BEATING THE HEAT

Whew!! Do ya think it's hot enough yet? This afternoon when I left the library, the bank thermomenter stated that it was a steamy 101 degrees F! And in northwest Pennsylvania. Whoah! Like most parts of the country, we're having hot weather and little rain. So I found a way to beat the heat....quilter style. I crank up the air conditioning, grab an icy bottle of tea, prop my quilt on a TV table so it's not sitting on my lap, put on a favorite DVD, and work on binding. It's relaixing, cool, AND I'm actually getting some quilting done. On the other hand, on days like these, I'm glad my studio is a sewing dungeon located in the basement. It's at least ten degrees coller down there so all that I need is some background music -- keep spinning those tunes Cousin Brucie -- and an oscillating fan. How are you beating the heat?

HOT OFF THE PRESS....LITERALLY

Let me tell you about an exciting thing that happened the other day. I received a box of quilts back from DRG, the parent company of both Quilter's World magazine and House of White Birches. At first I couldn't remember which quilts that I should be getting back then I wondered if they were perhaps the quilts from the White Birches ninepatch book that comes out in August. I ripped into the package to find that I was correct -- it was the two quilts from the ninepatch book and nestled in the between the quilts was an advance copy of the book, officially called NINE PATCH PANACHE. I pulled that book out and started yelling and hollering BECAUSE ONE OF MY QUILTS WAS ON THE FRONT COVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What an awesome surprise! The book retails for $19.95 and is available for preorder through Amazon, etc. right now and should be available September 1st. I hope everyone will order this one -- and not just because my quilt is on the cover (although it does look really lovely there). The book features about 45 ninepatch quilts from traditional to contemporary. It's a nice addition to any quilter's library. I actually have two designs in this book -- Floating Stars and Optica. Optica is the cover quilt, of course! OH, BEFORE I FORGET -- HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

ORPHAN QUILT BLOCK IDEAS

Recently, I had an email from Dianna who just stumbled acorss my blog. She is part of a sewing group and together they have tons of orphan blocks and she was wondering about ideas to utilize them. Below is the list of ideas that I emailed her. Hope it helps all of you orphan block rescuers to get going and whip out some orphan block quilts so that you, too, can be orphan quilters like me! 1. First, of course, you need to check out my book, Orphan Block Quilts: Making a Home for Antique, Vintage, Collectible, and Left Over Quilt Blocks!!! ;) 2. How about an orphan block exchange or swap? Have the members sort their orphan blocks, keeping like blocks together. You could make it into an auction and use the money to buy supplies to finish quilts to donate to charity such as Project Linus. 3. What about an orphan block challenge??? Each particpant has to pay a fat quarter to participate. Set a deadline and a few guidelines (such as how many blocks must be used or the size of projects). Display the completed projects (which could be quilts, purses, bags, wearables, etc.) and everyone should vote on the "Best Orphan Block Project." The winner, of course gets all of the fat quarters. 4. Have each member put a set number of orphan blocks (groups if possible or same size blocks) into a brown lunch bag. Add a few fat quarters of coordinating fabrics or left over fabrics from the blocks. Put all of the bags together, mix them up, and each person picks a bag. If she gts her own, she would need to select a different bag. Then , do an orphan block project challenge. 5. What about an orphan block round robin? Each member makes a quilt center using orphan blocks. She then puts it into a bag with any coordinating fabrics she wants to add. Then she passes her project to another member. Continue to do this until each member has had a turn adding to each round robin quilt. (if there are a lot of members, you could have two or more round robin groups). Set rules for each border if so desired or do an "anything goes." 6. Instead of a round robin do a row robin using orphan blocks! 7. What about a mystery orphan quilt project? I designed one that uses either 9" or 12" orphan blocks for a guild last year and we had an all day sewing workshop. It was great fun! AND all of the quilts were amazingly terrific! 8. Members could pair up to create projects using both their stashes of orphan blocks together. These projects make great charity quilts. 9. Have everyone bring in their orphan blocks. Keep track of how many blocks each person brings. Sort all blocks by size. Hopefully there will be lots of blocks in a single size. Then each member picks up the same number of orphan blocks she brought, hopefully in groups of the same size (she may get back some of her own of course). Having a group of blocks in the same size makes it easier to put together a project. 10. If all else fails, donate them to a good cause or send them to me, the Orphan Quilter!!! :)

Sewing Machine Problem

I know, I know -- two blogs in one day -- amazing! Anyway, I wamted to put this problem out there -- I have two friends who have older Pfaff sewing machines -- nice ones with bells and whistles. Well, we recently did a workshop on free motion machine quilting and both these machine siad NO WAY - WE ARE NOT GOING TO DO THAT. The machines got all kinds of thread balls and nests in the bobbin area. My friend Mary Lee's machine hasn't been the same since -- she can't seem to get the balance adjusted once again. Is free motion quilting a problem for older Pfaff machines or are Mary Lee and Sherri doing something worng here? I did ask another firned who had a Pfaff and she doesn't have any problems with it and suggested that maybe Mary Lee and Sherri didn't have the presser foot at the mid level point for free motion....... We'd all be interested in anyone's thoughts or experiences on this subject. My email is: littlequilts@windstream.net Speaking of free motion quilting, here are a few of my recent projects:

What do you think? I particularly love love love the spiral swirls design.

