations may be out (not many) and with Dad in tow, I told him to just look around for anything that interested him.  “It’s like a museum where you can touch stuff!” I announced  as he headed over toward a display of vintage cameras, from old brownies to polaroids, and we talked about the technology of this long  out of date artifacts, the earlier versions of what is now found on our cell phones and live in our back pockets on a daily basis.  Can you imagine?

Some of them even had manuals still in their boxes – so much fun to look through.

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So Many Firsts! (And Gift-Away Drawing!)

Dad and I went out and about yesterday.

It was really too cold for any “real” hiking – and Grayson Highlands State Park was full of hunters for a controlled hunt so not a good time for us to be on trails, anyway.

But we did what we set out to do – what was on our agenda to do, and what I was so happy to do!  I showed my dad around the area and I think he gets it why Southwestern Virginia has just captured my heart and won’t let go.

“This is sure a world away from where you grew up!” he said, memories of growing up in the busy and bustling bay area of California. Life in San Jose in the 60s, 70s, and 80s definitely WAS a world away.  I never would have thought life would send me here, either!

To my young self – a life in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia was just not even on the radar.  Yet here I am.

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In search of Pearl Onions–and Dad!

Good morning from Quilt villa, VA!

It was one of those crazy pre-holiday shopping days that out of necessity had to happen yesterday -

Yes, the Monday before a major “meal” holiday – Thanksgiving.

I knew it would be a zoo – but I had company all weekend, and there was no room in the fridge at home to buy all of this a week or more ahead and then have to transfer it up here to the mountains.

I wanted items, especially produce to be somewhat fresh – and I’d be picking my Dad up at the airport anyway, so how simple it would be to just make a couple of early afternoon stops before swinging by the airport to pick him up?

A master of time management and organization, I thought I had this nailed!  And then…..

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In a Constant State of Quilting!

I love my piecing machines VINTAGE!

But I want my longarm DIGITIZED!

We’ve been working this machine quite a bit lately – with quilting up this year’s winter mystery Good Fortune, and the basket quilt I’ve just finished binding on (to be shown at a later date) and the Hunter’s String Star (previewed in last Friday’s Gift-Away post – did you see it?  Did you enter to win??) Along with Mona’s 6 projects and then my loading of THIS old 2004 UFO -

I think we’ve done in my computer system.  I got all the way to the last border and the machine started going herky-jerky.  No longer were my feathers nice and round, but they looked like a 3 year old drew them on an etch-a-sketch.  AUUGHH!

Son Jeff and The Hubster came down to see about adjusting cables further (Though he still can’t see anything due to Thursday’s Lasik and the protective lenses that are still in place on his eyeballs.) and things ran BEAUTIFULLY for the rest of that one row…but when I advanced the quilt to the last row, the fill in at the edge of the border – Herky Jerky All Over Again.

I unplugged myself from the cables and finished up the edge of the quilt free-hand, going old school.  Boy, it has been a LONG TIME since I have done that, and moving that machine head is a skill that can be lost over time.

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And Miles of Binding to Go ---

It was a Bad Hair Saturday.

But it was a good quilting day!

Mona and I pushed it to the max as we quilted SIX projects – SIX!  And by the time she left, I had pulled out a seventh – something that had been hanging around since 2004.

We were on a roll, and there was no time like the present to do it, and no reason to stop this quilting train.

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A Whole Lotta Quilting and a Joint Quilt-Cam!

Mona’s quilting bunnies!

I’ve had a blast with my friend Mona here.  She’s getting to be a pro at using my computerized longarm quilting machine. 

My big fear is that she will find she has to have her own and she won’t come spend the night with me anymore on a joint quilt-fest!

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Friday Fri-Yay Gift-Away!!

It’s a Friday FriYay Gift-Away day!

And have I ever got some goodies for not just one but TWO lucky winners!

You know that I’ve been sewing with Signature 60 wt 3-ply thread and loving it.  A&E threads out of Mt Holly, NC have been manufacturing fine thread for the sewing industry for more than 100 years.

Before sewing with the 60 wt for my hand and machine piecing, I have been using (and still do!) Signature 40 wt on my long arm machine for years.

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From One Day to the Next…

There was a bit of cleaning up in the studio last night.

The far side of the basement where the fabric lives – and where stuff in between trips is unceremoniously dumped to be taken care of when there is time for it.

This is the "late night" photo where I was too tired to care that there is still a pile of fabric to be dealt with front and center.

