Quilting Hottie Haven - the blog of EvaPaige Quilt Designs

DaGMT Day 28 "Things I made today"

2012-02-28T21:51:00.002-05:00

A short list of things I made today.

1. Two more blocks for a fallish twin sized version of Kickin' Stash. (see above)
2. A kickass chart for cutting border strips for all four layouts in the pattern.
3. A grocery list.
4. Some fabulous salmon for dinner.
5. A widower out of a male deer.
6. A call to 911 to report my crime.

Wasn't I impressive? How did you do?

DaGMT Day 27 - "Are we there yet?"

2012-02-27T20:17:00.005-05:00

By now either you have religously been sewing along with me and hitting refresh for the latest blog installment every three minutes, or you are so over me it's embarassing for both of us. Two more days and my experimental quilt a long will be over and we can all go back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Except me. I have 6 more days of February break. Have I mentioned my joy?

Anyhoo....I really am thrilled by the participation and I thank you for sticking it out with me so far. If you've enjoyed it, please let me know. If not, my name is Eugenia Rodemacker.

Promised photos of my quilted, and as of two hours ago when I flipped the last side of the binding while instructing my children to please for the love of God play together nicely for 20 minutes and let me watch the news and accomplish something completely bound quilt. I hope you can see in these photos the detail of the quilting. Sue Fors, who has been a ridiculously prolific DaGMT participant, did the quilting and I just am amazed by how perfect this machine quilting design is for the quilt design itself.

If you look right in the center of this photo you might see the cool "cosmos" flower that repeats a bit in this quilting pattern and was the reason I chose the pattern. Very cool and very pretty in person.

So that was twenty minutes. What will I do with my remaining 70 for today, you ask? I plan to spend the evening cutting out about 8 more blocks-worth of patches for several more Kickin' Stash blocks to add to my second group quilt, since I need more fallish colored blocks.

"But Beth," you say. "Won't sitting around cutting out those patches be terribly boring? I mean, after all, you just spent two days binding. Your brain may turn to mush."

Yes, I assure you. Yes it will. Because I will be cutting these out while watching The Bachelor, the one trainwreck show I admit to being unable to resist, even though I am a modern, educated woman with three daughters whom I will murder if they attempt to degrade themselves by going on such a show. It's terribly embarassing, but there it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ThCjgaGkV4&list=UUp0hYYBW6IMayGgR-WeoCvQ&index=1&feature=plcp

Today, however, I found this clip from Ellen, probably from yesterday, and I watched it and was immediately reassured that I am not completely crazy, perhaps, because Meredith Vieira apparently cannot look away either, and she is way smarter than I am, even.

While watching, I came to several conclusions, all of which stem from the fact that she is ME, just like the narrator in "Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society" is ME.

1. She apparently finds all thing to be better with wine.
2. She knew how to open a box of wine and was not ashamed of her skill.
3. She drank Franzia knowing she would find it appalling, and then told Ellen it was straight up awful. (I was screaming "OMG THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE!" I mean really, you want to be polite, but it's Ellen. You know you don't have to be totally polite.)
4. She can't resist watching this trainwreck, although she did say she watched this season because she liked Ben. FTR, I never liked him. I am just too weak to look away.
5. She called him annoying more than once and made me laugh because she said it in the exact same way I would have. No excuses. No benefits of the doubt. Just flat out proclaimed him annoying and I was bowing down to her fabulousness.

So I'm off to watch while cutting, knowing in my heart that Meredith and I will be saying all the same things at all the same moments, hating ourselves for being so weak, and yet unable to gain strength.

DaGMT Day 26 - "Woo hoo!"

2012-02-26T21:49:00.003-05:00

Woo hoo! Three hours of sewing today!

Not so big woo hoo - all three hours spent in some form of binding creation or flipping. If you are keeping up, I believe you may know by now that I am not a huge fan, but the good news is for every binding finished, that's another UFO biting the dust.

Which was my whole point in this challenge anyway. So another Woo Hoo just for fun. Woo Hoo!

No photos today because once again the camera has up and hidden itself in a secret location, but finding it is a big fat priority for tomorrow as I love this quilt and need to share Sue Fors' fab quilting on it.

Can you believe she actually had time to work on one of MY things this month?

