Wowie Zowie!

Posted on by
8

There’s a quilt in our new book, Piecing the Piece O’ Cake Way, that I called Wowie Zowie. I actually made it in 2 sizes: big bed-size and small baby-size. The bed quilt was designed to go on this bed, to replace that boring gray coverlet…

This is so much better. Wowie Zowie, right?!

This is a queen-size bed and the quilt covers the box spring and the bed rails, just as I intended it to. Angela Walters quilted this quilt for me and she did a terrific job, as always :-)!

Both this and smaller quilt are made solely from half-square triangles. Change the size of the half-square triangle and that changes the size of the finished quilt.

I’m in GenQ!

Posted on by
3

GenQ Magazine is one of my very favorite magazines. The attitude is fresh and friendly and thoroughly modern! I am honored to be included. The Spring issue will be on the newsstands and in the mail very soon and I am very excited to be in it! Look for my Rainbow Drops Pillow on page 82! Click here to read a teaser. FYI: that’s wool applique!

RainbowDropsPillow

 

Show and Tell…

Posted on by
4

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 Skaarup

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!

Spring sprung while I was gone!

Posted on by
5

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!

I’ve been reviewed!

Posted on by
4

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

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!

Wow, life can change so fast!

Posted on by
13

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?