Georgia Quilt Show - Honorable Mention!

Spent all day yesterday at the Georgia Quilt Show! "Jewels in the Castle Wall" received an Honorable Mention. Again, the competition in this category was fierce, so it is wonderful just to be recognized! Isn't the Internet machine amazing? I "met" Leona on Facebook and sent her the quilt to be quilted. I finally got to meet her in person yesterday. This is the two of us at the show in front of the quilt.

This was the first place quilt in the Bed Quilt category - "Splendeferous" - it is an amazing quilt, lots of complexity and detail. The quilting is amazing!

Second place: - "My Sand Devils"

"Logs and Stars in Scraps" - Third.   This is an incredibly complex, non-strip pieced, beautiful quilt.

All the quilts in the show were gorgeous! So much hard work and creativity! For more pictures, if you're on Facebook, you can see them on the Original Sewing Expo's page.

As for me, I'm about to enter three weeks of epic back to back travel for work. I leave this afternoon for New York, then to Dallas on Tuesday. Don't come back from Dallas until Thursday.

The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that it's difficult to determine whether or not they are genuine. -- Abraham Lincoln

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

I'm ba-ack! We had an amazing trip to Ghana! I have over 1000 photos, and will post a link as soon as I get them down to something manageable.

But first - "Not Fast Food" won first place in the East Cobb Quilt Show in the 2-person bed quilt category! I've seen photos of some of the quilts in the category, and am so humbled by the honor. This was a very competitive category. I'm posting a photo from Melinda's website because it has the ribbons attached. I couldn't attend the show because we left for Ghana the day the winners were announced. We had internet access in Ghana, so I received several congratulatory emails and texts while away! I'm still basking in the glow! Wow!

And more good news! "Jewels in the Castle Wall" was juried into the Georgia Quilt Show.  After Leona finished quilting it with metallic threads, it looked kind of like a brick wall, so I changed the name.  It is really a beautiful quilt!

More photos to come of the trip to Ghana later! So happy to be home!

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. -- Lin Yutang.

Reflect and Remember

I know it has been so long since I've posted...I've been in California a lot with my stepfather (crisis seems to have passed), and the only quilting I have done has been putting binding on. 

"Survivor Tree" salvaged from the ruins of  the WTC in 2001

Today is the  tenth anniversary of September 11th.  We were living in California at the time, so it was just 6AM on the West Coast. I was up, getting ready for work - my morning habit was to listen to KCBS, All News, All The Time, Traffic on the 8's while I got ready. I still stream KCBS sometimes here, when I can't take any more of the hatred spewed out by the local right wing stations. But I digress... The newscaster broke in to say that a plane had hit one of the towers at the World Trade Center...I envisioned a small plane hitting the tower, tried to think of which one was the North Tower, and continued getting ready. Then they broke in to say that a second plane had hit the other tower. I woke Al up and asked him to turn on the television. He asked what channel? I said, if what they're saying on the radio is true, it doesn't matter, any channel. And indeed, all the stations had feed of the two towers on fire as we tried to figure out what this meant. Terrorist attack was not even on my mind. Later, one tower pancaked down in a tremendous crash, then the other.  My sister lives in New York, but I wasn't even remotely concerned that she would be at the WTC...she stays away from tall buildings if she can help it.  I lived in NYC in the 80's, and I still have friends there. Later I found out that everyone I knew and loved was OK. When I worked in Capital Markets for Bank of America, we used to stay at The Millenium Hotel (another blog/another time about wonderful memories of me, Susan and Joann in the Big Apple), and in the days that followed, we learned that the front of The Millenium was completely blown out when the towers crashed, but the hotel was still standing. Susan has been back,and said it is now a Hilton. I was supposed to be in Seattle that day, and I can't remember why I came back early, but I was thankful to not be someplace where I needed to rely on a plane to get back home.

I went in to the office, and I remember some out of town people who were there for a meeting having the presence of mind to get a rental car and get on the road right away to go home. I don't know if I would have thought of that...and then, folks couldn't get rental cars since they were all taken. Because one of the planes was headed for SF, we closed the office, not knowing if the terrorists might target skyscrapers in SF.

It's sad to think of the loss of life and treasure since then. I watched the coverage this morning of 9/11 and the opening of the National 9/11 Memorial.  I think the architects got it exactly right...the memorial is beautiful. It was great to see the progress they have made. 

