Revenge, Stars, Twirly Balls, Pinwheels, & Eagles...

 

Whew -- that's a long Subject title for this post, but at least you have a clue about what's coming below.  I've been having a lot of fun this past month - quilting in spare minutes here and there.  Let's take a look!

 

First of all, can you figure out what you're looking at below?  YES, IT'S THE LAST BORDER of Sarah's Revenge on my quilt frame.  Oops!  I heard so many people laughingly call it Sarah's Revenge that I sometimes forget and call it that too - when the real name of this quilt is Sarah's Revival - based on an antique quilt made by a woman whose name was Sarah.  What you're looking at below is the quilt on my Grace frame -- I love the frame because it eliminates basting.  Wheeeee!!!  It's not my knees that make me dislike basting any more... it's my back!  Bending over the quilt for 3 to 4 hours is a killer... until a three-pole quilting frame came home with me one day!

 

 
When I hand quilt, I like to keep a little tray table next to me.  Note that I have on it several things:  a cup to collect thread trimmings, a coaster for my Diet Coke, quilting thread spools, and little flashlights.  What are the flashlights for?  Because every once in a while, I lose a needle.  It flips off the quilt top or falls out of my hand, and I need to find it before my foot does.  I turn off the lights in the room, turn on the flash light, and the needle glints in the light when the flashlight eventually shines in its direction.  It's a handy tool, since I drop a needle at least once a day.  

 
Another tip... for hand or longarm quilters... is that I always pin a piece of fabric to the leaders (the wide canvas strips you attach your quilt top/back to).  I never seem to be able to remember from quilt to quilt which way the fabric is to be pinned:  right side up or up side down?  So this little fabric square keeps me flying straight when I'm loading a quilt on my frame or machine.

 

So how do I go about hand quilting?  It starts with an idea of what I want to do, but before I sit down, I always have a roll of painter's tape.  I use it as a cross-hatching guide.  You can see it on a quilt, behind the roll of tape in his picture:

 

 
But how do I make sure that my tape is at an exact 45-degree angle when I'm quilting?  I use a triangle ruler.  I place one edge of the ruler along a straight line (see the little arrows pointing down at the straight line I used).  Then I make sure my tape lines up (see the  l  o  n  g  arrow) with the diagonal of the triangle.  It never fails me!

 
I use the same method with vertical lines:  put one side of the triangle ruler along a straight line (the one you want your quilting lines to be perpendicular to -- indicated by the little arrows pointing up), and make sure that your tape (which is NOT in the picture below) lines up with the vertical line (by the long arrow I've marked).  This method never fails me either.  Yet, at least!

 
I use this same method when quilting cross-hatching across the blocks in this quilt -- it works!

But what about quilting little feathers on my ruffled swags?  How did I do that in a uniform way?  I had to give that some thought before I started quilting this quilt, as there was no template in my box of quilting templates that would fit this swag. 

 

Using a piece of Templar and a Sharpie marker, I drew the outline what I wanted to quilt and then marked the lines that I wanted to quilt within that area.  Next, I cut out every other feather... and on the odd feathers, I cut out the area that ran into the other side of the "smile" shape.  It took a lot of care to cut smoothly and not too deeply, but it worked.  Check it out, below -- it's my own "home-made" quilting template.  Note that only HALF of the template design has been cut out -- I just reversed the template when I quilted the other side of the ruffled swag.
 

 
So here is the template, laid on top of the swag and ready to quilt.  And here is my ever-present white-lead ceramic pencil for marking the template lines onto my fabric.  If you use the pencil, use it with a light hand - it rubs off pretty easily (or you can use a Mars Plastic Staedtler eraser from your office supply store) if your quilting doesn't quite wipe it out.

 

In the picture below, you can see that I've quilted the feathers.  I remove the template to do the hand-quilting -- I am just showing it here so that you can see how it laid on top of the swag for marking it.

 



 
For the area between the swags, I decided that I didn't want to "just" do cross-hatching, so I took a border quilting template and used only a piece of the design...

 

 
Because this design is on an off-white background fabric, my white-lead ceramic pencil would not show up well.  I use a cheap Papermate mechanical pencil to GENTLY mark the quilt design.  By the time I quilt across the line, it becomes invisible.  IF I have marked the line too heavily, I erase it til it is barely visible before I start quilting -- it's too difficult to remove pencil lines after quilting, otherwise.  Can you see the line below?  It's there!  Note that I've only done one half of the cross-hatching on this part of the quilt...  the other cross-hatch lines will be added soon.

