Taking a ride on the way-back machine…

You know those emails that you sometimes get? The ones with lots of photos that have been forwarded so many times that you have no idea who actually wrote the first email? Every now and then I get a really good one. This was the subject line: a dose of nostalgia. Thank you, Nancy for sending it :-).

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I made these, by the dozens! Gotta say that they were lousy potholders but they kept me busy. My mom surely loved that part. Below are my grandmothers good highball glasses. Looks like she wasn’t the only one who had them.

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I wonder what happened to my diary? It looked just like this.

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I think Mom’s table and chairs were pink. Or red.

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I hated this vacuum, with a passion. But my mother loved it.

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My first mascara… I don’t miss it one little bit. For those too young to know, you wet the brush and swished it on the dark cake of mascara and then applied to your lashes. What a mess it was!

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I miss the feel of this phone in my hand, and the sound of the dial. The noise was good in both directions. Dial enough and it could make your finger hurt.

Now that I think of it, I miss the experience of talking on an old phone. Talking on the phone was more special then than it is now. We didn’t just call for any little thing—and we for sure didn’t call long distance often. I don’t miss that part—I love being able to call anywhere in the country as if I am calling across town.

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I have Mom’s watch that is similar to this one. I wish it could be made to work.

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I wish I could find these diaper pins now, for Bear who wears cloth diapers now.

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Remember this nasty glue? It dried brown and didn’t work. What’s to love?

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I was a tomboy and played cowboys and Indians with the neighborhood boys when I was 6 or 7. We all had metal cap guns that these strings of caps fit in. I remember the smell of the burning powder and paper! I suspect that is a toy that cannot be found these days.

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Hose, that came in a box, and required a garter belt. I am so thankful that hose are out of fashion.

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Remember the roller rink?

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I still have my bronzed baby shoes! and several leather baby shoes that didn’t quite make it to the bronzer. I don’t know why I love them, but I do.

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How could something be both gross and good at the same time? I actually preferred the cherry Luden’s cough drops, which are still around.

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Oh, if only the penmanship the nuns tried to teach me had stuck. I type much better than I write by hand.

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Anodized aluminum glasses are pretty but they sweat too much and, as I recall, they have a subtle metallic taste. Even so, they are just too pretty! If I had any, I’d use them.

I tried googling ‘a dose of nostalgia’ and did not find the source for these images but there were some interesting pages. If you want to, use ‘the google‘ and see what you find!

John Flynn is riding again…

John Flynn has been getting in shape in between shows and snow storms and is ready to ride in Bike MS. Mile by mile and dollar by dollar, Bike MS is changing lives. That’s why he registered for Bike MS and why he’s asking you to support his fundraising efforts with a tax-deductible donation.

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society is dedicated to creating a world free of MS, but they can’t do it without our help. It’s faster and easier than ever to support this cause. Simply click here to visit John’s page and make a donation.

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Your donation supports cutting-edge research and programs and services for everyone impacted by MS. Ending MS means no one will receive an MS diagnosis again. Every dollar helps.  Every person makes a difference. And, because John goes above and beyond in all things, he has made this quilt that one of his lucky supporters will win!

Please support him by making a donation! He promises to keep his supporters posted on his progress. Click here to go to John’s Bike MS page to make a donation.

A wonky house show and tell…

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Gail from Ontario sent me a photo of the little quilt she finished from a block started in my class at the London Friendship Quilter’s Guild in Sept 2013. She added some button flowers and embroidery and hand quilted the block into a little wall hanging. It’s way cute!

I am always happy to see the projects that you all make from our patterns. Happy stitching!

Summer time is flying by…

Although my husband tells me that time passes by exactly the same way, minute by minute, day by day, I swear that time moves faster as I get older. It makes him sigh, deeply. At any rate, I can hardly believe it has been a week since I last wrote. (FYI: the new bras are amazing! I hope you found time to shop as well.)

I’ve been working on a new quilt for the revised edition of our Piecing book. I can only show you a snippet of it, otherwise it would spoil the surprise for when the book comes out…

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This is the pile of scraps that were left from cutting strips. It’s a very happy quilt!

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I enjoy piecing and am finding it fun to crank out some quilts… as long as I still have applique to do at night :-).

Taking care of the ‘girls’…

After we discussed Maya Angelou‘s ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings‘ at my book club last week, we found ourselves talking about bras. I’m not sure how we got there, but I know I did some of the talking because I had recently learned things I didn’t know about bra fitting. As it turns out, Jacquie knew way more… and she shared links!

The video by Caty 135 is worth the time it takes to watch it. Here’s what I figured out. I have been in a bra that was both too big and too small since I have had boobs. Sigh.

And then you should read this blog entry from Brittany, Herself. Very informative.

As it turns out, cup sizes are not the same at each band size. It is a proportional relationship. I am not particularly well-endowed and had mostly been fitted in C cups. For that to fit my body, I had to have a bigger band size. I’ve been covered, but never supported, forever. Amazingly enough, I am now in a 32 or 34 band and, gasp, a D or DD cup. That cup size on a bigger band would be bigger as well. On a smaller person than me, that same D cup would be smaller.

If you already knew all this and have been in the correct bra size forever, good for you! If you know someone who obviously needs to know what you know, please do gently share the information. Lorna, Elanor, and I went to Nordstrom’s today and we each came home with bras that fit and we are happy, happy, happy!

Seven Starry Sisters…

If you receive my newsletter, you have already seen this quilt and read at least part of the story behind it. (FYI: I posted the Seven Starry Sisters ePattern today.)

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I started this quilt in the early days of Piece O’ Cake… back in the 1990s. In fact, it was so long ago that I drew the pattern by hand!

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My Mom wanted to make a quilt and she offered to applique blocks. I gathered fabric, made the overlay and templates and she got started. And, as sometimes happens, years passed by :-). Every now and then she’d sew on the blocks and then move on to something else that interested her more.

When Mom moved to Texas a few years ago, she gave me the blocks. Most of them were finished, but some were not. Interestingly, she hadn’t appliqued the pieced stars.

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My tastes in color and fabric have changed over the years which is not at all surprising. I chose the clearest red and white blocks for the quilt I made and set these aside…

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And these two blocks have also been set aside. Honestly, I’m not sure what I was thinking when I chose these fabrics!

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The Seven Sisters is a traditional quilt pattern based on legends that relate to a distinctive star cluster, the Pleiades. The traditional quilt block can be pieced, although it’s a complicated block. There are probably English paper pieces that you can use to hand piece it. I have always thought that it is an easier block to applique.

I cut my blocks in a non-traditional way, with star points hitting the edges of the hexagon on all sides. I added sashing because these blocks were not all exactly the same size, but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The sashing adds a terrific spark of color and sets this quilt apart.

I’m sure that I chose blue for my sashing because I found the blocks on the 4th of July. But If I had run across them at Christmas, I might have used green sashing and this quilt would be different but still great fun. Click here if you’d like more info on the Downloadable ePattern.

And, in case you were wondering, Mom was very happy to see this quilt! In fact, the top is now in her living room, waiting for me to find a little time to get it quilted!

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