In my head I'm hearing Steve Martin's excited voice proclaiming that the new phone books are here – but in my case it's fabric! It's not all here, but this is the first taste. This box is from Blend Fabrics. Most of the fabric is designed by Maude Asbury. The reindeer and the tree fabric are especially wonderful! 

This is the first wave from Moda (below) – there's more Moda fabric coming. I got a box from P&B today. Boxes should be arriving soon from Westminster and Free Spirit.

As I said in a previous post, I'm concentrating on dots, a very few large prints, and the occasional non-dot print that was just too good to pass up. I'm choosing fabric that I can and will use myself. Some of the fabric I have coming can be re-ordered and some will be gone when it's gone. I don't have any control over how long any of these will be in stock.

If you'd like to see what's up now, click here. I'll upload more fabric as it comes in. I hope you like the new fabric page layout. Pleae note that you order fabric by the half yard. I do hope it makes sense. If it doesn't, please let me know so that I can tweak the pages.

We'll add fat quarter bundles in about 3 few weeks. This weekend Chris and Lorna's good friend, Nathan, is getting married and we're all involved in the event. My neice graduates from high school on Sunday. We're taking mom and with the drive to Ft Worth and back we are looking at a very long day. I'm taking applique. Really, does anyone like sitting through a graduation? I really enjoy the short moment when the person I care about walks across the stage but the rest is usually mind-numbing. There ought to be a better way but I can't think what it is.

If you order fabric now it may go out on Monday because of the wedding. Next week I head to California for two weeks of work. When I get home we'll work on fat quarter bundles. But if more fabric comes before I leave I'll put it online so you might want to check back every now and then. It's good to be busy, isn't it?

I think I mentioned that Steve did the majority of the driving on our trip to Baltimore. Two days each way, about 11 hours a day. I drove 4 hours, max. The rest of the time I worked on my Macbook Air*, my iPad (to connect to the web, check and respond to emails…), and on my iPhone (making calls). If you didn't know already, I do love my Apple products.

What did I do? I put these two ePatterns together and got them online. Both have been out of print for a long time. Many of you will recognize Stars in the Garden…

And just in time for next Christmas, Reindeer Playground. This one was in our book, A Piece O' Cake Christmas, and it's on the DVD Learn to Applique The Piece O' Cake Way. 

AND I worked on my AAQI challenge quilt. In fact, I embroidered on it through most of Jeff's graduation. I don't think I'll ever go to a graduation without handwork again. I'm really loving it. I still have 2 borders to applique and then I need to quilt it. I should just forget sleeping altogether but that's not going to happen.

*Side note: We bought a cool car adaptor like this a few years ago. It plugs into the car's power port (or cigarette lighter for those of us old enough to call it that). You can plug a regular power cord into it. It will even accept a 3-prong power cord. That's how I kept my laptop running.

And, for those of you who've read this far, I am getting fabric in. I'll be putting it on the site over the next few days. Watch the menu bar for Fabric. I orders a few Christmas prints that I just could not pass up. There are some fun dots coming and one big print. Soon I'll let you know about the big print of the every other month club!

Jeff is now Dr. Goldsmith. No more being the student, now he’ll be the teacher. In NYC. At Columbia! We are oh so proud of him.

We took photos before, during, and after.

The actual graduation ceremony was only 2.5 hours long. I embroidered on my AAQI quilt during most of it. Quietly. I gotta say that for me, this really made the long, long minutes of names of people I will never know go by quickly. I’m so glad it wasn’t dark.

His name was called, he got a piece of paper, shook some hands, got his hood. Done!

Here he is, after the ceremony with Ciprian, his advisor. Ciprian did so much to teach and help Jeff. It was very nice to get a chance to shake his hand (and take his picture!).

Tonight we’re going out to dinner to celebrate. Tomorrow we head back to Texas. Every day is an adventure, is it not?!

I don't always have to carry all of my bobbins with me. Sometimes I only need a few and I carry them in a little zippered bag – but they unwind and tangle up…

I found these little Bobbin Bikinis that will be on the site soon. They are like ponytail holders, but small. Wish I'd thought of that, but since I didn't I had the good sense to buy a bunch of them so we can all have them!

Sent from my iPad

I'm leaving for Kansas City on Wednesday to attend Spring Quilt Market. I'm going to look for new notions and fabric. I'm hoping to make available a variety of wonderful dots on the Piece O' Cake website.

My question to you is, if I were to find a few wonderful large prints, prints that I myself want and will use, who of you might be interested in them? For example, this amazing print by Brandon Mably for Rowan…

Or this luscious print by Heather Bailey for Free Spirit…

Both of these are pieces that I bought at a quilt show recently and they are waiting, in my stash, to be used. I will either use them in applique or on the back of a quilt but they would also be fun in a pieced quilt.

 I know that when I poll the quilters in my lectures, most say that they don't buy this sort of print. But surely there are some of you who would if you could just find them. Or who would happily let someone else find a few cool prints for you.

I've considered starting a yard of the month club – although knowing me it might be the yard every-other-month club. If you think you'd sign up for something like that, let me know in a comment. If I get enough 'yeses' I'll buy some big prints along with the dots.

FYI – did you notice the twitter links on the blog, over there in the column on the right? Christopher taught me (again) how to tweet and use Instagram. Im planning to send fun photos from market. 

If you sign up to follow me on Twitter, know that I am not going to bombard you with tweets. If I manage more than 2-3 a week, I'll be doing good. That said, there will be more from market.