Library Love

Do you utilize your public library? If you aren’t using it, you are seriously missing out. This was my haul from this week…

The two on the top are my non-quilting “reads”, a novel on CD to listen to while I sew, and a nutrition book to read before bed each night. The rest of these babies…all quilting…all the time! And some brand-new, very recently published titles! I mean seriously, these are still on the “new” shelf at the Barnes & Noble stores!


I spend a lot of money on books. I used to work for Barnes & Noble and took full advantage of my employee discount. My sister once said to me, while helping me move to a new apartment, “Seriously, Doris, more time at the library, less time at the booktore.” Apparently the number of boxes labeled “books” seemed excessive in her opinion. But, I’ve always used my library, everytime I moved to a new community/city/state, one of my first stops would be the library to apply for a card. But sometimes, I try a book on for size from the library and go buy a copy for my own bookshelf anyway. Like this one…

This book is actually ten years old, but the info is still extremely relevant. The author, Lee Cleland, made 15 different quilt patterns up into quilts, making five identical quilts of each one (yes, 75 quilts for this book, alone!) Then she quilted each one completely differently to demonstrate how “quilting makes the quilt”. You can kind of see on the cover there three different versions of the same quilt design. I have a used copy on its way to my mailbox already! The patterns for making the 15 quilts are in the book as well.

I’m recently obsessed with string quilts, so this book is thrilling me to tears! And speaking of obsessions…
Ruth B. McDowell is my FAVORITE quilter of all time, my ultimate dream is to take a workshop with this woman…I own every book she has published, except this one….which is as awesome as all the others…

And my sweetie and I have both been enjoying this one…it is a compilation of quilt related newspaper clippings from the early 1800s through the early-20th century. I will have to do a separate post highlighting some of the gems from this book! It has kept us in stitches…no pun intended!

And finally, I am mastering free-motion quilting!!!!!!! Don’t look too close (if you enlarge this pic) ’cause it is my true effort, meaning not on a practice sandwich. It’s a small scale meander on my French Roses quilt. There are definitely a few ugly spots in there, but most importantly, my machine is finally fixed and I am able to do this!!!! YEAH!

Maggy is there to provide assistance, as always… Thanks, Mags.

Baby Love

Remember this cute little guy? I showed you a sneak peek right before Easter…

Well, he went to this sweet little guy…who normally has a very sunny disposition and a never ending smile…but he simply did not want to cooperate with a grin for the camera this morning.

He’s still adorable and makes my heart sing every time I see him! He has a few new cousins on the way, both little girls, so I made these this week…

A mongrammed onesie and flannel burp cloth to match!

Every girl needs some monogrammed goodness, right?! These were so easy to make and I know will be greatly appreciated by their non-sewing mommies!

Here is the beautiful quilt that Victoria made from the 9-patch blocks that I, and quilters from all over the globe made and contributed to the project… She called it “Nothing But Kisses” (get it? It’s all x’s!) Isn’t it gorgeous!? Do you want it? It is being auctioned off for a great charity, Love Without Boundaries. To visit the auction, click on the quilt!

Enjoy this beautiful day!

Spring 2009 Virtual Quilt Festival

Amy is hosting a virtual Quilt Show this week. Here is my entry…sure to win Best of Show. (Just kidding, I’m really not that cocky! But since it’s a virtual world…a girl can dream, right?!) I chose this quilt as my entry into Amy’s “Festival” because it was my first true “art quilt” and I truly love how it turned out. The batiks blend together beautifully, I used alot of thread painting and quilting techniques I had not tried before and the overall product is, in my humble opinion, stunning. Here is it’s story:

