Inspiration

Almost Christmas.

Last night's class at Little Quilts (Quiltmaking Study) was fun and inspirational. I can't wait to get at my projects. We had our usual dinner beforehand at the Sidelines Grill (just across the parking lot; the food is so great). Mary Ellen slipped off to see the waiter when we were finished and treated us all to our meals for Christmas. A visiting Little Quilts regular brought cookies for us and I brought mine home for my son: am I a good Weight Watcher or what?? Class was great. Mary Ellen went over binding technique. Remember the 16x20 small quilt exchange that the employees did at their Christmas party? Mary Ellen showed us several of those and they were just darling.


There were several good Show and Tells. One woman has a goal of finishing one UFO each month and she brought the latest one she had finished. A good idea to help us along on our Quilting Journeys, eh?


Mary Ellen passed around a bag of charm samples and we got to choose one as a gift. I chose Malvern Hill and of course would like to zip that up into a little quilt one day soon. The Jelly Roll concept was discussed (2 1/2" strips from a fabric line for about $30). There are patterns coming out for Jelly Roll strips, from Cozy Quilt Designs, for example. We got to see the mock-up newsletter with the Spring Classes (ye gods how tempting).


We went up to the shop of course and cruised around and signed up for the successor class to Quiltmaking Study (which is the successor class to Moda University): Stash Sisters. We're going to get hints on breaking into our Stashes.

Little Wall Hanging

Well, at Jo Morton class, both Kathy the teacher and Muriel the Little Quilts employee who was in the class, advised me to add little borders of the same fabric to the central block so I wouldn't have to re-do the blocks. They said it wouldn't show. At this point, I just don't think I can do it. I'm planning to re-do the blocks. Also, Muriel advised me to get The Angler 2 to help with getting that quarter-inch seam correct. It tapes to the sewing machine bed and has definitely been a good buy.

Meanwhile, back at the (Quilting) Ranch, Karen humbly looked for her 1/4" foot for the Pfaff (why oh why wasn't she using that before? why was she eyeballing a 1/4" on a foot that didn't measure 1/4" and why has she been doing that for years? It always worked in the past, but Dimensionality failed her on the dozen 5x5" Jo Morton blocks.

So instead of putting up the Christmas tree, etc., like I should have today, I stuck the 1/4" foot on the Pfaff and made the new Jo Morton class wall hanging and as the craftspeople who post their primitive creations on eBay say in their listings, "I really like how it turned out" :-).

So I have a nice quilt to show you but no Christmas decorations like other quilt bloggers have posted. Well, hopefully later tonight or tomorrow night I can show you some of mine. I love seeing all of your decorations.

Jo Morton Slide Show

A slide show of a selection of Jo's quilts:
http://folkartist.home.comcast.net/jomorton.pdf

Class Last Night

Well, Jo Morton class was last night. We had a good time. Some people couldn't make it. One woman who is really fun and interesting to have around decided to join a bee that meets on Tuesday nights, so she is gone unfortunately. They are expecting to pick up some new Jo Morton members for the next session. Sigh, can I sign up again....it's a hard drive over there after work, but I do love it once I'm there.

All of the Little Quilts employees (20-some) held a Christmas party Monday night. Guess what they did: a 16x20 little quilt exchange, either in a Jo Morton or Lori Smith pattern. Can you imagine how pretty the quilts must have looked all in a group? Here are two of them that our teacher, Cathy, brought to show us. They are probably going to put them on display in the shop soon or on display at the Bulloch Hall quilt show in Roswell, whenever on earth that is. But I want to see the rest of them! The one on the left is Lori Smith, Jo Morton on the right.

Unfinished Homework

First, thank you ALL so much for your well wishes concerning my son, it just warms my heart to know I can post to the blog when there's good news and hear from friends.

Oh, arrrrrrrr, Jo Morton Club class tonight and I did not finish my homework. Truly made an effort to make the 12 5x5ers last night and this morning before work, got them done, but the two horizontal sets are too wide to attach to the central portion, so must re-do. Arrrrrrgh. I'm gonna get a bad grade in class.

Oh, blogger. Why do they have the "remember me" box to click when it doesn't work? Does everybody else have to sign in each time they want to edit their blog? And of course, there are the times when it doesn't let you sign in at all and you just repeatrepeat until it gives up and lets you in.

My Rowenta has stopped heating. Does anybody have an iron they like that gets really hot?

WW: 190.8/158.0/130

Success

My wonderful news is that my only child has received a Congressional appointment to one of the military academies! Have to wait to see what happens with applications but I am so happy for him to have gotten this far with it. He has worked so hard and wants this so much.

Does anybody have any information on becoming a pilot via the Air Force Academy and marginal color-blindness? With irony worthy of great literature, Timothy's only physical flaw is a bit of color-blindness and he had his heart set on becoming a pilot. I have heard that he cannot do it, but today my dentist told me that his nephew, although he could not have become a pilot via the Navy, did become a pilot via the Air Force Academy even though he has a bit of color-blindness.