Scient People Team Reunion - 8/11

From September, 1999 to May, 2001, I worked at a dot-com called Scient as part of the People Team (HR). We had such a great group of people - it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and we all came together so well, as evidenced by the willingness of so many of the group to get together 10 years later.  Even though we worked our butts off, many, many 12-15 hour days, it was the best job I ever had. I used to joke about being the Adult Supervision. It was a unique culture and great work environment. To this day, you could wake me up at 2:00 AM and I could still tell you the Scient Values (Spirit, Community, Growth, Innovation, Urgency, Excellence). We definitely drank the Scient Kool-aid. Even knowing that the whole dot-com thing would implode, I would still do it again. Look at the great friends we all made!

Then it was off to the annual retreat out in Danville...what a talented group!  I worked on the binding for the red and white quilt and on a couple of the mystery projects. It's always great seeing everyone, and then on Sunday I came back home. This is the mystery project and I just love Benita's choice of fabrics. The picture does not do it justice!

And once again, I came back from the retreat to find that all three of my quilts had been accepted into the East Cobb Show! 

So I've been putting on bindings and sleeves and today I dropped off all three quilts!  And "Not Fast Food", which is now renamed to "Jewels in the Castle Wall," has also been accepted into the Georgia Quilt Show!

OK, so I haven't blogged in ages, and I am headed off to Ghana on Thursday, so it will be another couple of weeks before you hear from me again. Until then, happy stitching!

I dream of a better world where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned.

Who WAS the President before George H.W. Bush????*

I haven't posted in a month of Sundays...literally! It has been a month since the last Sunday I posted. I've been to California twice since then, headed out there again on Wednesday, instead of going to Montana to the Quiltworx Retreat where I belong. I've been trying to help my 81-year old Stepfather, who has decided to give away the little bit of money he has to a bunch of scammers from Jamaica. I'm not sure if it is Alzheimer's or if he truly does believe he has won $2 Million and all he has to do is send in his life savings to get it. The few moments of quilting have been spent putting the binding on the red and white quilt.


















We took him to the Dr. to have him declared incompetent to handle his financial affairs. Like when you call someone to work on your computer and it works perfectly, the day we took him to the Dr., he was 110% focused.  The title of this post comes from some of the questions asked to determine his cognitive ability.
"Who's the President of the United States?"
"Obama!"
"Who was the president before that?"
"Bush"
"Who was the president before that?"
"Clinton"
At this point, I was starting to think myself, who was the president before that? After thinking long and hard - Oh yeah, George H. W. Bush.  And glad I didn't have to answer the question... who was the president before Bush 41? 

* Ronald Reagan

Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get
old, people won't think you're going gaga. - David Ogilvy

Leona is Amazing!

Check out Leona's step-by-step of how she is quilting Not Fast Food.  I'm really excited about the potential use of metallic threads:

TURBO QUILTER: Great CLIENT Quilts Inspire Me to Draw Original Quilt Motifs = A Lot of FUN#comment-form

--Americans will not be happy until we can fry oxygen.  Andy Borowitz

Not Fast Food

It was pointed out to me that I had not posted a completed picture of Not Fast Food...so here it is!  Non-quilters always ask, "How long did that take?"  There is no easy answer to that question - I know they mean, "how long did it take to sew the dang thing," but how long did it take has to include agonizing over fabric choices, cutting fabric, arranging the layout, etc.  I went into KiwiQuilts last week, and I was telling one of the customers that each of the blocks took between 10 and 15 hours (most took 15) to sew, and that I named it Not Fast Food because I was a White Glove at the East Cobb Show in 2009, and a gentleman said to me that he was glad that quilting had not gone the way of fast food. I thought of him when I was working on this piece and the first block took about 10 hours to piece. Tracy thought that was really the name of the pattern, and had not been able to find it.  Hmmmmm.....wonder why?  It's a Block of the Month from Starr Fabrics. You can buy the whole kit at once and save on postage, but I would recommend joining their mailing list, and when they have their 12 days of Christmas sale or another sale, they'll send you a note and you can get it then, or buy it at one of the quilt shows. I bought it at the Chicago show a couple of years ago, and it was 50% off.

I am sooooo glad to be finished with this. I learned a lot, and my piecing got so much better by the end. It is off to Leona Harden to be quilted.

