Gotta love...

...those secondhand shops. Found this pair of Bass pale pink shell leather spectator flats, Dr. Scholl's stitch-ey flats, and capris for $10.


Just loved this quilt:

Quilt Show Pix and Emails from College

more emails from DS at Georgia Tech:

Hi, Mom.
I just got back from an ironing party [editor's note: I don't know what an ironing party is, either] for ROTC. I'm glad you couldn't see us. My friend's girlfriend had to come over to teach us how to iron. I don't know how something with one button could be so confusing.
Love, Tim

Hi Mom.
I have all As so far on the calculus quizzes, but don't expect that to last. I have no idea what's going on; I just imitate the teacher. Stick with WW. It's worth it.
Love, Tim

Hi, Timmy! You know I'm excited about the calculus grades. Maybe you're overthinking calculus, like you expect to find some kind of hidden meaning. Math just is. Keep imitating that teacher. Love and embrace the mathematical process.

Ramadan has started at school. Even though this arrives (and stays) for a month annually, there is once again no plan in place for where to have hundreds of kids go at lunchtime since they will not go into the cafeteria because they are fasting, so of course they flood the media center for two hours of overcrowded non-instruction. Call me crazy, but I thought we had separation of church and state.
Love, Mom

Hi, Timmy.
Trying to get my weight right for weigh-in (or WI as we WWers say) on Saturday morning. Must have a successful WI each month to keep from paying.

Do you know what you got on your calculus test?
Love, Mom

Dear Mom,
I know I got not good, but how not good is yet to be seen.

Turned in my first English essay. It was something about how technology drives evolution. I have no idea what I wrote, but it sounded good.

My DD class [editor’s note: his “I’m Sorry I Got a Speeding Ticket” class] is this Saturday so I'm certainly looking forward to that.

We have an ROTC mixer with [another college] tonight. It was optional until they realized nobody would go willingly.

Good luck with Weight Watchers; God knows you don't want to go back to being a regular member.
Love, Tim

Hi, Mom,
I got to my DD "class" fine. It was pretty sketchy though [editor’s note: this class was one of those one-day Community Responsibility sessions where, if you attend, your infraction gets removed from your record; please read on]. One of my classmates had run away from the cops. Another had gotten arrested for going 170 mph in a stolen Corvette. Another had gotten arrested for having a bomb. In his trunk. I felt a little out of place. I graduated and got my certificate. This baby is going on the wall.
Love, Tim

quilt show: more

I'm only managing to keep internet connection for a few minutes at a time. Hope these pictures post:

trial and error, show, and life and death

Did my version of Jo's Little Women quilt, Emma Ann, by matching colors to this wonderful tiny-flowered fabric from the American Woman Home line. Used the fabric for the setting squares and triangles...and hated it:


Very sad, took it apart, and did this instead:

Love it, but now there's no sign of the inspiration fabric. Ah well. I'll use it in something else. The tiny central block and outer border are from stash. I've had the tiny print leftovers forever 'cause I couldn't bear to throw away such a cute little print.

So I'm enjoying the accumulation of small quilts done for the Jo Morton classes:



And here are some more quilts from the East Cobb quilt show:

A friend sent me this article about Laurel Burch's life and death:http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_6923487

love a week-end

Worked Friday and Saturday at the LQS since so many of the regular employees were involved with the East Cobb Quilt Show. Which event made the LQS so, so busy and fun. Here is a gorgeous quilt top one woman brought in to show us at the shop:



How about the fussy cutting on those triangles? Yum.

Then, after a brief interlude this morning of basic label-sewing for son and son's friend's uniforms...

DS and I went off to see the quilt show ourselves, DS under protest of course. But I wanted to take him to eat at the Marietta Diner and today seemed like the perfect day to work it in. Saw the show (need I say a little too quickly in deference to his presence), had a great meal, returned him to Georgia Tech, and now I'm home to devote the last few hours of the week-end to some personal quilting. But first, here are a few photos from the quilt show, which I must tell you, was simply stunning. There were so many wonderful primitive applique quilts; what a treat to see some things made up that I've only imagined making myself, like Home Sweet Home for instance. There was one Dear Jane. There were many very bright and graphic quilts. My favorite of those was a sampler quilt of exotic birds from exotic places. I took a photo of each block that I'll show you a few at a time, since my own little Jo Morton quilt is calling to me from the design wall.