DaGMT Day 24 - "Blast from the Past"

2012-02-24T17:49:00.007-05:00

There is nothing like a sewing machine that runs properly. While I didn't get as much sewing done as I might have liked today due to, well, the same excuse I could use all week of too many children in the house, I did get the borders on my Lazy Daisy project, and you'll have to take my word for it that it looks really cute because I am too lazy to go take a photo right now.

But what I did take a photo of were some cute little dolls Paige and Eva and I made out of toothpicks and embroidery floss. A friend taught me to make these when I was about 11 and I figured I could make some with them today and it would count toward the DaGMT because it can be classified as "Fiber Arts". Fiber, anyway. Arts might be pushing it.

Let's face it, mine was the best. But I had experience and 33 years as advantages.

Theirs were pretty cute, too, though. They loved doing the hair part the most and even included multicolored strips to be like those feathers which are all the rage and which I will not allow them to get.

DaGMT Day 23 - "Lazy Daisy"

2012-02-23T20:41:00.006-05:00

I was reminded today of why I don't do BOMs very often.

As you may recall, if you have been reading regularly and have a short term memory larger than an ant, that yesterday I pulled some old orphan blocks I'd found at my guild meeting a few years ago out of my UFO pile, and made a third to go with them. Today I tried, using my silly little Elna machine, to put them all together in a runner.

Cute, huh? But not without frustration.

First problem: The blocks which I assumed were 12 1/2" square in fact were 11" and 11 1/2" square. Mine, I would like to point out, was perfectly 12 1/2" square.

I'm perfect so rarely that when it happens now and then I feel a shout out to myself is in order. I appreciate any humoring of me you can muster.

Second problem: I don't own a lot of pink fabrics. So what was I going to do for borders/bindings/etc?

I decided to use a fabric I love but that had a bit of yellow and green in it along with the pink to make the blocks kind of tilty, then I cut all the blocks down to 14 1/2". Weird size, but hey, now they are all the same.

Then I made some cute candy striped sashings. Tomorrow I'll get to the top and bottom borders, which will also be the cute candy stripes. It was all I could do to get these suckers on without throwing the Elna across the room.

I also made a trip to Wegmans, visited a friend, joined Pinterest, celebrated our three new goldfish surviving the night, and worked a bit on the directions to KS. Come on now, you know you are impressed with my productivity during vacation week numero uno.

Just a few more days til DaGMT is over. Here's hoping you are on the road to accomplishing all you wanted to and more!

DaGMT Day 22 - "Machine Snobbery"

2012-02-22T16:43:00.003-05:00

Yesterday my machine decided to puke out on me. You can imagine the joy and wonder of that moment around here.

Thankfully, I have a spare machine that enjoys hanging out in the darkness of my utility closet, being used as a playground for spiders and generally gathering enough dust to stuff a small pillow.

Quite honestly, it's barely good for more than that, but I keep it because I've been told I can't call myself a quilter if I only own one machine. Whatever.

This machine is an Elna 1010, the beginner beginner machine I got when I was already an advanced beginner but too cheap to pay more than $150 for a real sewing machine, and somehow it lasted me for about 5 years. Today I barely lasted an hour on it, as it is lacking, in no particular order of importance because all are equally missed:

- A light. Now there must have been one, and it's probably just burned out, but for the life of me I can't even find where it goes.

- A thread up/thread down button. When I got my new machine with this feature I thought for sure I'd never use it - way too fancy for me. I spent the morning smacking at the front of the Elna with my finger attempting to lift the needle, so I guess I do use it a lot.

- A needle threader. I no lie spent at least 40 minutes just threading the needle without it.

And can we all just take a moment to hail the almighty drop in bobbin?

Anyway, I wouldn't want to quilt anything on this thing, but at least I can piece, albeit not without issue as we have determined. So today I went through my UFOs and found two of these blocks I found on an orphan block table at a guild meeting, and decided to make one more.

Tomorrow I hope to whip them into a runner.

I've also been working on the writing part of Kickin' Stash, which I have decided will have to count toward my 4 hours worth of makeup sewing I have to do this week. The thing won't write itself, after all.

