Same but not same, the leaves part two

When I first learned to applique, more than twenty years ago, uniformity and perfection were the hallmarks of excellence. In many applique circles, especially those grounded in the traditional style, these values continue today. Even as I was developing my own applique technique, my initial goal was to create a process that would allow me to quickly and efficiently make precise and uniform templates for my applique motifs. Stapling and cutting multiple layers of template material gave me that outcome, and I appliqued on happily for many years.

But lately, I find my desires are changing. Leaves are never uniform in nature. They twist, they change colors as they mature and they're all different sizes.

One of the nicest things about my applique technique is that I can make changes on the fly. Early on I decided that I'd cut out each leaf individually, all eleventy-million of them, a far cry from the quick and efficient method I worked so hard to perfect.

One of the most frequently asked questions in my classes is where to cut: inside the line, out side the line or exactly on the line. I always reply with "somewhere near the line". Since I cut each element from a complete motif (as opposed to exploding the design and cutting each element individually) it doesn't really matter how the cut is made. The shapes will fit together again, guaranteed!



For example, here's a basic leaf template. It looks like I more or less followed the line for the outer edge. Also notice that each half of the leaf has a letter name and a penciled in number. I call these notations the "address", so I'll always know which halves belong together.


When it came time to cut the halves apart I totally ignored the line. My only concern at this point is that the two halves end up on a different fabric.

After all of the leaf parts are trimmed for the seam allowance, they are sorted by letter and shape. You can see that I missed the line on quite a few of the leaves. From here, the pairs are matched up and it's time to start glue basting.

This is my lap sized light pad (about 11" x 14"). I've covered it with a bit of template plastic so I'm not getting glue directly on the surface of the pad. I need my scissors to clip a few concave seam allowances. You can see on the leaf about to be basted that the cut was so wild that I had to transfer the address to the skinny half, no biggie. The cuticle stick is what I use to control and adjust the seam allowances until they are smooth and perfect. No fancy, expensive tools needed here. I use a simple white glue stick, which is on the table next to my beverage of choice. I have my feet up on the foot stool, I'm onto season three of Foyle's War on Netflix now, and I still have about a third of the leaves to go.

Tackling the leaves, part one

Let me just say this now: this quilt has a lot of leaves. I started work on the leaves about a week ago. I am still working on the leaves. It's been hot and muggy here, so hiding in the air conditioning has given me tons of time to cut, press, cut and sort.

While I've been working I've been mostly parked in front of the TV. I've found Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries on Netflix. It is such a charming show, sort of like Murder She Wrote, but with an Australian accent and set in the roaring '20s. The clothes are to die for.

Managing all of these leaves could be a nightmare, but my trusty "addressing system" saves me again. Each half of the leaves has a distinct letter name, and each leaf has been assigned a number. When the time comes I'll just need to match up letter and number to get a complete leaf.

I've been working on the stack of leaves a bit at a time. As I cut the leaves into sections each piece goes into a separate pile. I like to work with three shades of fabric at a time. The only thing I have to worry about is making sure that each half of a leaf ends up in a different pile, which will end up on a different fabric. It would be silly to do all of this work and end up with both halves in the same fabric!

The trimmed halves have been sorted into stacks by letter. When I'm ready to get serious about the glue basting I will then sort the stacks into matching pairs. I'll blog more about that soon. I have a bit of trimming to do yet, time for more of Miss Phryne Fisher's adventure.

On the street where I live

This song has been running in my head for a while now, the smarmy one from My Fair Lady. It started one Sunday morning when I went out for the newspaper. It was cool and just a little bit misty, the morning sunlight dappling the street. At that moment I realized that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be right now, and I was content.

We had such a list of desires for our Green Bay home, and a ridiculously small budget for it. I think we were suffering from HGTV poisoning, at least I was. I mean, where are the Property Brothers when you need them?

In the end it was a compromise: two and a half stall garage instead of three and a family room turned into a studio. The lot is tiny, especially when compared to the Saginaw house, and the back third of it goes straight up.

But here we are, and it's beginning to feel like home.

