Marcia Skaarup sent me this photo of the wallhanging she made for her daughter using our pattern, My Whimsical Quilt Garden. Isn’t it cute!
Marcia says:
A wonderful feeling of Spring in this (yucky) time of ‘not winter and not yet spring’ in Kamloops, BC. A fun, quick project using fusible appliqué. Now to make one for our home…..someday….
Thanks for your wonderful pattern!
I don’t know how others manage it, but when I’m on a teaching trip I just don’t seem to be able to post as much as I’d like. Or at all. I did post some photos on Instagram and facebook so if you follow me there, you saw my students hard at work as well as some of their blocks. Let me just say that the Academy of Applique in Williamsburg was a blast! It was a rare treat to be among so many appliquers!
I came home to redbuds in bloom. They look like they smell pretty, but they don’t smell at all as near as I can tell.
I also came home to the news that someone filed a fraudulent tax return using our numbers. Deep sigh. I had gotten a letter from the IRS before I left that made me think that this was happening. I found out today that yes, indeed, our numbers were compromised.
After some searching I found the phone number to call and the nice lady pointed me in the right direction. Steve is on spring break so he ended up taking over, calling the FTC, checking our credit reports, notifying the Social Security Administration and I’m not sure who else. So far everything else is in order (yay!) but it means filing a paper return, with extra forms, and a longer wait for it to be processed. I am thankful that I don’t have plans for our over-payment from last year.
I think that this has become a common enough experience that dealing with it is getting easier. That said, we are lucky to have found out early, before the hackers got any money from the IRS, which is different from the ‘iris’, which was also blooming in my yard today :-).
And lastly, I am going to be giving a trunk show lecture at 11:00 AM Friday morning at the Dallas Quilt Show. I don’t know that I have ever pulled so many quilts out of my closet at one time. There are so many that I won’t be saying much about any individual quilt or we’ll be there all day but I do think it will be a good showing of Piece O’ Cake quilts. If you are interested, I hope you can come!
Jo Ann Woods at littlewheelerquilts.com has written a very nice review of my book, The Quilter’s Practical Guide to Color. And she has been working on Pick-Up Sticks from that book, and has posted about it. Click here to see her progress. (I love the finished top!)
Thank you Jo Ann, for taking the time to share your experience with the book with me and with your readers. I am flattered that you chose my book!
In other news, I am at the airport waiting to fly to Williamsburg where I will be teaching at the Academy of Applique. I can’t wait! I’m planning to post from there, maybe using my phone. That will mean more photos and fewer words, which is maybe not all bad :-).
And one last thing before I sign off: I’ve been playing with the Dreamscope app on my iPhone. This is an app that applies a variety of trippy filters to a photo. Let me just say that it can turn a pretty lousy photo into something interesting. For example, this photo of Steve driving was really no good on its own.
Steve Driving, filtered with Dreamscope app
I can easily see applications for quilt design using this app.
It can take the app quite a while to process a photo. In fact, I thought it was frozen and tried to quit the app. It just keeps doing its thing until it’s done so you have to wait it out. Don’t use this app if your phone is low on charge and you can’t plug it in. Other than that, have fun!
A week and half ago my mom said she thought it was time to move to assisted living. I had seen it coming (but not by much) and had been checking out the possibilities. Sherman has several wonderful spaces and I had narrowed it down to two. Mom went for visits and made her choice. They had openings, she chose her apartment. Bam! Time to move!
In the space of 1.5 weeks, start to finish, we got her moved. I spent most of this time on paperwork, meetings, planning, and finally moving. I am very thankful that Steve, Lorna, and Chris were here to help. It would not have happened so well if they had not been here to take part. My mom left her house yesterday morning is now living in her new studio apartment.
Let me just say that my mom is amazing. She was a little sad when we drove away from her house (and most of her stuff) but that was it. She has embraced her new life where she doesn’t have to cook, there are people to visit with, and there are activities that she can do, or not. Family is welcome there, especially the rambunctious great-grandsons. Everyone knows everyone by name. This is a happy space.
Mom’s house and the stuff still there are my problem and she’s OK with that too. (Someday, my stuff will be someone else’s problem too.) What I realized in the last couple of days is that the stuff of mom’s that matters to me is not the big stuff. I finally, finally, got to take possession of these two silly ceramic dogs. I grew up dusting these bad boys and have no idea why I love them, but they are mine now :-).
And then there’s this bird with the umbrella. I have tried to make off with this for years :-).
We go along with our daily life thinking that every day will be like the one before. Sometimes that is true, sometimes it isn’t. I suppose that what makes life interesting, don’t you think?
Susan Marshall sent this picture of her first attempt at applique after taking my class last year at Common Threads Quilting. Isn’t it great! So bright and pretty!
Made by Susan Marshall
This is our Lucky Stars pattern, made with some changes to the original pattern. It’s out of print and I really do need to make it available as an ePattern, one of these days.
Susan said:
I’m currently working on Aunt Millie’s Garden… you have created a monster!
Go applique monsters!
I started wearing a Fitbit in 2014. I wrote about it here, about losing it here, and then about buying a new Fitbit here. I ended up not wearing the Fitbit Charge for very long. I didn’t like the clasp, I didn’t like the way it felt on my arm, but more importantly I found an Apple Watch that fit me like a glove.
Last summer while we were in Hawaii, on our last night, I went into the Apple store in Waikiki and tried on a watch with a stainless steel band.
It looks big on my arm in this photo but it doesn’t in real life. This is the utility face. There are several ‘pretty’ faces, but I love this watch because of what you see here. I can tell time, see the day and date, temperature, and (best feature ever) I can set a timer by touching the upper left corner.
I use the timer all the time. Take the cookies out of the oven in 10 minutes? Set the timer. Need a reminder to make a call or go to an appointment? Set the timer. It can both ding and vibrate to tell me my time is up.
Texts show up on the watch. It is easy to send a simple reply. I could probably send a longer reply using Siri, but I usually don’t. When close enough to an iPhone, you can answer or send calls with the watch. I’ve done that twice, when I couldn’t reach my phone and needed to take the call. It felt (and looked) very Dick Tracy-ish.
I have a sentimental reason for loving this watch. It reminds me of my dad, who died 26 years ago. He loved gadgets, and his watches always had this sort of stainless steel band. My dad would have loved this watch!
Those of you with Fitbits are wondering how the Apple Watch compares when tracking fitness stuff. I started out using a few of the fitness apps, but I don’t use them much (or at all) any more. In this respect, the Fitbit is better. It is easier to use because it is a much simpler machine.
The biggest surprise I’ve had is that I don’t miss the fitness tracking. I wore a Fitbit for more than 2 years. I thought about my steps, checked them often, and was probably too proud of myself when I was very active.
Once I quit looking checking my steps, it was like a switch got flipped. I can tell by the way my body feels that my activity level is the same as it was but I no longer care how many steps I’ve taken or miles I’ve walked. For a competitive step counter, that has been a real surprise to me.
The Apple Watch was too expensive. I’ll have to wear it a long time, but at this point there’s not another watch I’d rather wear.
Piece O Cake Blog 