More bloggers I've met.....

My last post talked about 3 local bloggers I know. Now I'd like to mention other bloggers I've met who are not local folks.

Steph is the second from the left in this photo. (I'm the first one on the left...Steph's mom, Suzanne, is the 3rd one and Kathy from my previous post is on the right.) Steph lives more than an hour from me in MD, but she has a vacation place in Ocean City, MD, which isn't too far from me. We've met up a couple of times and will be doing that more in the future. Click HERE for her blog. It's called "A Ditchin' Time Quilts". Talented gal AND talented mom, too. Keep her mom in your prayers as she's had some recent serious health issues.
Michelle (on the right in this next picture) is a blogger with whom I'd been friends for awhile and then we got the FUN news that her hubby was being reassigned from an Air Force Base far away from me to one that is just 40 miles from me. We were both very excited and arranged to meet shortly after they arrived. We've since met again and went fabric shopping and had lunch, and we will be meeting this week, too. It's nice to have a far-away blogger move so much closer. HERE is where you can find Michelle's blog. Her blog is called "Michelle's Quilts & Stuff". (But be warned....she is a very prolific quilter and can put some of us to shame with how much she gets finished...and beautifully, too!!!)Cecelia, shown in this next picture with me, is another blogger I've known for awhile. She mentioned she was going to visit her sister in Delaware. I was happy to discover her sister lives in my area of Delaware, so we arranged to meet for lunch at a historic hotel nearby. It was a fun afternoon.....good food and good conversation with one of the most fun waiters I've ever encountered. Cecelia's sister was with us as was my quilting partner, Kathy. HERE is where you click to find Cecelia's blog. Her blog is named "Sew Quilty". She does very pretty work!The next photo is one of me and Tonya. She has a blog called "Tonya's Sewing Room". Besides being a talented gal, she is such a sweetheart. I was lucky enough to meet her last fall on a fall foliage tour my husband and I took of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We stayed in a town not far from her for a few days, so I got to meet her and her cute son the day we arrived. My husband and I had dinner with Tonya and her son that night, and then a couple of days later, we had lunch with Tonya and her husband, TJ, and visited their home. We are hoping they can get up this way to visit us when they plan a trip to the Amish area of PA in the not-too-distant future. Tonya is now a chapter coordinator for Project Linus and is always showing interesting things she makes on her blog. HERE is the link for that.
During a "get-away-from-cold-weather-trip" this winter, I had the good fortune to meet Jackie from the blog "Jackie's Stitches". We had a nice lunch together and some good chatting time. She is a super-nice person and her work (needlework, quilting, and knitting) is so well-done. She is someone who hasn't been quilting that many years, and you will be amazed at her work. This is a photo of us after lunch on a nice-weather day in January in Jacksonville, FL....me on the left and Jackie on the right. (I was loving the sun and warmth that day!) Click HERE to visit her blog.
During that same trip on which I met Jackie, I was able to meet with bloggers Pat Wys (blog is called "Silver Thimble Talk") and Gene Black, whose blog is called "Gene Black an Alabama Artist" (which he is!). The 3 of us (shown below) got to spend a fabulous day shop-hopping and having lunch together when I was in the area of Atlanta on the way back to cold weather in Delaware! Both have fabulous blogs and are very talented people. Pat will have a book out soon and she has numerous published patterns, too. Gene has made some good patterns and I hope he will be able to market them more widely. He also has an eye for fabric design, so I'd love to see him get into that at some point in the future. This man is also a talented musician, painter, and jewelry maker! For Gene's blog, click HERE. For Pat's blog, click HERE. Here's a cute picture of Pat with a couple of bags of her favorite snacks! (If you read her blog, you will catch her talking about them periodically!)
That takes care of the bloggers I've met so far......10 in total, which I think is pretty great (considering I know some folks who tell me they've never met even one other blogger yet)! There are several others on my "hoping to meet" list. I figure if I could do trips to certain areas of the country, I could meet a few on each trip. For instance, on one trip to the northwest I could meet Sandi A., "Crispy", Linda B, Val and her daughter Jennifer. If I went around the area of Missouri and Kansas, I'd love to meet Greg and Brooke, Nancy, and Judy L. There are others in different parts of the country, too, that I'd like to meet...but at least those folks I just mentioned are in locations that aren't too distant from each other, so....I could meet several on one trip...and I might be able to make that work....someday!!! In a couple of weeks, I'll go back through my photos and find pictures of various published quilt teachers with whom I've taken classes and do a blog post about that. Now that I reflect back on it, I've had a lot of super experiences in my relatively few years of quilting........and bloggers have been a big part of that.....and I hope to have many more yet to come! And if you and I have not met yet, who knows...maybe we can make it happen someday!

Meeting other bloggers!

Meeting other bloggers!

I began quilting in 2005 and began my blog on November 21, 2008 . As with most quilting bloggers, I've made many online friends with many wonderful ideas on their blogs and have been thrilled by all that happens in "Blogland". It dawned on me, though, that I've been even further blessed by getting to meet several of my quilting blogging friends in person. I've decided to dedicate a couple of posts to this....so here goes. You might even find a blog that is new to you!

It is only fitting that I mention, first, the local bloggers I've met. Actually, I knew these three gals before they had blogs. First up is Kathy. Her picture is to the right here. She started her blog shortly before mine....and she told me if she could figure it out, I could, also. I gave it a try and am very glad I did. Kathy is not only a friend and a fellow quilter and blogger. She is also my "professional" partner in quilt designing. We were lucky enough to have two designs published in a recent issue of McCall's Quick Quilts. We have other projects in the works and enjoy the time we spend together doing this. Kathy and I have something else in common...we are both retired teachers. Click HERE for Kathy's blog.