 
And here is the finished quilted border.  I love how it turned out!

 

 

Here's the cornerstone of that border.  You may note that I've got little circles quilted in each of the dogtooth sections of the inner and outer border strip.  How did I do those?  I started off by using those adhesive circles you can buy at the office supply store and quilting around them, but the circles just didn't adhere to the quilt top well enough.  

 

 
I pulled out my very FAVORITE circle template...  I like it because it is thick plastic.  It doesn't bend and it has a beveled edge for inking without bleeding.  Sweet!

 
I used the template by putting it on the quilt and marking the circle with the ceramic pencil.  It makes it very easy to mark and then quilt circles.

 
And here is the final Sarah's Revival quilt.  I think it's one of my favorite quilts because it's so bright and cheery!  Many thanks go to the original quiltmaker, Sarah, of course.

 
I'm always working on multiple projects during the month.  You don't get to see them all - only those where I make progress, usually.  Below is a quilt made by my friend Jerrianne's hairdresser's stepmother (did you follow that?!).  This woman made dozens of quilts, all completely hand pieced, but never did finish them.  The hairdresser gave a dozen or more to Jerrianne, and she has been feeding some to me to quilt for our guild's annual auction.  The quilt block in this quilt was unusual - it was not one that Jerrianne or I had seen before.  After much thought, I quilted the top with a simple Baptist fan (or "dinner plate") quilt pattern.  It is a quilting pattern used often in the past.

 

Jerrianne and I, along with lots of other bee members, did a lot of guessing about this block pattern, though.  Some thought it to be a flower pot or a flower basket of some sort.  Others thought it was a wonky star or a crown.  I think it looks like a rising star.  Who knows?

 



 
I even looked in Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Block Patterns... no luck there, either.  The origins of this block remain a mystery... I suspect that it is just a unique creation!
 

 

I have another one of my friend Jerrianne's hairdresser's stepmother's quilt tops for my guild's auction... it's a unique Trip Around the World quilt top.  Hopefully I'll have it quilted by next month and you can peek at it then.  In the meantime, remember this block?  I bought a set of them on eBay and they inspired my Happy Daze quilt, shown in a previous post.  They did more than that, though.  

 

 

They inspired yet another set of "twirly ball" blocks, which I did in browns, golds, and cheddars.  But in this set of blocks, I reversed those "spikes" on the outside and had them point inward instead of outward.

 



 
I knew I wanted to set these blocks on point, with sashing strips made of 2" pinwheels.  To do that, I cut hundreds of triangles.  I stacked and stored them in cookie sheets like this:

 
Then I made paper foundations for strips of pinwheels -- and made those strips in two pieces-- a left and a right side.  I laid out four triangles for each pinwheel, along with the background fabric, and started sewing.

 
For each pinwheel strip, I had to do two single strips -- one for the right side of the pinwheel and one for the left side of the pinwheel.  Then I had to sew the halves together.  Knowing that, I wanted each half-square triangle to face its "partner," such that the seam allowances would "kiss" and butt up against each other, instead of on top of each other.  To do that, I had to sew one long strip from the "top" of the strip and one long strip from the "bottom" of the strip. 

It works! Here is a sewn pinwheel sashing strip and you can see the seam allowances kiss quite nicely!

 

 
And here is the pinwheel strip, sewn together.  Note that in this picture, I've cropped off the seam allowances in the photo - if I didn't do that, these pinwheels would look really wonky in the photo. 

 
When I sewed the two strips together, I also pressed the seam allowances open. It wasn't easy -- but it was important because if I didn't do that, it would be quite difficult to get the foot of a longarm machine across that "hump" in the middle.  I believe that you should always think ahead about how you will quilt everything when you are done.  Note that when I sew the strips together, I do a LOT of pinning to keep those seam intersections meeting precisely where they are supposed to meet.  Patience pays off.  The other thing I do after pinning and pressing is that I place one of my long rulers on top of the pressed strip while it is still freshly pressed and warm.  This keeps that seam from relaxing quite so quickly (thanks go to Sally Collins for that tip!).

 
So what did I do, once I had all those pinwheel strips sewn and pressed, along with a few more extraneous pinwheels?

 
I laid them out on the floor with my twirly ball blocks, of course!  Take a look...

 
But it wasn't until I put the setting triangles in place around the border that the quilt came "alive" for me!

