Serenity Slide Show

After piecing a complicated quilt top, I'm ready for something that goes together quickly. I just completed a lap quilt that fits the bill.

It's the second quilt I've made using Japanese-style taupe fabrics from the Serenity line by Cara Collections. I love these fabrics. Thay are soft and elegant in tones of teal, rose, charcoal and cocoa. A great match for the simplicity of the pattern - Slide Show by Terry Atkinson.

Terry's patterns are becoming my "go to" choice for when I need something fun and fast. Her instructions are well written, fat quarter friendly and forgiving. No cut off points! The final results look more time-intensive than they actually are, so the non-quilters in your life won't know the difference.

Serenity Slide Show is now hanging at Glad Creations as a shop sample. It looks even better in person, so go check it out.

I'm now ready for a new and challenging project. Let's see. How about a miniature quilt with 3/4" finished squares?

Life is Good

Four years ago I retired from a 35-year career in local government, It was hard work that was always challenging and often rewarding. Three months later, I landed my dream job - working at Glad Creations Quilt Block.

At Glad's I'm continually surrounded by color and inspiration while getting paid to fondle fabric. In four years of "quilt college" I've learned enough for a bachelor's degree in quiltmaking. As an added bonus, I've gained muscle (aka buns of steel) from schlepping bolts of cotton up and down stairs.

How does it get better than this? I'll tell you. This past spring I started volunteering with a sewing group at Little Earth of United Tribes. Little Earth is a Native American housing development in south Minneapolis that offers a number of on-site services to its community. One of those is the Domestic Abuse Project whose leader, Cindy, started the sewing circle.

We have girls and women of all ages working on various sewing projects from curtains and quilts to beadwork and dance regalia. I couldn't ask for a more interesting and fun group of fellow stitchers.

One of my all-time favorite quilt designs is the Lone Star. Since it is also a favorite (and sacred) design for Native people, we spend a good amount of time perfecting our skill in making Star quilts. As you may know, it isn't the most forgiving pattern what with all the bias edges and inset seams. But practice makes perfect.

Here's the Star quilt Cindy made for her son, Jedidiah, a returning Iraq ogichida (warrior). One of the fabrics includes a Marine Corps insignia. Cindy incorporated small flags and lettering between the star points. Isn't it beautiful?

I've found my element. For three hours each week we share food and laugh hard, learn from and encourage each other, and sew up a storm.

It truly doesn't get any better than that!

Taking Stock

A year ago I decided to get a grip on my burgeoning quilt projects. I organized, categorized, and counted them. I made lists. (I love making lists. Once, I even made a list of lists I'd like to make.)

Most importantly, I listed the quilts I wanted to complete for the year starting 9/1/08. (It kind of coincides with the school year and assumes I'll be in summer school, too.) My To Do list was ambitious: 24 quilts in 12 months. It included a few new, yet-to-be-identified projects I knew would creep into my sewing room. Two quilts a month is not realistic, but I figure if I shoot for the moon, I might hit Omaha.

Instead, I think I hit Dallas. From September '08 to September '09 I completed 13 quilts and made serious progress on half a dozen more. On the flip side, I replaced them with new projects now clamoring for my attention. (I hear them hollering at me from behind the closed - and latched - closet door.)

After taking stock of my accomplishments, I made a new list of the quilts I want to finish by next September. So far there are twenty. Once again, I'm aiming for the moon. This time I hope to hit Mexico City!

Merrittime Kaleidoscope

One of the quilts I completed this past summer is a red, cream, and blue kaleidoscope made of nautical themed fabrics. Most of them were purchased as fat quarters at a little shop in Tillamook, Oregon.

Tillamook is a hop, skip, and a jump from the Pacific coast, so the fabrics were appropo. I filled out the collection with more fat quarters and a background fabric from Glad's. They were perfect complements.

I was so happy when that Tillamook collection worked its way to the top of my "to do" list. I made all 144 blocks at my small quilt group's "Spring Fling" retreat in May. I thought I might have to be put into traction for the next week, but the kinks in my shoulders finally worked their way out. The finished quilt has a great secondary design that could almost make one seasick if one was so prone.

Early in August I brought the finished quilt to my brother and sister-in-law in Missoula, Montana. I think they really liked it. The label is an orphan block provided by one of my favorite Glad's customers. (Thanks, Phyllis!) Jeff and Cathy named the quilt after their boat, the Merrittime.

What is Merrittime, you ask? It's always 5:00 p.m., of course!

Car Appendix

Here's a picture of the car part that we lost from Nathan's car on our way to Montana last month. It belonged inside the wheel well above one of the tires. You can imagine what an awful sound it made as it dragged along the highway beneath us.

Nathan and I have been through worse disasters, so we stayed calm, pulled over and removed the offending car part. Not being litterbugs, we hauled it to the next rest stop and disposed of it in the garbage can. We weren't sure what purpose the lining of a wheel well serves and in the end decided that it is a lot like an appendix.

Appendixes (or is it appendices?) are nice, or at least interesting, to look at but are functionally useless. I know. I've seen my own appendix looking cute as it sat there doing nothing. (Ever had a colonoscopy?)

I'm Baaack!!

After a lengthy hiatus from blogging, my friends have convinced me (okay, they nagged me mercilessly) to take keyboard in hand and pick up where I left off . . . hand quilting Tria's quilt.

I finished the quilt in what must be record time - 22 days. Two days later her quilt was bound, labeled, and on its way to Vancouver, Washington, to be displayed with its companion quilts at the Clark County Quilter's annual show. I know Tria would have been very proud of her beautiful quilt as well as those of her dear friends in her small quilt group.

Much has happened since then. The Spring Fling quilt retreat in May. I've started doing volunteer work (more about that later). Cabin season has come and almost gone. The Minnesota Quilters show in Duluth. Moved Mom to senior housing. And after two years, Bosca is getting less neurotic. What a relief.

A highlight this summer was a trip to Montana with Nathan. We lost a car part on the way. But that didn't stop us from hitting 17 quilt shops and squeezing in lots of sailing. Plus we just happened to see Air Force One land in Belgrade, MT. Very exciting.

I've started several new quilts over the last few months. Some have even been completed. Wait til you see them!

The Pressure is On

There's nothing like a deadline to get me off the dime. I had no sooner started working on Tria's quilt [see "Celebrating (A) Life" ] when I got a call from Pat, another of Tria's quilting buddies.

Tria belonged to a small quilt group, The Loose Threads. At Tria's request they each agreed to make their own version of the quilt I am finishing for Tria. They planned to tweak the pattern to reflect their ethnic heritage and display the results at the Clark County Quilters guild show in April of 2005 or 2006.

For one reason or another the deadline slipped to 2007 then 2008. I was hoping it would get extended to 2010, and then came Pat's call. It seems that everyone but Pat and I have finished our quilts. Now she and I are both scrambling to get them done in time.

I've always operated best at crunch time, but this is really pushing it. I need to send in a picture and writeup by March 12th. Then the quilt needs to get delivered to the show location on April 1st. (The show is in Vancouver, Washington. I'm in Minneapolis.) That means I need to UPS it to a Loose Thread at least a week before, let's say March 25th.

Can I do it? Will it happen? Stay tuned!