Getting Ready for Spring Quilt Market

It's official -- I am headed to Pittsburgh next month for Spring Quilt Market.  This time I am going to promote my book, Russian Journey in Quilts and its Sampler Quilt/ Block of the Month guide.

Did you know that the large sampler quilt in my book can be done as a BLOCK OF THE MONTH program?  When I wrote the book I also created a free PDF download for the Russian Journey Sampler BOM guidelines.

I just love love love the focal print in the center (and the borders too) -- this was a retro Russian fabric I bought from Russia.  I was s nervous waiting the two months it took to get here....but it finally did and I was certainly not disappointed because it really makes this quilt sparkle!

The Russian Journey Sampler Quilt in the book:

I am making another version of the Russian Journey Sampler, which I am calling MODERN GROOVE.  I'm using the Neutral Love fabrics from Connecting Threads.  It's really weird to me to follow my own directions to make the blocks.  Happily, the instructions are very good!!  LOL!  :) 

Here are my blocks so far:

This is what I anticipate the quilt basically looking like when finished.  I decided not to make the flag blocks and substituted the focal print instead:

 

 

I want to get the top completed before May 7th when I have a Russian Journey in Quilts trunk show and lecture with the Quilter's Night Out guild in Warren, PA. 

 

Then it will be on to Market. 



Do You Have a Journal?

At one of my recent quilt guild meetings, a fellow member, Margie, has challenged all of us to begin a journal.  At our last meeting we had to take our journal along and Margie gave us an activity for our journal -- create something with your fingerprints (and an ink pad).  So, here's my original piece of artwork:

Yes, those are really my fingerprints!  LOL!  I had so much fun with this that since then I've added several more doodles to my journal, including this Zentangle-esque drawing. 

Next month we are going to begin decorating the cover, both insde and out.

You know, when I was a kid, I tried to keep a journal, but I got tired of writing about homeowrk and friends so I never could keep with it for long.  My grandmother kept a journal for most of her life and I'm the lucky caregiver for those journals which are filled with lots of interesting nuggets of stuff.  Her journa entries were mostly about the weather and what she did on a day to day basis, but there's lots of fun stuff like her and my grandfather's courtship, my father's (and uncles') births, and of course entries about Nicholas and Nina Filatoff. 

My journal on the other hand is going to be a doodle journal where I can put anything I want into it.  I don't think it's going to take long to fill it up.  So I challenge you to start a doodle journal if you haven't already got one going.