It nearly broke my heart to watch as the garden centers around town blossomed with plants for the new season while I was stuck in a tiny two room hotel apartment with no dirt to call my own. Even after we were in the new place there was just so much to do before we could even consider playing in dirt. I cringed every time I passed this monolithic shrub at the front door. I mean really, could one say "stay out" any more plainly?

We (meaning mostly Kent) tackled it Independence Day weekend. In the end it turned out to be just two plants. It took a chain saw, a pick ax and a whole lot of sweaty digging to clear them out. The county's garden waste center is nearby so off went the bushes (which all fit into the back of my minivan) and we returned with rich black compost.

The swan bird bath looks a little overpowering now, but it might even disappear once the plants get to growing. I followed no rules except for "taller to the back". The flowers were chosen in hopes of attracting butterflies and humming birds, oh, and for cutting as well.

This fall I will tuck in a few mums and bulbs for spring flowering, I think I left enough room for that, maybe. There are yarrow, shasta and gloriousa daisies, purple coneflower and balloon flowers in pink and blue, along with anise hissop, blackeyed susans and russian sage. (And a blue frisbee for Gracie, but that moves around the yard.)

There now, doesn't that look so much more inviting? The big shrubs under the windows? Well, their days are numbered too.

Step Six-Applique progress, at last!

Step Six is up! Can you believe that we're three-quarters of the way through the project? If you've been keeping up then you're really ready to put this thing together. Of course, I'm way behind on the applique. I've been keeping up with the piecing because I feel I must test drive the instructions. As for the applique, well for me that requires a bit of a still mind and I've had anything but.

This is where my applique progress stands. My purple and orange flowers are all done. My big red roses are done (I did those early on to check on yardage requirements.) I've yet to start on my pink flowers, and the leaves, oh the leaves I have yet to do.

I spent a quiet afternoon yesterday watching Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries on Netflix and cutting out all of the leaf templates I had printed. I also broke out my handy dandy circle punches to start on the required circle templates for the quilt. I'm so frugal, all of my circles will be cut from scraps left along the edges of the pages of Wash Away Applique Sheets.

I'm using Marvy circle punches. I find these little lever deals work best for me on the WAAS. I've tried Fiskars brand, and they may work wonderfully on freezer paper, but they're a dud on the sheets.

I probably should have lead with this, but here is how the center design template looks all taped together. I'm missing that great big cutting table I had in Saginaw, but when I'm ready to lay out the design I will make an appointment with the local shop to borrow their big tables. That's a while off for me though, I still have all of those parts yet to make, and they have to be sewn together, and embellished, and and and...

And the bias stems, yikes! Using a tape measure I figured out that we're going to need about seven yards of bias for the vines. That was the easy part. Trying to figure out how much fabric we'll need to make those bias strips, and also guesstimating how much we'll need for the borders too was a bit of a challenge.

Until I found this. I'm still dithering on all one fabric or many, but just in case I have a two yard cut set aside for now. And, I have a bit of applique to do before I must decide. How's it coming? Are you all set to lay out the applique center?

She Sews

This is where my BOM has been languishing, tidily packed in an ArtBin, waiting for me to get my act, I mean studio, together. We're almost there, but we're still waiting for the replacement part for my cabinet. Kent finally assured me that the machine would be safe in the cabinet, but, you know, I wanted to wait for the part to arrive so that everything would be perfect. "Perfect" still gets to me.

Here are my Step Five parts. Even though the step was posted weeks ago, my blocks were just sewn yesterday. I'm almost caught up. I still have the million and five leaves to do, but my little buds and flowers are mostly done. I'm putting the finishing touches on the directions for Step Six. I just need to add a few words, and figure out how much yardage we will need for the vines. I will have it up in the next couple of days for sure, and I will post on the blog about it.

As for the vines, I can't quite decide what fabric to use. I'm wondering if I should make the vines all from the same fabric, or mix them up using bits and parts from the leaf fabrics. I'm tending towards all the same fabric. What do you think?

Wait for it...

