I’ve been on the road teaching at the Virginia Quilt Consortium Celebration 2012. It is a weekend retreat held at the Smith Mountain Lake 4-H Center. Lovely ladies in a very nice facility!
I was too busy to take many photos but I remembered to take this photo of Peggy with her special applique/lap pillow:
She said that she and her stitch group made these from 5 1/2″ squares. Maybe you can figure it out from this photo or, better yet, if you know of the pattern add it to the comments section. It’s a nice size, it’s cute, and it stays in place.
UPDATE: Claire at Matching Pegs has a tutorial for for her Star Fruit cushion here. It’s very good and I appreciate her sharing it with both me and you.
A new friend and fellow teacher, Lyric Kinard, took the photo below of me with my students at show & tell. Hand applique classes are always good for a chuckle at show and tell because there isn’t enough time in a day to sew much to a block. It may not look like it but my students learned a lot!
You saw Mom’s birthday cake from before I left home. Here’s Mom blowing out the candles last week. Jack was very interested.
FYI – Mom’s arm is healing well and she and Taz are going to sign up for dog obedience school. Mom is going to learn how to take charge and hopefully the little snert will learn some manners. (Taz being the snert, not Mom!)
I realized I still had some photos on my camera from the week before when I was in San Francisco. I have never seen hen and chicks this size before! Are they still called hen and chicks when they are 12″ across?
And these looked like they had the nose of an elephant!
I think that’s all I’ve got for today.
Last but not least, the extension agent who saw my plants is stumped. And it’s worse out there, not better. I am really afraid that I’m going to lose most of my yard full of plants. I have to call in to a landscaper recommended by the nursery I go to. I hate to spray it and find out I treated the wrong thing. It’s always something, isn’t it?
Piece O Cake Blog 
You look so much like your mom!
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It looks like she used my “Star Fruit Cushion Tutorial”…
http://www.matchingpegs.com/2010/02/15/star-fruit-cushion-tutorial/
The shape is more commonly seen as small pincushion-sized shapes, made to display cross-stitch work.
The shape is called a “Lotus Biscornu” (sometimes called “Tulip Biscornu” or “15-sided Biscornu”).
I made the tutorial when I up-sized the starting squares, because there are challenges when you enlarge things, (like getting the buttons pulled right through the shape).
I still want to try making one even larger, for a footstool, (you need upholstery weight fabric once you get really big, or it doesn’t hold its shape) I have all the fabric, but still have not gotten round to it, and I know it would need a mountain of stuffing!
I’m really glad to see one of these out in the world, being put to good use.
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Thanks much for the tutorial link!
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Hi Claire:
Thank you for sharing the link to your pattern and tutorial! Its a great pillow and perfect for those appliquers who want a pillow in their lap to support their forearms as they work. Its lovely of you to share the pattern.
Becky
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Becky, thanks so much for a wonderful class at our VCQ retreat in Virginia. I don’t care that I had less than ever for show and tell, because I learned more than ever, and I am totally inspired for a new quilt. Don’t you love that fish fabric! Your class was all I expected and much much more! Thanks for making the long trek from Texas. Hope your trip home was smooth.
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Boy talk about syncronicity… was on the CHF forum and someone posted about the pillow and had the link to Clairs blog… And I rememberd seeing this post here, came to tell you about it and here is Clair already. Small world sometimes.
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Yes, it is an amazingly small world!
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Thank you for the photo and the tutorial for the cute little pillow. I whipped one up yesterday morning and LOVE it to applique on. I used 6″ squares cut from 3 coordinating fat quarters. What a great idea and the directions were very easy to follow. Thanks a million.
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