I'm on the road, teaching at the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show – IHQS. A lovely show, the vendors have fun stuff (ask me how I know), the restaurants have great food. It's all good. I should be sharing photos here, but I didn't take out my camera in class. I have, however, been Instagramming. 

Right now I'm back in my room and have been checking my email. I get a few very interesting emails most days that have links to interesting information. Today, I am going to share links with you.

I'm not one to normally worry about 1984-ish events but I think that if I find someone looking at me with Google Glasses, I'm not going to be happy. And I am pretty careful about personal information that I post online, but I'll bet I am not careful enough. I hate to make you nervous, but we probably need to be more aware of the information we share, on purpose or by accident… 

    What Facebook knows, and shares, about you. Creepy.

    Google Glasses – What you haven't been hearing.

This next one is just for pretty. You can buy a topographic, under-water map made with layers of wood. Maps are wonderful, these are lovely and wonderful. I've linked to the one for San Francisco Bay, but there are more:

    Below the Boat

And then there's this article about the Post Office. What I hear from the news is that the post office is out of date, not pulling its weight, etc. But I still marvel at the fact that I can send an envelope for just $.49 (or whatever it is now) and it will go to the place I write on the envelope. Think about that for a minute… without the post office, how would you make that happen? For more $, you can send something anywhere on the planet. As I read this article, it made me realize that it's even better than just getting something from one place to another:

    Do we really want to live without the post office?

You know what? I don't begrudge the money that goes to the post office and I really wish the congressmen that represent me were not part of the group trying to bring the post office to its knees. Some institutions are worth paying for (in my humble opinion).

And now you can go back to your sewing with a variety of things to think about. 

I have no idea how I ran across this site. I sort of wish I hadn't found it, but now that I have found Grommet I know I'll be there daily.

It's sneaky. When I clicked that first link to go to the home page, I had to enter my email address and sign up for a daily email. They could have lost me right then but, no, they didn't. So far there is very little on this site that I don't think I need.

Like this. Surely Elanor needs one. You can buy it here.

Or this: Sugru, moldable silicone. I pretty sure that I need to have some on hand for those object hacking opportunities.

Then there are the Coverflex silicone lids (better than Saran wrap!). I think Steve needs at least one set. There's more. Lots more. I almost feel guilty for sharing the link. But not so guilty that I'm going to delete this post. Happy shopping :-).

I've got to quit writing about my ugly fabric challenge… it just generates more ugly fabric :-). Here are the recent additions to my pile…

Yes, those are Muppets in the back, with some sort of little clown face print next. The gold/green hexes are nice, as is the black/green print at the top. But, oh my, that Hawaiian Santa is just scary.

He is surfing, snorkeling, and sitting on the beach in other poses. I know he's in Hawaii because of the sash that says "Mele Kalikimaka", Merry Christmas in Hawaiian. And his hand is making the shaka sign. I think Hawaiians should rise up in protest, declaring this print off-limits.

I am traveling again this week – to Indiana where I will lecture to two guilds in Columbus. I leave there to teach at the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show in Bloomington. This is always a lovely show and I'm happy to be going back. Maybe I'll see you there!

I have been lucky enough to receive furniture from my mom over the years. In this post I want to show you the dresser that she bought years ago for her bedroom and the buffet that lived for years in her dining room.

Mom has always bought quality furniture, so these are nice case pieces. That said, we have different tastes when it comes to furniture. Mom favors dark woods in a Queen Anne style. I prefer modern furniture that isn't quite so dark. I've been using these two pieces because 1) I have them and 2) they would be expensive to replace – but there's always been something about them that I just couldn't love. Here's the dresser:

And the buffet:

Today, when I was dusting, I had a revelation. It's not the furniture itself that I disliked, but the drawer pulls. They have a mass-produced, too-slick, early American flavor to me. This is easy to fix! 

I went to Lowe's and found simple pulls that have a subtle hint of bamboo styling in a bronze finish for the buffet. I studied furniture history back in the day and remember that the English were very influenced by Chinese styles during the Queen Anne period so a mash-up of the two works for me.

When I took off the original hardware I could see how much the wood has faded over the years. The ghost of the old hardware is right there – and Steve and I don't care. In fact, I kind of like it. It is uniform enough that it looks intentional, rather than being a mistake.

The pulls for the dresser are on 2 1/2" centers – they are narrower than Lowe's carries in stock. I went online and found the perfect hardware at House of Antique Hardware. They are solid brass and expensive, but this is a lot cheaper than it would be to replace the whole dresser. The style is Chippendale/modern, perfect for the room. 

Instead of this…

Can't wait for them to get here! It's like having new furniture!

I read magazines on the plane. As I go through them, I rip out pages that are interesting to me. The March 2013 issue of Dwell was very rip-worthy! First, for Jacquie… this is so you! If I had a room for it, it would be me, too.

(FYI – you can click on any picture to make it bigger.) I am sort of intrigued by the idea of inlaying tiles in a wood floor… I've not seen it done quite this way. At some point soon we are going to do a bit of remodeling and I wonder if this would be good in either my dining room or breakfast room…

Hexes really are everywhere! These are wall tiles by Form Us With Love for Traullit. I don't know where I would put them, but they are interesting – and very reminiscent of the 70s. The Traullit website has more.

I never could figure out who designed the iron screen, below. The house it is in was designed by architect William Massie. At any rate, I really love the design…

I went through Consumer Reports and found out that yellow Frog Tape is actually better than blue painter's tape in tests that involve actual paint. Good to know.

AND – the folks at Why Quilts Matter, a non-profit created by the Kentucky Quilt Project, is making episode 8 in their very informative series available on youtube. If you like it, you might consider purchasing the whole series – proceeds will be used by them for future quilt projects. There is a free Discussion Guide on their website if you want to watch the episode with friends and then disucss it. Watch episode 8 here or click here.

Have a good weekend – I hope you have time to sew!

Actually, I saw a lot more than I can show you here, but here are some designs that I saw that could absolutely inspire applique…

There was more tile than this, but it's hard to take a photo from a moving car. I like the simplicity of this design and I like the way the yellow negative space comes together to form a secondary design. I also like the way the pattern changed at the window…

It flattened. And look at the corner… nice!

Anna and Marian took me to the Cathedral Basilica of St Francis of Assisi. It felt a lot like the church I grew up attending, familiar. The cathedral has been undergoing restoration and was lovely…

I like this design that was carved into the ends of the pews. But when I looked up, the ceiling was even better!

The block designs are similar to the tile I showed earlier, but in richer colors. 

I like the way the pattern above meets in the center.

I'm about to board my flight for home so I suppose I'd better sign off. I hope you are warm and dry, wherever you are. I have missed most of the news about the weather but I understand that there a lot of snow and ice out there…