Sewing Again!!!

Here is a peek at my Spice Market bed quilt. Yes, after a year and a half of hand quilting (very slowly) the quilt is on my bed. I love it! I'll show you more once I finish the pillow covers.

Last weekend my mother and stepfather came for a visit. I am always grateful to have company. I enjoy spending time with family and friends. I love the added incentive it gives me to clean the house. I finally completed a huge reorganization of the house before the long weekend. Life is in order and the house is still clean. I can sit and sew with out guilt. I also completed a month long stint of fabric dyeing last week.

This is what I spent part of my weekend working on. These are some of the more popular colorways of my quilt block jewelry. I keep running out of stock so I am sewing many multiples to try to build enough stock to get me through the summer.

Last night I worked on the most tedious part of making the jewelry. I cut two 11"x 14" pieces of thin glass into 3/4"x 3/4" squares. To cut, wash and dry these tiny pieces of glass takes about 6 hours. I will clean the glass one more time with window cleaner before assembling the pieces.

Paypal Spoof E-mail

Today I received and e-mail supposedly from Paypal stating that my Paypal account had limited access because someone had tried to break in to my account.  Would I please click on the e-mail link to take care of the problem.  Being the suspicious person I am, I instead contacted Paypal and found out it was a fake e-mail.   Paypal does not send e-mails to you with links requesting more information.  I also noticed the e-mail did not reference any of my e-mail addresses. 

I'm sure all of you have received the e-mail  someone in Nigeria has a bunch of money they would like to send you.  Maybe not such a clever scam, but thieves sure are thinking up new ways to trick people out of personal information.   There is a website called Snopes.com that debunks rumors and urban legends.  The first time I used it was to check on this e-mail  about the missing Ashley Flores.  I have since received this e-mail 3 more times over the years and fortunately Ashley is still not missing.  Be careful.  If you think it is a scam it is likely a scam.

Yellow Bird Art Giveaway

One of my favorite quilt shops is hosting a blog giveaway that ends tomorrow evening (May 25th).

Click here for a chance to win.  

I wrote a post about our trip to this shop last fall.  Click here to read more.

A Little More From Last Weekend

Look what I found on our shop hop last weekend. Way to go Moda! Lace-Up Sewing Cards! I spent hours playing with these when I was a child. I swear these look just like the ones I remember from my childhood.

I picked up a handmade silverware basket from the Amish Quilt shop. It is perfect for my shipping supplies. I also picked up a copy of Kathy Kuderer's "Down a Country Road". Her book offers a look into the history and lifestyle of the Amish in our area. (Guess what Jenna? The Amish in the Cashton area came here 44 years ago from Holmes County Ohio)

Last weekend our son was home from college for a few days. Our son is known for his goofy faces.

Now you know where he gets that from.

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. I'm sewing lots of little quilt blocks to make more jewelry for an art gallery in Duluth.

Treasury West

I just received a note that my Dye Candy fabric is featured in a gorgeous Etsy Treasury West. Please stop by and leave a comment. Hopefully we can become front page news!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=54609

My thanks to SeatofMyPants for including my wares with so many beautiful items!

Greetings From Wisconsin

On Friday morning I headed north to pick up my son from Duluth. It was a such a beautiful day for a drive. It makes my heart soar to travel across this state. The scenery is diverse and the forests seem to go on forever. The trees were bright green when I left our home in Southwestern Wisconsin. As I traveled North the leaves became sparse. Here Spring is two weeks behind. This photo was taken about 20 miles from the Lake Superior shoreline. The land drops off sharply here. I wonder if it was once an ancient shoreline. The temperature here is 65 deg F. Near the lake it was 41 degrees. Saturday I traveled on a shop hop with the Piecemakers Guild hop through rural Southwestern Wisconsin.
One of our stops was an Amish store near Cashton where our host Laura treated us to a bed turning. Laura has been selling quilts from her shop for more than 20 years. All quilts are made locally by as many as 65 Amish women. Piecing is done by hand or with a treadle sewing machine. All quilt tops are hand quilted with beautiful and precise tiny stitches. You can also find handmade baskets, rugs and wooden bowls at this stop.

Down the road a piece....

Another one of our stops was at "Down A Country Road", a gift shop that sells local Amish wares.

Follow this link to their website where you can view a short video about their business and a look at Amish life.

More About the Shop Hop

P.S. I just checked Patsy's blog. You can see a bit more about the shops we visited here.

