Jan and Irene, You Go Girls!

Here are Irene (l) and Jan (r). "The BBB's (Bitchin' Biker Babes)." They have set off to fulfill Jan's dream of a cross country bike ride. Jan is riding from the Atlantic to the Pacific and Irene is driving the sag van. Jan is grateful that Irene signed on, so now she can bring her featherweight, too.

Jan is keeping a journal of her trip at crazyguyonabike. Jan is an excellent and funny writer, so I'm encouraging all my quilting friends in cyberspace to follow Jan and Irene by including links to her posts on this blog. (Just below the Daily Puppy.)

They left yesterday and I can't wait to here more of their adventures, especially revues of quilt shops on the way. Since both are avid quilters, I'm sure this trip is going to produce some cool quilt inspirations!

Till next time...Happy Quilting!

Correction!

A big shout out to Ruth D from Quilts, Books, and Dogs. At block exchange tonight she noticed that I had turned a pattern piece in my illustration for the Ribbon Quilt pattern. I have corrected the situation and am really grateful. I have asked my block exchange friends to each make me 3 blocks. That would make 48 blocks that I would have to take apart and re-sew. Dodged a bullet there! In the next couple of days check out these blogs; Lavender Pie, Quilts, Books, and Dogs, and quilts and kids to see all 16 projects for this year's block exchange. Although this only my second year as a member, the group is in it's 20th year. The projects this year are really fun. Coming home with a bag of goodies, it's like Christmas.

Till next time.... Happy Quilting

New Floors

I moved into my house 15 years ago. Everything in the house was white. White walls, white carpet, white wall paper (grass cloth). The only color was a grayish cast, sort of reminded me of a dentist office. Slowly I've been replacing a lot of the white. Now, I'm not totally against white, I did like the white appliances and white cupboards in the kitchen and I even liked all the white trim. But I hated the white floors and walls. So the kitchen was painted yellow, but the white floor remained and drove me crazy until now. Last Wednesday we had a new vinyl floor installed. It's gray and yellow and it looks great. Even in today's yucky weather, Boomer's paw prints don't show. The gray works with my counter tops. I'm not thrilled with the color, but the counter tops are in great shape and I don't want to spend the money to replace them. The little bit of yellow picks up my walls. Yeah!












The next floor to get a re-do is my stairway and upstairs hall. You can't tell in the photo, but the walls are a warm tan, with white trim. The carpet used to be a grayish white and always looked dirty. So we chose a carpet color I like to call Boomer Brown. I had a rug this color in my living room when I lived on Horton Street and it always looked great.

The next project is replacing the cheap 1960s interior doors with some six-panel ones. I love projects where I just pick stuff out and someone else does all the work!

Till next time... Happy Quilting!

Ribbon Quilt

The name of this block is Ribbon Quilt and I've included a free pattern for a queen size quilt. I've also chosen this block for my block exchange quilt for Ruth D's small group. The blocks were started probably 10 years ago in the Wednesday Group. I was digging through my pile of UFO's and still loved these blocks and decided I needed more blocks to make a queen size quilt. In the box were 48 finished blocks along with 2 1/2" squares and 2 7/8" triangles, so I made blocks to finish off the cut pieces and ended up with about 100 blocks. I'll need 156 for a queen size quilt (each block finishes 6 1/2"). I'm excited for block exchange to start. I love making blocks for everyone in the group. It's fun to play with patterns and colors that I haven't chosen. I'm also happy to continue my quest to finish UFOs and that the blocks are still interesting after all these years.

Till next time.... Happy Quilting

Philena's Friendship Quilt

This book came out last year and to my surprise, my pattern for the quilt was in it! I met Lynda Chenoweth a couple of years ago at the MSU Museum. She was working with Marsha MacDowell on the manuscript for this book and learned I had written quilt patterns. She asked me to write a pattern for Philena's quilt. I wrote the pattern, got paid and never heard another word. Then, last fall the book came out and the museum got a free copy and and sure enough, there was my pattern (with credit given to me), exactly how I wrote it, illustrations and all. I've since got my own copy and found it to be a good read. It's not only the story of Philena's quilt, but of the whole community and a chapter on signature quilts as well. Also included are many photographs of the people involved in the story. You can buy the book on Amazon and lots of other sites.

Today is a beautiful, snow covered, cold day here in Lansing. I'm looking forward to a day of sewing blocks and writing instructions for my block exchange while watching some old movies (right now I'm watching Golden Boy, Barbara Stanwyck, William Holden, Adolph Monjou, 1939, Columbia Pictures). Then 5:30 brings the Spartans vs. Iowa. I went to the Wisconsin game on Wednesday and even though it was low scoring, it was a great defensive battle.

Till next time....Happy Quilting!