 
The quilt needed to be sewn together in diagonal strips.  That meant that I had to take "half twirly ball blocks" and pair them with a setting triangle.  Math isn't particularly difficult for me... but cutting triangles the right size for what is the equivalent of a 12" half-square triangle is daunting to me -- it's just WAY TOO EASY to screw it up and cut that diagonal seam allowance or the outer edges too big or too small.  Now, bear in mind... the BLACK triangle IS the right size because I knew the finished block size was going to be 12 inches... and to make a setting triangle for a 12 inch block, I know you just quarter an 18-1/4 inch square.  That's easy enough... so how did I put these together and have the whole block come out to be 12 inches square (finished size)?

 
First, I trimmed the diagonal edge of the appliqued triangle block... that was easy because I knew where the center of the block was, and I knew that the seam line would go through the "dip" in the dogtooth spikes in the outer circle of the applique.  I just lined my ruler up, adding the quarter-inch seam allowance, and cut it.  Next, I folded the black triangle in half to find the center of the long side. 

I placed that center fold on top of the center of the appliqued triangle -- I knew where the center was on that triangle because there is a circle on the center of that triangle. 

 



 
Next, I pinned the two triangles together, using plenty of pins because I was sewing a bias edge to a straight-of-grain edge...

 

And I stitched it very carefully, not letting it drag or be pulled... and removing pins as I stitched...



 

 And after I stitched the seam line, I pressed the triangles open.

 
 Here is where a 12-1/2 inch ruler comes in really handy!

 
I put the ruler down on top of the CORRECTLY SIZED black triangle... and trimmed the excess fabric off of the appliqued triangle.  Voile!!!  Simple as pie!

 
And I had a perfectly sized block, ready to stitch in place!

 

I'll spare you the details... but here is the finished quilt top.  Sorry it's not the greatest picture -- I take photos in my entry way because it's big and flat... and the weather was not cooperating and providing good light!  I'm going to be quilting this quilt in the coming month, so I'm sure you'll see more of Twirly Balls and Pinwheels!  This quilt design will eventually be offered as a single pattern -- or shops can kit it as a 6-month block-of-the-month quilt.  I should mention for those of you who have the Quilts of Virginia book, that the idea of using pinwheel sashing strips that drifted out into the border came from a quilt made by Fanny Tod in the 1800s.  Ever since I saw that design, I've wanted to make a quilt with pinwheel sashing strips - and finally, I did it!

 

 
In the meantime, between other projects, I've been preparing some blocks for workshops that I plan to teach.  That means... I have to design a new quilt!  I have, after much thought, decided to do a teeny bit of lectures/workshops in the future.  I have been on over a three-year hiatus due to family matters that took priority.  So... you might see me out and about some time in the future!  I'll be offering workshops on simple-to-make, pain-free wonderful feathered stars, lovely papercut applique blocks, and some elegant new Baltimore blocks, along with some other fun options.  Here is one of the Baltimore blocks - a glorious eagle. 

 
Here is a colorized version of the block -- I haven't decided if I want to make the eagle brown (its true color) or blue (it is such a rich color!).  Both options were used in the heyday of Baltimore quilts over a century ago.  I'll just have to audition fabrics to decide.

 
BUT...  I really want to do a Baltimore album quilt with all of the blocks set on point.  So... not one to take the easy path... I'm designing blocks that, with only slight alterations, can be used in either straight sets or on-point sets.  How cool is that?  Well... I think it's pretty cool!  Except that I will have to make two blocks, since I need to have samples of blocks done both ways.  That's okay - if I didn't love these designs, it might be a problem, but I LOVE these blocks!  Here's the on-point eagle.

 
And here it is, "colorized."  Isn't it awesome?  Sorry if I sound like I'm stuck on my own designs, but I'm just really excited about doing these blocks!  They will all be 15 inches, finished size.

 

 

Okay, I'm not quite finished yet...  Several people had questions in the Comments I received.  Here are some answers:

• Do I draw my patterns by hand or computer?  I draw them out full-size by hand... then scan them and do a lot of clean-up work in Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite.
• Do I use an overlay for applique?  Only when I have to - like when I'm making a complex Baltimore applique block and a light box isn't strong enough to penetrate multiple layers of fabric.  Overlays are great, though - I like to use them when light boxes won't suffice.
• How do I avoid bleeding (when/if I block a quilt)?  I try to prevent bleeding by pre-washing all fabric, and by avoiding chemicals which come in the form of starch, Best Press, fabric finish, washout markers, disappearing ink markers, frixion pens, or anything similar.  The only thing I use on my quilts contain inert ingredients like plain old pencils, ceramic pencils, or white chalk.  I try to avoid, also, being in a position where I need to block a quilt:  I hand quilt in square frames and on the longarm, I make sure that my backing fabric is squared up (not shaped like a trapezoid). 
• There were some other comments to talk about buying and putting fabric together, and piecing and hand-quilting tips.  I'll answer those in another blog post, as I think my answers need some thought and pictures. 