While I am making progress in the studio, it's still mostly a shambles. My sewing machine cabinet was damaged in the move (easily the most expensive piece of furniture I own, nice choice to break, guys) and I am still waiting for the replacement part. Horn, the manufacturer, has to custom make the part and it's still a couple weeks away from delivery.

Long story short, the next step of the BOM is going to be delayed until next week. The numbers are simple, and I could probably knock it out without sewing a stitch, but I always want to test sew everything before I publish. So, please hang in there with me. I'm guessing that some of you may have some catch up sewing to do.

And, just because the posting dates have been just as crazy as predicted, the last two steps are still posted at $1 each. If you're not caught up on the steps now would be a good time, before I get my act together and change the prices properly. Go here to find the first step, which will take you to all the subsequent steps as well.

Thanks so much to those of you who have been so patient with me during this project. I'm very much looking forward to settling in and putting this quilt together. All of my steps, up to this point, are done, so it will take just a couple of days of quality sewing to complete the top! How are you coming along?

So, this is the Studio...

We are in our new house, at last. Well, sort of, anyway. We are still surrounded by thousands of boxes, most of which are actually half full of packing paper, because that's how it's done. The kitchen is nearly unpacked, still looking for a few thing, but mostly we're operational. I am writing this from my tablet, and I haven't quite figured out how add in the pictures. We are still looking for all the parts to set up my computer.

We have our first furniture arrangement in the livingroom, I'm certain we will be dancing the furniture around the room for some time to come. When the movers were delayed a day we high tailed it over to The Home Depot for paint to cover over the Hershey chocolate brown walls in the livingroom. Kent insists that the living room is the right place for the larger loom, so we're going to go with it. It's sort of our stand in for a grand piano.

My studio is next on the list. It too is painted a dark sort of brown. I am not a fan of brown. I get to use the family room as my creative space, once again. I know I'm going to love the fireplace come winter, and all of the gorgeous afternoon light will be wonderful.

In setting up the new house I am suffering from a tragic case of but first disease. For example, I'd love to move into the studio, but first we need to paint the walls, because we all know once those shelves are full they are never going to be moved again. I need to unpack the kitchen, but first I need to figure out where everything goes. Kent reminded me of how much I like organizing things, and just think about how much fun I'll have reorganizing thing as I learn how these rooms work!

The last photo is the cube wall, where all the Art Bin cubes will be stacked up. The color is Blushing Apricot from Home Depot (200A-3). I used this color in my office/loom room in the Saginaw house and we both loved how it just glowed. It's a cheerful color that brings warmth and light to a space. It's going to be terrific with white cabinets against it.

Orange you glad to see me?

Progress, we're making progress. We've made an offer on a house here, and had it accepted. We had an inspection yesterday, and found that there are issues. Sigh. The next step will be to go back to the owners to see if they will work with us on the problems.

I must say, though, walking through the house with the inspector, I kept thinking about our Saginaw house and imagining what would be said about our lovely antique. Yikes.

We're living in an Extended Stay hotel. It is not a Residence Inn. We have two rooms for less than sixty dollars a night. (Hey, we're working with engineers here, it's all about billable hours.) As I continually relocate stuff so I can cook (on two burners and a toaster oven that we finally broke down and bought two weeks ago), I keep reminding myself that this is a First World Problem, and that I am blessed that I will have somewhere else to go in just a few weeks.

Mostly I'm writing to let you know that Step Three will be delayed until next week, hopefully by Tuesday. I have worked through the block to make sure the numbers work. I still have diagrams to make and words to write.

The upside is that you'll have a bit more time to catch up on any missed steps before the cost goes up. Just click on the link to my Craftsy store in the side bar to get the pattern downloads.

Meanwhile, here is one of my favorite tips for saving time while piecing.

I am sure that I'm not the only one who has carried a neatly organized stack of units to the sewing machine, somehow twisting them when setting them down. Unfailingly I don't even notice the mistake until I've sewn all the repeats.