Over the River and Through the Woods

Hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving; Vogel State Park was so nice that my son and I went up there for a few days over Thanksgiving. I fixed the meal as low-fat, no-fat, Splenda-ized as possible and do you know, it was all absolutely delicious. We did some rugged hikes, one a loop trail out from the park up to a view of Lake Vogel:

from Brasstown Bald:

on the Raven Cliffs hike:

around the lake:

More pics if you are interested:
PictureTrail

I saw this needlework frame and hoops at an antique mall in Hiawassee on the first trip and went back and got it the second time. I love the little bit of age that it has and though it may have been intended as a needlepoint frame, I think it will work well for quilting wall hanging sized quilts:

Quiltmaking Study

Hi there, a quick post; my son and I are driving up to Vogel State Park where I stayed a few week-ends ago for Thanksgiving. I figured it would be easy to fix Thanksgiving dinner in the cabin's brand-new kitchen with the full-size fridge (and microwave!) and we will do a lot of hiking. A very Happy Thanksgiving to you all! Last night was Quiltmaking Study class at Little Quilts. Photos are from Show and Tell.

This one was made in a Little Quilts class (that I also took; did a version in very bright colors with little embroidered faces in the centers) that taught the use of the Pineapple Ruler; she used a lot of fabrics from Wuthering Heights and may use a Chocolat fabric for the border she will add.

This is a quilt created by attending the Little Quilts Second Saturday Sampler from a few years ago. I have this one made into a top but not quilted yet (as ever).

Circle quilt, such bright happy colors!

A Little Quilts employee showed us the beginnings of her antique quilt collection; her husband bought her two quilts on eBay to get the collection started. This quilt is from a Kentucky estate. It looks like it might have been made in Ohio or Indiana, though, to me.

These last three photos are of a lovely sampler applique quilt called Les Fleurs du Jardin, I believe, and is also the result of a (year-long) quilt class taught at Little Quilts. Isn't it amazing?? The quilting was sent out to be done by a local longarm quilter, I'm assuming in the Marietta area.

Nell's Flower Shop

Been waiting forever it seems for this line to become available. Love it!!

190.8/162/135*

*Weight Watchers (original weight/current/goal)

Jo Morton Club #2

Here we are at Jo Morton Club at LQS seeing some wonderful photos of Jo Morton's own quilts taken at Jo's recent appearance at a local quilt guild here in Georgia, with our teacher Kathy Neimann at the computer; she gave us each a CD of the photos. That is Gail at the far right, and two more Little Quilts employees just to the left of Kathy. They had just worked a nine-hour day in the quilt shop, I'm sure everybody else had a busy day too, and I had just finally completed the week and a half of jury duty about two hours earlier; as Kathy said, you have to love quilting to be willing to go to a night class after working all day long.

The trial was a child molestation case; there were two holdouts against conviction and it took us a day and a half of very spirited debate/discussion before getting a verdict. He was sentenced to 15 years, no reduced sentence possible.

Here is my Club quilt so far...applique is not my strong quilty point, so getting this much applique done by hand was a Big Deal for moi :-). The 1" 25-patch blocks will go around the center block.

Weight Watchers: 190.8/166/135 (but haven't lost a pound in TEN DAYS despite being On Points)

Howdy, Getaway, and Jo Morton

A huge thanks to everybody for posting their good wishes re pneumonia; you are all wonderful! Kaiser doctor said it is an infection but not pneumonia so since the trial was destroying the last shreds of my sanity I drove up to Vogel State Park in north Georgia for the week-end. It was fabulous. The fall color was still gorgeous. First sunny and very warm, then on Saturday it got deliciously rainy and overcast (just love stormy weather) and the temperature plummeted. Listened to the wind blowing around the cabin all night. It was 80 degrees in Atlanta Friday afternoon and 37 degrees at the Park on Sunday morning.

There were all kinds of photo ops with the light and then rain dancing on the little lake in front of the cabins.

This is the Park Cat, evidently. He was very friendly and wanted a handout but didn't want the hot dog bit I gave him.

This gourd display was at the entrance to the camp store.





Came home and completed the Challenge top.

Now I need to prepare a bit for the next Jo Morton Club class; here is the layout for the Jo Morton Swap blocks. Oooh I just love all the Jo Morton prints all mixed up like this. I want to get it together to take to the class to show everybody.

Hi there

Haven't posted in a while. My son has had pneumonia, I am now serving on a trial jury, and I think I have pneumonia myself. My last quilting activity was actually very neat, there's just no photo: I met an email friend, who generously showed me her brand-new longarm setup, which as you can imagine, was so much fun. That's it for now, I'm off to bed at only 6pm!!

Two Minutes Before Work

Got up early to work on the border for this Vintage Challenge crib quilt; do you like it?? Can't wait to get home and finish it.

