Post-Cancer Surgery Recuperation

Hi, everybody.  Tomorrow will be two weeks after cancer surgery; am home now recuperating and Timothy, bless him, is home for the second time on leave to take care of me.  I can tell you, I didn't have a clue what I was in for with this slow recuperation.  If the blessed employees and patrons from Little Quilts had not rallied instantly to help me, it just could not have been done. My co-workers from school, Robbie and Ann, did the same: they called, they came over, they brought things, just like the Little Quilts family.  The school secretary came over and so did Valerie, 2nd in command at Educational Media from work.  They all brought supplies.  My neighbors, Cathy and her mom, said just let us know what we can do.  My longarmer friend, Cheri, who lives in a different area from LQ, visited, brought flowers, and brought homemade vegetable soup.  So many brought homemade food.  Muriel from LQ drove me many times to the hospital, she came to visit, she started a Care Calendar.  The last time she brought me to the doctor, I got a prescription for pain medicine that I can take, Muriel got it filled, and this has helped.  How true it is that quilters are the most wonderful group of people ever.  I want to thank everybody by name but my face is breaking out in sweat as I work on this.  I am so overwhelmed and so very, very thankful.  Thank you all for your enormous help, your time, and your good wishes.  


The book seems to selling well and I was so delighted when I saw it a few days ago.  I even got to sign some copies for the shop :-).  The quilt is hanging now at the shop.


Here are two scrap houses I made for the sew a long before going in for surgery.  Love you all.

  

A Bountiful Life Goes BOM and Jigsaw

I learned today that two quilt shops are offering BOMs for A Bountiful Life: Homestead Hearth and The Cotton Patch.  


And if I may, please take a gander at the glowing description of the book in the Little Quilts email newsletter (which by the way you may want to sign up for if you are not already receiving it; it's fun and has the latest):

So this calls for a jigsaw of one of the blocks from the quilt; this block was appliqued by Wanda Hizer, office manager and Appliquer Extraordinaire at Little Quilts, Marietta GA.  Click here, open the zipped folder, click on the game, begin play.

Kansas City Star publishes my book: A Bountiful Life

My book, A Bountiful Life, is now available for pre-order on the pickledish site!  A Bountiful Life is an adaptation pattern of the Bird of Paradise quilt top which as we all know is in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum.  It is one of my favorite quilts ever, one that I used to admire long, long before I ever began to quilt, back in the 70s in fact.  


Here is the cover!

And here is the quilt!

The quilt is 69x83, quite close to the original.  The blocks are square as the original blocks are (blocks are 14" square, borders are 6-1/2" wide).

Dear Readers, did I make this quilt all by my lonesome?  Nay, I did not.  I would have had a coronary in the attempt.  Eleven friends made blocks and borders (thirteen blocks and two borders); that leaves seven blocks and two borders by me :-).  If I counted right; I'm too excited to think straight :-).  

You may notice that Block Two, instead of being the (certainly delightful) floral display that is in the original, is the Bride's Suitor (since men are just as delightful if not more so than floral displays).  

I loved designing these blocks and borders and also loved working on the book.  I hope that you will also enjoy the book and the quilt patterns.

Wow, what a New Year's Eve 2011 turned out to be!  Happy New Year to us all and may we get lots of quilting done in 2012. 

BB CW Quilt: Fini

I am so fond of these blocks and the setting with the blue plaid on the bias and the gray weathered fabric for the border.  I gave this to Timothy for Christmas and he really likes it, especially the printed pictures.  Once I get it quilted, I hope there's enough blue plaid to bind it with as well.  Again, a hearty thanks to Barbara Brackman for posting this incredible series!

I still haven't figured out what to put in the four empty signature areas in the corner blocks, though; help!!

The last two blocks: 

I actually emptied two clear plastic boxes with the completion of this quilt, hooray!  It's nice to have a quilty finish in the closing days of the year as we tend to think about what we have gotten done during the year and contemplate what we would like to finish in the next and what new projects might evolve.

Merry Christmas (Jigsaw)

Stark but true, it is a dark and rainy Christmas Morning here in Atlanta. Timothy is home, however, sleeping off three days with no sleep that included working his own 24-hour shift, 24 hours regrettably playing video games, and 24 hours working part of a shift for the young man who drove him home; maybe later I can figure out how we can both work on this Christmas Jigsaw. Click here, open the zipped folder, click on the game, begin play.


Merry Christmas to All!

Free Jigsaw: Christmas Shelf

Dark and rainy here in Atlanta; this calls for a Christmas Jigsaw.  Click here, open the zipped folder, click on the game, begin play.

Free Jigsaw: Marty Young's Gift Swap

The Little Quilts employees and teachers exchanged gifts yesterday at our party; I received Marty Young's embellished tote, thanks, Marty!

Marty's creation had to become a jigsaw, so click here, open the zipped folder, click on the game, begin play.

I forgot to take a picture of the gift I brought, sigh, but everybody's were really wonderful and will be on display at the shop sometime soon.

December

Mercy, we're almost half-way through December already, and Christmas rapidly approacheth.

I have had this in mind throughout the year while making the Civil War blocks, and I believe I will give this quilt to Timothy. I have no idea if the somber colors will look dull to him since he is color-blind, but I think the historical aspect of the quilt will interest him along with the several printed artifact sections on the blocks. Meanwhile, BB CW #50:

We have a big evening tomorrow night at Vintage Design Group. Each of us will talk about a certain type of fabric, then we will each go home with a sample of each fabric type as a souvenir.

I worked on the 6th and final edit of my book last week, and now it gets a final correction and heads off to the Kansas City Star printer. Publication is scheduled for February. It is such a strange feeling to think that I can't make any more changes on it even if I wanted to! The book is just beautiful. More on that later.

Thursday

I may have to join Online Jigsawers Anonymous, but not until I have done every textile jigsaw from needleprint :-).

This and That

Lotsa DJ triangles, Saturday's BB CW, and I'm still trying to figure out what to put inside this:

BB CW #49

oh, worked on another jigsaw

I now have two triangles rows completed; this is the second

I drew a design and ordered fabric from Spoonflower, so am looking forward to seeing that.