Catching Up, Summer Fun, Current Classes and ....Twilight!

Hi everyone! It's so good to be back here! I have many things to show you so I won't delay. Above is my newest bag - I made it large so I can schlep it everywhere I go. It's made of nothing but clothesline and scraps! Sturdy as can be and not bad to look at, either. I love it. I made it using the Bali Bag pattern from Aunties Two. That pattern really motivated me and as I have said before, one thing led to another, and then I found the book, "It's a Wrap" by Susan Breier. This woman is amazingly creative and talented and her book prompted me to try my hand at bowls. My first attempt is below. The photo really doesn't do them justice, but you get the idea. These were made from a very ugly fabric panel and the purple, greens and golds really do look better in person than they do in this photo.

Below is the next creation I made using the cotton clothes line. It is amazing, to say the least. Again, I used a pattern from Aunties Two, the Bali Briefcase. For this one I used Bali Pops instead of scraps. One word. Wow. Those people at Hoffman Fabrics really know what they are doing. Look at how marvelous that bag looks.

Needless to say, I will be teaching "Clothesline Creation" classes at Country Quilts and Bears in July and November. The class samples I am working on are amazing and I am having such fun making them. I will show them off as soon as they are done! If you are interested in a taking a class, the first one is Tuesday, July 6th at 10 a.m. at Country Quilts and Bears in Clearwater, FL. Give the shop a call and sign up. We will have a ball, I promise!

That's the cover of the Bali Bag pattern.

On to my next discovery.... Ever hear of the Twilight Saga? Well, about two months ago my dear friend, Jennifer, handed me the "crack pipe," so to speak, in the form of the first Twilight book. Now, mind you, I am nearly 50 years old, have grown children and a college degree. How ridiculous. These books that were written for 'tweens, right? I should read them? My goodness, I don't think so..... but in the interest of being polite, one evening I opened the cover..... and I never put the book down. I am not kidding. I have now read and completed all four books, have seen both Twilight and New Moon on DVD, and I find myself daydreaming about those vampires and werewolves from Forks, WA. The worst part of the books? They ended!

I like to carry a drawstring backpack so naturally my new love for Edward inspired me to embroider the drawstring backpack that you see above. I made one for myself and am now selling them in my etsy store. Below is the shirt I embroidered to wear to see the movie Eclipse on June 30th, the night it opens. Oh, and my dear friend, Jennifer, who opened the door to this wonderful, magical world for me, she will be wearing the Team Jacob shirt I made for her to acknowledge her allegiances. Stop laughing. Seriously. If you are feeling a little humdrum, let me just say this: I will always remember the summer of 2010 as the summer I felt young and giggly again. It takes a lot to throw a nearly 50 year old woman back into the excitement of adolescence, but that wonderful Stephenie Meyer is doing just that for women all over the world. Well done! I'm a Twi-Mom Twi-Hard and proud of it!

Oh, and one more thing. I will keep this one very short. On January 6th of this year I decided that after 33 years of smoking I simply did not want it to be part of my life any longer. So I quit. It wasn't easy - but I did it and if anyone out there is feeling the time has come for them, and you want help, shoot me an email and I will tell you what I learned. There is no one out there that can't quit smoking - you just need to WANT to quit and then you will have the power TO quit. Also, there are a few tricks I discovered along the way to success, and I will happily share them. Big, healthy sigh of fresh air. There.

A Cautionary Tale...

This is my newest completed quilt. I'm going to call it "A Cautionary Tale." Really, I am.

The definition of a Cautionary Tale is as follows: A traditional narrative (e.g., a fable, proverb, urban legend, or quilt) with a moral message warning of the consequences of certain actions or character flaws.
Character flaw: Self confidence and arrogance so high as to encourage my NOT following the pattern designer’s directions
Consequence: Bias issues
The quilt you see here is made from the Jelly Patch pattern. It's one of the patterns from the "Straight to the Point" series, published by Make It Easy which is a QuiltWoman.com Company. When I saw this quilt hanging in my local quilt shop, Country Quilts and Bears, I knew instantly I had to make it. A dear friend, Carol McPherson Hemmingsen was going to be teaching it. She did a marvelous job teaching and the class was one of the most enjoyable I have ever attended. Sadly, I was only able to attend day one of the two day class. That left me to finish the quilt myself. No problem, right?

I must state, before I go any further with this tale, that I have made many, many quilts through the years and I have never had any bias issues with a finished quilt. Honestly, not even one wonky quilt. Oh, the arrogance this omission of tragedy can breed.... The creation of this wonderful on-point quilt is amazingly simple. The blocks are constructed using Jelly Roll strips and then the completed blocks are sewn into rows. Once this is completed, the quilt top is cut into three sections and re-sewn, resulting in an on-point setting. The directions in the pattern offer two VERY SIMPLE options for stabilizing the bias edges before cutting. I opted for neither. "Why would you do that," you ask? In short, I trace the roots of that decision to an over inflated sense of confidence and arrogance. Me? Bias issues? Never happen. HA! When I received "The Call" from my quilter, I was instantly humbled. I could feel my face flush, and knew instantly what had happened.

Because I have a fabulous quilter, Marlene Hooten of Lucky Sew and Sew, my Cautionary Tale looks (nearly) perfect! Marlene worked the wonkiness smooth by steaming and stretching until it is nearly invisible. Needless to say I am eternally grateful to her and I will be turning this into a teaching moment when I teach the Jelly Patch class next weekend in Key West at the Seam Shoppe....

And here is a shot of Carol holding up one of her finished Jelly Patch quilts. They really are gorgeous quilts!

Quilt Ingredients: I used the Berry Bliss Hoffman Bali Pops to make mine and Carol used an assortment of 2.5 inch batik strips to make hers. Both are the "throw" size. The only thing we changed was the outer border. The pattern called for a 4" border and Carol made hers 6". I then copied hers.