Well I just spent 4 days with 12 other absolutely fantastic quilters. It was so much fun and so very educational. The quilters that attended were women that came from varied backgrounds of experience and artistic ability. The sharing that went on over the 4 days was not surprising since I've never known quilters to be any other way. Quilters are generous with their time and talents, always ready to help and encourage another quilter whether beginner or experienced, a friend or a stranger. I took many photos and am willing to share and I told all the ladies at the retreat that I would put them on my blog so they are all fine with it. Although one said she felt her picture should be deleted, but oh well it was not a fashion retreat, we worked, we ate, we enjoyed, we ate, we talked, we walked and we slept and ate some more. I am going to put one photo here, when I got there I didn't feel like working on anything I brought along, our hostess also dyes fabric, Primrose Gradations, and of course had a wonderful selection at the house. I picked out some, borrowed a pattern from Lori and away I went. I got this far, it still needs an outer border, and I decided I am going to paint on it before I quilt it. I'll put up another photo when it is totally finished. Well must go take care of DH who just got home. Will right more later.

A Blessed Sunday Morning to you all! Today I am packing up to go on a retreat. There will 14 wonderful quilters at this retreat, some of whom you know. But I will let the photos next week show you. Anyway I am very excited and can't decide what to take along to work on. There are so many things I want to do, one of Marcie's patterns, some things out of Susan Stein's book, play with paint out of Sherrill Kahn's book, isn't this a great dilemma? But onto "old business" here is a photo of the 1st Sat. blocks and the fabric I picked for sashing and border. I think it will need another small strip of something darker before the 4 1/2" border. But you will get the idea. I know it's bright but it is still very scrappy. And then speaking of scrappy here is a photo of one of my favorite quilts. It is from "Log Cabin Fever" by Evelyn Sloppy. I just love her patterns and wish she taught classes. I contacted her a year ago to ask if she would teach at the Minnesota Quilters Show and Convention and she informed me that she is so involved with writing and designing she doesn't have time to teach. It is too bad, but then again her designs are so well planned in the books that they are easy to do. Anyway, this quilt was why I bought the book, but because I personally do not like a square quilt, I added the extra row of bear paws and made a pillow tuck. The log cabin is one of my favorite blocks, this is the 3rd quilt I finished using that block. One of the blogs I have visited recently has a couple quilts shown from Evelyn's other book, "40 Fabulous Quick Cut Quilts" now say that one fast 3 times. I can't remember this moment who, I'll check it out and let you know later. Then as promised, here are some photos of my space. Neither one is really terrible right this minute, and I am lucky that I finally spread out a bit. Everything used to be crammed into the room with my long arm and then I didn't have room to turn around. The 1st picture is what should be a closet in my studio room. Notice there are no doors. The second one is my book shelves with patterns and books, there is a second shelf going the other way at the corner with more. The little cubby shelves are ones my DH built for my fat quarters, he needs to make more. The sewing area is now out at the end of our family room. The stash wall looks a little bare right now, but if you remember, I just cleaned it out, giving a lot of fabric to guilds that make quilts for Quilts of Valor. Well I really need to get back to my packing, updates during the week I hope.

Ok, I have been tagged to say 7 things about me that are not widely known. That's hard for me cause I tell anybody anything they want to know. So here goes, first I am supposed to list the rules: THE RULES: 1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you. 2. Post THE RULES on your blog. 3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog. 4. Tag 7 people and link to them. 5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

So here are a few things about me: 1. I am a secret appliquer, (yea, how would you spell it?) 2. I really, really, really want an embroidery machine. 3. I have only been on 1 quilting retreat, and I have been quilting for 20 years 4. I am no good at curved piecing, can't ever make the ends meet 5. I like spinach 6. I want to sing opera, but I'm no good, can't quite reach those high notes, well the low one either 7. As much as I love quilting, I would rather be outside, so tell me, how can I move my sewing room to the back yard? and not get wet. Now I am supposed to tag 7 other people, this is going to be hard. I am still at the stage where I am just exploring all the wonderful quilters I am finding skipping from blog to blog. I have left a note or two here and there and then as I go along, I check out other sites listed and pretty soon I can't get back to where I started. This whole blogging thing is so much fun, I am finding so many wonderful people. Well here are a few that have caught my eye. 1. Finn loves scraps and I really would like to do a rug out of scraps like she is doing. 2. Jen has some lovely quilts to show us. 3. Julaine does some fun things with a flair for Quilting Arts and Cloth, Paper Scissors 4. Shirley in New Zealand is a fiber artist, check it out and maybe do something "outside your box" 5. Frieda has been a teacher at our Minnesota Quilt show and is sooooo much fun. If you get a chance take a class from her 6. Jenclair enjoys many different hobbies, quilting being one of them, her spot is fun 7. Marcie and for those of you that came from one of the above blogs, my friend Marcie is the one that started this

My tastes run the gamut of styles of quilting, I love the traditional as well as the art quilts, I like to try different things outside of my comfort zone. But I have learned in my travels that no matter where I go, or how busy quilters are, they will always have time to stop and talk about quilts, fabric, techniques or just the weather. They are the friendliest most comforting people I have ever had the privilege of meeting and working with. I love you all.

