Flowers, Shout Outs, Quilts & Chairs!

Dear Aunt Pat Dobson in NZ!

You are not my aunt, but you sure have family over here in the states that love you! I have heard that  you have some nephews and nieces in Oregon that love and adore the exceptional quilts that you have created for them.

These flowers are for you along with this message:

I am not a quilter, but I am a quilting fan due to the spectacular works of art that my Aunt Pat has sent my family here in Corvallis, OR over the years.

The latest gifts were 3 outstanding bed quilts for our 3 children..... Which will be forever cherished.

Pat, is a human being with considerable character and passion who has a wonderment for life. She also speaks highly of you, your talent and the delight with which she inhales your blog.

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Welcome, Quiltmaker Scrap Addicts!

There is a new team roaring and ready to go at Quiltmaker Magazine --

A special branch of quilters ready and willing to dig into their scraps behind the scenes and join me with blocks from my Addicted to Scraps column!

I’m very excited about this team thing that we have going on.

Let me tell you in Diane’s words how this came to be:

Bonnie takes ho-hum and sometimes even ugly fabrics and somehow sprinkles them with fairy dust, and they become showstoppers. It’s a beautiful thing.

Did she really just admit that I send in blocks with ugly fabrics!?  HA!  I do! And I dare this wonderful magazine to PUBLISH photos with those ugly fabrics front and center showing you what I truly believe:

The beauty of the scrap quilt is more than the sum of its ho hum and ugly parts!

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Squaring Up the Square in a Square!

Since last night’s post and Quilt-Cam I have received email requests to PLEASE explain a bit further on how to handle Square in a Square units.

I’m happy to!

Square in a Square units are a main-stay of traditional patchwork, and I love them.  But they don’t always love ME – so I have my way to deal with them.

No special tools required, just a ruler with a good 1/4” marking all the way round the outside edge of the ruler.

Here I’m using my Easy Square Junior.  You don’t need a huge specialty ruler that is way bigger than your unit – that is unwieldy to work with.  This does me just fine.  Just make sure your 1/4” seam allowance line is visible on the outside edge of the ruler.

I’ve written about this before with a simple Square in a Square unit when we did our Double Delight Mystery.  That Mystery is still found under the free patterns tab! THIS is the tutorial written about Square in a Square units then.  This is now, and guess what? It's the same!

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Quilt-Cam! 2/3/2015

This was my day today!

Well, only part of it.

Okay, really --- LESS than part of it.

Because, let’s be honest – no matter WHAT you have heard about Quilters and Rembrandt or Piccaso – we DO mend.

As long as we don’t have to change the thread in the machine to do it! HA!

It only took a minute to sew up this pocket, and you would have thought that I invented the cure to something really ---well…you get it.

Sometimes it takes something so little to make someone so happy, and then you wonder why you waited so long to do it in the first place.

For one thing – it took a lot less time to do this than to stitch on a binding, a hanging sleeve, or even a label.  NONE of which got done today.

But I did fix a pocket!

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March/April 2015 Quiltmaker! Give-Away!

I am still unearthing myself out from under the huge stack of mail that has come in over the past couple weeks!

But this envelope I knew right away!

It’s the March/April 2015 issue of Quiltmaker Magazine – the issue that has my Twirl Around blocks for my Addicted to Scraps column!

I’ve been working on these blocks over the past couple of weeks – I have a plan for them!

And while there are things I can’t show online because they are going in as a future magazine project, or book project, or video project – THESE I CAN!!

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Happy Ground Hog Day!

From what I understand, Phil saw his shadow indicating 6 more weeks of winter.

But Beauregard did NOT see his shadow, so it will be an early spring in the south.

I say either way, let’s give it 6 more weeks of quilting just to call it good!

I was home by 10am and at the computer about 15 minutes later taking care of things that needed taking care of.

Mail had to be sorted.

Book orders needed to he processed and sent out.

I’ve been gone 2 weeks!

But somehow it feels like much longer – you should have heard Sadie squeal when I came in the door.  She nearly threw her puppy self at me in a dog hug tumble.

Oh, happy girl, it is so good to see you!

I got right down to business:

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Headed Home, and some Challenges.

Rainy and blustery –chilly and bleak.  This is the view on Buck Mountain as I pack the remnants from our retreat week into the back of Shamu and head down the mountain toward home.

It’s been a wonderful respite up here, and I know it will be waiting for me again the next time I need it, the next time there is a break in my schedule.

It might not be perfect for everyone,  not the most expensive, not the best floor plan or even easy to manage stairwells. As cabins go, it’s not the smallest, not the most grand either.  But this place with its tiny kitchen, slightly sagging front porch, basement with bead board paneling walls that aren’t so attractive is my soul.

I find so much joy and peace up here that it is truly hard to leave.  I am so grateful that “home” is only 1.5 hours down the road.  And that I can come back here—as often as possible.

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Cleaning, Oiling and Test Runs!

This is the treadle head that I brought home from Belmont, NC just over a week ago!

It came up to Quilt Villa in the van along with Lori and Randy, and today I finally had a chance to take a good close look and see what was what with her.

$45.00 could mean I ended up with nothing but a parts machine, and she did have some good parts on her ---

But it also could mean that with a bit of loving care and some cleaning and oiling that I’d have a lovely addition to my treadle fleet.

First things first…she had some masking tape stuck to her bed to mark a dress making seam allowance, a generous 5/8” by the looks of it.  While the tape came away, the residue did not and I need to get some goo-gone or something gentle to remove the years old sticky without damaging what is left of the finish.

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Lori, Mona & Bonnie at the Antique Mall!

After dropping Randy off at the airport on Thursday we still had plenty of time for some quick browsing and poking around!

After all, it was only 1:30pm and our shopping at Mary Jo’s in Gastonia had only whet our appetite in the pursuit of more wondrous finds of the vintage kind.

This spot was new to me this past week, I discovered it while waiting for Randy to arrive to start our retreat.  This is where I found the  Red Eye treadle head and the H Quilt.

Catawba River Antique Mall in Belmont, NC opened October 2014 in a HUGE 107 year old cotton mill.  It is light, bright and airy.  Booths are not over crowded, nor are they stuffed with yard sale junk as you see in a lot of malls.  This is a great one to wander, and it will take you a long time to do so!

All of the wood floors in the mill have been refinished and they gleam.  It’s kind of like “new car smell” in a very old building!

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