Two Messages

So, Amy, I'm sure you have seen this site, eh? Cats Who Quilt: Where Quilters and Cats Meet on the Web

Barbara, loved hearing from you on the previous post, what a small world here on the blogland, yes? I've read your class description in the past and was interested, but I can't take day classes. Your email is "no reply" so no way to answer you but right here: your Big Stitch quilts are fantastic. Ha! How neat that we did the red log cabin centers the same way...can you send a pic of yours? Does this mean that you made the log cabin strips 1" wide like I did? Good hearing from you, Karen

Log Cabins

Here is my Cabin Corners quilt to show at the next Jo Morton Little Women class. It was so much fun to work out the fabrics in EQ and to put in a few of my really early quilt fabrics from the 70s or early 80s, back when I first began to collect quilt fabrics. Paper piecing. It took forever. Work has been so exhausting that I've been going to bed at the earliest hour you can imagine, then getting up at 1am or 2am to quilt before work. Best to give the highest amount of energy to the most important part of the day, eh?? Anything for the craft.

And how timely to be flipping through an old 1983 Country Living and to see this heavenly log cabin quilt that is literally log cabins! Do you love it???? I'd love to make this one.

Have you seen (and heard) this nice site with quilting links and midi clips of rags composed by women?


I'm really enjoying this rememberthemilk.com site. Naturally the most extensive and most funnest to check out tab is Quilting.

Co-Worker's Cousins Do Good

Remember the woman, Carolyn Dorn, who was found alive five weeks after she disappeared in the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico? How neat is this, a co-worker friend of mine told me today that two of his cousins, two young brothers, are the ones who found her:
Story

Arrrrrrrrr, how gorgeous is this primitive applique...?


Forget if I've posted this before. This is a small piece and the applique is just exquisite. Made by a very talented LQS employee:

Orange Quilt w/Big Stitch and Class(es)

Oh! A Little Quilts "Stitch 'n Sew" session was cancelled for this Friday evening (bring a project to work on for a nice long evening/visit/pizza) because Yours Truly was the only one to sign up. Would anybody else in Little Quilts vicinity be interested in doing this? Call today and sign up! Although this has made me decide to try to jump back into the Jo Morton class, which I had decided I should skip this time since I signed up for three other classes/activities.

Here is all of the cute orange quilt with the Big Stitches:

Had a great class last night at Little Quilts. Stash Sisters. Hints and projects to use up some of our Stash. This is the one where we meet for dinner beforehand at the Sidelines Grill right next to the shop; since I have been doing Weight Watchers faithfully for five months now (190.8/154/135...boy is it coming off slowly now) and rarely go to a restaurant and never to a drive-thru type place, have never had a hamburger and fries, this meal out is a Total Treasured Treat (chicken quesadillas appetizer). Anyway, one Stash Buster suggestion is a charm quilt, example shown here that Mary Ellen made long ago:

Here is the beginnings of putting together one of my set of alternate blocks from 2006 Second Saturday Sampler, using Sharyn Craig's Twist 'n Turn technique. I usually don't do these wild and crazy (!) things, and it's fun to try it:

Usually you do this thing with a square block. She has an example or two of rectangular blocks in her book, with the caption "it is trickier to do the figuring for a rectangular block..." but no instructions. This is the second set of strips I put on for the block set, having destroyed the first set with experimental cutting, but after a little session with pencil and graph paper, I got it figured out.

Big Stitch Examples

Amy asked about the Big Stitch quilts on display at LQS; I got some photos today of them when making a sudden, glorious trip to the shop once I realized they would probably be open today on my day off (!!):


Isn't the stitching pretty? Be sure to click on 'em to see them enlarged. Note: Jenni asked about stitch size...I would say they average between 1/4" and 1/8"....?

January Second Saturday Sampler

Here we all are standing in line for the latest Second Saturday Sampler at Little Quilts. We go in 25 at a time to the classroom underneath the shop, this time to see how the main Sampler block set and all the alternative sets (blended, patriotic, feedsack, batik) have been made into tops. There was so much to look at, to consider, and decisions to try to make for the sets of blocks we've made through the year. They had two choices of suggested settings for the main group of blocks, and a different setting for each of the alternative settings. There was also a very, very cute setting for the applique snowman set that was offered concurrently in 2006 with the other block sets. I wanted to get the fabric kit for that snowman set even though I didn't do the snowman (!) with the idea of plugging in a different set of snowy wintry blocks, sigh. Bought the black and white fabric kit for the feedsack set, which I hadn't done, either, but I sort of wondered if it would go with a set that I did do (didn't go right), but it's the same notion, I would be happy to plug a different set of blocks into that black and white color scheme. I had an idea floating around in my mind for the setting for my "twin" sets that I have partly done, and their "Twist 'n Turn" by Sharyn Craig set suggestion for the feedsack group finished the thinking so I got that book and will probably do that type of setting for my Twin Group.

They had a trunk show from Lori Smith; what a treat to see one of these biggie Lori Smith quilts in person. There was also a large group on display of the "Big Stitch" technique; all of those quilts were just darling with the big stitches.

A cute display at check-out...

I have gotten way behind on the BOMs that I started connected with SSS. So I came home, cleaned up my sewing area, cleaned off my big desk surface, and got the four sets all organized:

Got these blocks finished, hope to get more done today:

I appreciate your comments recently so much; I'm hoping to reply in the blog later today to some of the comments I received that say "no reply" that I couldn't answer with a regular email. I guess the "no reply" is put there by blogger in order to create a gulf or barrier between those who have updated the format and those who haven't yet. Isn't Blogger a dear?

By the way, can somebody tell me about Paducah, Kentucky? What is it like, the town as a whole?

rememberthemilk.com

So have you all seen this site (with the so-cute little cow logo) where you can keep track of your various to-do lists and your calendar? Looks like you will need to click on it to see the screenshot a bit better. You can add as many little folders at the top as you like and you can also map locations that you frequently traipse off to to get your errands and chores done. If you add tags to the various tasks, like "errand", you can group all of them together from various folders. I really like this, it's already helping me remember things I need to do or bring to work the next day, which has hitherto been impossible to remember, since I do not really have my mind on my job.

Longarm #2

I went back twice to my friend's house to do some longarming on this sampler quilt:



Brutal Reality paid a visit as I discovered that freehand feathers and meandering are quite easy to do compared to other longarm stitcheries. I spent yesterday taking out a section that was quite nasty. Whew, glad to get that out. I did the quilting in a pretty pearl grey thread; absolutely love how it goes with the smoky stripey sashing. Now it's time to do some stitch in the ditch on my home machine on the patchwork blocks. Think Progress.

A Friend

You aren't going to believe this: a friend who very recently acquired this beautiful longarm setup:


let me come over today to quilt one of my UFOs. I can't describe what a thrill it was to use that glorious machine and to get a quilt that much closer to completion. Can you believe somebody being that generous??


Can you see my freehand feathers? I tell you, I was made to do machine quilting :-) .



The quilt pattern is Hula Huts, which was featured on a Simply Quilts and is on the HGTV website. I'm very fond of the crazy thing, but it is true that the color scheme got a little busy. This was something I had to work on in the early quilting years (like two years ago).

Happy New Year

Isn't this a pretty photo (enlarged shows more detail)? It's the last page of the January 2007 "Country Living": "Teach us delight in simple things" --Rudyard Kipling

Happy New Year, Everybody

WW:190.8/154/135