Today I am working on putting together a quilt that is the result of a "1st Saturday" All the blocks were designed to use EZ Companion Angle and EZ Easy Angle rulers. The fabric choices were reproductions or batiks, and of course I chose batik. I love it when I can make a quilt for $5.00 plus sashing fabric. It is a fun and inexpensive way to get a big lap size. As we worked I always made 2 blocks from the pattern, one using the fabric the shop supplied and one out of my scrap pile, that way I have 24 blocks instead of just 12 and it still only cost $5.00. I have been noticing many of you that show photos of your messy work space, mine depends on whether I have just finished looking for the perfect fabric for something or if company is coming. Maybe later I'll take some photos and show off my mess. Because I was in charge of choosing the faculty for the MQ Quilt Show this year I had many teachers send/give me their books or patterns along with their class synopsis. One of the books I got was from Lois L. Hallock, "Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space". She has some wonderful suggestions on how to get your sewing space organized. She has a web site you should check out if you are a complete disaster area. On Wednesday I went to my first "Journal" class and we did silk fusion in class and our bonus was about discharge. So during the class Susan shows samples and explains all about one technique and then she demonstrates and explains a technique we then actually do in the class. For the first class she also showed many ways of putting the finished journal together. I really liked the idea of putting it together as a book, but it might end up as a wall hanging. I have 10 months to decide. I will post photos as I go along. Well company is coming so I should go clear a path. Have a blessed day.

The weather is finally warming up, it will be about 10 degrees here today. The weather person says the temp will be up and down all week with a bit of snow. I am happy not to live in Utah where they have had record snowfall this year. So my idea today is help for bloggers. Now you realize I am very new to this but someone commented that they wished they could see the wedding quilt up close. So, for those of you that don't know this yet, all you need to do is double left click on any photo and you get it to blow up to full screen. It is a wonderful way to get a close up look at the quilts or photos that bloggers put on their sites. I was at Patchalotmore blog today and she talks about "thinking about quilting" How much time during the day, or night, do you spend thinking about a pattern, how to make it look better, how to make it a different size, what fabric to use? Yeah, lots of time, that's what being a quilter is about right? So, Happy Thinking!!

Good morning, it's been a few days but I do have an excuse. My granddaughter was brought home unexpectedly from college in Utah to have surgery on an injured foot. I was need to babysit a bit and haul people around and also needed to work a bit. Becky made it through her surgery just fine, a bit of pain for a day or two but after a few weeks of therapy she will be back in school. I want you to know that I do spend a bit of time in the late evenings perusing blog sites and I finally have been leaving a few messages. There are so many out there and I enjoy them all. I have not had a lot of time to do any piecing so I thought today I would share a quilt that I made to display at Spring Market last year (in Salt Lake City) and there were lots of wonderful comments. Most would look and then say something like "why is there an applique quilt in a booth about painting?" We would then inform them that it was painted with Paintstiks and most would then get up close and personal to check it out. The pattern was a BOM by Linda Yantis of Chandler, AZ. I sent photos to Linda and she was impressed. One of the other applique designers saw this and asked if I would do one of hers, it is a butterfly that I finished for Houston Market. While looking for this photo I found another quilt that I want to share. This one is from Coffee Time Quilts by Cathy Wierzbicki. I fell in love with this pattern and went to my stash and started to pull fabric. I swear, I did not have to buy anything, I found the focus print first and then was happy to discover that I could pull all the rest together using stash fabric. I was so proud of myself. When I was at the point of having it up on the design wall to figure out what kind of border to use another granddaughter and her future husband came to visit and when they saw the quilt decided that was the one they wanted for a wedding present. Well what to do? Not much choice so this quilt was then finished up and given away. One of these days maybe I will make another one for me. I love making big quilts but soon I will need to do more wall hangings as I am running out of room in my house for the big ones. But then again my kids and grandkids are always will to take them off my hands. For some reason my computer isn't letting me do links from here so I will add Linda and Cathy to my favorite designers on the side so you can go and look at their other work. Enjoy. See you soon.