And there were PILES, much more than what you see on top of the cutting table covering my Accuquilt Studio.

There is fabric to put away, yardage for the cabinets, fat quarters for the bins you see on the wire shelving unit at the far side of the room – and copious amounts of scraps destined for “holding bins” until I can find the time to slice them down and enter them into my own Scrap User’s System.

What prompted this late night foray into the depths?  THIS BOX:

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And Around the Next Corner….

If you were to look up my life in the dictionary -

This would be the photo!

My yesterday caved in on itself.  Or got nowhere while I ran like the proverbial hamster on the wheel.

Somewhere, somehow – I got completely derailed.

The phone rings yesterday at 11am asking me if I am coming in for my dentist appointment.  I said “Yes, tomorrow.”  They said “No, today.”  I said………that’s not what’s on my phone calendar!

And I checked.  And somehow I got their Tuesday mixed up with what was on my calendar for MY Wednesday.  That appointment has been rescheduled for JANUARY as there are no openings in December.

The plan then, to go to Virginia for an overnight was scratched, and that gave me a bit more time to keep filling orders.

Later in the afternoon came another call from the chiropractor’s office “Are you coming in for your appointment?” They asked.  “Yes.  Tomorrow.” was my reply.  “We had you down for TODAY.” they said.

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Indy Show & Share, and a String Frenzy Winner!

As seen in Houston!!

An On Ringo Lake Mini!

Made by Inna Rohrberg from Germany.

This has me so blown away, and I want to thank those who have sent photos from Houston while I was in Indiana!  It’s one thing to take the time to make a big quilt, but the painstaking business of redrafting that big quilt down to mini and piecing it?  WOW!  Inna, I love your quilt – it is perfect in every way!

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Veterans Remembered, and Veterans Day Observed.

This is my lovely Grandmother -

Mary Margaret Malcolmson Wilkinson Buckbee.

While yesterday, November 11th, 2018 was the traditional day for Veterans Day, Veterans Day is observed as a state and federal holiday in 2018 TODAY Monday, Nov. 12th this year.

A federal holiday means that local, county, state and federal offices and agencies are closed.  Which includes the Post Office – but not Quiltville!

Yesterday was a busy travel day for me, on the way to the Indianapolis airport by 7am, making my connection in Atlanta and home by early afternoon.  It didn’t give me much chance to write a veteran’s memorial post the way I wanted to, so like the federal agencies mentioned above, I’m observing TODAY and keeping these folks in my thoughts.

While not a typical veteran herself, my grandmother was raising small children while her husband, my grandfather was in the US Navy.

This picture was taken in 1943 when grandpa was serving as a Naval Officer in the South Pacific.  She occasionally earned money working as a photographer’s model.

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Midnight Flight, Indiana Style!

Cutting, Pressing, Stitching, Laughing!

All of these things were going on yesterday!

Midnight Flight from MORE Adventures with Leaders & Enders was the workshop yesterday – the last of my 2018 tour year – and energy levels were SO high.

You know, we went back in time to check out just WHEN these dates were planned – the letter I received (hand written invitation at that time!) was dated 2013.  We really DID wait 5 years for this date to arrive.  

And that sometimes happens when a guild only meets the second Thursday of the month, and there are only so many second Thursdays to go around within any given year.  FIVE YEARS!  And yet it flew by so very quickly.

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A Scrap Crystals Kind of Friday!

Hangin’ with my peeps!

49 quilters running thread through fabric – piecing up the pieces, making blocks  - but even one better, MAKING FRIENDS!

I’m having a great time in Carmel, near Indianapolis – and the time is flying just as fast as the scraps are.

Yesterday’s workshop?  Scrap Crystals from my book MORE Adventures with leaders & Enders – And oh, the colors that came out to play!

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Where Quilters Gather!

Two more for the done pile!

It was foggy over Atlanta as I changed planes on my way to Indianapolis, Indiana for my last teaching engagement of 2018 – The Quilters Guild of Indianapolis!

The big question was – can we hold off the snow, just until I am done and on my way home??  There were rumors that snow could be flying overnight.

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Happiness on my Doorstep! String Frenzy Gift-Away!

Oooooh, look!

I opened the door yesterday afternoon to find a box on the doorstep -

I quickly tore into it once I saw who the sender was – my advance copies of String Frenzy showed up!

Oh. My. Goodness!

It’s like Christmas! 

With hands shaking, I removed the filler paper from the top of the box and lifted out my copy – It’s here.  It’s in my hands.  

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Lost Quilts Found–and Home Life in General!