DaGMT Day 21 - "Done is Better"

2012-02-21T20:35:00.004-05:00

My friend Cath Hallsworth says that a lot. Kind of like I say "perfection is overrated" or "please stop licking your sister" a lot. All are wonderful mantras to live by.

Today I finished flipping the binding of Paige's quilt, which took me easily two hours and the realization that I truly do need reading glasses.

I also survived yet another day of February break.

Both are equal reasons to celebrate.

DaGMT days 18-20 - "My myriad of excuses"

2012-02-20T17:39:00.009-05:00

So I've been hosting 10 members of the MN part of the family since Saturday afternoon, and this is what I have accomplished in the sewing world:

1. Dropped "Kickin' Stash" cover quilt off at machine quilter on way out of town to the local hotel 20 minutes away. (Don't ask. I think it's a Helfter thing.)
2. Flipped approximately 18 inches of binding on a twin sized quilt. More might have been done, but there was a constant fear of beer spillage on it.

That's it. What are you going to do, fire me as the founder of this project? I think not.

Here are a few highlights of my weekend to prove I was not just sitting around drinking beer. Although let's not get the wrong idea - that did happen.

Hanging with Paul Revere and three out of four Helfter cousins.

What could be at the bottom of that pile of 6 kids? A $50 bill? A loose football? No, just two boxes of pastries from Mike's Pastries in Boston's North End. My husband is also at the bottom of the pile, opening said boxes. Love this photo.

Took 2/3 of the girls skiing today for only their second time ever. Video footage to prove they didn't totally suck below.

Video of Paige removed. It seems I actually took footage of the sky instead. You will have to believe me when I say she was really pretty good, and learned to turn fairly well.

Eva skiing like a maniacal wacko - I took this video to prove that she needs to turn more. She looked at it and said "Look. I did tiny turns all the way down. I like going straight down because I like going fast." Oy vey.

Not sure how I am going to make up all 4 hours I now am behind in the next week, but I promise to to try.

DaGMT - Day 17 "Spinning Wheels"

2012-02-17T21:01:00.005-05:00

I really should take up spinning wool. I hear it's all the rage again, and it would only be one step away from taking up churning butter, which my middle child has suggested would make for a fun winter break activity. I suggested she instead get a job at Sturbridge Village some day and leave the butter churning to the machines God has given us for the love of Pete you 9 year old from 1834 trapped in 2012. She asked if there might be a need for a French chef at Sturbridge once she finishes college. She is an enigma, that one.

Anyway, although I got several things accomplished today, there was some of that dreaded "project so close to done you can taste it...and YET...." wheel spinning. Although Judy was as fab as always and brought me some of the fabric she had after my post yesterday, it was cream on cream rather than white on white, so I couldn't use it. We were both sad and forlorn about the whole thing. Unfortunately it was only noon and I was about to head off to meet with two teachers for conferences, or I'd have gotten out the blender to drown our sorrows.

Then I was off to visit machine quilter #1 with my baby sized "Kickin' Stash" sample, followed by a trip to the fabric store for backing and hopefully another white on white. I did find another white on white which I did not love but by this time I cannot be bothered to care anymore and finished the top, and got the backing put together for my trip to machine quilter #2 tomorrow.

It's lovely to have minions.

Side note - Someday I will invent a machine that creates both backings and bindings magically. I will swim in molten gold forever, and you can all join me because you will have all sorts of time freed up from having to do these mundane quilting tasks. Or you can churn some butter with your free time. Your preference.

I also put the binding on Paige's new bed quilt, which matches the cover girl one Eva will have, except it is in pinks rather than teals. As we can see Eva may be lording her famous quilt over Paige, but Paige is rather enjoying actually being able to touch her quilt at the moment.

Tomorrow I am off to spend the weekend at a local hotel with all of my inlaws for the weekend, and I do not know how I will do as far as project accomplishment from now through Monday evening. But since I started this, I feel I must at least attempt to set a good example. I may need to use creative definitions of sewing, so stay tuned.

But before I go, see that new button right under the DaGMT one on the left side? That will lead you to my friend/twin separated at birth Kelli Fannin's blog - "Seriously....I think that needs stitches" (www.thatlookslikeitneedsstitches.blogspot.com). She's a quilter and nurse and we met when she entered a giveaway of mine last year and I chose her to win because she is me, minus three girls, plus one boy, plus a nursing degree, minus a few years from the look of her photo....but other than that we are the same person. Her blog is way fun, and she's actually doing a giveaway right now of some layer cakes by Moda. Really cute ones too. So check it out and enter!

