Whew, what a week!!

Where has the quilting time gone this week? It's been a few days since I've posted. Wednesday and Thursday are the days that I'm at school, and here we are friday.

It has been SO hot and humid the past week or so. This is my 3rd summer in South Carolina, and the hottest by far! The rain did come last night,thunder and lighting in the middle of the night. I remember vaguely waking up to acknowledge it, and then falling right back to sleep. For some reason, I can sleep really well through a storm, I love the sound of the rain and the thunder, and even the flashes of light.

I spent the day finishing a customer's batik bear paw quilt that I thought turned out JUST beautiful. I am really happy with the way it turned out, and I hope she thinks so too.

I have added a page to my website called
Customer Quilts
I plan on adding more note worthy quilts to it in the future.Take a peek at the batik bear paw there! I also found a free program that makes thumb-nails in any size you need them, so this was my first experience with thumb-nails linking to bigger images. I keep learning!

I also monkeyed with the template for my blog page a bit...I found that I could make better use of the page if I didn't have so stinking much margin. So I changed the page width! And then I changed the page COLOR, and then I found I could link all sorts of little graphics. FUN!

Now I am toying with typing this whole entry in netscape composer, and then just pasting the html into the 'add entry' thing for blog spot. I'm hoping it will work and that way I can get more than one pic per post in.

I've got 8 whole mitre boxes blocks done, so that means I've only done 4 sets since you get two blocks from a set. See my new laminate floor! Pretty pretty..I shouldn't have cropped the pic so close so you could see more of it. I like these blocks and the method, just need more time to sew, which I haven't had this week.

We are headed to Charleston for the weekend, hoping to spend some nice relaxing time on the beach, maybe a bit of window and touristy shopping. There are a couple quilt shops down that way, but I really don't NEED more fabric, and i haven't been inspired by any patterns out there. I am more inspired to search ebay.com for pics of antique maverick quilts...I've got a whole folder full of pics I've saved for inspiration. Oh, another good thing...School starts in about 2 1/2 weeks, so my 15 year old will be out of summer-teenage-retirement! YES! I can't tell you how happy that makes me!

Bonnie

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If my house burned down...

I was trimming some "quilt leftovers" this morning, and thinking to myself...If there was a fire, what would I save? I think the scraps and the fat quarters are more valuable to me than the yardage on the shelves.....The scraps have memories of other things I have made with them, there are alot of years in collecting this odd blend of scraps I have in my drawers..I couldn't duplicate it if I tried! I could go to a quilt shop and start a new stash, but I could never duplicate the mix of scraps I've accumulated over 20+ years... Old, ugly, out of print, outdated...they are mine and pieces of my life are attached to them. I came across a scrap of pink calico as I was digging and it was like visiting an old friend... "echos of an old rendition of 'I remember you' playing through her head".

Now I don't know if that is exactly philosophical thinking or not, or how do I apply those thoughts to the rest of my life. Maybe it's the same kind of thinking that people have when they lose everything..it's the pictures and momentos they miss most, not the furniture or clothing or anything that can be easily replaced.

I was looking in someone's webshots (I almost typed webshits...terrible what typos can make you giggle, pardon me!) album the other day, her quilts were beautiful...except each one was a carbon copy of some other quilt somewhere. "This quilt made with all Thimbleberries" "this quilt made with all authentic civil war reproductions" "this quilt made with all Aunt Gracies" and I thought to myself "Where are the memories?" Am I the only one that feels this way? I mean, these quilters who quilt "kit" quilts eventually have to build up a REAL scrap stash from the leftovers, don't they? Is there hope that in the future their next project might be to make something that just says SCRAP HAPPY and doesn't have to "name-drop" a fabric manufacturer in the process like Hoffman, Moda, Benartex?

I think I'll go play with some of my lowly leftovers and all their memories :c) I've got an idea for a quilt in the works....Sew 4 strips together, cut them into triangles with the long side of the triangle along the edge of the strip...you can get two blocks from each set of strips...4 triangles of one kind, 4 of the opposite. Lay them out all together with the tips pointing in and sew them into a square with an X. It looks like a log cabin with 3 rounds around it, but instead of 12 seams around one center square, this makes two blocks with 9 seams total! Weehaa..I love stuff like this. I'm calling them "mitre boxes" unless I can come up with something more interesting.

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This is the cool idea I was thinking of yesterday. Usually my scrap quilts use shorter cuts, but this one needs a full width of fabric cut, so strips are 1.5" X 44" (or close) I sewed the 4 strips together and pressed them in one direction, then used the wondercut ruler to cut triangles from the set. You get two opposite blocks from one strip set, so cut 8 triangles (there will be a bit left over, but not much!) 

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Two sets of 4 and a bit left over!

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