Show and Tell, Vintage Design Group

Here is show and tell from the most recent Vintage Design Group session.  We have an ongoing project to make a medallion quilt, adding a border per month.  Or whatever.      

Auditioning future borders for this one:

Also, we have two Baltimore Album blocks

and a Temecula Christmas: 

Here is my medallion so far (it is currently a diamond, not a square):

I need to go over the center drawing a bit to darken it once I get a thicker-tip Pigma pen.  This is supposed to be an 1805 quilt, all faded and stained, but it is getting brighter in spite of myself.  I might have to start daubing it with bleach and driving the car over it a few times to improve it.  Got the idea from Marcie driving over her cell phone :-).

The Group has enticing future assignments as well, such as bringing in a completed UFO (how to choose from the Vast Multitude), and choosing an inspiration antique quilt for a project (again, how on earth to choose).  

I've thought for a week or so that I might want to make a wall hanging version of the Civil War potholder (quilt as you go) quilts that are described in Civil War Quilts but now I don't know.

A Bountiful Life quilt for the Kansas City booth at Spring Market and the five quilts for the Kansas City Star Authors display at same have safely arrived in Kansas (thank you, Donna!).   

Sigh, Rembrandt has taken to disappearing when the camera comes out.

The camera appearance even wakes him up.

Hey, Rembrandt!  I'm going to do another book for Kansas City Star!  I'm going crazy with enthusiasm working on it.  See how thrilled he is.

I've been watching Easter Parade over and over since it was shown at, well, Easter, completely captivated by the song and dance, and the chemistry between Fred Astaire and Judy Garland.  I didn't realize this was the only time they worked together.  What a loss that they did not do more movies as a team.  This led to picking up two Fred Astaire biographies and his autobiography at the library yesterday.  Then early this morning, I was looking for the earliest video clips of Judy Garland on youtube.  Okay, gotta get ready to work at LQS.  

Obligations Met

This was a week of ticking To Dos off the "List That Must Be Done", beginning with the tax return, mailed very timely on the 17th along with hefty checks to both federal and state for the first time in my life.  Funny, I thought that W-2 that showed $2K less than 2011's W-2 which was $2K less from 2010's W-2 thanks to years of furloughs and no raise would not lead to such a thing but it did.

Then I retrieved A Bountiful Life quilt from Little Quilts (thank you, Mary Ellen, for displaying it, it looked so beautiful there!) and got it boxed and mailed to Kansas City where it will be posing and primping at Spring Market.

The Kansas City editors asked for some author quilts for a group quilt show this year, so I got my bed-size Tree of Life quilt

Here it is as a top; forgot to take a finished picture!  We like to call this Chemo Brain.  This quilt is of course based on the red and white one from the Armory Show.

quilted by Dena Rosenberg (a great job, Dena, can't wait for you to do the others I've given you and I have two more to add to the stack) and got the binding put on by hand, surely my least favorite job in all of Quilty Land, and made choices for the other four to send.  I wanted to send twenty but five it had to be.  Got those described, packed up, and left at FedEx today, and now the desk, or should we say cutting table, is cleared and ready to continue newer and enticing projects.

Quilty stuff for the rest of the day consisted of picking backings and getting them ready for the two quilts I want to leave with Dena to quilt.

Till next time!

A Sewing Day

Today was Easter.

So naturally I chose to work on finishing at last my two versions of the Temecula 12 Days of Christmas quilts.  Makes sense in my world.  All work had stalled at Block 10 in January when The Troubles began, so it was a full day to get them both done (because very hard to choose fabrics for these):

The first one features French General fabrics; the second features that flannel Folk Art Museum fabric by Kathy Hall and enough fussy cutting to make any obsessive-compulsive a happy girl.

One day this past week, I rearranged my main sewing room.  It is a much better layout and I am delighted with it.  Unfortunately, this involved rotating the computer and printers 45 degrees which meant hours of reorganizing the cables.  All done now and they mostly don't show, which is a first.  I also am now using my 23" TV (a gift from a very generous online blogger friend upon the unfortunate and violent demise of my previous all-but-new computer monitor, which you may remember, perpetrator shall now remain nameless, okay it was Timmy) as not only a TV but also a computer monitor.  You just switch the input back and forth.  This is all just too cool for words.

During the rearranging, Rembrandt became obsessed with a paper clip.  Over and over, she would pull it off the folder and knock it to the ground, I would put it back and she would pull it off again.  My Rembrandt can do tricks!

  Here she is merely looking cute and colorful.

Here is Donna di Natale's new book from Kansas City Star, Anna's Quilt.  It is a delightful book that gives the pattern for a quilt that her Aunt Anna made and then smaller projects that are inspired by the Depression Era quilt.  

Donna was the editor for my book A Bountiful Life, which is hanging on still at Little Quilts :-) :

Come see it if you can, or be sure to visit it at Spring Market in May in the Kansas City Star booth.  I can't make it there myself because of The Troubles, but Donna is going to conduct a Schoolhouse for A Bountiful Life for me, and not only Donna will be there; Mary Ellen von Holt of Little Quilts and Muriel Pfaff, without whom I simply do not know how I would be navigating through The Troubles, will both also be at the Schoolhouse!!  I just cannot wait to see the youtube video of Schoolhouse to see my three good friends telling the audience about the book and the quilt.  Thank you, Donna, Mary Ellen, and Muriel, dear souls all.

Last but not least, I met Bettina Havig at the shop yesterday.  I was thrilled!  Her book, Amish Kinder Komforts, is one of my favorites.

Nothing to report on The Troubles, except that the chemotherapy infusions continue, the side effects are enough to get a hyena depressed, Timmy is helping me in all ways possible and is the best son ever (how many people could make me laugh during the infusion when I know what is coming a few hours later), and it's too early to know what the effect of all of this is.  Must think positive.  This is the third week, the good week, and I feel fabulous!

So as the Easter sunset sets in the west, Rembrandt, Timmy, and I wish you all the best in quilting and daily life.