DaGMT Day 16 - For the love of seven inches

2012-02-16T19:21:00.005-05:00

Seven flipping inches.

That's how much more of a certain fabric I need. Anyone got any? So I can get one flipping border more on by tomorrow pm?

It's a P and B Textiles from 2004. I know, dream on.

I fancy myself a planner. But this is my reality.

DaGMT - Day 15 "Holy ^&&@!$ *(^#!"

2012-02-15T12:41:00.006-05:00

You know that moment in the day when you realize you will be accomplishing nothing for the remainder? Today that moment for me coincided with the moment I released my inner truck driver when at 10:30ish am, I discovered that a quilt I designed is on the cover of the newest issue (April/May 2012) of Quilter's World magazine.

I almost died of shock, then I shook so hard I couldn't breathe, then the expletives were flying as I danced around the house screaming. Someday, like maybe next week, I will look back on this behavior and think "What a loser I am", but for today I'm happily a huge geek.

For a brief moment, it was a little sad that I so covet the quiet house in the morning that there was no one home to share my joy, but thankfully my husband answered his phone and did a remote happy dance with me. My apologies to his coworkers; I know it isn't pretty. Also, the children would have been horrified by my language, not to mention my dancing skills, so it's probably best that they were not exposed to the whole scene.

This quilt, "Quite Contrary", was born last April at my guild's annual spring retreat at Lake Shore Farm in NH. I quite literally put this thing together from scratch from 9:30pm to midnight on Saturday evening while suffering from moderate to severe corneal damage after burning my eyeball with ClearCare solution. I designed it thinking it would be a freebie on my blog, but Maria Peagler posted these words that changed my mind "Free is not a business plan." So I said, "What the heck? I'll shop the thing around and see what happens."

Holy happenings! Never in a million years would I have thought this thing would end up on the cover of a national publication!

Will I be pouring ClearCare into my eyeballs to inspire future quilt greatness? No. But I'll admit it's slightly tempting.

Mini Oscar speech: Thank you to Melissa Heys, of The Completed Quilt (www.thecompletedquilt.com) who is truly a fabulous and amazing machine quilter who always manages to fit me in and make my simple designs breathtaking. Thank you to Renae Mathe for whipping up a sample to make sure my directions made sense. Thank you to Carolyn Vagts and the entire staff of Quilter's World for being so easy to work with and making my entire month.

But mostly, thank you to my daughter, Eva Catherine Helfter, who only threw seven fits rather than 20 when I had to ship this quilt off to QW for almost a year rather than immediately putting it onto her bed where it was meant to reside. Every now and then over the last 10 months she has said to me "WHEN am I getting my quilt back? I NEED my quilt! My other one is so BABYISH!" Well Kitty, now your quilt is famous, you can lord this fact over your sisters until the end of time, and I think you can get over it.

Oh, and I also got "Kickin' Stash" (loving this name, and I think it's going to be THE ONE) cover quilt put together and four out of 12 border strips on.

I'm so glad this good hair day wasn't wasted on an overall crappy day.

Bring it, dual February breaks coming up. I feel like I can take you on now.

DaGMT Day 14 - "For the Love of Pete"

2012-02-14T11:14:00.003-05:00

No clue who Pete is, we just say that a lot around here. And it's the day of love, so we had to put love somewhere in the title.

I had way too much fun laying out the "cool" blocks for the SNY group quilt. Had to leave one space open for one more block which I have been assured by Jenny Day is arriving TODAY, but I just couldn't wait any longer to start putting at least one of these group babies together.

I love it so much it is almost unnatural.

Since it isn't totally together yet, let me direct you to my FB photo album of some of the blocks that will be included in one of the quilts I am whipping up. If you haven't seen them already some of them are just to die for. Plus I've added more for the occasion.

https://www.facebook.com/EvaPaigeQuiltDesigns

Hopefully tomorrow I can show you the whole thing put together, but right now I need to write some scavenger hunt clues for my children for this evening's Helfter Family Valentine Goodies Scavenger Hunt Extravaganza and Chocolate Fest.

