A Quilter's Highest Compliment

In 1999, my dear husband and I were expecting our second baby in October, while my dear friend was expecting her first.  In fact, we were due a day apart!

Well, we welcomed two little bundles into the world that October: our Sarah arrived 17 days early and Ethan three weeks after that.   Apparently, due dates are not an exact science.

Anyway, I was given the highest of compliments and was asked to be Ethan's godmother!  Well, no godson of mine could go without a quilt, so I got to work and made him sailboats set in an Irish chain for his first Christmas.  It was pretty cool--the sails were three-dimensional and had novelty fabrics hidden behind each flap.

Here's what it looked like a few days before I gave it to him...

When I give a quilt, the best I can hope for is that people use it once in a while and feel all the love I stuff in the stitches.  And when I give a quilt to a child, the way their parents view the gift usually has the greatest influence on the recipient.

Fast forward to Christmas 2012--I asked how the quilt was doing since I hadn't seen it for a while.  I knew it was well loved and appreciated, but didn't realize quite how much......

The handsome quilt holder is my dear sweet husband who involved me in quilting nearly twenty years ago!!

Can you see how extremely well loved that quilt is??  Take a minute to click on the picture and get a good look.  You might even need to look twice at some parts to see them once. My friend and her husband were a bit embarrassed to show me what it looked like and after some coaxing, started telling me about the adventures the quilt shared with their family.  Have to say, Ethan made some pretty impressive improvements to that quilt!!  I have a wonderful godson!

Seeing this quilt eleven years later was the greatest compliment I've every received as a quilter--someone loved what I made so much they used it up!

Where Did April Go?!?

Wow!!  Has time been flying for you, too?  Traditionally, March is a very slow month, April starts to gain some momentum, May is a blur and June evaporates, but this year, it's been worse than usual!  Maybe our mild winter is causing this phenomenon?  If you figure it out, please post a comment and let me know!

In an attempt to figure out where the time has gone, I looked back through my pictures (Can you tell I got a new camera for Christmas?!?  Our girls are just thrilled!!) and found some of the quilts that have been occupying my time.

Some friends have had a top or two that needed some quilting, so I helped them out by quilting them.  Here's a mini quilt show of the talented ladies I know and their amazing quilt tops......(that sentence doesn't sound right in every context, but all the quilters out there understand me, right?).......

 

Lots and lots and lots of feathers!!!

Perhaps I've been so involved with my quilting machine, I've not noticed the hours flying by?  Appreciate all the friends who have trusted me with their quilts--thank you!!

The Newest Quilter on Our Block

For years, I've been saving the little scrabbles from my quilting and filling an onion bag with the pieces much too small for a seam.  The bag goes outside in the spring so there is plenty of nesting material available for the birds. About this time of year, the birds snitch little bits every day to construct their new homes--we have robins that nest in our rose bush faithfully every year.

This year, the squirrels have decided to use my fabric for their new nest in our willow tree!!

Can you see the fabric strips in the nest?  Pretty colorful!  Bet all the other squirrels are jealous, but hope they don't entertain notions of moving into our willow, too.  We already have an assortment of giant rabbits, a slew of chipmunks and a few ground hogs, in spite of having a dog.  They apparently pay her some sort of extortion to allow them to stay--she typically looks at them and then goes in a different direction.


Do you have a special way you recycle your scraps?  Would appreciate you sharing your best idea in the comment section so everyone can read it and give it a try--thanks so much!

True Confessions

As I'm sure you do, I enjoy perusing lots of blogs, in particular, quilt blogs.  Some of them have narratives about trips, tutorials, free patterns, recipes or any combination of the aforementioned items.  Each blog reveals a little bit of the writer and I get to know them better.  So, rather than have you sift through my posts to find my quilty skeletons, I've decided to list my top ten quilting quirks:

1.  My husband purchased my first quilt class. (So, it's all his fault!)  We were married in the Spring of 1992 and for Christmas that year, I was gifted a hand-piecing class at Temple University.  When I asked him how he knew I would like to learn how to quilt, he replied he noticed I admired a quilt once.  (That was when life was simpler and we were able to give each other our undivided attention--in other words, before children.)  I gained two lifelong loves that year--my dear sweet husband and quilting!

April 11, 1992--seems like yesterday!

 2.  There are eight sewing machines, two embroidery machines, one serger and one longarm in my house.  And most of them have names.

3.  My husband build an addition onto our house to accommodate my longarm.

4.  My sewing space is only big enough for one person.  We finished half the basement and the kids got a majority of the space.  The Container Store and I managed to squash a sizable stash, sewing table, build-in cutting surface/cabinets, two bookcases, design wall and ironing board into a ten foot by nearly twelve foot space.  (Huh!  I thought my little corner of the basement was quite small, but when looking at the numbers, it's not too bad!  Wonder why it seems so very, very tiny......?)

Looking in from the kids' area..

Looking at my cutting surface...

The stash and bookcases....

Batting and trims storage......

5.  I have a raging quilt magazine addiction!  The current list of periodicals coming to our home is Quiltmaker, Irish Quilting, The Quilt Life and am a charter member of American Patchwork and Quilting (that's 20 years of magazines!).

6.  I have no more room on the walls to hang quilts and am pretty sure my dear husband is unwilling to put a second addition on our house.

With a bit of rearranging, am hoping to get "Sedona Delight" on a wall somewhere in here!

7.  Both of our daughters can sew and have made quilts.  One would sew all the time and the other would rather not.  In fact, the older non-sewer was heard to say as a six year old, "Why can't you be like other mothers and not sew?"  On the other end of the spectrum, the younger loves to go to The Village Quilter to buy fat quarters.  When I asked if she had a project in mind, she didn't hesitate in her response--"Do I need to have a project in mind in order to buy a fat quarter?"  Hearing your own quilty words coming out of your daughter's mouth.....priceless!

8.  My four year old nephew already has four quilts.

9.  Every vacation includes a visit to a local quilt shop.  There is only one quilt store in South America and I've been there. 

Santiago, Chile:  These ladies are lovely!!

10.  There are quilt blocks on my mailbox because I put them there.  Save yourself some time and don't paint your mailbox.  Use the new duct tape sheets--they are far less work and don't fade.

Sort of glows, doesn't it?

There you have it--all my quilty skeletons!  Well, maybe most of them.  Do you have any quilty quirks that you'd be willing to share?  Do you wait until it's dark outside before bringing in the bags from the quilt store so your significant other/children/neighbors don't see how much fabric you've purchased?  Did you build a shed in the backyard or rent a storage space for your stash?

To me, quilting does so much to benefit our psyche and to spread good will to those around us, all our quirks work together for the greater good--sort of like the patchwork we enjoy so much!