I spent the day Saturday down at Quilts and Fixins in Jonesboro to sell Raffle Tickets for the East Cobb Raffle Quilt.  This picture does not do it justice. I met lots of quilters and we sold lots of tickets, so it was a good day!

I owe, I owe, so off to work I go! Have a great day!

I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere.

Freakin' Rock Star From Mars

I made it under the wire with my entries to the East Cobb Quilt Show. I did not finish the shoe quilt, wasn't even able to get it to a point where I could pretend it was a quilt. So I have two entries this year: The Amazon Star on the left and Not Fast Food. The Amazon Star needs some work, as it is not quilt show worthy. It has the World's Biggest Feathers (tm), and I have to try to figure out how to fill them in.

And I finished piecing Not Fast Food...

I took them to the Post Office at 4:45 and told the attendant that I needed them postmarked today!  to which he obliged. Having sewn for hours every single day for the last couple of months, I am now going to work on the Brown Sugar Stitchers Treasurer's Report, and then, bed.
"Forty percent of Americans would not vote for Obama if he personally saved them from drowning." Bill Maher

Paper Piecing

100% of the quilters surveyed (me!) love the sharp points and intricate designs you can get with paper piecing, but hate taking the paper off. Not only is it a pain, but it's messy. I started taking paper off last night at 7, finished at 11:30, only took the paper off six blocks and I have a million little pieces of paper on my sewing room floor. I started out trying to put it in the trash can, but that little extra motion was taking up time, so then just started dropping it on the floor. As I was sweeping it up, I decided to share, because 85% of the people who read this blog want to see my messy sewing room floor.

Back at it this morning, but I have an appointment for a facial at 3, so I can't work on this all day today. 

79% of all statistics are made up.

Still working on it...

Sashing on all the rows, everything all lined up, pieced border pieced...I should finish it up by Friday.  I was hoping to finish it this weekend, but piecing the border took longer than I thought, and making sure that all the blocks are lined up is going to take longer than I expected.  I didn't get started on it until about noon today...our sprinkler system is out and I had to hand water all the new landscaping we put in last year. We've had mid-90's weather for the last two weeks, so no water has really started to take a toll on the plants.  I have a jillion hydrangeas.  Which just for the record, I have never liked. Don't ask me why I let the landscaper talk me into them. 

"I'm from Georgia where the tea is sweet and accents are sweeter. Peaches are the ladies. Summer starts in April. Macaroni and cheese is a vegetable. BBQ is the state food. Y'all is a proper pronoun. Chicken is fried. Biscuits come with gravy. Everyone is Honey. Someone is always getting their heart blessed. And we are all "fixin" to do something.” Jerome Cade

Happy Memorial Day!

Remembering those who have lost their lives in service to our country, as well as those who have served and are now serving in the military and the sacrificies they are making.

I spent most of yesterday cleaning up several of the blocks on Not Fast Food that were way wonky. One thing I can say is that I have definitely improved my paper piecing skills over the course of these blocks, and that's what it's all about, right? When I look at the blocks I pieced initially and the one I just finished up, seriously, they are like night and day.

So today I started putting it together.  The pattern calls for a 3 1/2 inch sashing, but when I laid it out, I didn't like such a big sashing....the blocks looked too far apart, and after all that hard work, the sashing just kind of drowned the block.  So I made the sashing 3 inches instead of 3 1/2.  And I squared the blocks off to 12 1/4."

So this will be set on point, and I was so careful when I cut the setting blocks...you can imagine my consternation when those end setting blocks didn't fit!  And then I realized...duh!  Of course they didn't fit - the top was now quite a bit smaller than the pattern. So I'm going to clean it up at the end...dividing 7/8" and 1/4" is just too hard for my pea brain.

When someone asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway. 

And Done!

Woo-hoo!  Just finished the last block!  Yippee!  It took a little bit longer because I wasn't paying attention and cut off the seam allowance (on the left)...duh!

Don't ask me what I was thinking...I have never cut off the seam allowance before. A little bit of scotch tape and it was all good. I had to resew 5, 6, 7, and 8, because I cut those off with the seam allowance, but it could have been on the other side where I would have had to resew the whole dang thing.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.  Wayne Gretzky

One! Ha, ha, ha, ha, One! One more block to go!

