Quilt Something - It's Good For You!

Not that I have ever needed a reason or an excuse to start another quilting project, but the next time my husband gives me that look - you know the one - I intend to peer at him from behind my stack of unfinished projects and quote directly from this article from the Daily Mail in Scotland.

Why Quilting Improves Your Health In Ways That Even Exercise Can't Manage

Is that good news or what?

This study found that quilting offered health benefits including increased brain activity a better sense of well being and cognitive ability. They didn't even mention that you have a beautiful quilt to show for all of your healthy efforts as well!

I consider this a wonderful way to start my work week! Toss those running shoes along with the guilt of not using them and forget that gym membership. I'm off to stimulate some brain activity and improve my cognitive ability. To improve my heart rate I think I just might cut into some $14.99 per yard fabric that I am not sure I have enough of to finish the project - that should get the blood pumping.

If you would like to read the entire article, here is the link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2002862/Why-quilting-uniquely-good-us.html

Now go improve your health!

Quilts of Valor

While I am on Grandma duty, I thought I would share a little bit about the Quilts of Valor group that meets at our shop on the second Monday evening of each month. I think you will be impressed with the amazing things they have accomplished in the last six months. Bonnie, our coordinator and mother of an active duty Marine, does a fantastic job. She also has a wonderful team of volunteers that work with her to make quilt tops that are then professionally quilted and returned for binding. Some members of the group cut, some piece, some quilt and some bind and a few of them do it all. They selflessly give their time to make these gifts of love for wounded soldiers that have given of themselves for out country. If you are looking for a way to give a little something back and share your quilting skills, they would love to have you join them!

Quilts of Valor is a national organization and it is my personal feeling that if every chapter had a coordinator like Bonnie and the volunteers that help her, every wounded vet would be wrapped in a quilt of love as a thank you that cannot begin to express our appreciation for their sacrifice. If you don't live near our store, I encourage you to seek out a Quilts of Valor chapter in your area. Even if you have never made a quilt, there is a team of volunteers that would love to help you learn.


Here is an excerpt from Bonnie's last newsletter:

Hi Everyone,

I have given General Jones 4 more quilts that he has presented to soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital on our behalf. I also had the pleasure of delivering one of our quilts to the USMC Reserve Unit in North Versailles. Brian asked that we make a quilt for the entire unit to hang in their headquarters. He told me that this unit returned from Iraq in 2005 with 90% of the men injured and they wanted a quilt that they could hang for everyone to enjoy. They loved the quilt!

I received an email from the Region Nine coordinator regarding the men and women that work at Dover Air force Base in England. These are the men and women that have the honor, but unfortunate duty of taking care of the bodies of our fallen heroes and preparing them for transport. Missy gave me 5 finished quilts this weekend and I have two of them boxed and ready to go to Dover.

I also have two quilt tops to ship to volunteer longarmers in New Jersey and two more to ship to longarmers in Vermont and another going to Maryland. Those tops are in addition to those being quilted by Maryjane and Mary right here in our area. The CCAC Child Development Center raised $60 on our behalf and I am using that money to cover the cost of postage to ship the quilt tops to the quilters. A co-worker also donated a check for $100 and I am sure that we will put that to good use as well.

We have made and donated 41 quilts since January 2011 and 30 of them have been distributed. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication, this program could not be successful without all of you.

Our next meeting will be Monday evening June 13th at The Quilt Company and we will be using the AccuQuilt to cut 10" charm squares to put kits together. I hope to see everyone there!

Bonnie

The Grandma Zone

Caution:

You are about to enter the Grandma Zone. That wonderful place that is inhabited by those of us that have just been blessed with the most adorable grandchildren in the world, and we can't stop talking about them or showing you photos of them. There is a desperate need to let the entire world know how wonderful they are.


The twins arrived on May 28th. Grant Emory and Madeline Rae are perfect, except that they live 5 hours away. I was there for their arrival and their first 5 days. I would still be there, but they have another set of Grandparents that we have to share them with and they are entitled to some cuddle time too. I'm headed back for a second visit as soon as they leave and I'm actually looking forward to the 5 hour trip. It will give me plenty of time to think, design, plan and decide on the next twenty or so quilts that I want to make them so that they always feel like they are wrapped up in Grandma love!


Who knew that two tiny little people could rock your entire world!

Home From Quilt Market

Home.

It has taken a little over a day to crawl back into the land of the living, but I think I have adjusted back into my timezone, gotten a good nights sleep, unpacked the mountain of paperwork and goodies that I managed to bring back, sorted through everything that piled up while I was away and can say I am officially home from Market. Whew!

Salt Lake was beautiful! The sun was out and the weather was perfect. This was the view from my hotel. Waking up at 4am each day (not by choice, but by habit, it was 6am at home) gave me plenty of time to get outside. I even took my running shoes and managed to go running a few mornings. I don't run far, but it was a great way to see the downtown sites. I also don't take my camera when I run, so for photos of the beautiful spring flowers at Temple Square, click on over to Karen Snyder's blog, http://annalenaland.com/

I bought batiks, batiks and did I mention batiks? Then I decided I had to branch out a little and I added some great new patterns, big bold contemporary fabrics, some retro and a ton of blenders and basics. Our favorite designers didn't let us down and we will have a stream, make that a river, of fabrics arriving from now through the end of the year. I bought for the areas that we needed to fill immediately - like red white and blue. Thanks to Bonnie and the great job she is doing with our Quilts of Valor group, our usual assortment is running pretty low and we can't have that!

One of my favorite parts of Market is the displays. The amount of work that goes into pulling together a single booth is mind boggling. Don't you just love this tree from the Riley Blake display? The quilts and kids clothes in the background were well made and looked great. I have to admit that I was particularly drawn to the baby and kid items. My daughter is due with twins any day now and I am definitely in Grandma Mode.