Mom of the Year.

DaGMT Day 13 - "Ah, the difference three days can make"

2012-02-13T14:27:00.003-05:00

Three days ago, this quilt was a pile of scraps, hanging out in a bin, unpressed, unsorted, unloved.

Today it is a baby sized quilt top. Turns out my fun new block really is way too much fun to make.

Yay me!

DaGMT Day 12 - Typical Sunday

2012-02-12T21:23:00.006-05:00

Lots of cutting, a little piecing, not nearly as much as I wanted to accomplish, but whatever. I may not be as prolific as some of you who will remain nameless today, but I am accomplishing a heck of a lot more than those of you who aren't participating, aren't I? Oh yes I am.

At the very least all the blocks for my baby quilt are now done, and the scraps for the border are cut, and I WILL have a photo of a top tomorrow if it kills me. But we all know that would be a horrid tragedy and a very abrupt end to DaGMT, so let's hope for a non-violent finish to the project tomorrow.

I would like to give a shout out to the American Girl company and their fabulous book "Doll Play", without which I would have accomplished absolutely zero today and with which I was piecing to the sounds of my children creating "Camp Nature Lovewell", where their dolls could partake in such activities as yoga shows, smore making, fashion shows, and making macaroni postcards to send home to their parents. What I remember of Camp Beechwood was a lot of Off bug spray after 4pm and hideous plastic swim caps in rainbow colors to designate your swim level and being way irritated when I was demoted from Yellow (Intermediate) to Red (Advanced Beginner) the summer between my 3rd and 4th grade school years, not that I am still bitter. Where was the yoga show where I could have shown off my flexibility and planking, all at a decidedly intermediate level? But seriously, how cute is this postcard?

Here's to surviving the weekend intact.

DaGMT Day 11 - "Really? No one commented on how awesome yesterday's title was?"

2012-02-11T15:56:00.003-05:00

Or maybe none of your husbands tend to refer to themselves as being in the process of "kicking a$$ and taking names" as frequently as mine. I was so impressed with myself I'm thisclose to naming the pattern "Kicking Scraps", but perhaps I am my only fan.

I'm thrilled to report that moving the sewing machine to the Auxiliary Studio was a huge success as far as allowing me to actually get things accomplished today as compared to last weekend. It was not a huge success as far as keeping the main floor of the house looking neat and tidy, but let's not kid ourselves. It rarely is anyway.

No photos today of my progress. I'd like to hope I can have much of a top completed by tomorrow which will be much more exciting to post a photo of. But there has been much chain piecing and block creation for this baby sized scrappy quilt, and I even got some help from my firstborn, who has discovered that cutting apart my chain pieced segments before I press them is for some reason highly exciting. I'll take help any way I can get it, so whatever.

I also spent part of today with the girls at Orchard House in Concord MA, home of The Alcott family, for two reasons: 1. Eva eats history like it is part of the food pyramid, and she was claiming starvation, and 2. We agreed to show Ike Laroue a good time.

Tonight it's out to dinner with friends and hopefully some more scrap kickin' tomorrow. Work with me, hotties. Make me believe it's a good name.

DaGMT Day 10 - Kicking scraps and taking names

2012-02-10T16:06:00.008-05:00

Today was one of those rare days where there was ample time for me to sew instead of chasing my children around to their activities like a lunatic, and I put in almost four hours! Holy pretending to be Michelle, Judy, or Sue! Unfortunately unlike them I do not have an entire quilt top or seven to show for my four hours, but I'm terribly thankful to various other children for agreeing to playdates with mine today in order to allow this unprecidented amount of sheer quilting bliss to occur, and that in itself is accomplishment enough for me.

So there.

Anyhoo, I started today by heading out to buy some yellow dot fabric, and once I returned home I spent the remainder of my morning decimating my purple scrap pile. At first it was daunting to see how many purple scraps I had. Then it was daunting to realize that there are so many different shades of purple and not all were going to look good together and OMG I had to MAKE AN UNEXPECTED DECISION and I hadn't even had a second cup of tea yet.

I chose to go with bluish lavendery purples. Wouldn't you? They are so pretty after all, and yesterday when I was playing with all the blocks for the SNY group quilt those few that I had in those colors were always among my favorites. So there again. Decision made.