What I do to help avoid this (my engineer hubby says "idiot proof" is impossible, the best we can hope for is "idiot resistance"), is sort out my units onto a ruler. If it's tough to tell right from wrong side, I take a moment to make sure all of the pieces are right sides up.

I use assembly line sewing to keep my units organized. By not cutting the thread between the units I can carry the lot over to the ironing board and back without losing any pieces, and everything stays in order.

When it comes time to sew the cross seams, the connecting stitches act as my pins to help get those perfect intersections. I think you can see that there is hardly any thread, maybe one or two stitches between the pieces,

For many years, all of my adult life really, I have hated orange. I was scarred by an early burnt orange and brown quilt incident, a story for another day. Now I love it. It's so cheerful!

But brown, still not so much. And yet practically every house we've looked at in Green Bay is decorated in brown. The house we are buying is painted deep, dark browns, even black, inside. I wonder if there was an ordinance or something. The Green Bay Packers' colors are green and gold, so I suppose it could be worse. Still, the paint mixer at my local hardware store is about to become my new best friend.

My week as a statue

That my work week started on April Fools' Day should have been the first clue. I woke up a little muzzy headed, so I made a bee line for the coffee maker. We have a Keurig thingy, and I knew that I was down to my last precious two pods of coffee. I popped in the pod and pushed brew, hoping I could make it to the end of the cycle before doing something really stupid.

Nope. I forgot to put in a mug to catch the one thing between me and a day of mental missteps. That it took me a second or two to remember what a mug was and where to find one in just testament to my dire need of caffeine.

Finally, the remaining coffee was delivered to my cup. Knowing that I only had one pod left, I decided that I would pour the missed coffee from the tray into my mug. It was then that I knocked the coffee cup off of the counter and down my right leg.

Still lacking that first dose of mind clearing coffee, it took me another second or two to realized that the coffee was damned hot and I really wanted to be out of those pants. I was actually busy wondering how I might gather up the spilled coffee. As I dropped my drawers I wondered if I would break any teeth if I tried to lick coffee up off the counter. I decided against it.

After applying a cool, wet towel to my scalded leg, and finding a clean pair of pants, I managed to make, and consume the last pod of coffee without further bodily harm.

We've finally figured out that we can afford to buy a house in Green Bay without waiting for the house in Saginaw to sell. It will be a stretch, and we won't be having any fun until the other house is sold, but it will be better than living in limbo. So now house hunting has gone into high gear.

While out and about on Wednesday, the magnetic phone holder in my car dropped off the dash board. We live and die by GPS around Green Bay (we just can't get our bearings). And the one day that I spent running around town, where I would really rack up the steps, I realized that I'd lost my Fitbit.

After rummaging through the car, and ransacking our tiny little apartment for forty-five minutes, I realized that I had changed jeans twice after the coffee debacle. The Fitbit was tucked in the pocket the pair of jeans I changed out of after I changed out of the coffee incident. And then mourned all the missed steps that would never be counted. (Kent and I gave each other Fitbits for Christmas. He's down 26 pounds and I'm down 16. It's working for us when nothing else did.)

House hunting is not fun. Suddenly all of the houses we've been considering are being rapidly sold to someone else. We feel a little panicked. We're hoping for a similar rush in Saginaw, but, always being able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, we are certain we are doomed to wait until the zombie apocalypse for the house to sell.

I'm hoping that April is done messing with me. I've given her more than her designated day to play her pranks on me. Since I'm still out of coffee pods, and there is a very busy road between me and the nearest coffee source, I'm not at all certain that I'm in the clear.

This week's motto:
Sometimes you're the pigeon and sometimes you're the statue.

Five shades of grape

We have been, and will be, living between for a while. I feel a little like a secret agent, I can't tell you where I am! I've been splitting my time between Green Bay and Saginaw, but the last thing I want to do is spell out that either place is empty and open for nefarious shopping.

I can tell you that I love Green Bay! They have five, FIVE, quilt shops. FIVE! Each one has a different style and inventory. Being the supportive shopper that I am, I managed to find something wonderful to bring home with me at each shop.

