Let your haters be your motivators!

This is O. V.'s Christmas Ribbon quilt! Completed in about two weeks. Bound and quilted. It's beautiful! And all the other ladies are drinking hater-aid!

A picture is worth a thousand words!

At least I hope not!

Back to quilting!

I'm trying so hard not to be worried...I know I need to let it go! Worrying doesn't accomplish anything...what will be, will be. Obama is as cool as a cucumber, while my blood pressure is off the charts! OK - letting it go. See...gone! Poof!

This photo is of me teaching a quilt class at my home...Hmmmm? Oh, OK - This actually is a photo of me sipping a Chocolate Martini...but we really did sew and we surpassed all our stated objectives for that day, AND I had a blast! Five of my sister Brown Sugar Stitchers came to learn how to make the Twisted Ribbon quilt...O.V. featured this quilt in her September newsletter and asked me to teach a class on how to make it. I can fairly comfortably fit five people into my sewing room when it's clean ("when it's clean"). We were joined by Cathy, Roz, Bessie and Marva. I made my world famous Apple Martinis, but no one wanted to try my Chocolate Martini...until they tasted it! I can't sew straight and drink, but my sisters can! And, no, I am not toasted...that's just the way I look with no makeup! You can see in the background that Roz and Cathy are actually working. Come to think of it, they were the two not drinking! O.V. took the photo on her cell phone. I can't wait to see the finished results of everyone's quilts! We're going to have show and tell in 2009.


Here's the recipe for the Chocolatini:

1 1/2 oz. vanilla vodka
1 oz. Godiva liquer
Whipped Cream and chocolate curl garnish.

YUM!

Then last weekend I went to San Francisco for the O You conference...here are some photos from the Conference...


Regina, Me, Harriet



Harriet, Sandi, me, Ann, Barbara, Regina

The Queen...Oprah wasn't supposed to be there, but Gail talked her in to coming. She spoke at the end of the conference for about 30 minutes.



Me at the book store when I was supposed to be in a workshop!

Final Debate Drinking Game

Drink once if McCain says "fundamental."

Drink once if McCain says, "My friends"

Drink once if McCain says, "I know how to do it." (Why didn't he tell his friend George Bush and why hasn't he done it?)

Drink once if Obama says "Wall street - Main street"

Drink once if McCain says "Reformer"

Drink once if McCain says "Maverick"

If McCain brings up Ayers, Wright, terrorists, drink the whole bottle!

Hearts and Flowers

So - since last we met, I completed this hearts and flowers block for Linda, whose grandchild Baby Bear Pohler passed shortly after birth. Linda is on the CQ for Newbies list, and this is terribly over due. I hope in this case, it is the thought that counts. Linda's blog is http://justastitchintime.blogspot.com/ The center bear is from the Embroidery Designs Online website.

Sarah, Sarah...

OK, so I know it's supposed to be a blog about quilting...but, gosh darn it, I'm just going to bust if I don't say something about that doggone "debate" last night. I'm just going to talk straight to the American people. Did you watch last night? Let me give a "shout-out" to Palin - she wasn't terrible...she was able to put together a noun, a verb, and "maverick." After those Katy Couric interviews, I half expected her to not even be able to do that! But I betcha you are just as disappointed as I am that there wasn't a complete meltdown, darn it. On several occasions, she looked liked she was reciting from a cue card...but Oh! props to her for being able to say Ahmadinejad three times fast! Can't you just see the practice sessions for that? But, c'mon - is that the bar for VP of the United States? She didn't suck??? She managed to survive for 90 minutes by sticking to her cue cards? She "held her own" by mugging, winking, not answering the questions? Don't we already have one of those in office? This isn't "Dancing with the Stars." I was so happy to see Gwen Ifill as the moderator, but I wish Gwen had put her hand on her hip and said, "Girlfriend, will you please just answer the question? Don't make me come up there!" We all know that politicians have their spin, but I've never heard one flat out say in a debate, "I'm not going to answer the question." Isn't that what a debate is?

I can already see the Saturday Night Live skit! To be particularly effective, show it split screen with Tina Fey saying Palin's exact words, God bless 'er.

"Nuclear (Nuk-lar) weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet, so those dangerous regimes, again, cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear (nuk-lar) weapons, period."