My sweetie is a major fan of Django Reinhardt, a gypsy jazz musician from Belgium, who died in 1953. In addition to idolizing Django, he plays the guitar (a Martin that he refers to as “The Grail”) and the mandolin. I made him this art quilt for Christmas 2005. The name of the quilt is “Gypsy Django”.
The guitar in the quilt is created from the jazz guitar that Sweetie owned at the time, prior to purchasing The Grail and selling all other “inferior” guitars in his possession. The two mandolins are also his, the inlay one was his grandfather’s, and the “triangular” one he made himself.
This is the mandolin his grandfather owned and played, it’s beautiful, with a mother-of-pearl inlaid butterfly, and m-of-p inlay around the edges and on the neck. It’s a true work of art and is proudly displayed on the mantel.
We aren’t sure how old the mandolin is, or where it came from, but he has this photo of his grandfather (on the left) playing this very mandolin in the very early 20th Century:
The mandolin he made himself hangs on the bedroom wall when not in use.
I used a batik on the back and binding as well. This was my first foray into “creative” quilt labels. Now, go see Amy and enjoy the rest of the “show”! Oh! One more thing…go check out this birthday giveaway:
http://www.pigtalesandquilts.com/2009/04/give-away-time.html

A Cute Diversion

I thought I would try and divert your attention away from the fact that Spring has gotten the best of me and my posts are way too few and far between. My diversion tactic? Pics of the cutest guests at my Easter Dinner on Sunday.

My brother’s son is the “big” guy in the middle…Mr. Nighttime Hat for those of you keeping score at home. The two little guys are my sister’s cutie-pies.

Jonah and Robby posed just perfectly, Sam was a little more interested in the box of crayons.
Hey, what happened to the third one? He just couldn’t take sitting for pictures any longer…

I made these “carrots” to add to the centerpiece decorations and as party favors for the boys. The idea came from here, I believe. Sam loves to eat, (even his real veggies) and he was super excited about these Goldfish carrots!

I’ll be back soon to post some of my project progress for Spring to Finish!

Bunnies? Eggs? Christ on a Cross?!?

**Originally posted March 21, 2008–

I’ve always found the commercialization of, particularly the religious, holidays a little disconcerting, even if I do give in to the commercialization from time-to-time. I do have a cute bunny bowl I bring out this time of year, buy chocolate Easter eggs, dye eggs, make holiday cookies for my coworkers, and I have Santa decorations as well as a Nativity and a Crucifix–but why? Well, today I decided Google could probably answer that question for me. I found this tidbit about the traditions of Easter, and low and behold, the bunnies and eggs are the ORIGINAL symbols of Easter. Something I never knew, but hey, you learn something new everyday, right?

God Bless and Happy Easter!

A great week

I arrived home from work yesterday to a suprise package in the post… it was my Pay It Forward gift from Sue.

She obvisouly paid attention to my blog, ’cause this gift would make one think she knows me in “real” life! A lovely blue-green batik (!) fat quarter…with green leaves…. a green and aqua crocheted hot pad… chocolates (!!) in a green box… and (gasp!) lime green mugs from IKEA (!!!) I love me some green, amd that shade of lime green is too perfect! She also included a lovely greeting on a Rebecca Barker Quiltscapes card (love her work!) Thank you, oh so much, Sue…tonight I will be having tea in my new Ikea mugs with my tea pot resting on the lovely hot pad! This was the perfect hump-day pick-me-up!

Last night, we dyed Easter eggs with the nephews. The 18 month old was really into it, notice him there, double-fisting the boiled eggs. I think he would have liked to take his eggs and go play with them if we had let him.

We only did a dozen, it’s hard to keep a four-year old and a toddler engaged longer than that! But, us big kids had just as much fun. ;->

I love the Spring-time colors…

My good week continued this morning when I won 2nd row tickets to see one of my favorite performers! I already had tickets for Saturday night’s show, but they were no where near the second row…so one of my co-workers will be enjoying those seats.

I hope your week is going just as well as mine…

BTW…would any of my fine readers care to volunteer to be the recipent of my Pay It Forward package? The first one to offer in the comments will be the recipient, you simply have to agree to pay it forward to someone else through your own blog after your receive my gift.