Family Crib Quilts

Oh dear, my camera went dead yesterday at the second session of the Vintage Challenge quilt class so I didn't get photos of the other people's quilts. It was still a planning session though, so they weren't assembled. We are planning to get together in some way in a few weeks to see everybody's finished quilts, so hopefully I can get some photos then. It was a great class and they will offer it again if Alice Berg can be persuaded. We will all take it again if offered, because it will be a different challenge. Great class idea. Alice helped me refine my square on point border and it looks great. Can't wait to get it done and show it to you. Lots of dark colors.

I brought these two antique crib quilts to show since the class inspiration photo was a crib quilt. These are from back in my family and were made in Ohio. One is intact and very lovely, the brown and white one, and you can see that the other is very tattered and was cut down from a larger quilt. But you know whoever kept it did so because they loved the baby or babies that were wrapped up in that quilt.

Vintage Challenge

I've been working on the Vintage Challenge quilt for class. This is the one where we work from the fabrics given to us in class as if we were out in the prairie and we couldn't get any more than what we had, plus we had to decide what to put in the center medallion section. I really wanted to use a vintage block, went through what I had, and nothing was right or else I didn't want to pull a single block out of a set, with the exception of this cute pink basket block that was all by its lonesome. I don't even remember having it. Just have to sew the bottom two rows and I'll either be done or I'll add a square diamond border as in our example. Not sure whether to do that or not. The teacher also gave us some indigo scraps to tempt us to make it super scrappy, and instead of putting them in this one, I would enjoy making a small star quilt with those.

Quilt Classes

What a great day. Took off from work and went to two count 'em TWO quilt classes at the LQS. First one was one I had really been looking forward to: Vintage Quiltmaking Challenge. It was taught by one of the three Little Quilts ladies, Alice Berg. She gave us a delectable stack of pink and brown prints and a mystery scrap bag (!) along with a photo of an inspiration vintage crib quilt. The idea is to create our own version of this little quilt using the fabrics that were given to us, as if we were pioneer ladies out on the prairie and had to make do with what we had. The biggest challenge is to decide what to use for the 12" or 15" center block, whether to make our own patchwork or applique block or use a vintage block that we have around (and I may have one!), or what to do with that central area. What fun! So anyway we started off making our scrappy pink and brown 3" nine patches for now, while lots of little ideas are circulating for that center block. Photo below is where Alice was demonstrating that you can have the simple color range in the left-most strip, or you can add different tones of each color and get the marvelous scrappy range in the next strips; strip at right are fabrics to avoid if you are trying to get an authentic vintage look to your quilts.


Second class was Quiltmaking Study, excellent as always; among other things, we saw this wonderful Sunbonnet Sue. This quilt is in the current issue of American Patchwork & Quilting. The quiltmaker has about 16 of these vintage blocks made by somebody back in her family and this is the first of four quilts she is going to make using the blocks for her nieces, I believe. Isn't this just the cleverest setting for sunbonnet babies? How did she think of this?

Lucy, Your Email

...wouldn't go through. Here's what I said:
You need to make sure you see where the computer is going to save the "Project"; you can navigate to where you want it to be saved. You can just save it to your Desktop for a temporary measure if you like since that way it will be very easy to find. If you save it to your Desktop, you should be able to click on it have it open in EQ5. I think :-).

When you are in the EQ5 program, and open a project, either the project will be listed there, or you need to navigate to it by using the button at the bottom left that on my program says "click here to open a project not listed above" and then you navigate to where you saved the program when you saved it from the email.

Hopefully this will work if you start over with the project sent in this email.....

Be sure to let me know. TTYL! Karen

Sale and Jo Morton Club

Drove south of Atlanta last week-end to see what used to be a great craft show. Discovered it is no longer very good, but when I stopped at a LQS on the way home, it turned out to be all but out of business and I got the above fabrics and book half-price.

Then Tuesday night was the first installment of a Jo Morton Club class. Hooray, Jo Morton Club has finally come to the Atlanta area! Jo had just spoken to a quilt guild the week before as well and the LQS borrowed some quilt samples from Jo so that we could see them. Pictures follow. The first pattern really looks like fun, with an appliqued center block (last photo).

Holiday Market?

Hmm, well I may put some craft items in an upcoming holiday market. This tree ornament is one idea. I digitized the machine embroidery on it to make it look like an antique stocking. Need some tweaking but kinda cute, eh?

some Quilt Show pics

Hi there, here are some photos of the quilt show at the Marietta Museum of History if you would like to check them out:
Quilt Show

Early Christmas

My friend had told me she was trying to get a little gift mailed to me to cheer me up because of my Job Woes. While she was hunting for just the right size box, something even worse happened and a few days later, these darling precious baby skates arrived. Have you ever seen anything so cute?

And just look at the wheels: they are spools and bobbins. I love these so much!!

Pincushions

Here are my pincushions; thank you for the idea, Evelyn:
the fun ones...

and the utilitarian ones: