East Coast Shopping

I hadn’t been to Lancaster County, PA in a long time, so SIL was kind enough to drive me to Philadelphia and stop at some fabric shops along the way. We enjoy shopping together. We have the opportunity to catch up as we drive around. She never does that trip to Lancaster County alone, so I get to help her renew her fabric.

We mapped out 8 or so shops, but only made it to three. I was happy to find enough food fabrics to make the Disappearing Nine Patch. One of the shops had a lot.

In general, I did see a lot of brown and muddy colors. I tried to be careful and not buy those. I also tried to be cognizant of the light. It is hazy in that area when it is hot and that affects how I see the fabrics.

We started out with a list of stores on the Quiltart website. Thanks, Judy! We used SIL’s GPS to find directions to all the shops. The GPS made us make a lot of left turns, which wasn’t always easy.

Dutchland
Dutchland

Dutchland Quilt Patch
This was a two story store with a lot of Amish looking gift items and a lot of potpourri. Two Amish women were working there (one was in training). The fabric was upstairs in a light aqua room. They had fat quarters and a large number of bolts of fabric. I bought a few pieces, some FQs for a friend and some embroidery needles. Their colors were a little on the murky side for me. I did enjoy talking with the young woman who cut my fabric. She commented on the motifs and colors we chose and talked a little about her own sewing.

Dutchland Fabrics
Dutchland Fabrics
Fabric Shack
Fabric Shack

Fabric Shack, formerly Lapp’s Dry Goods
Next we went to the Fabric Shack, formerly Lapp’s Dry Goods. This is a quilt/fabric store in a former house in the middle of a bunch of farms, e.g. it is not on a commercial strip of stores. SIL and I have been to this store in the past. I like the former name better. There is something unappealing about the word ‘shack’. It didn’t matter because the first thing I saw when I walked in were the Farmer’s Market food fabrics. This store also had LOTS of fabrics. In addition to regular quilting cottons, they had the pre-quilted fabrics, a whole room full of flannels, Moda pre-cuts, books and FQs.

We had to wait a long time when we went to check out because the lady in front of us was buying multiple cuts of 10 yards each! She told us she was making Stack-n-Whack or One Block Wonder quilts and was buying so much fabric, because she was stocking up for the summer! Later, SIL explained how the technique worked and I looked at her book, but am not sure I’ll be making one using that method.

Buggies
Buggies

One of the things we saw, which was not a surprise to me, were Amish buggies everywhere. Obviously, people had to get around and they were using buggies. I enjoyed watching them drive by as we waited in the Fabric Shack to check out. The horses were gorgeous and looked sleek and well taken care of. Next door to the Fabric Shack was a mini buggy parking lot.

Zook's
Zook's

Zook’s
Zook’s had the most fabric of any of the Amish stores we visited.  They had arranged all of their fabric by manufacturer, which I thought was an interesting way of arranging it. It seemed to make it easy for them to find fabrics when people called.

We spent the next 2.5 hours in traffic getting to Philadelphia. Bleah! I would have liked to have gone to Sauder’s, but I found plenty of fabric on this trip.It gives me something to which to look forward in the future.

Scooter Bike
Scooter Bike

I also saw these scooter bikes everywhere in Lancaster. I don’t know if they are really called scooter bikes, but that is what they look like. I seriously thought about buying one for the Young Man, but didn’t have the energy to figure out how to ship it home, so I left for this trip. Perhaps another time. I thought they would be very useful for getting around  a college campus. I am not sure how one would compare to a bike as I have never tried one out.

While in Philadelphia, I tried to go to Spool Sewing. I looked up their hours, walked over within the specified time and they were closed. 🙁 Oh well. Perhaps I’ll go to Philadelphia again and they will be open.

A few days later, I drove up to New Jersey to co-host Mark’s radio show. As I drove, I wondered why there were no quilt shops with big signs on the side of the road that I could see from the highway. If I could see it, there was half a chance that I could stop at the store. 😉

Pennington Quiltworks
Pennington Quiltworks

Pennington Quiltworks
Wishes do come true, because not 5 minutes after thinking that, I saw a huge sign for Pennington Quiltworks. How could I not stop? Pennington Quiltworks was bright and cheerful. When I arrived the place was buzzing with activity. There was a large group of ladies having fabric cut and getting ready to leave. I found out later that there were 17 of them in the group and they were working on a very bright and cheerful friendship quilt.

On Friday, I had to choose between Mt. Vernon and quilt shops. Sigh! It is hard being a grown up. I really wanted to go to Mt. Vernon and see their new visitor center and the garden re-do, but I also wanted to go to quilt shops. SIL said I couldn’t do both, so we went to the quilt shops. 😉

Capital Quilts
Capital Quilts was our first stop. This used to be SIL’s local quilt shop, but I think that Patches (see below) is closer to her. I have been to CQ at least twice before. They have great fabric. They have a lot of batiks, more of the Kaffe Fasset fabrics than I have seen at other shops, some Philip Jacobs and Amy Butler. They also have machines. The thing I like about this shop is that they haven’t sacrificed fabric space for machines.

G Street
G Street has moved since I was there last. The space was a lot smaller and their quilting cotton inventory was quite picked over. I heard someone say that they were doing inventory soon, so I am guessing that the selection would have been a lot bigger if I visited next week. They had a number of interesting rulers. I found a few more food fabrics to add to my group. The store manager helped us and she said that RJR is only printing what stores order. Makes it hard to reorder a popular fabric.

Needles & Pins
This is a small Frederick, MD shop which I visited once before. In some respects it is what I think of when I think of the quilt shop in Marie Bostwick‘s Cobbled Court novels, except smaller. I remembered it as being quite dark. This time, even though it was raining, I found it to be quite bright and stocked some cheerful fabrics. They also had a small selection of the felted wool pincushions that I like. They had a great quilt hanging up in the shop. My problem with it was that it was made from Civil War fabrics. It was a BOM and each block came with the fabrics.

I found this situation to be the case in a couple of stores. A few of the shops were doing a BOM in Civil War fabrics and there was no alternative. A quiltmaker was not able to buy the patterns without the fabric and was not able to buy an alternative colorway such as large scale prints or batiks. Of course, everything about the Civil War is very popular in this area and the fabric seems to be quite prevalent as well. Not my thing, though and it makes me wonder if I am alone in this or if they are cutting out a bunch of potential customers. I assume these stores know their customer base?

Patches
Patches

Patches Quilting & Sewing
Patches was a great shop. It is also in a house right up from the Mt. Airy main drag. The people were really friendly and the place was crammed, CRAMMED, with fabric, notions, tools, patterns, rulers, thread, books and machines. There was no available space because every surface had something to look at or buy.

Did I mention rulers? This store had more rulers than I have ever seen at one store. They had the Quilt in a Day Flying Geese rulers that I mail ordered. They had the Clearview 60 degree triangle rulers that Pam, Sandy and I have been agonizing over in THREE SIZES! I was amazed. I didn’t even know that ruler came in 3 sizes. The shop also had the Starmaker ruler that Kaye Wood uses in the video on how to cut the hexagons from strips. I have never EVER seen that ruler. They didn’t have very many sizes of the Creative Grids rulers, but a person can’t have everything and I really have no reason to complain about their selection of rulers, if you couldn’t tell.

Patches Ruler Wall #1
Patches Ruler Wall #1

They had great fabric. I could have bought almost everything there, but just had to stop, because I was getting overwhelmed. The employees were very friendly, especially Pam who, in addition to telling us everything about the store, it’s products and classes also acted as local tour guide by telling us about local restaurants.

Sisto's
Sisto's

Sisto’s
Sisto’s was our next stop and it wasn’t as well stocked with fabric as Patches. I think it got the short end of the impression stick, because we went to Patches first. They had a lot of machines and I was able to finally buy some bobbins for my machine. Crazy that I have to fly across the country to buy bobbins! We talked to them for a long time about the HQ18 (I think that is the model). It is the HandiQuilter longarm machine. The woman we spoke with knew a lot about the machine and was very friendly. They had a lot of space in the shop, but most of it seemed to be filled with machines rather than fabric.

I asked about Anna Maria Horner patterns at a couple of shops and was shocked to find that they had never heard of her or her patterns. I found it odd, but, again, I think that the shops must know their customer base. I didn’t check to see if FreeSpirit had any fabric in these shops. Perhaps FreeSpirit doesn’t have a rep in the area? Odd, though.

Visiting

As I have mentioned around the web, I was on the East Coast last week. I don’t like to announce the fact that I am going to be gone, so I apologize if anyone was confused. I was at a conference for my job, which you might remember if you heard Creative Mojo (I promise to stop mentioning this eventually). If you didn’t hear Creative Mojo, you can listen to the podcast.

Mark & Jaye
Mark & Jaye

One of the things I did back East was co-host the Creative Mojo podcast with Mark Lipinski. I was really nervous and even more nervous when he posted on FB that he had been admitted to the hospital early that week. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen and wondered if I would find a note on the door with a key telling me how to turn on the headset and microphone so that I could fill in for him. Fortunately for me (and all of you!) Mark is a consummate professional with the motto of “the show must go on.” He was working on the script when I arrived, so Jeff entertained me. Jeff Turner has a smile that lights up the room. Toby, Mark’s friend and the owner of the Kindred Quilts, was also there to talk about creative book clubs. I thought it was funny that they were both from, or had lived in, California! Small world!

Mark came down when he was done with the script and told me what to do. I had to read or review a bit of a couple of the books whose authors would be on the show. I also had to read an article from another author and think of comments to interject. I also had to read the script and be familiar with the way the show would go.

Mark's House
Mark's House

Mark’s house is gorgeous. On Quilt Out Loud, Mark’s house looks like a mansion. In reality, there are a lot of rooms, but it seems to be well proportioned. The colors they used to paint the rooms are wonderful and bold. The hall is a bright citron green. The living room is bordering on a warm white, but has a tinge of orange or yellow. The living room, as are all the rooms, so beautifully decorated. They look like a decorator did them, but there is no feeling of not being able to sit down. The living room is very comfy as well as well put together. The guest bath is a light purple and Mark’s office is a wonderful sunshiney yellow. Mark’s office is filled with books. I kept getting distracted during the podcast looking at his books. He and I have a lot of the same books. His are not piled on the floor (note to self: get a new bookshelf!), but well organized in cube cubbies.

Mark talks a lot about his hoarding tendencies. While I did see the Pod (he wouldn’t let me in), I didn’t see any hoarding tendencies. House Beautiful could walk into his house and start a photo shoot. I felt funny taking photos of the inside, so I didn’t and I would have stayed longer except Mark really looked like he needed to go to bed.

The show went really fast and I had a lot of fun doing it. All I did to become the co-host was email Mark and I was in. It was fun.

The highlight of the trip was visiting with my SIL and the family. My BIL is a great cook and has no problem substituting to help me deal with my food intolerances. I really enjoy visiting with my SIL. We usually do a sewing or quilting project. We really work well together and it made me think of how much I like working with certain other quiltmakers on projects.

TFQ is another with whom I enjoy working. She and I work really well together, too. Remember the Cheerful Baskets? She has a great (can’t say this enough) sense of color and is good at giving me the pieces to sew in an orderly manner. I wish they both lived closer, but I also enjoy going to visit. I wish it were easier to visit.

I always learn something new when SIL and I sew together. She has a large workspace which allows two people to work together without stepping on each other. SIL has a pseudo-professional stand-alone embroidery machine. She has been having fun making Christmas ornaments, Boy Scout patches and other things with it. She had an idea for the NSGW pillows, so we played around with the software that comes with the machine and designed some motifs.

Chain piecing pillow covers
Chain piecing pillow covers

She stitched them out (well, caused them to be stitched out) while I was at the conference. When I returned, we made them into pillows. When I made the last Teacher pillows I thought that I should quilt them, but was really too lazy. SIL reminded me about the quilt-as-you-go method, so I used that to quilt and sew the tops simultaneously. The good thing about that method is that you can make the back as big as the pillow form and then you know where to stop. The other good thing is that you can use up random bits of batting.

NDGW Pillow Cover #1
NDGW Pillow Cover #1
NDGW Pillow Cover #2
NDGW Pillow Cover #2
Ruth's NDGW Pillow Cover
Ruth's NDGW Pillow Cover

We made 2 pillows for the Native Daughters’ (sister organization to the Native Sons for women) upcoming convention and one for my MIL (SIL’s mom). The one for my MIL was a bit of a mistake. We felt like we didn’t have quite enough fabric for it, so we didn’t want to make it for the grand Parlor. However, once the piece was finished we really liked the way it came it out and my adjust what we do in the future to take what we learned into consideration. We also embroidered 3 additional centers for pillows for the Native Sons raffle pillows for next year. I hope I don’t put them somewhere where I can’t find them!

Mosaic Block
Mosaic Block

We also worked a little bit with SIL’s  new Accuquilt Go Baby cutter. She had some parallelograms she had cut and we wanted to try the Jinny Beyer Perfect Piecer. In looking for a comprehensive video on using the Perfect Piecer, we found a video with an interesting block called Mosaic (I kind of doubt that is the real name, but I haven’t looked it up and I could be wrong) using parallelograms. She cut and intended to sew, but she was busy picking out greens for a green quilt, so I sewed. I am now an Accuquilt Go convert. Those patches lined up perfectly and there was only one small point matching problem.

In Lancaster County, we had bought fabric for a shirt for my BIL, so we worked on that, too. I was her assistant on that project since I am not much of a garment maker. I like it when I get to sew on my work-vacations.

Capital Quilts
Capital Quilts

SIL saw the above quilt, which is a 9 patch alternated with a snowball block. You can buy the pattern or take the class at Capital Quilts.

Sisto's Star Table Runner
Sisto's Star Table Runner

Sisto’s had a couple of nice quilts available for us to view as well. This looks paper pieced, but it could also be done, I think, with Y seams (at which you all will be experts after you work on the hexagons.

Tilted 9 Patch
Tilted 9 Patch

If you don’t mind sewing on the bias, this looks like you could make regular 9 patches and then trim them to be tilted.

Link to the 30's
Link to the 30's

This quilt is from the book, Link to the 30’s, which we saw hanging in Sisto’s Janome room. You can probably buy the book by calling Sisto’s. It is a book, along with the previous volume, that I have been thinking of buying. It is a project book, but the quilts aren’t all ‘quick & easy’. I thought it was done very well and I liked the way the blocks were not chopped off.

Link to the 30's - detail
Link to the 30's - detail

I wasn’t able to quickly discern the block so I took the detail above. I would have to look at the quilt closer to see the block and I simply wasn’t tall enough.

In case you are wondering about the conference I attended, it was great. it was a lot of work in terms of listening and understanding and bringing information back to my workplace. Not interesting in terms of quiltmaking, though.

CPP on Vacation

The CPP will continue. I need some people to play with on this project. That means you!

So far there is only one entry for the creativity prizes, so what is holding you up? Do you need a pep talk?

Rules: Anyone who posts a response to any of the prompts between now and the post for prompt #111 will be entered for a prize. Yes, I know it is end of school and vacation time. Do a response while in line at the grocery store on the back of a receipt.

If you do a response to any prompt (there are 110 words so far), you will get into the drawing. Anyone who gets a friend to do a response will get two entries. You have some drawing friends, right? Poets? Mixed media artist friends? Thread painters? Photographers? Sign them up. BTW, all rules are subject to change at my discretion.

These will not be quilt related prizes, but creativity related prizes. Like a deck of creativity cards.

Were you planning to wait until the last minute? Please don’t wait until the last minute. My life will be better if you don’t. Do your response NOW and post the link in the appropriate comments section.

NSGW Quilt

NSGW Quilt
NSGW Quilt

As President of a Board of the NSGW, DH gets around the state quite a bit. He is well trained to take photos of quilts for me. I think he is interested as well when he sees one.  Last weekend he went to Sutter Creek for a meeting at the Amador Parlor Native Sons hall. In that hall he saw this quilt.

It is a crazy quilt and is made from ribbons from various Native Sons events.

He said there were no blocks, per se, and, yes, he does know what a block is, but I can see a kind of Dresden Plate in there as well as a fan.

NSGW Quilt detail
NSGW Quilt detail

These photos are taken with his cell phone, but you can see the detail of the ribbons in the detail photo.

Basketweave Baby Again

Petaluma Tile
Petaluma Tile

I was looking through some old photos the other day and came across this photo of tile that I saw in Petaluma 6 years ago when I visited the last Great Petaluma Outdoor Quilt Show.

I posted this picture before (thus the link), but it wasn’t until I looked at it again the other day that I realized how much it looked like the Basketweave Baby quilt that I am still obsessing over. You can read about my obsession here or here.

Fons & Porter Basketweave Baby
Fons & Porter Basketweave Baby

Block-a-long #9: Nine Patch

Nine Patch #9
Nine Patch #9

Have you made a Nine Patch? Nine patches are like candy. You can’t make too many of them (though I am kind of partial to Four Patches at the moment). They are great for swaps or to use up scraps. There are a multitude of variations. If you sew the parts together using the leaders and enders philosophy you can use up scraps and have a stash of blocks when someone needs blocks to make a donation quilt.

The Nine Patch #9 for this block are easy to follow.

I plan to post blocks on Monday, but I may not post one every Monday.

Kona Challenge

The Kona Charm Challenge sponsored by Robert Kaufman is all over the quilt world news. last weekend, after the BAMQG meeting, I worked on my border.

Kona challenge top
Kona challenge top

The border took me most of Sunday to put on. I realized later that I should have used EQ to figure out the sizes.

Secondary Design
Secondary Design

This is one of the secondary designs I was trying to preserve. It is the one I saw first.

Ohio Star detail
Ohio Star detail

Later, as the top came together, I also saw a kind of Ohio Star.

Bright Secondary Pattern
Bright Secondary Pattern

My inspiration came from the Manteca quilt show and this quilt by Traudi King, Fun with Scraps.

 

CPP Vacation

 

Remember I said that the CPP will continue? I need some people to play with on this project. That means you!

I am going to offer some creativity prizes, so what is holding you up? Do you need a pep talk?

Rules: Anyone who posts a response to any of the prompts between now and the post for prompt #111 will be entered for a prize. Yes, I know it is end of school and vacation time. If you do a response to any prompt (there are 110), you will get into the drawing. Anyone who gets a friend to do a response will get two entries. You have some drawing friends, right? Poets? Mixed media artist friends? Thread painters? Photographers? Sign them up. BTW, all rules are subject to change at my discretion.

These will not be quilt related prizes, but creativity related prizes.

Were  you planning to wait until the last minute? Please don’t wait until the last minute. My life will be better if you don’t. Do your response NOW and post the link in the appropriate comments section.

Do a little scribble response. It will be quite freeing.

Hexagons Tutorial-Preparing to Sew

Hexagon piece
Hexagon piece

Did you follow the directions for cutting your hexagons? Did you watch the video? If so, you are ready to prepare to piece. If not, you can find the directions and information on my previous post.

Note: my hexagons are 7″ unfinished. We are preparing to machine sew the hexagons using Y seams. Leave your fear of Y seams at the door, please. This is a relatively quick method after you do the step outlined below. However, you won’t be able to chain piece.

Supplies needed:

  • Sewing machine
  • Quarter inch foot
  • Thread
  • Ironing board
  • Iron
  • rotary ruler a bit longer than one side of your hexagon (I like the Creative Grids 4.5″x8.5″ rectangular ruler)
  • thin sharp black pen like a Pigma Micron or a Pilot Scuf or a Sewline pencil
  • your hexagons

You will be working on the wrong side of your hexagons at first.

The photo of my piece (above) is similar to what your goal should be. Note that the piece I show is not the final product. I don’t know how large my final quilt will be. That is just how I roll on certain projects. You should check Sandy’s blog and podcast as she has provided some information about sizes and amounts of fabric.

I don’t think in rows, so I don’t always sew in rows (remember the Chunking it tutorial?). This project lends itself to sewing in a circle, which I find very calming.

Face Down
Face Down

Take your cut hexagons and turn them right side down (wrong side up) on a surface you can draw on. I do this step right next to my sewing machine just before I sew. Take your rotary ruler and position the edge a quarter inch from one edge.

Ruler on Hexagon
Ruler on Hexagon

For example, pretend you were going to slice off a quarter inch and position your ruler that way. Note there is no rotary cutter on the supply list so no cutting, please. The goal is to end up with an X at the 60 degree angle spot on the patch.

Hexagon Marked-detail
Hexagon Marked-detail

On the wrong side of your fabric, take your pen and draw a light line where a quarter of an inch should be.

Draw a Light Line
Draw a Light Line

You won’t see it on the front if you are careful, so using one of the pens mentioned above is ok. You will be doing this at the 60 degree angle/where the corner of the patch is, if the patch had a corner.

Draw Line on Next Side
Draw Line on Next Side

When you mark the second side, you will have one X and 2 lines.

One X and 2 Lines
One X and 2 Lines

Do the same thing at each of the other angles.

Hexagon Angles Marked
Hexagon Angles Marked

If you draw lines all the way around so you have little X-es at every angle of your hexagon. No groaning. I didn’t promise this would be a fast project, but it also doesn’t take that much time. If you are rolling your eyes, go buy the American Patchwork and Quilting magazine, because they have a method of doing this piecing in rows. Seems everyone is on the Hexagon bandwagon these days.

If the above process is just too horrendous for you to contemplate, consider the Perfect Piecer by Jinny Beyer.

Perfect Piecer
Perfect Piecer

The 60 degree angle on the right side is perfect for making dots (not X-es) which you can use to sew between. Those circles are actual holes through which you can mark. I bought this to use for my Flowering Snowball and realized it would work with this project as well. I pushed the Sewline pencil lead way out of the pencil and was able to use it with this ruler.

Once you have done the marking, go to your sewing machine.

Do all the normal thread and needle checking stuff necessary for your machine.

Put your machine on the setting for stopping with the needle down. If you don’t have a needle down setting, adjust your sewing so you can stop with the needle down. This isn’t an absolute must, but really helps.

Position the needle right above the intersection of the x. Sew into the intersection of the X and sew all the way across using your quarter inch foot. STOP at the intersection of the second X. Do NOT sew into the seam allowance. Backstitch a couple of times.

I backstitch, because there are no seams crossing one another.

Remedy for sewing into the seam allowance: rip out the number of stitches into the seam allowance. Don’t rip out the whole seam, just rip out the stitch or two that went over.

Take the piece out of the machine and reposition the next unsewn side.Same deal: Position the needle right above the intersection of the x. Sew into the intersection of the X and sew all the way across using your quarter inch foot. STOP at the intersection of the second X. Do NOT sew into the seam allowance. Backstitch a couple of times.

Hexagons Unpressed
Hexagons Unpressed

Take your piece over to the ironing board and lay it face down. Yes, I know everyone says to press right sides up. Not this time, sweetie. Face down. On the ironing board. You are going to make a swirl with the seams near each other. Look for how the other seams connected to the new ones you just sewed are pressed and press the new ones in the same direction.

Hexagon Flower
Hexagon Flower

If you follow these directions, you will get a little flower at the intersections of the seams. That is why you don’t sew into the seam allowance. The quilt will lay flatter and the seams will be in order.

You see a slightly different method at the Blue Chair blog.

Various & Sundry 2011 #10

Mentions and Accolades

My post about the Maker Faire was a featured post on Creating the Hive. It is easy to deal with, because the posts I write here are automatically shared there. Yes, people may see some duplication, but I get a whole different audience there. Are you a member of Creating the Hive? I’ll send you an invite if you want one.

My Sketchbook from the Sketchbook Project has been digitized. You can see it at: http://www.arthousecoop.com/library/637. I was able to page through it, but let me know if you are able to do so. Regular readers will recognize the drawings. 😉

Sandy wrote a great review of the Quilter’s Academy v.1 book that I reviewed some weeks ago. She, kindly, built on the review I wrote, which I really appreciate.

Fabric Requirements?

I saw this tool for calculating fabric requirements. I have no idea if it works even though I tried it for hexagons. I just have no frame of reference for using the tool. What do you think?

Robert Kaufman also has a fabric calculator for the Android Market. I don’t have an Android, so I haven’t tried it. Perhaps Sandy will do a review?

Other Artists

Danny Gregory is a writer and journal artist. He did some podcast with artists who were featured in one of his books. I really liked those podcasts, because they talked about creative process, tools and journals. He put a recent blog post that really spoke to me. In it he says “We don’t just want a pat on the head; we want connection, reaction, insight, something that makes us see what we made in a newer light or on a deeper plain.” I try not to want this, but I have to admit that even if I don’t want approval, I do want that connection and a conversation to start. He also says “The true value of acknowledgment isn’t registered in the ego; it’s the opposite, a breaking down of the barriers between creator and audience so that we can unite in a shared appreciation of something that lends beauty and meaning to the grinding metronome of the day. We see a glimpse of the heavens together, a view that appeared to one of us first but is now a canopy over us all.
It’s even true of a joke, a shared laugh, the quick bark of recognition that our minds thought alike, we saw the other’s insight….” It seems to be all about connection.

I took a look at Leah Day site again when mom and I were talking about free motion quilting. She just bought a Flynn Frame so I showed her the site. What I didn’t realize is that Leah has great videos on her site. They are professional, but not slick. They come across as a friend genuinely wanting to share information with another friend. I was inspired.

Nina Johansson is a Swedish artist who does really great drawings. See. Be. Draw had an interview with her recently. Nina is the artist whose coffee cup drawing I adore.

Dan Rouse is a quiltmaker whose blog I found through the East Bay Modern Quilt Guild. He has a great post on pieced circles (just say yes!) on his WIP Wednesday post.

Exhibits and Such

Lisa Call has put up a Squidoo site about Quilt National 2011, which opened last week at the Dairy Barn.

The ‘and such’ part is SeamedUp. Quiltin’ Jenny posted a great interview with the Queen of Everything, Allison Rosen. Quiltin’ Jenny had a great series of posts earlier this year/ late last year (??) about cleaning out various rooms of her house. It was very inspiring and made it seem doable.

Here is a gallery of quilts from Quilts Inc. Who will Pinterest them?

Oops

I have been looking at spelling lately, especially the apostrophe problem, and shaking my head. I found a doosie in a Quilt Market Report today. Not just in the text, but as part of printed signage. I see this as a sign that the apostrophe will be gone before 10 years are over. Sigh.

I am not immune. A kind reader pointed out a date error on one of my recent posts. Thank you! Please feel free to kindly point out spelling errors and such. I want my blog to be the best it can be and am only human.

Attack of the Hexies


Attack of the Hexies

Originally uploaded by Pantsfreesia

This is reposted from Pam (Hip to Be A Square)’s Flickrstream with only slight revisions/additions:

Srsly guys. They are EVERYWHERE.

Sandy at Quilting for the Rest of Us, Jaye from Art Quilt Maker, and I are loosely doing a hexagon-along quilting type thing this this summer. Sandy and I will be sharing our process and pitfalls on our podcasts, while Jaye will share on her blog.

You can find Sandy all over the web. Click on the link and it will take you to her podcast, Flickrstream- just about everywhere.

You can find Jaye at https://artquiltmaker.com/blog/ (where you are now!) (for her blog) or on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/artquiltmaker

You can find me at www.hiptobeasquarepodcast.com for my blog & podcast.

Feel free to grab this button if you want to show some solidarity. The current size is 277×277 pixels, but it can go down to 180×180 without distortion.