When Gwen asked about the role of the Vice President, Biden was comfortable to say: "I would be the point person for the legislative initiatives in the United States Congress for our administration." Palin's answer was more abstract and obscure: "We have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation." What? Really?

And one of her caribou in the headlights moments: “That is not so, but because that's just a quick answer, I want to talk about, again, my record on energy — your ticket's energy ticket also. I think that this is important to come back to, with that energy policy plan, again, that was voted for in '05.”

Am I the only one who can't understand a word this woman is saying?

Please. Steve Harvey made a funny comment..."Your entire foreign policy experience can not be 'cause you can see Russia from your backyard. Hell, I can see the moon from my backyard, and that don't make me an astronaut!"

And how telling is it that she read in the paper (the good news is that apparently she does read them!) this morning that McCain is pulling out of Michigan? As Rachel Maddow says, "Somebody talk me down."

What happens when you give up wine...

I was walking down the street when I was accosted by a particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless woman who asked me for a couple of dollars for dinner. I took out my wallet, got out ten dollars and asked, "If I give you this money, will you buy wine with it instead of dinner?"

"No, I had to stop drinking years ago," the homeless woman told me.

"Will you use it to go shopping instead of buying food?" I asked.

"No, I don't waste time shopping," the homeless woman said. "I need to spend all my time trying to stay alive."

"Will you spend this on a beauty salon instead of food?" I asked.

"Are you NUTS ?!" replied the homeless woman. "I haven't had my hair done in 20 years!"

"Well," I said, "I'm not going to give you the money. Instead, I'm going to take you out for dinner with my husband and me tonight."

The homeless woman was shocked. "Won't your husband be furious with you for doing that? I know I'm dirty, and I probably smell pretty disgusting."

"That's okay," I said. "It's important for him to see what a woman looks like after she has given up wine, shopping, and hair appointments!"

Latte Quilt

I bought the book for the Latte Quilt, a beautiful embroidered pattern by Kerrie Hay, about 3 or 4 years ago, but it was way too complex for my basic skills. Then last year, I scheduled a class at the Atlanta Sewing Center, but the instructor had to reschedule due to a death in her family, and my travel schedule got crazy, so I wasn't able to attend. How happy was I to see it on the class schedule this year! I rescheduled my trip to Arlington last week and took the first class, which was excellent! I learned so much! So this is the first block, and I can't get it to line up correctly. See how the bottom two pieces in the middle don't meet? The second one I did was off even more...I'm sure this has to do with how I'm placing the template.

Almost there! It's definitely an "Oh, wow!" piece, don't you think? I'm home for the next two weeks, so I should be able to get the top half sewn together. Right now it's just laid out on my design wall. Then I REALLY have to work on my Carrie Steele Pitts quilt! No, really!

Oh my! How pretty is this? I am loving this piece. Altho it does look like a giant Pac-Man. If I could be home for two seconds, I could finish it! I worked on this over the weekend, but work, the Post Office, and life interrupted any concerted effort. The missing four pieces are because I wasn't paying attention, and cut those wedges upside down. So I have to sew another set of strips. But, tomorrow night I have the "Latte Quilt" class, and I have to get my stuff assembled for it tonight, and I leave for DC on Wednesday, back on Friday. Hopefully I can get this finished this weekend, because I need to work on my Carrie Steele Pitts quilt. But I am very happy with the way this is coming along!

Oooooh, pretty! I just l-o-v-e love
bargello quilts.
I love the movement, the colors, and the fact that they are so dang easy but look so hard. "All those little pieces." When I was in Denver in July to see the Sisters of the Cloth exhibit at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden, Jessica took me to a quilt store where this quilt was hanging as a sample for a class. I bought the ruler and the book on the spot. Turns out, the book has been around since 2001! I don't know how I missed that one. The color is off in this photo, but the top is yellows, oranges, and deep reds, and looks like a sunrise...or a sunset. Maybe 12 of the 18 fabrics were in my stash, and I had to go in search for the others to fill in the gaps. (Awwww---poor baby!) If I weren't going to L.A this weekend to visit my friend Pam, I could easily finish piecing this. I won't be back until THURSDAY, so my little fingers will be itching to get to this when I return.