I did see a few things that I can guarantee or at least feel pretty confident that I won't be making for those new additions to our family. Then again, I learned a long time ago to never say never.

Jililly featured their newest patterns in an Ice Cream Store display, complete with a handsome guy handing out free small cones! You can see their well deserved and well earned booth ribbon displayed up front.

I was fascinated by these..... um, green things! I thought of them as something from under the sea and imagined that they would look great with a fish print behind them until one of my friends pointed out that she thought they were cactus! I guess that explains the snake coiled around the one in the lower left. Don't know what they are, they are totally non functional, but I want some anyway!

I better get to work, I have a thousand things to do and I still have visions of purses and totes and fabrics and table runners dancing in my head!

Your Tax Dollars At Work

I received the following in my email today from the U.S. Census Bureau:

"Each decade, after it tabulates the decennial census, the Census Bureau calculates the center of population. The center is determined as the place where an imaginary, flat, weightless and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all residents were of identical weight."

What the heck for?

Considering that the U.S. is NOT flat, is NOT weightless and does NOT balance on anything, not to mention that one thing we are definitely NOT in this country is IDENTICAL WEIGHT, why do they bother with this calculation? And after a bunch of math brains get together and figure it out why do they think I have nothing better to do than expect us to join them for their big announcement?

"Join the US Census Bureau for a live UStream event discussing the new Centers of Population at 11am EDT on Wednesday May 11. They will be taking questions from the public during the event on Facebook and Twitter."

Really?

This is a tweet worthy event? What question could the public possibly have except "Why do you bother doing this"? Who uses this information? Isn't it obsolete as soon as the first person moves, even if it is just across town? One baby is born and oops there goes the perfectly balanced-everybody weighs the same-on the perfectly flat imaginary map of the United States calculation. Considering that according to their very own statistics 11,000 babies are born every day but not necessarily evenly spaced throughout the US, I would venture to say that their statistic is skewed.

I have plans to be somewhere over the midwest, flying to Quilt Market in Salt Lake City on Wednesday. There are a few thousand of us that will decend on the city for the multi day event. We tend to bring lots of fabric, quilts, books, patterns and notions with us. Those things tend to be heavy. I hope we don't tip the map!

Quilt Market Countdown

It's that time of year again.

Quilt Market season. Twice each year everyone in the quilting industry heads for the largest convention in the industry. This month we will make the trip to Salt Lake City, Utah to search for beautiful fabrics, innovative patterns, the very best new notions on the market. Right now, those of us that design for the marketplace are scrambling like crazy to finish and perfect our newest offerings.

Would you like a sneak preview at mine?

This is my newest pattern. I'm calling it "Old Dog, New Tricks". I think the name is perfect, because after 18+ years in the industry, I think I probably qualify as an "Old Dog". The project is made using the Quick Trim Ruler that I designed for Creative Grids and that ruler is capable of teaching even the most experienced quilter a few new tricks!

My original idea for the ruler was to eliminate having to draw all of those pesky lines when you clip corners on blocks like flying geese.

It certainly does that, but it also does a whole lot more!

For "Old Dog, New Tricks" you also use it to draw circles!

Keep in mind that this is a sneak preview. The pattern isn't ready yet, it is still in the proof reading stage, I have nine more days until Market - why hurry?

If you aren't familiar with the Quick Trim Ruler, you can check out the Creative Grids video on YouTube by clicking here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxzlBFVq0d0

Cincinnati

What you see in this photo is an assortment of yo-yo's. Hand gathered little circles that are drawn up and measure about two inches before they are flattened into this shape and are made into "quilts". No backing or batting is normally added, just hundreds or even thousands of gathered circles that are stitched together edge-to-edge to complete the project.

But do you really know what this is a photo of?

I will show you the finished project at the bottom of this post. It was one of the entries in the Quilt Festival Show in Cincinnati.

We were vending at the Cincinnati show at the Duke Energy Convention Center. If you look closely you can see the edge of our double booth over in aisle 5, across from the Superior Threads booth. This photo only shows our end of the convention center. There was plenty more to enjoy at the opposite end of the huge room.

The show set-up was wonderful and there was plenty of quilting eye-candy. Being across from Superior Threads booth meant that as I demonstrated in our booth, this was the view that I had - not bad, not bad at all!

The quilts in their booth were wonderful and I was especially fond of the delectible mountain piece with the red border. The quilting was spectacular, but there is something about the way that the fabric shades through the colors that really appealed to me. After seeing it for 4 straight days, I know that I am going to have to make my own version of it. I will have to "put it on the list" of things I want to do as soon as I have time.

Do you have a list of quilts that you plan to make "someday"? My list includes a scrappy log cabin with lots and lots of tiny rails as well as a batik double wedding ring that doesn't even have to be a whole quilt, I would be happy with a table runner. I should probably plan to finish those twin quilts for our guest room that I have been working on for three, no four.... ok, about SEVEN years, but first I want to make another set of baby quilts for the twins that our daughter is expecting. Before that, I have to finish the pieces that I am working on for Quilt Market next month...... it is nice to know that there is no shortage of quilting in my future!

Now to show you what I will NOT be doing with my quilting time. I will not be making yo-yo's.... but if I did, I would hope that I would make something as unique as this.

Pretty amazing huh?

Doesn't that make you wonder where ideas like this come from?

Do you think the quiltmaker saw a handfull of yo-yo's laying on the table and thought, "Gee, that looks like my daughters eyes"? Maybe she has an aversion to sewing squares together or thought "Squares, been there, done that, I think I will photo shop circles into a scalloped edge quilt.

Maybe she had a few hundred yellow yo yo's left over from another project?

What is your best guess as to how something as unique as this gets started?