My first quilting mission in GB was to find better purples for my Fine Romance quilt. It seems that I always want the color that isn't on the shelf, the color between the colors there. For this quilt, I wanted a purple that was the color of grape jelly, a rich purple that is not quite magenta, but definitely not a bluey periwinkle. No surprise that it was such a challenge to find. But with all these quilt shops available, I finally managed to find my five shades of grape.

One of my favorite part of designing quilts is figuring out how to use my fabric the most efficiently I can. Being that I consider myself an appliquist first, a piecer second, leaving the largest scraps possible gives me more applique opportunities.

Since we need so little of our fabrics for the pieced blocks I first cut the square for the quarter-square triangles from the end opposite the selvage, which left just enough to cut the strip for our smaller squares.

(I have no idea why these pictures are coming up rotated. A painfully slow internet connection might have something to do with it.)

I just love it when strip cutting ends up with so little waste. The fabric is doubled over in this picture, giving me the four squares that I needed for my hourglass block.

Moving is such an emotional roller coaster. We are excited to start a new chapter, and having tons of fun looking for just the right place to enjoy life as empty nesters. Selling a house is a lot like going to prom without a date. We are helpless wallflowers as we wait for someone else to love the home we've loved for so many years.

My new favorite saying:
They say that God never gives you more than you can handle. God must think I'm a badass.




 

Fast Four-Patches

Some call it chain piecing, but I learned it as "assembly-line sewing" from my hero, Eleanor Burns, way back in the dark ages when rotary cutting was new. Quilters often believe that the big benefit from the process is to save on thread, but that is really just a nice side bonus.

I really do practice what I preach when it comes to staying organized. Just as the pattern indicates, I sort my pieces into zip top bags as I cut them.

I hate, hate, hate looking for things, and the more I fumble around looking for the right piece the more the chances improve that I will settle on the wrong one. Sorting the pieces so that I have only the shapes I need for the next step makes it harder to make a mistake.

(My hubby, a mechanical engineer who really does know how to do everything, suggests that "idiot proof" is impossible. The best we can hope for is "idiot resistance".)

Before I start, I set out the parts in the configuration in which they will be sewn. If it's hard to tell right from wrong side on a fabric, I take the time to flip them all right sides up in each of their stacks.

Now, all I have to pay attention to is the quality of my seam allowance. The top pair is sewn together, then the bottom pair, then the top pair and then the bottom pair, all the way to the bottom of the stacks.

My goal is always to have just a single stitch in the air between the pairs. When it comes time to sew the cross seam, the thread will act as my pin, holding the first seam in just the right place for that perfect intersection.

I'll be back in a couple of days with pressing strategies and more sneaky piecing tricks for sewing on the triangles.

In the mean time, I'm working on setting up a Pinterest board, and a linky thingie so we can share our progress. I hope you're working away out there, are you? Once we get these sashing strips out of the way, it's all fun and games.

Open House

The long-awaited other shoe has finally dropped. The job transfer has come through and we finally know where we're headed. There are still some details to work out, but it seems that Kent and I will be moving to Green Bay, Wisconsin sometime this spring.

The time has come to say goodbye to our treasured home. We have lived here nearly twenty years. This wonderful old house is practically a member of the family.

We're hosting an Open House on Sunday, March 1st, from 2 - 4 pm.

Click Here for more information, and a tour of the house.



When the realtor, my mom and I turned the corner into the driveway, all those years ago, it was love at first sight. We hardly got past the back hall and into the kitchen (which was orange and black, for heavens sake!) before I was convinced that this house was the perfect place to raise my four rowdy boys. More than that, though, I felt like the house was choosing us.

We've left our mark on this historic old home, to be sure, a lot of living has gone on here in the past two decades. This house has been filled with love and laughter, even when times were hard. We've celebrated birthdays and graduations. We even had a bride come down the wonderful old staircase, something this mother of boys never expected to see.

It's magic here, it really is. I wonder who the house will choose next.

A Fine Romance - Step One, The Sashing Strips

It's all about between, which perfectly sums up my life since the beginning of the year. Personally, we're still waiting for that other shoe to drop. Any.day.now. And then there are these sashing strips. Simple shapes, right? Easy Peasy. Well, as it turns out, yes and no.