Whatcha been up to, Girl? Where ya been? Well, Life got a little crazy. One of the things I did since last we blogged, was to go to a retreat in California with my guild in Oakland. I was too lazy to take my sewing machine, so I took this quilt, where I finished 3/4 of the binding. I like to blindstitch the binding on by hand, so it does take a minute or two. It took a few hours last night to complete it.

This quilt is called Ramblin' Rose with Guacamole and Extra Salsa on the Side, and it was designed by Marti Michell. The floral fabric with the black background is the Ramblin' Rose fabric, and it was also designed by Marti. It was quilted on a longarm by Melinda Fulkerson, who also taught the class. I didn't love the fabric, but I wanted to learn the kaleidoscope technique, and it was easier to do that with Marti's fabric and directions than trying to start from scratch. Marti is a genius - it is amazing the way everything fit together perfectly. You should try her templates!

There are a few blocks that don't line up as well as I would like, but I'm going with the galloping horse theory on those. The galloping horse theory in quilting is that if the mistake can't be seen from a galloping horse, then don't worry about it. The point being not to obsess over the small stuff. I will rip a seam out in a heartbeat when it's wrong, but I decided to let these go. So what had happened was, I have my Bernina set to sew a scant 1/4 inch seam - the needle is moved one stop over to the right from center. I don't even think about it any more. Halfway through this quilt, I had to take my baby into the shop because she was skipping stiches (funny story that...when I took the machine in, the woman asked if I had changed the needle recently, the implication being that it was skipping because the needle needed to be replaced. I told her I had, and actually it had started skipping right after that. When I got the machine back, the technician said that I hadn't pushed the needle all the way in. Amazing how that works! "It started right after I changed the needle.") I had to use my backup machine while she was in the shop, which wasn't set up to sew a scant 1/4 inch, and which I completely forgot about. So the blocks that are off are the ones that aren't a scant 1/4 inch. Scant being the operative word in that sentence.

This quilt is for my Aunt Dot, my Mom's sister, who taught me to sew. I remember her teaching me like it was yesterday, and she doesn't remember it at all. Some of my favorite and happiest childhood memories center on my Aunt Dot. At one point in our young lives, my Mom and Aunt Dot lived together. She had three kids, Mom had two, and we all lived in a two (maybe three) bedroom house together. I only think three bedrooms because I can't imagine all those people in two bedrooms, but my memory is two bedrooms. Her birthday is Saturday, and I can't believe I actually have completed something on time for the actual event!

H is for hamsa. The hamsa (Arabic: خمسة, Khamsa‎, literally "five") is a symbol used in amulets, charms and jewelry to protect against the "evil eye." An alternative Islamic name for this charm is the Hand of Fatima or Eye of Fatima, in reference to Fatima Zahra, the daughter of Muhammad. The hamsa is widespread in Arab countries, and is sold in many different forms especially in the marketplaces of Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. I bought a silver one in Morocco.

This is my H postcard for artsnthemail, so once again I'm all caught up...but I'm stuck on "I." I is for...ice cream, igloo, idiot (I could do idiot and use a photo of W, the all-time village idiot.) Hmmm...I'll have to sleep on it...then I think I'll take a break from postcards for a while. I haven't done much all year besides postcards.

Just finished this postcard for the AA Veteran's Swap - I finished all the parts a couple of weeks ago, well within the deadline, but then I started all my travels. I put it all together today. The photo is then Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, a West Point graduate, with some of the Tuskegee Airmen in front of a P-51 named By Request. The name comes from the fact that once the Tuskeegee Airmen earned their wings, they were derided by the white Air Corps. But white bomber crews went from making fun of the Tuskegee fighters to requesting them for escort on hazardous runs. The tenacious cover provided by the 332nd "Red Tail" fighters often discouraged enemy fighter pilots from attacking bombers escorted by the fighters. The Tuskegee Airmen won more than 850 medals, including 150 Distinguised Flying Crosses, eight Purple Hearts, and 14 Bronze Stars, among many others. The bravery of the Tuskegee Airmen paved the way to the future, so that others like my husband, Major Alwyn Walton (U.S. Air Force, Ret) could have the opportunity to live their dreams of flying.