Celebrating Friends

Two really wonderful things happened about the time I was getting ready to head to Paducah. First, I received a note from Linda Halpin mentioning that Quiltmaker had published two of her quilts! You can find her quilts in the current May/June issue. Way to go Linda! She is a fantastic teacher. Linda has been teaching quilt making nationally for thirty years. Her classes cover so many spectrums of the quilting world from color theory, hand applique, hand quilting and more.

One of Linda's specialties is scrap quilting using a two for one technique where cutaway scraps from one quilt are used to create a second bonus quilt. I love exploring her scrap quilts. I always find fabrics that I would never have thought to purchase and I am amazed that they work so well in the overall assembly. Read more about Linda on her website.

Flying Geese is the primary quilt featured to the left. Linda machine quilted this quilt in sections using the "Cyndication" quilting technique developed by Cindy Fenster and Cathy Doyle.

The quilt in the upper right hand corner is the bonus quilt. This quilt "Split Rail Variation" was Machine quilted for Linda by Marcia Wachuta. Linda says the machine quilting is perfect and I'm sure she is right. Marcia is an extremely talented quilter.

Linda will be teaching this class at Millhouse Quilts in Waunakee, WI on July 31st. Linda notes this class has just been scheduled so it may not appear on the Millhouse calendar until the next newsletter is published.

A few weeks ago Lynn contacted me and mentioned she had given me an award. Thanks Lynn!!! Lynn is a fellow art quilter that I met in blogland last summer. She is always trying new techniques. Her art work inspires me to do more. I can't wait to see what she will do next!

Here is a description that accompanied the award "This award goes to fellow bloggers who visit frequently and raise my spirits with their kind words of encouragement, their beautiful images and their wonderful outlook on life. They make blogging a positive experience and continue to make my life richer.

I really have a hard time passing awards on to others. I read so many blogs and visit each one because I find inspiration at each stop. (I love receiving your comments. If you leave a return e-mail address I will reply). I've listed a few of the many I enjoy below. Thanks for your encouraging words and your friendships.

Judith at My Cretan Life

Susan who Plays With Needles

Millie's Quilting

Greenmare at Mare's Nest

Karen Fae at Karen's Quilting

Jude at Cariad in Crete

Bindu at Transient Lives

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch

We have been taking long walks through the woods where early spring wildflowers and ferns are just starting to appear.
Grasses in the meadow are short and it is easy to find a path.

And the Shady Grove waits for its leaves.

The wild plum trees are in bloom and the valley is filled with sweet fragrance. In another week we should find wild orchids sprouting in the woods. The hummingbirds and orioles showed up last week. We promptly put the feeders out. If we wait a few days the hummingbirds will hover outside the windows waiting to be fed. It seems they have long memories. This is the first year we have spotted indigo buntings at the bird feeders. I hope they stick around, but I'm pretty sure the buntings plan to head north to mate and nest.

I have half of the binding completed on my Spice Market quilt. A long awaited finish is coming soon....

Wishing you a very happy Mother's Day!

Chris

A Little More From Paducah

I enjoyed exploring downtown Paducah.


The town is full of beautiful architecture.

River towns always have such grand old buildings, allowing a peek at times past when river commerce was king.

As a child I spent a weekend with my aunt and uncle swimming on the shore of the Ohio River. The river was as I remembered it, barges pushing coal and gravel up and down the river to some distant place.

If you are ever in Paducah make sure you take time to see The Wall or "Wall to Wall".

Murals painted by artist Robert Dafford cover the flood walls that protect the downtown area. Each panel depicts a different aspect of the local area history. I tried to find a link to more information about the wall but what I found was very limited. So instead I leave you with this link to the National Quilt Museum located 1 block north of the wall. This year the museum had a special display "Best of Show: 25 years of Quilting Excellence". It was a wonderful opportunity to see how quilting has changed in such a short span of time. This is a trip I will never forget.

Quilt Show Winners and A Car Park?

We stopped off in Arthur Illinois to visit the "Stitch and Sew Fabrics" store. The prices were very reasonable and the selection was varied with something for everyone. Many of the shops in town were filled wonderful Amish wares. We had lunch in a nearby bakery. I can still smell the cinnamon!

On the way back to the car I noticed this unique parking structure. This photo shows only half of the city lot. There is room for at least a dozen horses in this garage.


Rumor has it we missed two great Amish dry goods stores full of fabric. Maybe next trip....

Here is a link to photos of the show winners at the AQS show in Paducah. Enjoy!