NOW I'm done... just in time to say that I really, really DID meet my deadline (Central Time, anyway) of posting on or by the first of the month.  It's only 11:15 pm here... so I DID it!  Until next month...

 

Happy quilting!

 

Sue

(c) 2013 Susan H. Garman





Creativity!

 

Happy February to everyone - a month full of holidays with Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, President's Day, and more.  For me, it's a time to catch my breath after January, and see if my goal setting is on track or if I've already fallen behind.  In truth, I'm behind because it was only today that I finally sat down and figured out what I want to accomplish for the year!  I have lots of ideas... lots of projects... lots of hopes... and I plan to have fun doing all of it.  Life is good!

This month I will share how many of my ideas flow from one quilt into the next -- it's an exercise in creativity for me:  to take something I like and use it again in a fresh way.  At the same time, you can view some of my quilting; I do believe that quilting can help bring a quilt to life.  And finally, I'll close with some comments about your comments and various emails I've gotten.  Let's get started!

 

Mama Said was a quilt I made several years ago.  I wanted to make a quilt that would honor my parents, and this was the result.  The nine blocks celebrate what I was taught to do - and those living verbs remain with me today.  You cannot see it in the picture below, but each block is surrounded with embroidered phrases that also "taught" me something.



 
Here's a close-up of one of the blocks; in it you can read some of the phrases that are embroidered around the block.  I had so much fun creating this quilt!

 
After I finished Mama Said, I took several of the blocks and used them to "play" with various border options.  I wanted to explore how to create different borders and how to let one idea flow into another creation.  In this first one, Share, you can see that I used the same border motifs but changed the overall color scheme - and the quilt block was enlarged quite a bit.  Sometimes creativity does not have to be more complicated than changing sizes and colors.

 
Here's another large wall hanging using one of the Mama Said blocks, Trust.  I loved this quilt because it was the first time I tried making quarter-square triangles and using them in a border.  Those quarter-square triangles are 3-inches in size.  I chose to explore letting applique overlap the pieced borders behind it.  It gives a quilt another dimension and sense of depth to do that. 

 
Here's a close-up of the word at the top of this quilt -- I loved adding different motifs as I created this quilt. 

 
And here, in Laugh, is one more of the "child of Mama Said" quilts.  This is smaller - about 2 feet by 3 feet - but I love its simplicity.  In this quilt, I took the Laugh block and added borders and then quilted it with a delicate cross-hatching.  The colors are different than the other colors, too - I like seeing how different colors give a different feel to a quilt. 

 
Here's a close-up of the quilting in Laugh - it was so much fun to see this quilt come to life with the quilting!

 
I hear complaints all the time about people who love my quilts but don't applique.  I have an answer for them.  You don't have to know how to applique to do an applique quilt!  No - I have yet to meet a quilt (other than, perhaps, a complex Baltimore album style quilt) that I can't turn into an embroidered quilt.  Below, Redwork Mama Said accomplishes the same thing that the appliqued Mama Said did, with its words and motifs.

 
Even the phrases that were appliqued around each of the original Mama Said blocks are included in this redwork version; take a look at the close-up, below.

 
So... can you see how you can take just about any pattern and turn it into a variety of different-looking quilts?  I see it all the time when people send me pictures of their quilts (and thank you, to those of you that do!) -- I love seeing how quilters take my ideas and add different motifs, use different colors, enlarge or shrink blocks... it's great to know that creativity is alive and well!  Further down in this post, you will see how someone took one of my designs and did something amazingly different with it. 

But first!  Here is an old pattern of mine:  Classic Santas.  This quilt is what I have always called a "jumble" quilt -- lots of blocks, various sizes, all laid out in a totally non-symmetrical arrangement.  I loved making all those different Santas, and the pattern tells the source of the Santa; each is from a different country and is associated with the customs of that country. 

 
Here's a close-up of one of the Santas -- the Swiss Samichlaus who rides in from the wintry forests on a little donkey.  Announced by the gentle tinkle of bells at the door, he is invited in and gives gifts after asking the children in the house about their behavior and their prayers.  He leaves after shaking hands with everyone.  You can see, in this close-up, some of the quilting that adds to the quilt, with curls in the flowing beard.  When I hand quilt, I always echo around every bit of applique - and in this case, I echo quilted around the applique.