So what were my plans with the yellow dot and the bluish purpley stuff? I was jealous of how much fun everyone else had making the blocks for my SNY project, but I only got to make one. Plus I need a baby size sample AND I need a sample that has the blocks all totally and completely scrappy, so I combined all these issues into this new project. Because after all, DaGMT was all about finishing up UFO projects rather than starting a new one every day. But I made the rules and you can now all watch me break them at will.

This afternoon I did lots of chain piecing and realized that while the total scrappy/completely unplanned blocks are going to be so much quicker to make than the more planned variety which will also be an option in the pattern, wow it might have helped if I had planned a LITTLE by counting how many of each patch I was cutting. Because out of all 7 patches in each block, of which I would need 36 of each, I think I cut 17 of one, 22 of another, 9 of another, and so on. So in the end I was only able to make two actual finished blocks, with a bunch of pieces and segments left over.

I do have to say they are pretty cute blocks, though.

These photos should give you further proof that I did do a lot more today than it looks like I did.

The machine has been moved to the Auxiliary Studio, aka The Dining Room Table, for the weekend. We'll see if that allows me to snatch a few moments here and there to whip up the other seven blocks before Sunday pm.

DaGMT Day 9 - "Playing With Blocks"

2012-02-09T12:07:00.006-05:00

WOOOOOOO HOOOOO! Today I have most of my Scrappy New Year blocks in house and I could finally start really playing and choosing my faves for the TWO quilts I will be whipping up using all of these babies. While I am still waiting on a few more participants, I just really couldn't wait any longer to show you the ones that have made the cut so far.

This first group, in no particular order and looking just so out of place against my rug, is the "cool" group I have chosen for my full/double sized layout and will likely be on the cover of the pattern. I need just 4 more blocks to get the 22 that I need for the layout, and I feel certain they will be here within days. Maybe even moments, as the mail could be here any minute. How much do we love these? They are like lollipops, springtime, flowers, and happiness all in one.

This next group, which looks slightly better against my rug, represents those blocks that were my faves in the warm pallete. While I normally work in brights and contemporary fabrics, these group projects serve to challenge me to work outside of my comfort zone and these blocks are speaking to me to whip them into a lap size setting which will use 18 blocks. So I am hopeful 8 more are in my future, because I probably don't have enough scraps to make 8 more in these colorways. These just scream fall, hayrides, hot cocoa, pumpkin picking, and best of all Back to School to me.

If you participated, sent me the blocks, and don't think you see one of yours in one of these groups, please let me know. I will search my envelopes and make sure I didn't miss you!

You have all made my lives so much easier by helping to create these newest quilts. Are you feeling like you work for the EPQD sweat shop? I hope the fun you've had will offset that somewhat and you won't report me to the authorities. I love all the notes I am getting in with the blocks and am so amazed that not one negative comment has come my way regarding the making of them. Wow. Maybe I'm good at this design stuff after all.

I am SO excited and you must allow me to get back to my machine to start adding my other mysterious touches that will make these into my new pattern!

DaGMT Day 8 - "Ruination of my rotary blades via paper piecing"

2012-02-08T11:58:00.005-05:00

I'm not a paper piecer by nature, as mentioned in yesterday's post, but having taken a class from the Diva herself, Carol Doak, about a decade (!) ago, I feel like I at least have the tools to do it somewhat properly, and now and then I whip something up.

My row for the Summer Picnic project is done. It's supposed to be limes and lemonds in various stages of slicing/wedging for squeezing into your fun summer drinks. But in looking at it, they could also be done in multicolors to represent beach balls. Whatever strikes your fancy. I'm just glad that part is done and I can move on to the writing of the directions and soon after that be allowed to stop thinking about summer for a while.

Show of hands if you own the Add-A-Quarter ruler, please. I do not, I just use my 6" x 1" ruler which has 1/4" markings on it and have never had a problem. I was told by the Diva that this was not a good alternative way back when, but 10 years later I'm still using it. I still can't figure out how the other ruler thing would improve my life drastically from my current ruler, and I truly am interested in knowing if you own it, use it, and recommend it, and why.

