Category Archives: Quilting

Hey everybody!!!

Wanna swap?

Ever since I got home from the workshop with Denyse Schmidt I’ve been stewing and brewing the idea for a quilt block swap. I’ve worked out logistics, made graphics, picked some fabric colors (which match my website beautifully) and now I’m ready to say, “Come and play!”

blockswap button

If you click on that button up there you’ll be taken to the not-a-secret-anymore page on this here site. All the details are there for how to have a really good time, do some service for the world, and make some collaborative “soft art” from crafty friends everywhere. There is so much talent, creativity, good taste, craftmanship, and camaraderie out there in the craft world that I want some tangible evidence. Tangible as in a nice snuggly colorful quilt to wrap up in. Anyone else?

Well, what are you waiting for? The sign-up window for Block Swap opens today and closes March 8th (or when I get 50 people, whichever is first).  And if it sounds like a fun idea to you, spread the word.  I have had a little help from Denyse (who’s been giving me feedback and sent an invitation to former workshoppers) and a few craft-blog friends, but the more the merrier!

a sneak peek

Here’s a project I’ve FINALLY finished. I’ll have to post more details about it later…

blanket closeup

I was hoping that I would be posting amazing photos of my bed adorned with a new Denyse Schmidt quilt beneath a wall of freshly framed Karl Blossfeldt photogravures, but alas… my quilt is backordered. Which is okay, but I wish they had told me that fact when I ordered it and not over a week later when I was expecting it to be here. What a let down!

and now the wait…

remember this guy?

green-hexapus.jpg

I designed the pattern for a plush toy how-to book being published by Lark Books and in stores this spring/ summer. I got my check in the mail last week and this morning I clicked away at shopfosters.com (thanks for the heads up Dayna) and got this:

prettysquare.jpg

I’m plugging away at my nesting and beautifying. My room is the 1st place I see when I wake up and the last place I see at night, so that’s my starting place. I’m filling it with things I love, that are beautiful, that mean something… so that I’ll have a refuge.

This is the week of recovery, and discovery :)

stress relief

FleaMarketFancy.gif

I don’t write much here about what I do in service to my church– partly because I don’t want to be all, “Look how nice I am,” because a lot of what I do should be kept confidential, and also because I’m not in this position because I campaigned or earned it, but because I was asked to and feel like that’s what Heavenly Father needs me to do. But, the load is getting heavy and today has been a crappy day.

We have a welfare system which is amazing a very inspired, and so as Relief Society President it is part of my job to assess the needs of people in our ward and help order the food and stuff they need. A truck comes from the Bishop’s Storehouse in Columbus every other Tuesday. Anyway, I sent one of my counselors to the truck devlivery today because I wasn’t feeling up to lifting and loading, and 8 families’ orders weren’t on the truck! I started writing this in frustration and bewilderment, not knowing what to do, but now we’ve figured out that there wasn’t enough postage on the order forms, that they didn’t get there in time, but that copies of them have been found, people can head up to Columbus to get the missing food and it will all be okay.

As I was sitting here near tears because 8 families were going to have to be without food and it was probably somehow my fault, my e-mail inbox dinged and I had a message from Denyse to make me smile.

I wasn’t sure it was okay to post pictures of her new fabirc line, but she said it was just fine to start the buzz. The fabrics she designed are so fun– with her great color sense and vintage charm. Here’s the picture I took at her studio:

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But even better is the picture she just sent me of “Flea Market Fantasy”

FleaMarketFancy.jpg

I sure can’t wait to get my hands on those browns and blues, how ’bout you guys?! Okay, the orangey yellows and greens are great too… Keep your eyes peeled in the quilt stores this spring/ summer :)