 
I liked Classic Santas a lot... so much so that I decided to re-make it, but with an entirely different look and feel to it.  Below is my Classic Santas done entirely in white, off-white, creams, tans, and taupe colors.  The setting - there is no "jumble" here - is very symmetrical.  I love this quilt because the warm colors remind me of Christmas baking:  melted butter, brown sugar, cookies, graham crackers and marshmallows...  I can just smell Christmas when I see this quilt!  I will point out that the large 8 inch open white border gave me a large space in which to quilt a meandering feathered vine.  I love spaces like this; they give us a place to rest our eyes, and also pull our vision toward the center of the quilt.

 
And here is the same Samichlaus block -- doesn't he look different?  But it's the same pattern as the red and green Santa above.  Take a look at the fabrics here -- to make this quilt even more warm-looking, I used quite a few metallic (gold) fabrics that added to the overall richness of the quilt.

Here's another example of taking a block and using it again.  First, a green feathered star quilt:

Here's a close-up of that feathered star block.  Feathered stars are classic blocks.  They are often viewed as difficult to make, but I find them fun.  I said fun, not fast!  There are a lot of pieces in a feathered star - which is what makes them take so much time to make.  I often teach feathered star workshops because people want to make this block but need to know how to do it with ease.

 
Here's another quilt - Stars for a New Day - that uses the same feathered star as the center block.  In this quilt, I made the center of the feathered star plain; the rest of the quilt carries the complexity of the overall quilt.

 
And here is another medallion-style quilt with a central feathered star.  In this quilt, Washington Medallion, I used another feathered star, but because the rest of the quilt was not as detailed and complicated (meaning the blocks were larger and had fewer pieces), I simplified the feathered star.  See how you can take the same block and use it in a different way in a different quilt?  Sweet!

 
But don't think for a second that the simpler feathered star makes the quilt less interesting.  Oh, no.  In this case, I let the quilting carry the interest forward in the quilt.  Check out the quilting in the detail shot, below.

 
Here is another of my favorite blocks:  The Coxcomb and Currants block.  I love it and have used it over and over again.  Note that I used a busy print for the background; some quilts can handle prints like this as the background fabric.  It keeps the quilt from being boring!

 
Here's the first quilt I used it in.  I haven't quilted it yet -- that's on my list of things to do this year!  But I just love how this quilt looks and already have a picture in my head of double feathered wreaths in the open blocks and a feathered vine in the border.  I just need a few more hours every day to get started on all these projects.   Ha!

 
That very same block was used again in this quilt...  Coxcomb Medallion.  Note that the currants in the center block are in a color gradation, to add interest.  And the corners of the interior swag border have the coxcomb flower in them.  Repetition pulls a quilt together.

 
When I made the quilt above, I made a double set of all of the pieced blocks.  I took them and added a pinwheel border.  Again, can you see how one quilt begets another?  It's not hard; you just have to be intentional about it. 

 
And here, again is another of my same coxcomb and current blocks.  When a group of friends all decided to do a round robin, I decided that my starting block would be a coxcomb and currants block.  Here it is (it also includes some of the next rounds of the round robin additions).  Again, the berries in this block were done using a gradation of medium to dark red fabrics.  I like doing that when it makes sense; it adds interest to a block.

 
And here is how the quilt looked when it was done -- note that the center of the block (the flower) was repeated as cornerstones in the center white border.  Yes, repetition helps pull a quilt together.

Here is another quilt from that round robin - my friend Marsha F started with the center block... and when it was my turn to add a border, I added that border of red semi-circles with green circles in each, just outside of the star border.

 
I had a lot of fun creating that border... and when I made Bed of Roses, below, I used that same design as the final border.  I think it's interesting how designs tumble forward from one quilt into the next.  Maybe that's part of why we see so many blocks in the old Baltimore album quilts that are duplicated... before copy machines were ever invented!

 
Here's another example of tumbling one idea forward from one quilt to another.  At one point in the past, I was enthralled with four-block quilts.  I made this quilt, called The Washingtonian because I made it while I was living in DC and working for NASA for an extended period of time.

 
Here are two close-ups of that quilt - first, of a pineapple block and second, of the border.  Check out the quilting in these blocks; they add to the quilt's look.