I only mention it because every time I paper piece I remember the Diva telling me it wasn't going to work as well, so I was thinking it a lot these past days. Kind of like every time I play Solitaire on the computer I hear Laura Brannigan singing "Solitaire" over and over in my head. Hence one big reason I never play solitaire.

I am absolutely loving seeing all your projects on your blogs, hearing about how this DaGMT challenge is changing your lives for the better, seeing the flickr group get more and more photos every day, etc. Thank you! You are making this a very gratifying first attempt at a quiltalong for me!

If you haven't joined yet, you have until 11:59pm on 2/29 to do so. But really, you'd be totally stressed out trying to get 20 minutes in in one minute at that point, so join now instead. We'd love to have you!

DaGMT Day 7 - "One week in and my sewing studio is a mess"

2012-02-07T15:23:00.004-05:00

It had to happen. I couldn't keep it neat forever. Certain people in my home would argue that I didn't even keep it neat for 5 hours, but I beg to differ and insist that there are many different definitions of "neat". My personal favorite is "without ice", as pertaining to happy hour.

Today's project involved leaving tiny bits of scraps and paper all over the sewing area. Yes, I paper pieced, something I rarely do, but now and then I find it kind of fun. Until I remember that I kind of suck at it.

I'm this week's designer in the "Summer Picnic" row quilt project over at www.patchworkposse.com, and so far the other two designers have both stuck with the watermelon theme. Not being a huge fan of summer, I really couldn't decide what to design my row with that would reflect any sort of longing for a season wherein I usually want to commit hari kari twice a day. A straightjacket just didn't seem terribly appropriate.

I decided on limes and lemons, because gin and tonics on the deck with Mr. Quilting Hottie and often some friends while the children run barefoot through the grass and for 10 second intervals at a time don't threaten to kill each other is one of the better parts of summer for me. I adapted a kaleidoscope pattern from EQ into paper piecing and today I put together two whole and two halves of fruit garnishes. I wish I could say I accomplished more, but see "I remember I kind of suck at it (paper piecing)" above as a reminder of why I didn't get more done.

Plus I was multitasking while putting them together, on the phone with a GS leader to bemoan certain aspects of our cookie sale. They aren't bad for multitasked fruit.

>But either way, I do have to get the whole row done tomorrow or I'm in deep doo doo as far as not being on track to get the instructions to Patchwork Posse on time. Everyone cross your fingers that tonight is NOT the night the stomach bug decides to strike our home.

DaGMT Day 6 - "The hum of a machine in the silence of my mind"

2012-02-06T11:13:00.004-05:00

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's my Monday morning sigh of relief. After a weekend chock full of activity, ear infections, and having to stop every few minutes to discuss Mr. Quilting Hottie's latest ideas on how we should redo the deck, this morning I was back to being productive.

Note we are not going to discuss how the Patriots forced me to abandon my machine last night and all for naught.

I had some fun playing with my leftover scraps from Greta's new quilt, which I put the borders on last week during day one. I just love these fabrics so much, and sometimes when I finish a project and have the leftovers hanging around I just have to keep playing with them.

I'm not sure what these will have as a center, but these three strips are going to be borders for a 24" square table topper. At least at the moment that's my plan. Stay tuned for more!

Tonight is trash TV night - Will Ben get his head out of his butt? - and is also the night I cut or press to the dulcet sounds of women shrieking, so I hope to make up that extra 40 minutes I missed yesterday and then some this evening.

If you haven't checked out our group flickr yet - please do! http://www.flickr.com/groups/1861891@N25/ Better yet, if you are taking part in the challenge, post some photos of your progress! It is so fun and inspiring to see what you are all doing too!

So what did YOU work on today?

DaGMT Day 5 - "One foot off the wagon, the other buried under GS cookies"

2012-02-05T21:26:00.003-05:00

I know you've been waiting all day with bated breath for my update, certain that I have to have improved my attitude over yesterday. Yes, the attitude is improved. How could it not be when I spent most of my day contributing to the degradation of today's youth by loitering in front of the local liquor store with a bunch of 9 year old girls? (Sorry FB friends. It was an epic update and had to be repeated.) Can you say "Cookie Mom" and "promoting beer with a thin mint chaser"? Anyway, that was a good 5 hours of my day in total. Then it was prepping to sit my butt on the couch and watch the Patriots, who currently are attempting to give me a heart attack.