New Orphan Block Acquisitions

I promised that I'd have pics of my most recent orphan blocks......so here they are:

I found the two 1930's double wedding ring blocks at a flea market. I was thinking of just finishing them as table quilts. I have a round table and I think one would look great in the middle (if only I could find the table under all of the newspapers, magazines, and mail.....LOL!). The string blocks and large four patches came from the same place -- one of my quilt friends called and said she had some old quilt pieces she thought I'd be interested. People know me too well, I guess. There are something like 150 string blocks about 8" in size. The fabrics are really fun -- they range from the 1930's to the 1950's. Not sure what I'm doing with them yet, though. As for the big four patches, I think I might take them apart, that way I can reset the four patches into a more interesting setting. The set of Album blocks was truly a very special find. They date from the 1870's-1890's and there are 75 of them in the set! Amazing!!!! The fabrics are incredible and I don't think there are any duplicate fabrics within the blocks. There are even some early purples that haven't faded to brown yet. Sadly, there are no signatures on them. So, what do you think of my new finds? Not bad, eh?

Guilty

Okay, I admit I must be one of the worst bloggers right now. I haven't blogged since the end of April. I've never gone this long without blogging. It's not that I didn't have anything to say, actually it's been quite the opposite. It's just that I've been quilting like a mad woman and haven't been spending any real quality time with my computer. No computer time, no blogging. I've been so lax in computer time that I'm actually checking my email on my ipod now. Sad, isn't it? Now that that's out of the way, let me tell you what I haven't been blogging about. May was a really busy month. Of course, I worked on several magazine pieces and made my deadlines. I also made several stash projects including another quillow, a table runner out of left over batiks, and a miniature quilt for an upcoming guild quilt challenge. Speaking of guild, I didn't even make it to the May meeting. I also worked on a few projects for my upcoming book -- I really need to buckle down and get serious about the projects. Of course, I also worked on research and writing for my book, too. I had an Orphan Quilt trunk show in May. It went well and the dinner beforehand was delicious. Of course, all of these activities were fitted around my day job at the public library, a few other part-time jobs, and my home responsibilities. The end of May brought some real heartache in my family, though, as we said good bye to our beloved canine companion, Poohka. This was really hard. He was a very special and unique Shih Tzu, with a smile and he even stomped his foot (yes, like a two year old's temper tantrum) when he didn't get what he wanted fast enough. His kidneys were failing rapidly and there wasn't anything more the vet could do. What hurt even more was the fact that my other furry pal, Gizmo has been absolutely bereft in the absence of his doggy brother. I think he's finally adjusting somewhat but he's very clingy and doesn't like me to leave him. Giz has even taken to sleeping on a pillow in my studio while I sew (he's never done this before). We've all had to make adjustments in our daily lives. It's ironic, really, when you realize how much your day revolves around a beloved pet only after he or she is gone. Smile on, Pookie, smile on.... June is turning out to be just as crazy as May was. In addition to trying to spend more time with Gizmo, I'm working on one project for the magazine and I just found out today that they accepted two more for a pre cut book. Whew -- I'd better start sewing faster. I had another program for the Sew and Sew Guild in Grove City recently too. Very nice group. I debuted my new program, "Fabric Dating Tips and Orphan Block Tricks." It was a fun evening. Next week I have a program for Country Charms Guild -- I'm doing the new one, and I am also doing a volunteer workshop on English paper piecing at the at the local senior center. Well, I see it's getting late so I'll stop here. Hopefully I'll get some photos up soon for your viewing pleasure. I want to show off some of the new Orphan Blocks that have come my way recently. Good Night! I need to go to bed so that I can get up early and QUILT!

The Challenge

I LOVE LOVE LOVE being a quilt designer! I especially like the challenge it represents. Here's one recent example: On Friday, a package of fabric from Benartex arrived even before I knew what I was doing with it! The editor of Quilter's World called and left a message that they wanted some changes to some designs that I had submitted for a new House of White Birches book. It always makes me happy when my designs are accepted, of course. So I checked my email to find out which designs were accepted and what the changes were. Boy was I surprised to see that tehy wanted a design that was originally throw sized to be queen sized. That's what the Benartex fabric was for. WHEW -- the deadline for the piece is about four weeks away. So I had to redesign the piece to make it queen sized as well as work within the amounts of fabric that were sent to me. This created a challenge because there were only three yards of white background fabric. OH NO! So I had to keep tweeking the design until it worked with the amount of fabric that I had. On top of that, I had to line up a machine quilter FAST who could put a rush on this quilt. CHECK! Last night I pieced all of the blocks and sewed them together. Today, I'm going to tackle the three borders, including a pieced middle border. If I can have it done in the next few days, Karen, the long arm quilter, can quilt it on Friday. Totally insane right????? Oh, almost forgot to mention that there's another quilt to be made for the same deadline, but the Balis won't arrive until May 8th or 10th (right off the rollers, they're so new!). Luckily, that piece will go together quickly. I love being a quilt designer -- it's never boring, it's challenging, AND I GET TO PLAY WITH FABRIC ALL OF THE TIME!