LOL - Now I'm The Count from Sesame Street!  It's because this block drove me in-sane! Aaaaugh! I want to be like Oprah and savor this last block..."no bitter, all sweet," reflect on the journey, the takeout meals, the unwashed clothes, the missed holiday celebrations while I was sewing.  Maybe have Chris Rock or Tom Hanks come and help me look back on how far I've come since that first block...instead, I think I'll just try to get 'er done.   Wine is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.  Benjamin Franklin

Two!

I really wanted to finish this block before the world came to an end today at 6, but we had a guild meeting, an applique class after that, and then I went to the sewing machine hospital to get my machines back!  Yippee!  The 200/730 is sewing beautifully!  They didn't charge me for the 830, but my back is hurting so bad, I left it in the car! 

"BREAKING NEWS*******RAPTURE HALTED: Because of discrepancies surrounding His "manger" birth, Jesus was unable to produce His original long form birth certificate, so the Rapture is temporarily on hold while Trump hires investigators to track down the 3 wise men who were "supposedly" witness to the newly born Jesus back in the day. Unfortunately, this means MONDAY will still come as originally scheduled."

 

Three!

This block was sooooooo hard! In fact, it was so hard that I turned it around... there were just too many places to line up that weren't working. I hope wherever this quilt ends up it doesn't get washed...there are pieces here that are hanging on by the slenderest of threads! I'll have to be more careful on the next block...

I got a sewing machine for my husband! Good trade, huh?

Four! (Four more, four more...)

They're starting to look alike, aren't they?

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid doing entirely."

"I've got five more blocks to go now...

...over the hill and just around the bend...I've got to keep on sew - ing...I've got to sew on....uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh...I'm so tired now...but I just can't lose my stride..."

I crack myself up sometimes!

This was the best line from the Correspondents Dinner: "Donald Trump owns the Miss USA pageant, which is great for Republicans, because it will streamline their search for a Vice President." 

  

Six!

"Donald Trump says he has a great relationship with 'the Blacks'...unless the Blacks are a family of white people, I bet he's mistaken."   Seth Myers, White House Correspondents Dinner, 2011

Mission Accomplished!

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." Jessica Dovey
"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."  Mark Twain

Seven...no, not the movie...

Seven blocks to go! 

Apparently I have sewn so much that I have worn my sewing machine out! I had to take it and the 830 back to the sewing machine hospital. I was not at all happy with the sewing machine hospital...we do seem to have a love hate relationship, don't we?  I'll start to think they're OK and then they'll go and do something else. It is absolutely my fault that I didn't bring the 830 back in right away after I had it serviced and it wasn't sewing properly.  When I told the service manager that I had not been able to get the tension to sew correctly, she found the original service slip from January and said they will have to charge me AGAIN to service it. I said if she looked at the stitches she could see that I had not sewn on it since I had it back, but she said they don't keep that record and it doesn't matter anyway. Actually, I think the machine records service record and stitches...I'll have to check. I may or may not make a fuss...I'm excellent about voting with my feet, although Bernina makes it really hard to do that. There's no other dealer in the greater Atlanta Metro area, which is why I keep going back there. We'll see.

I played around with how to lay this out:

Actually - truth, truth - I'm getting bored, and I was trying to play around with different layouts to see if I could stick a fork in this and call it done.

I went to the ECQG night meeting for the first time Thursday night. It was very nice and the people were friendly. The speaker was Margaret Miller.

There ain't no answer, there ain't gonna be any answer...there never has been an answer...there's the answer.

Gertrude Stein

Eight!

Do you remember a song from the 60's by Edwin Starr "Twenty-Five Miles" where he counts down the miles to go to get to his girlfriend's house?  THAT song has been playing in my mind...I actually do have it on iTunes, so I should play it today.

This is my least favorite of all the blocks...not because there are sooooooo many hard places to match up, but I think there is too much negative space (the light background). Maybe it will look better when it is quilted.

It was really hard...I spent all day yesterday working on it...This is another 112 piece block. The next one is a 104 piece block.

Y'all are gonna spoil me...and I'm already past my sell-by date.

Stephen Colbert

Ten, Nine...

I finished # 10 last weekend before I left for New York to see Jeffrey star in "Honk!", but I didn't have time to post before or after I got back. Then I left for Dallas (95 degrees!) and Chicago (45 degrees!)  There are 112 pieces in this block!