 

 
That pineapple block was about 22 inches square.  I decided to use it, set on point, to demonstrate how one block, when set on point, can "grow" a quilt quite quickly.  In this quilt, called The Houstonian because by the time I made this quilt, I'd moved back to Houston to serve as the Johnson Space Center's Associate Director.  In this quilt, a 22 inch block set on point becomes a 31 inch block, and with added borders, it easily makes a 45 inch lap quilt.  Not bad, eh?

 
What I love about setting blocks on point is not only that they quickly enlarge a quilt; they also give me very nice area for adding hand quilting.  Check out the picture below....

 
I hope you notice, in the picture above, that there is not a single border motif... rather, I used several different quilting stencils to add borders to the setting triangle.  Sometimes, to make a stencil fit, you have to be creative!

Now... remember earlier when I said I'd show you how someone sent me a picture of a quilt they'd designed using one of my patterns?  First, here is the quilt I made - Sleeping Beauty.  It was based on a quilt made in the 1800s by a 17-year old girl.  I loved her notion of using black prints with a sprinkling of other colors.  Look closely, and then...

take a look at this quilt, ShapeShifter, made by Nancy Arseneault of Tucson, Arizona.  In this award-winning quilt, Nancy broke with all historical precedents and set her New York Beauty blocks on point.  She said that left her with some difficult choices:  how would she fill in the large corners?  She began by extending the sashing and added more of those little stars at the end, like exclamation points.  She then added the outer dogtooth border.  When she went to quilt Shapeshifter, Nancy did lots of quilting in the ditch before quilting feathers in the open spaces.  But that's not all Nancy did.

Look at the detail picture below.  Aside from the lovely ribbon she received, she bound the quilt and then added felted balls, attached with little beads.  Nancy said she chose the name of her quilt because "as it developed on my design wall, a friend said that every time she saw it, she noticed different shapes in the patchwork."  Congrats go to Nancy for a well-designed quilt, incorporating exquisite technical merit!

 
One more thing... go back and look at the original Sleeping Beauty quilt.  See how one pattern can be deftly changed and become an entirely different quilt?  That's what I love seeing -- send pictures if you make my quilts, whether they follow the pattern to the letter or divert substantially.  Your pictures inspire me to keep on designing new quilts!

So what have I been working on lately?  WAY TOO MANY NEW THINGS!  If I could settle myself down and work on just one project at a time, I'd probably make much more progress...  at least on that one item.  Instead, I'm working on seven or eight different projects at a time, switching back and forth at a whim.  I HOPE that next month I will have more to show you, but for now, I'll just give you a little clue:

 

That's right.... that's at least forty different pinwheel sashing strips for one of the quilts I'm working on.  I have another twenty done... and another forty to go.  I'm hot on the trail!  And then the other projects... well, I'll just wait and see how far I get.  I might even surprise myself!

Now... a few comments.  This past month I've gotten a couple of heart-felt emails through the COMMENTS you have made.  I love your comments and read them as soon as they appear.  I learn a lot about what you like and what you want to see.  Here's the problem, though:  sometimes, you ask me a question that needs to be answered.  Unless your profile includes your email address, I can't answer you!  I can add another comment to my own blog post... but sometimes the question I am asked is far too personal... or asks for detailed instructions on some facet of a pattern... or... well, you get the idea.  If you want me to answer you in these cases, I MUST have your email address!  Either add it to your profile, or email me off-line (I DO read my emails and I answer 99.9 percent of them).  My email address is included in my profile and I've now added it to the sidebar (though I may remove it from the sidebar if I start getting weird spam...).  Please.... please...  I don't want any of you to think that I am ignoring you!

Someone else asked if I might consider posting more often than once a month.  I would LOVE to do that!  Really!  The only problem is... well, I just think that you wouldn't be as happy with a short little post every few days... versus a long post with lots of information in it.  And the bigger issue is that it takes time to prepare these focused entries; today I started preparing the photos just after noon and when you take out a three hour break to have dinner out with my sweetie, it's now past ten, which means this post took almost 7 hours.  Phew!  No wonder I only do this once a month!  So for now, just look me up on the first of the month or a day or two later.  I'll keep updating... and once somebody (please!) invents those extra few hours in each day, I'll start posting a lot and a lot more often!  Also... if you'd like to see me post or write about something in particular, zap me a note or make a comment.  I'm always looking for something new to think about and write about.

In the meantime... my sewing machine is crying for attention, my quilt frame is begging to be tended to, and yes, my vacuum says it needs a little aerobic activity in my sewing room.  I guess I'd better answer their calls.

Happy quilting!
Sue
(c)2013 Susan H. Garman