Persephone's Return

Yikes! I'm so very glad to be typing and not talking with this down-to-a-whisper case of laryngitis. Tea with lemon, raw honey, and St. Remy French Brandy for me!

But I had great fun yesterday with the Friday Quilter's at The Golden Gese quilt shop at 22 Liberty Street in Concord, New Hampshire. Claire and Jan greeted me with big smiles as I passed around the chocolates!

Jan (on the right in the above photo) was working on the cutest little flowerpot blocks in bright cheerful batiks that are pieced with a dresden ruler. If you are interested, they are on one of the Missouri Star Quilt Company tutorials. Link is here.

Heidi, pictured below, was cutting out fabrics for her latest creation and look at those gorgeous colors!

Claire was busy, too, with the cutest machine applique batik turtles for her dear grandson's quilt.

Eleanor, below left, and Jan, below right, were admiring the pieced top that Claire had done to celebrate that Spring has finally arrived.

Claire told us that she had actually used the "brown paper bag" method for assuring random placements to the colors of blues and sunny yellows. This is proof that it really works!

As for me, I poked along on my Scrappy Jacob's Ladder blocks and got 3 more assembled and pressed. Here are two done, YEAY!!

Please DO notice the wonderful replacement kitchen clock with its new battery above my shoulder that Maureen brought in and hung up. Our old one had died. Thank you, Maureen!

Due to my dearth of ombre Civil War selections for this week's Block of the Week over at Barbara Brackman's sew along, I chose to make a purchase of a Penny Rose red stripe ombre from their "Civil War Times" line. It was also available in a bright Prussian blue, but I favored the red.

Of course, if you hafta write a check anyway, you might as well pick up some neutrals, too, right?

This morning showed only the faintest traces of snow in the woods and shadows, and glorious Spring has brought me my precious Mount Hood daffodils and little blue Pushkinias.

Persephone has returned from Hades!

Be inspired by the beauty of your day, it is its own gift!

Happy sewing!

A Few Good Blocks

If it's Wednesday, it must be "Stars In A Time Warp" from Barbara Brackman's wonderful sew along on her Civil War Quilts blog.

This week's discussion on rainbow prints and shaded ombres were all fabric notions that were new to me, so I really enjoyed this topic.

After I dug into Wendy's magic box of scraps given to me, I found a scrap to use as the center of this block. Click to enlarge to see the shadings on the brown striped vine print. It's subtle, but it's there.

Yesterday, while I was awaiting the Brackman post for today, I got cocky and started a new project instead of working on finishing an old one.

It must've been having the Log Cabin top done and pressed, with a date already booked on the rented longarm to quilt it, that gave me license to start a new quilt. Or maybe it was the Spring air. Either way, I reveled in it! Little Twinkler's blocks, wheeeee!

Mine are made with 2½" squares and 1½" square flippy corners to make a 6" block finished in the quilt. They are so cute!

Stashbuster's has an open challenge to make these and boy, howdy, are they ever fun!

No plans yet on just how many I'll do, but I want half in lights and half in darks. They are like potato chips, you make a couple and feel motivated to make some more.

Last summer I had used the same technique with 5" charm pack squares. It is a variation on the friendship star.

The tip that I'll pass onto you if you wish to make these is throw out the mediums and just use darks and lights! Otherwise, your points will be lost.

I'm still enjoying using my little bonus triangles as leaders & enders. If you haven't yet discovered "Adventures With Leaders & Enders" by Bonnie K. Hunter, please do visit her site, and buy the book.

These 6" blocks (finished in the quilt) are what I made "in the meantime" with the L&E.

I'm saving tons of thread and making many more blocks than I ever used to do using Bonnie's methods, so I highly recommend her books.

Happy quilting!

Celebrating A Spring Day

I'm so spoiled now that Tuesdays are a regular event for the Continental Breakfast served at 9am at the Alton Senior Center in Alton, New Hampshire! Yummy warmed ham slices, hot French toast with butter and maple syrup, scrambled eggs, bagels and cream cheese, juice and coffee too made it a great feast.

The Sunshine Club met right after the breakfast, and believe it or not, it was actually sunny!

Sue was working on quilting long straight parallel rows on her Leprechaun Quilt.

You can see above that my chocolate dispenser is out and ready for a quick Hersey's Milk Chocolate Nugget at any time, LOL! Can any more quilt be rolled into that harp?

I worked on piecing four more Scrappy Jacob's Ladder blocks and I held one up to show it to you.

We had lots of fun and then it was time to go home.

The beautiful spring day was too good to miss with enjoying croci blossoms tops on my list!

Miss Emma Lynne loved the newly sun-warmed grass as only a lady Labrador may.

Just to show you the difference that one day can make, the next photograph was taken only 24 hours earlier on Monday afternoon. Look at the snow!

All of my dear pets rejoiced in the warmer temperatures in the 70's. Whoohoo!

 Enjoy what you have and happy stitching!

Capital Quilter's Guild, Concord, NH

Shhhhhhh! Try not to giggle or pout. I have a very special treat for you.

Today was a lovely Spring day, sunny and mild with temps that soared to 71°.

According to the weatherman on Channel 9, it hasn't been this warm since late October!!!

So I took myself out to a quilt show, of course.

Some shows now prohibit camera use, but I asked first and got permission to take photos for you!

This was the Capital Quilter's Guild Show for Concord, New Hampshire.

These gorgeous quilts are just a smattering of what was displayed.

I confess to personal bias in only photographing what I liked, so you are seeing the show through my eyes.

This show was the "small" show, in competition with the big MQX held in Manchester, New Hampshire, and I preferred it for less walking, less traffic, less crime-ridden city environment.

I find that the smaller, grassroots guild shows are less commercial, friendlier, and the work on display is far less intimidating to me.

The quilts shown here that interested me were the ones that I could envision myself making and not some outlandish overdone art quilt.

Those art quilts might make everybody gasp with amazement, but they make me feel like traditional quilts aren't good enough.

I like quilts that speak to me, not talk down to me.

That's why I so thoroughly enjoyed myself here at the little show held in the gymnasium of the local community college.

Of course, I got to see my friend, Camille, from Evergreen Country Primitives Quilt Shop and picked out some Richmond Reds by Barbara Brackman.

And I also visited with Kelly from Footprints Quilt Shoppe in East Rochester, New Hampshire, and she was quick to offer to take my picture for me.

It was a great day and I am glad that I could share my travels with you!

Happy stitching!