And now today I have finished # 9! Can I tell you how good it feels to be in the SINGLE digits? There are only 104 pieces in this block.

A bed without quilts is like a sky without stars

Sankofa -

The African American Quilt Guild of Oakland held their first ever quilt show on Saturday! It was sooooo good! You know that fear of throwing party and nobody comes?  Imagine if you throw a quilt show and nobody comes? Of course, you know your family and friends will come, but aside from that...Well - we need not have worried. There were HUNDREDS of people there! Family and friends, of course, but it was great to see all my friends from EBHQ...and members of my mini-group - Susan and Anne were there - oh, it made me miss California so much! Saturday morning, Doris, Regina and I walked Lake Merritt in the morning...

..., then I went to the show. This is my favorite quilt from the show...it is Swirling Batiks by Benita Jones...all those curves!

Sunday morning I went for a walk at Redwood before I headed back home. I am so out of shape...

This hill near 'bout kilt me. And this was the easy way! Redwood Park was about 15 minutes from our house...it was a lot easier to walk with such a beautiful place to hike so close to home. Farther down in the valley, there are waterfalls and more beautiful Redwoods.

No atoms casually together hurl'd

Could e'er produce so beautiful a world.

John Dryden

11 More to Go!

I am sooooo happy to have more finished than I have left to go. I'm happy to have finished this block, because I will not have time this week to do any more.  Tomorrow I'm going to dinner with Leslie, who is here from Washington, D.C., for a diversity conference, and Wednesday night I'm going to dinner with Anne and Jennifer. Thursday night I will be packing (oh, who am I kidding? I won't start packing until Friday morning when I leave!) for California. I might maybe wash Thursday night. The weekend after that I have to go to NYC to see my nephew Jeffrey starring in The Ugly Duckling. I have managed to be home for a bit, but then I have to go to Dallas and Chicago back to back. So if I manage to finish three more blocks this month, it will be a miracle.

I'm going to California because The African American Quilt Guild of Oakland is having their first quilt show. I will be showing the Liberated Shaded Nine-Patch, because I didn't finish the shoe quilt.

If The Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me. ~Song title by Jimmy Buffet

Halfway there!

12 down, 12 to go!  The blocks are definitely getting harder...way too many places to match up. After ripping these seams out about 3 times, I finally came up with the idea of using my walking foot. Duh!  So the problem is that even though my piecing is accurate, fabric shifts and stretches and pulls...and in some of the places where there are 12 pieces of fabric intersecting, the feed dog pulls the bottom fabric away from the top at an uneven rate.  Using the walking foot moves the top and bottom layers along at an even rate.  I mostly use my walking foot for putting on binding; never thought about it for piecing.

Never do anything you wouldn't want to explain to the paramedics.

10 down, 14 to go!

Ooh wee, this block was hard. I started it Monday night, just finished it tonight. Sooooo many places that had to match up. I just want to go out and buy a big old batch of Roxanne's Basting Glue. By the time I get to the end, I'll just be sitting in a corner babbling to myself. This is my favorite block, and since I got it to behave, I'm going to put it right in the middle of the quilt.

Whew! Time to go watch Top Chef. I hope Richard Blais wins!

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then give up. No use being a damned fool about it.   W. C. Fields

16 and 15

I  finished block 16 after book club yesterday and just finished 15...by the way, those are blocks left to go, not blocks completed. I'm confusing myself! I was trying to post these pictures side by side, but can't get them to post next to each other.

My goal was to finish 3 blocks this weekend, but we had a little excitement last night. I was sewing a block when a huge thunderstorm started. My sewing room is in the basement, and I could hear the hail as if I were outside. It truly came down in buckets. Then there was a huge burst of thunder and lightening, a spark and a flash and the electricity went out. A couple of minutes later, the electricity came back on, but the telephone was out, the televisions were out.  This morning Al went outside and said the sprinklers ran all night because the sprinkler controller blew out. The garage door opener blew out. Oh, and the alarm system. Can you say, whole house surge protector? But thankfully, the most important thing, my sewing machine is just fine! Since I was sewing at the time, I was really surprised when it came back up with no problem. It was plugged into a surge protector, but it's a cheap one that I really thought of as more of an extension cord. 

The piecing on these blocks is pretty good. Roxanne's Basting Glue is our friend.