I’ve been out and about all ready this morning!

It was just that kind of morning – sun streaming in the window, blue sky above.  Oh my goodness – what time is it?  “7:00 am” says the clock.

Well, okay then – there is time before blog writing and daily work load takes over to make that run to the grocery store and pick up just a few things and get them going for tonight’s dinner.

Remember my recipe for White Chicken Chili that I shared a few weeks back?  (Under the recipes tab at the top of the blog, crock pot wonders section!) Son Jeff has declared it a White Chicken Chili kind of day, and I had some cooked and de-boned chicken ready for something of the sort in the freezer.  So off to the store I went.

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November Things Round Here!

A weird storm blew through last night.

I walked outside to place my tubs of out going mail order on the front stoop (I am so lucky that my carrier will come all the way down my drive to retrieve them, and leave me empty tubs in exchange!) and EVERYTHING felt weird.

Is it or is it not NOVEMBER?  I was out in short T-shirt sleeves, no over-shirt or sweater required.  HUMID as all get out.

But I bet at least half of the leaves are now on the ground  - where yesterday there were brilliant golds and yellows, there is now a sad covering of soggy leaves on the drive, too wet to blow off, and mostly bare limbs overhead.

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Tumelo Trail For the Finish!

I miss these girls already!

The Excitement of driving 5 hours to Ripley, West Virginia last Wednesday, the happy arrival of quilters on Thursday morning, bright and early – setting up for 4 days of workshops ahead.

Thursday afternoon it was pedal to the metal as everyone set in to sewing Box Kite from the Addicted to Scraps book, followed by an evening lecture open to the public.

Friday morning they were up and at it bright and early for our Talkin’ Turkey workshop from String Fling – and more evening and into late night sewing.

You know how retreat goes – get in as MUCH machine time (And talking and snacking!) as you can -

Saturday morning…..well….some slept in, some straggled in later, but the machines were still running and blocks were happening in our Tulip Fields workshop also from String Fling.  Some of those Tulips were taking their time to bloom, and some required an afternoon nap! LOL!

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The Colors of Tulip Fields -

No matter the season, the colors make us smile!

Yesterday was day 3 of workshops at our retreat in Ripley, West Virginia.  The Saturday of “set your clocks back an hour”  Which surely meant we got an extra hour to sew, right??

Or after 3 days of busy workshop activity – we take that extra hour and tuck it into Sunday morning and snuggle in for just a bit more rest and slumber so we can hit day 4 running!

Whatever the decision – to sew or to sleep, retreats are made for this.  Whatever you need.  Whatever you want to get out of it – always served with a side dish of riotous laughter, and a large dose of friendship!

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All of those Talkin’ Turkeys, In All of the Colors!

Oh my goodness!

It’s a mountain of scraps!

This huge table of strippy stringy happiness has been a source of much delight for quilters on retreat with us in Ripley, West Virginia this week!

Everyone was told to “bring stuff for the table – to take some, to leave some”  and they did not disappoint!

And routinely, I’ve found little gifties of fabric that folks thought I just “may need” such as West Virginia University blue and yellow prints to include a bit of West Virginia memories in upcoming projects.  YES!  And then of course we have the rivaling Ohio Red right across the river – must include some of that, too!

Our workshop yesterday was Talkin’ Turkey from my book String Fling. 

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A Box Kite Retreat Day to Play!

So many Box Kite Blocks!

The quilters started arriving early!

By 7:30 am they were pulling in, anxious to set up their work stations and getting ready for our Box Kite workshop from the Addicted to Scraps book that would fill our afternoon with abundant scrappy fun!

And if they happened to find there was not quite enough variety in the stash they brought, they could easily dive into this and come up with something interesting to add to their mix:

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@Quiltville_Bonnie

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May 2020:

Let's Be Real Studio Tour

January 2020:

Quilt & Tell Podcast!

April 2019:

Scrap Quilts: An Integral Part of Life (Article)

December 2018:

Make What You Love (Article)

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All the Way to Ripley!

Passing Pilot Mountain.

Renamed “Mount Pilot” in the Andy Griffith Show – I was nearing Mt. Airy, which became Mayberry also the show, but those in these parts know what Mt Pilot and Mayberry really are alluding to!

I was heading in a north-westerly direction – destination?  Ripley, West Virginia where I’ll be on retreat with 4 days of workshops and a lecture ahead!

The job yesterday was just to get here – and with blue skies all the way, the autumn splendor made its presence known on both sides of the road as I drove.

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