Electric Quilt is just the best for designing quilts, especially the piecing part. I use it all the time to build the framework for my applique designs. One of the functions I love the most is being able to print out rotary cutting instructions for each block. It's terrific! The default setting is to state the sizes to the nearest eighth of an inch, which is just right most of the time.

It wasn't until I'd stitched out all sixty-eight of my four-patches, and then added the half square triangles that it occurred to me to measure the thing. They were about an sixteenth of an inch shy!

I went back to EQ and selected to have the sizes print out to the nearest sixteenth of an inch. (Something I usually do automatically.) Darned if the squares weren't listed as a sixteenth of an inch larger!

Now I know that I already have some quilters shaking in their shoes because there are no many eighth of an inch measurements. For the life of me, I don't understand the fear. The eighths are as clearly marked as the quarters and halves! I could only imagine how heads would explode is I suggested that anything be cut to a sixteenth of an inch. (Even though it's only halfway between the eights, how hard is that?)

So I fussed around and found that by rounding up on some shapes and rounding down on others, and with some careful attention to seam allowance, the sashing strips come out to pretty close to the right size. So, my dear quilting friends, just stay vigilant about seam allowance and all will be well.

What I thought folks would get their knickers in a twist over was the zillions of four-patches. Strip piecing is not my friend, especially the part where I have to cut each segment individually. So I wrote the pattern for both strip piecing and cutting the individual squares.

Step One is posted here. I'll have two more blog posts on piecing strategies in the coming days.

And just because the cold and gray of winter is finally getting to me, and I can't stand how gray and lifeless this post looks, here is a gratuitous picture of preparing the large flower applique pieces.

A Fine Romance

Let's do this thing! Because my life just isn't crazy enough, I think it's high time we get this party started!

I've posted the supply list and (fingers crossed) schedule for the release of the pattern steps over on Craftsy.

Click Here

Since things are still unsettled here I'm using the Craftsy Pattern Store to post the blocks. That may change once everything settles down, but for now it's the best I can do.

The introductory step has been posted for free. The individual steps will be posted initially for $1 each and will remain at that price for one month. After that, the price of each step will become $3. (Gotta keep you coming back, right?)


We're going to start with the boring stuff, the pieced sashing strips. I always start by doing my least favorite step. I was chatting with a friend recently who was working on a charming wool applique pattern. She had done all of the special blocks and had only the plain, boring scallop blocks for the edging left. She mentioned that she hoped she could keep with them, seeing how unappealing they were, long enough to finish the project. She gave me such a look when I explained that I would have started with them.

It's just my way of keeping a WIP from becoming a UFO. How many of us have projects that are nearly done? Often there is just one or two steps left to do, but after the interesting parts were done the project just lost all of its steam. Instead, by conquering the less glamorous steps first, while I'm still excited about the project, I can look forward to how much fun the rest of the work will be.

So, meet me back here on Sunday for the first step. I plan to have a stack of pieced sashing strips ready for show and tell. It could happen!

God Laughs

It's an old Yiddish saying. Man plans and God laughs. I started this year with a renewed creative drive. I had plans, such plans, of all the wonderful new stuff I would make and learn. Wanting to be more painterly in my applique design, I signed up for a beginning watercolor class. With the new quilt project's design nearly finalized, I started pulling fabrics.

And then everything changed. Just like that. While it's too soon to go into details because we don't have any yet. We've been waiting for details any.day.now, for almost a month. No need to worry, it's nothing dire, just a big change, and one that will be very good when we've finally come through it.

So, here it is, my working plan for the new Block of the Month. I'm calling it "A Fine Romance" after one of my favorite songs, written by Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern.

Some of you who have been around this old blog for a while might recognize the design as one briefly posted a couple of years ago. The piecing plan is pretty much the same, but the applique is all new. I've been wanting to do something all viney and curvy for a while, this project seemed to be the perfect place for it.