The Atlanta Shop Hop was this weekend, but I didn't participate. I said the only way I would hop is if they would let me sell some of the fabric I have in my Resource Center!

Procrastinate! It frees up time to quilt!

17!

Yesterday I started thinking about the East Cobb Quilt Show in September and somehow I started thinking about Not Fast Food and how I had planned to finish that in time for the show. I spent an hour looking for the pattern (when am I going to get organized?), and decided I can finish this...by June 15. Right. I don't know if I can or not...each block takes 8 hours...and I have 17 more to go, which means I need 136 more hours to finish it by June. OK, I'm going to give it a shot. Stay tuned.

Here's the block I finished tonight. Using some of the techniques I've learned from Judy Neimeyer, it came together a lot better than the previous ones. I didn't have to take it apart 90 times. Only 89 times.

Sew much fabric, sew little time!

Red and White Quilt Finished!

Check it out! Red and White Single Irish Chain...done!

I have to finish the back tomorrow, and then try to find someone who can move me to the top of the list for quilting. With the East Cobb Show coming up this year, I know everyone will be very busy.

I went by Tiny Stitches after Hoopsisters class at Atlanta Sewing Center today to ask Melinda if she had time to quilt it. As I suspected, with Shop Hop and classes and quilts already in the que AND she's going to market with her sister in May, she didn't have time. Melinda does beautiful quilting - she quilted Ra, Batik Sun Dance, and Salsa with Extra Guacamole on the Side. But, when you're that good, you're in demand. 

As I was looking around in Tiny Stitches, I saw the shoe panel that Bessie had been looking for! After she finished embellishing her cute quilt last year, she said she wanted to do another, but couldn't find the panel any more. I was surprised to see this panel, and thought maybe they had reissued it...but Melinda told me they had just found it when they were moving stuff around.

And I found these two great panels...I see them as the center medallion in a bigger quilt, but they are fantastic panels in and of themselves. I have to show these now, because who knows when I will actually do something with them?

I must get busy finishing my quilts for the East Cobb show...I want to show the Amazon Star, If The Shoe Fits, and Japanese Fans. I would LOVE to show Misty Blue Latte, but I'm not sure I can finish it. Well - I gotta get going, huh? 

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way - when you criticize them - you're a mile away and you have their shoes!

On a roll!

Finished the BQ2 quilt. All it needed was borders, but geez, piecing borders and a back took forever! I think it may have taken longer than piecing the blocks! This was just something I put together quickly.  I should finish the red and white quilt today. Back to work!

I didn't post last week because it was my birthday.  I was in New York, and celebrated my nephew Joseph's 18th birthday on Friday night at the Cheesecake Factory.  On Sunday, my birthday, we started out the day by doing yard work! The nice weather from the week before had caused stuff to start blooming, so we needed to cut the roses back and cut some of the overgrown plants in the yard. Al took me to dinner at Caper's Sunday night, and I was so exhausted when we got back, I went to bed!

Age doesn't always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone.

Hi Sandi! Here's a closeup of a block...they're huge - 24" - which means it comes together very quickly...it's a weekend project for sure!



Rock Star from Mars

Guess what the name of the Amazon Star quilt is???  ROFLOL - 20 years from now it won't mean a thing, but for now, I think it is hilarious!

‎"I’m tired of pretending I’m not a total freakin' rock star from Mars."
Charlie Sheen

Finally Finished!

I finished the Amazon Star yesterday! Woo-hoo - something finished!  In the morning, I went to the Brown Sugar Stitchers Guild planning committee meeting for our Quilt Show, which will be in October/November. 

So now, back to the red and white quilt for Barbara!

What I Learned in Quilting School

Back from a great weekend at Quilting by the Bay in Florida! Judy Niemeyer is there all week, and I needed to get help with my Amazon Star and figure out why the star points weren't lining up. I redid the Mariners Compass part and it still wasn't lining up...and we all know that I'm anal about points matching. Judy was able to diagnose the problem quickly and set me on the right track!

Why yes, that is me next to Judy, hiding behind that gorgeous quilt! Judy was packing up at the end of the second day and Sue wanted to take a picture. I quickly grabbed the quilt to hide behind!  The quilt is a new pattern that is coming soon to a quilt shop near you...Cattails in the Meadow...and it is so pretty!

Those are my flat-out GORGEOUS Japanese Fans on the table. Want to see?

I am officially a Judy Groupie!