Whoop Whoop Friday

I'm joining up with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I Get a WHOOP WHOOP Friday. It's my first time doing this, but it looks like fun. (You can get to her site from the badge on the right sidebar) On Fridays anyone can share anything they are excited about. And am I excited!



My copy of this fantastic book came in the mail yesterday. I could hardly wait to sit down and devour it! The more I looked the more excited I got. I learned of this book from Stella who writes a blog that is one of the first I go to everyday to see how she's doing. She is learning how to machine quilt.  I highly recommend her site: Walking Life's Path Again. You can find a link to her blog in My Blog List, on left bar towards the bottom.

I Can Feel It! I'm helpless! I'm going off on a Tangent...helpless...wheeeee!

Stella is a very courageous woman who started a blog to journal about living after her husband's death. She had to re-design herself as a woman without a husband. In that process she started quilting again, which led to learning how to free motion quilt on her machine.

But I digress.

Leah Day started a blog a few years black where she challenged herself to design a new quilting design for each day of the year. What a challenge, yes? The result is this book. It only has pictures of each design, but you can go to her blog (right side bar) or on YouTubeand and find a video showing how to do each pattern. All of them can be done on a domestic home machine. There are easy, intermediate and more difficult patterns. The books can also be downloaded in pdf format.

Well that's me! Two years ago I decided to stop paying for LAQ to quilt my quilts. Don't get me wrong (and don't curse me, those of you who do LAQ), I love how Ann and Jackie have quilted my quilts. They have made my quilts treasures. And I do intend to have them do all of my Meaningful Quilts, like the Double Wedding Ring I'm starting this week.

However, it's a luxury I cannot afford except for Treasure Quilts. I decided I would quilt my other quilts. I explored Quilt As You Go, and am just finishing up with the final border of my first QAYG quilt. I have a few free motion quilting designs I can do. Those usually end up on baby quilts I make. I love to hand quilt, but I can't do that on very many quilts.

But I digress.

I can hardly wait to start on Leah's designs. I have a Spiderweb quilt that is just about ready to be sandwiched and I would like the quilting to be better than what I can do now. So here I go on another Quilting Adventure.

Leah also wrote this other book for beginners.  Hence she published (and I bought) another booklet, From Daisy to Paisley, 50 Beginner Free Motion Quilting Designs.



Now I'm just not going to sit here and tell you all these wonderful things about these books, Leah or her products. She does that on her site, which you absolutely must visit. She is also the designer of the Supreme Slider (confession: which I also bought) that makes your quilts glide across the machine bed so you don't get horrible shoulder and neck strain.

Here's just a taste of what Leah can do...
She looks like a teenager but she's not. Good genetics methinks.

My Invitation to You

About this newsletter Having trouble viewing this email? View online
News for registry members committed to marrow donation	February 2013

Meet Three Patients in Need of a Match and Learn What You Can Do

Kevin is a journalist and a newlywed from California. Carol is a physician assistant and breast cancer survivor from South Carolina. And Andy (A-Dog) Williams is a young Hip-Hop DJ from Vermont. They don’t know each other, but they understand each other’s fight.
Each knows that somewhere in the world is a person who could save their life. They all have some form of blood cancer that can be treated with a marrow transplant. But none of them have a marrow match in their family and currently there is no matching donor on the Be The Match Registry^®. So what’s next for them?
They’re not giving up, and you can help. Please spread the word to your family, friends and co-workers to join the Be The Match Registry today. The more people who join, the better the chances all patients have of receiving a transplant.
To make it easy to spread the word, we’ve provided you with Facebook and Twitter posts.

Spread the word on Facebook >
Spread the word on Twitter >

Questions or feedback? Ask online or call 800-MARROW-2 

source

Hi, it's me Terri...

It has been many years since I first signed up to be a marrow donor. I was so pleased to be asked. Like all of us, our lives have been touched by cancer in some way. Maybe it was a family member, maybe a parent of the friend of your daughter, or someone you met in the hospital, at a guild meeting, or a stranger you were chatting with.

Being a blood donor is such a selfless act. Being a bone marrow donor is also a loving and compassionate gift.

Today the above story arrived in my email inbox. I wanted to share it with you. The more people who are donors, the more people who will have a chance to keep on living. Be courageous. Be benevolent. Be giving. Help someone to have time to live their dream, raise their children, love their life.

 

Whatcha Reading?

In 1994, this is me reading yet another Dick Francis book, with my dog, Bambi on my lap. Dig that crazy couch!

I do so love Tuesday book sharing. I'm keeping a list of the recommended books I want to read on my OneNote in MS Office. I'm going to try and see if Amazon has any free loaners of books I want to read.