Next up is Kaye. She began her blog after mine and we were already quilting together in a little neighborhood quilting group by that time. Kaye has done a lot of sewing over the years, so she adapted quite easily to quilting. To the left is a photo of Kaye. She's not posted on her blog since the end of December as her husband has had some serious, ongoing health issues, but HERE is the link if you want to see her past posts. She is a really sweet lady and a good friend. She has really enjoyed the many swaps she's participated in since becoming a blogger.

The last of the "local" bloggers I know is Sherry. She is also in the neighborhood quilting group. She is a self-taught quilter and her work is wonderful. (This gal is also a self-taught painter and a good one!) She has done a few commissioned quilts and a couple of memory quilts for family members and close friends that would knock your socks off in addition to many other quilted items. She began a blog some months back, but due to her daughter's health problems (which are now resolving, thank goodness!) she hasn't posted much, either.....but I know she'll get back to it soon and might already have a new post there by the time you read this post of mine. Click HERE to go to her blog. I am going to put a few photos of Sherry here as, somehow, I always manage to get "happy" (silly?) photos of her....and I think they will make you smile, too. Here is Sherry the night she and her sister cooked for us on our quilting retreat to the Amish area of PA last fall. Gotta love how Sherry keeps focused on the task at hand!
This is what she and her sister made us that night. I forget what they called these, but I called them open-faced grilled cheese with bacon and tomato and they were YUMMY!A unique way Sherry did "show and tell".....by draping her quilt over the back of Chatty, a greyhound belonging to our non-blogging friend, Linda.
Here we have Sherry, again on retreat. I have no clue what she was doing, but I know we all laughed!!!And I will end this post about the local bloggers I know with a silly photo of Kathy (mentioned above) and Sherry on retreat. I promise you, we do buy fabric and do quilting-related activities on our retreats but we have a lot of fun, too! Gotta love my local blogging friends!Next post will be about other bloggers I've met who are not local folks. Stay tuned!!!

The red/white/blue candle mat....

A couple of posts back, I showed this red/white/blue candle mat I made at my daughter's request for a friend of hers. The recipient of this was a friend of my daughter and her husband who was turning 40 and they were having a surprise party for him. (His name is Joe.) He has teased me for months and been asking when I was going to make him a quilt. He would tell me it was fine if I even made him a teeny tiny quilt....but he requested it be red/white/blue. SO I made this candle mat. I wasn't at the party but he called me when he opened it and he was very happy with it. (See photo of him below holding it.) What I didn't know is that Joe can sew and has done a good bit of upholstery. He is actually thinking he might turn this into a pillowtop....which is fine by me. I'm very glad he liked it!

Please vote for my local quilt shop.....

There is presently a contest going on for the 2011 Golden Quilter Awards. My local quilt shop is nominated in the category of "Best Quilt Shop - Physical Location". The shop is Serendipity Quilt Shop in Dagsboro, DE. CLICK HERE FOR THE LINK where you can read the nominees in all categories and also vote (by leaving a comment with your choices). The voting must be done by March 31. Thanks to all who can do that, because my local shop is TERRIFIC...only been open a little over two years and has already outgrown their space and building a new, larger place to occupy by this summer!!! (That is quite an accomplishment in today's economy and speaks to how great an owner and staff run that shop!!!) Oh, yes....you are automatically entered to win a prize if you vote in this contest, so why not go over and give it a try?

EXCITING opportunity!!!

AccuQuilt is having their second annual Barn Quilt contest. Last year's was very exciting and you might want to read about this year's event. You can easily do that by clicking on the logo/button that is on my right sidebar.....it will take you where you can read all the info about it. Check it out to see if it might be of interest to you. The prizes are SUPER and it's certainly worth considering!!! The chance to be creative and maybe win a prize in the process...how could it be any better than that??

GOing for a quick gift......

I spent the early part of the weekend making a candle mat in red/white/blue fabrics. I cut the pieces with my GO! and then decided to hand-quilt it. I cut my binding on the bias using a tutorial Gene Black did on his blog (showing what we had been taught by our very knowledgable blogging and quilting friend, Pat Wys, when we spent a fun day with her in Georgia last month. This is a picture of the candle mat.

More "GROW as you GO" blocks.....

Referring to my previous post, I have done 3 blocks since then with scraps cut all with my GO! cutter. Now you can see I have a total of 7 blocks toward this fun quilt. If you click on the picture to enlarge it and study the blocks, you can see no two are exactly the same pattern. I used several dies to cut the pieces......some of my square dies (2" finished, 4" finished and 6" finished), some of my half-square triangle dies, my rectangle die, and my quarter-square triangle die. then I combined them in various ways....did whatever felt FUN to do at the moment to make them be 12" (finished size) blocks. I have to ponder what color sashing I'll use....maybe an off-white but not totally sure (and would welcome some feedback on that from you color-savvy folks). If you have a GO! cutter, this project is a tremendous amount of fun and this is one of the most satisfying things I've done with my GO!......to rescue all the left-over and unused (unwanted!!!) fabric and give it some new life. It's very "freeing" as there is no pattern and you just do whatever you feel like doing, but the end result will be something very nice! (Also...since you are making 12" blocks, this quilt can be done rather quickly.) I'll update you again when there is some noticeable progress.