With all the uproar around me, it's been a challenge to make even the simplest decisions. For a while I was toying with having the flower colors be much more random, but I'm thinking now that I'm going to stay with the rhythm of the colors falling in their own place. What do you think? The colors in the design are just placeholders anyway, so maybe I'll just have to make a few and see what I like.

Yesterday I added a few more colors to the palette. It seemed to need a more lemony yellow and some citrus greens. Several of the fabrics are from Moda's Grunge line, including the light background. The soft gray for the background accent piecing is a Riley Blake Basic which has a very similar texture. It's taken me a while to settle on the gray. I wanted it to be there, but not there, you know. This gray has a little more presence than that, and I may end up using the back side, or even replace it. We'll see.

The timing for the release of the steps is totally up in the air, just like everything in my life right now. It may have to be two months between steps, or even catch as catch can until things are finally settled, which I understand could be any.day.now.

Wanna Cruise with me?

Warm, tropical beaches. Sunshine. Excellent food. As casual or formal as you please. And quilting!

I hope you'll join me on a cruise to the Eastern Caribbean next March 5-13, 2016 with Quilt Retreat at Sea. That's eight delightful days at sea, eight days to rest and reinvigorate without a care in the world.

My hubby and I love to cruise. It's like staying at a deluxe hotel that also takes us to exotic places. We always return to real life with renewed energy.

This marvelous beauty will take us from island to island. We will be sailing onboard Royal Caribbean’s innovative Independence of the Seas. She recently underwent a $7 million refurbishment. The new features include a Cupcake Shop, an Italian trattoria called Giovanni’s, new digital signage, bow-to-stern WiFi (fees apply) and a poolside movie screen.

Our itinerary:
5 March 2016:          Depart Fort Lauderdale at 5:30pm
6 March 2016:          Cruising and Quilting Day at Sea
7 March 2016:          Labadee, Haiti from 7am to 3pm
8 March 2016:          San Juan, Puerto Rico from 2pm to 9pm
9 March 2016:          Basseterre, St. Kitts from 10am to 6pm
10 March 2016:        Philipsburg, St. Maarten from 8am to 5pm
11 March 2016:        Cruising and Quilting Day at Sea
12 March 2016:        Cruising and Quilting Day at Sea
13 March 2016:        Arrive Fort Lauderdale at 5:30am

On St. Kitts, we'll be visiting Caribelle Batiks, where we'll see first hand how some of our favorite quilting fabric is hand made.

For those days at sea I've designed charming little project that is full of fun techniques . It's a secret for now, but I'll be showing glimpses on the blog from time to time.

Click HERE to find out all you need to know to join us on this amazing tour. Spaces are limited, please check it out right away.

A Change in Priorities

 

Just about seven months ago I rearranged the studio. Yeah, yeah, you all know how I like to sort things, and reorganize, but this time it was different. I took my beloved Bernina from her place of honor, front and center, and shoved her to the back wall of the studio. All to make way for my new obsession: weaving.

It made perfect sense at the time. Looms not only need floor space, but they also need enough room around them to handle the awkward task of warping. Plus, the light (and the view) is so much better on the other side of the studio, near all the windows.

Yesterday we moved my sweetie back to front and center. I've decided to sell the smaller floor loom (the Baby Wolf) and move the larger loom to the back corner. Keeping the larger, heavier loom will allow me to make rugs from all the bolts of fabric I have, leftovers from kits and project work for fabric manufacturers. (I just adore my rainbow of fat quarters and thread.)

After all, I have work to do. I've set some goals for this year, and all of them include quilting! Since my applique book with C&T is out of print, I'll be writing a new one, which I will self publish. I have a project to design and make for the Caribbean Cruise that I'll be teaching on in 2015 (more information here, and coming soon to the blog.) I have a large quilt project I've been itching to do that may or may not become a block of the month (you'll help me decide, won't you?).

Plus, there's this quilt I need to finish, and heaven knows I'll need the space to work on it. (I've almost finished the ditch stitching, I'll have to figure out which fill stitches to use very soon. It's the hardest part for me, the deciding.)