I was looking at my 2013 Books I've Read, at the bottom of the blog. Hmmmm. One book???? It's February 12th for pete's sake. What is going on with me? It's always the same answer when the question has to do with time. Quilting.

I don't keep house very well....why? Quilting
I don't go out very much in the evenings....why? Quilting
I am a hermit on the weekends and holidays....why? Quilting

If I didn't love it so, so much, I'd grumble a lot!

I'm still reading A Great and Terrible Beauty. I think I'm still on it because I'm not enjoying it that much. If it was deadly dull, I'd put it on my Goodreads list: "Put down." It moves slowly and the plot has not grabbed me. Mind you, I'm in the middle of the book so it has had plenty of time to grab. I think I'll make a goal to finish it over the holiday weekend. The school districts around here are taking a four-day weekend. It used to be two three-day weekends, but I like it the current way better. That should give me enough time to finish it up and start on something more interesting. If it doesn't get done, you'll know why...quilting.

I just noticed on Google that a movie is being made of this book. Obviously a whole bunch of somebodies thought it was good. In my experience, just because it is made into a movie doesn't mean the book is good. On the other hand, if a book is a treasure and they make a movie of it, they ruin it.

There are few exceptions to this:




I will mention here that To Kill A Mockingbird is my favorite book and movie of all time!

Check out other books being read and get ideas for your reading list at Patchwork Times (click here)

A Few Photos from the Week

I've been perusing the links on Judy's Design Wall Monday. (click here) My design wall in the other room is empty, but here's a shot I took of the two projects I'm working on. I had just tossed both the quilts on my cutting/ironing table the other day. Later I glanced over and they were such a lovely jumble that I had to take a picture.

I'm making progress on these quilts, which are part of my February Get It Done list. The Spiderweb needs one more border and the sandwiching and quilting. Wait until you see what I picked out. It needed a dark border to tie it all together. I went and found a gorgeous, plain midnight fabric. It is a dark blue, or wait--is it dark purple? It's one of those fascinating colors that have two colors that show up different depending on what color they are next to. I love fabrics like that!

I have to sandwich and quilt the spiderweb. I'm doing a beginner's class for our quilt guild teaching them how to make a spiderweb. I showed it on Wednesday night last and seven people have signed up. If you're interested, the pattern is from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville blog. (here)

The square in a square is just a teensy weensy way away from being finished. I worked on it all weekend. Mondays are my wonderful quilting day. My husband works late on Mondays so I get three hours of quilting after I get home until he arrives home. I worked on it today. I've got the sashing finished on the two long sides. It's pinned and ready to sew for the two short sides. After that it's just the binding. The square in a square was my first QAYG (Quilt As You Go).

I told my husband I was trying to think of the name for the quilt. It is almost completely 70s fabric. The 70s were an interesting decade for me. In the space of those ten years I graduated from high school, graduated from college, got married, and had three children.

Hubby came up with a winner: The Seventies Are Calling, They Want Their Fabric Back!

This is the same guy who helped me name an all-blue batik quilt: Jacques Cousteau's Undersea Adventure. You should hear the interesting names he gave his stuffed animals as a child and gives our cats!

A few pictures from this week:

Calla Lilies my hubby gave me when Newt died

Our swallow who is building a nest in the eaves above our front door.

TGS with one of my granddogs, Ginny

OSLW with the two granddogs

My dog, Miko, looking cute

Stash Count Week 6

I'm going the wrong direction on this stash count. But something is going to happen soon when I start making my next quilt. Something is going to happen when I put the backing on my Spiderweb.

Remember that song from West Side Story? It has always been one of my favorites. Tony is stacking soda bottles in the back alley. He has a feeling something good is coming and he starts to sing...

Who knows?
Could be?
There's something due any day

I will know right away

As soon as it shows

It wasn't about quilting for Tony. For me it's about quilting fabric! I know, how romantic!

But there was a time, 24 years ago. I was a single mom. I'd get the kids to bed and then wander around the house. Many times I'd end up at the back door and look up at the sky. I knew someone was out there. Something was coming.

My wonderful, amazing, kind...I run out of adjectives, husband. There's nothing a words can describe. He has changed my life in ways that I never could have expected. He has helped me become a better me by believing in me and supporting me. He has his faults; I have mine. But I love this man with the kind eyes and the serious and silly side to him.

I am the luckiest woman in the world.
I guess it's Valentine's Day early.

But I digress...

Here's My Report

Stash Count Week 6

Used This Week:  0
Used 2013: 9.5

Added This Week: 6 yards
Added 2013: 24.5

Net 2013: -15 yard

Mosey on over to Patchwork Times (click here) and see how others are doing with their Stash Count this week.