First photo from the show is (Amy!) cats. Hope I'm not the only one seeing this for the first time. I love it. Enlarge it to read the text. It was within a larger quilt featuring humorous cat artwork:


Others:




That's it for now, hope you all had a wonderful week-end, too.

post-weekend

**BETTY ALERT** Betty, don't read this blog until you've received a package in the mail! Go aWAY from the page, Betty!!

The Yellow Daisy Festival was this past week-end at Stone Mountain Park here in Atlanta. There was one special booth....

Various items cut from china, both new and old. Won't this make a pretty necklace?


I just love this rooster china pattern; here she's made it into a bird feeder.


But I couldn't stop there. Also got two recipe holders, both with pretty rural scenes, one being Currier & Ives, three magnets with pretty little scenes on them, and an Occupied Japan creamer made into a night light, that is absolutely perfect in my beachy bathroom that has vintage tin sand pails and things like that. Oh, and I did make a purchase in another booth: the necklace thingie on the left that contains a little strip of lace that has Pennsylvania tulips on it. Couldn't leave a Pennsylvania tulip behind.


This week-end was also BOM day at LQS, so got the blocks done. With the fabrics from the main BOM, I did another block out of my Maggie Malone block book and did the usual 12" block using a Westminster fabric, doing another Maggie Malone block. For the applique, I added one black-eyed susan and a somewhat alarming cat. We now have eight blocks done for each of our whatever-we-decided-to-do, and about this time, I start wishing that I could assemble them. I've been using the background fabric for the 12" blocks for almost a year now, so it practically qualifies as using up one's stash :-). I just hope the stash inventory holds out until all the blocks are done. I just guessed at the amount at the outset.

Thank you, peewee, for the link to the quilt origami site (previous post's comments)!

got that Lillebet's Garden sewn together!

Here's the embarrassing part: my Lillebet's Garden (designed by Beth Ferrier) blocks have been pinned to my design wall for well over a year. These blocks are the only thing that have ever been on this design wall. I hope that there's some other quilter out there somewhere who has done the same thing...? Anybody?? Okay, the cheese stands alone.

Finally, the time seemed perfect to sew them together. I know, it was radical. I was rushing it. What a wild and crazy girl. Pinned it back up there to get a photo, but now it's down and ready for the applique in the center to be worked on. Boy, there's a lot of work in this thing. I am so delighted that it's all together. And that now I can put wonderful new things on the design wall.

In case you're wondering about the applique, the center is a compass and the "vine" is supposed to be ocean waves that will have a few sailing ships bouncing around on them.

Not only that, but I got the ugly-fabrics log cabin assembled, aiieeeee!

So it's 60x60". What do you think? Leave it, add a border with a vine applique of some kind maybe?

Look at this cute video of making a tiny star:
youtube video
But really I was trying to find out how to make these, as shown on fabrictrends.com:

Does anybody know? It's like fabric origami, I guess, and looks like five folded triangles, but I wonder how you would attach them attractively and firmly...

Labor Day

Hope everybody is having a wonderful Labor Day.

I have been waiting for two little pieces of fabric to arrive so I can finish these log cabin blocks, with which I have fallen in love. Had to order them from two separate companies.

One fabric arrived in a timely fashion last week and the other one HASN'T. First the lagging-behind fabric company sent a notice that they had mailed it out, presumably themselves, then a second "we know about your package and may pick it up and mail it out one of these days" notice came from USPS. Huge sigh, never order from this particular place again. Although they were the only one I could find who had this particular old Jo Morton fabric. Huge double sigh. Okay, so I worked on two Little Women projects instead over this long holiday week-end.

I got my little applique done on this earlier piece. Can't believe I actually sat down and did some applique with almost no suffering. It was almost easy:


So I like this applique medallion idea to insert into these Little Women projects and really like the silk matka for the ground, so did this version of Broken Dishes for the next Little Women:

How's this for an abandoned color scheme? I love it. Now to decide what to put in the center. Like a girl working on a quilt or walking next to a wagon wheel. Barefoot. Walking westward to a new life.