So it's 9:30 and I feel I must report my first less than stellar day. Only 50 minutes were accomplished, all of them wherein I was bored silly by a binding flip and getting a backing prepared for another quilt to be machine quilted. But still, I feel that given the fact that weekends are hard for me and I still managed 140 minutes total in the two toughest days of my week, there is no need to call myself out. I'll make up those extra 40 minutes in the next few days, and with stunning results.

After all, Monday is the stay at home mom's Friday, you know.

DaGMT - Day 4 "Saturdays are the spawn of the devil"

2012-02-04T20:31:00.004-05:00

My major accomplishments of the day were not selling the children or seeking an annulment from Mr. Quilting Hottie.

Beyond that I did flip over a binding, made another binding for a full size quilt that isn't quilted yet so I think I should get extra credit for that, and started a new design from some scraps. It wasn't pretty, but I got my 90 minutes in.

Rejoice with me, one and all. Thirty hours to Monday.

DaGMT Day 3 - "You'd Think I Was a Shoe Girl"

2012-02-03T10:53:00.006-05:00

In reality, I probably own about 6 pairs of shoes per season. It's barely enough to qualify me as a woman. What can I say - I'd rather spend my money on fabric and apparently, this month, hot water heaters and new tires. Woo hoo!

But I do love the shoe shape for a base for practicing some fun embellishment, as is evidenced by the shoe appliques I used both in my Once Upon a Time book and my Shoeby Dooby Doo pattern. Not only are they fun to jazz up with your own shoe personality, but the shape of them is pretty simple for even new machine appliquers.

A couple of years ago before I went to Spring Market to help promote "Once Upon A Time", I asked if some quilters could help me out by making some appliqued and embellished 12" shoe blocks that I could use in my Schoolhouse presentation to demonstrate that really, the sky is the limit when it comes to what you can do with a few beads and baubles. A la Prince Charming, I returned most of the shoes to their rightful owners, but a few told me I could keep them. Today I UFO-busted and turned them into a quickie quilt.

I decided to have some fun with the quilting, and decided I was going to freehand quilt in some names of kinds of shoes as part of the quilting. Judge me if you will, but I had a hard time coming up with enough different types of shoes to do four types per block, and had to google "types of shoes". What did we ever do without google? And is it appropriate to not capitalize it? Do I care? Not today.

Witness the cute word "espadrille" quilted in. I will have you know that is one type of shoe I thought of on my own.

Sorry this one is sideways, but I am sure if you look hard enough you can see more types of shoes in there.

I also finally got to play a little with some of the Scrappy New Year blocks that have come in so far. I created an album on my EPQD facebook page and would love for you to take a look at it: www.facebook.com/EvaPaigeQuiltDesigns. I am not sure why that isn't linking like it should, but you can also get there by clicking the snowman button in the left column.

I did say under no uncertain terms that I really didn't care if participants made all four of their blocks exactly the same or used different fabrics/colors for each, but now I am so thankful to those who did all four the same because it makes my choice so much easier. I cannot believe how stunning they all are and choosing just one from some of these ladies is going to kill me.

Enjoy! Remember to keep sewing over the weekend!

DaGMT Day 2: "Circular Wonderment"

2012-02-02T11:57:00.008-05:00

Today was a day of prepping for machine quilting, realizing I need some more backing fabric in order to actually quilt tomorrow, kicking myself in the head for not taking care of this BEFORE DaGMT started, and rallying by getting some handwork done.

"HANDWORK??????" those of you who know me are saying. "The Queen of Jewel-it doing HANDWORK?" Why yes. Yes I did do some. Get over yourselves and admire it.

All these little circles are part of a quilt I helped several other designers create last year, and I had put off the quickie embroidery accents until now. It was a lot of fun to choose the contrasting colors of floss for each set of circles and I love that the design is totally imperfect and therefore my stitches could be too.

All those stitches represent about one hour and a lot of thread changes and needle threading. Circles done: Yes. Figuring out who that very metrosexual man hosting with Kelly today on Live was while I did it: Nope. Anyone know? Whoever he was, he was wearing more eyeliner than all of us put together, I am sure.

The next thing I did also fell in the "Fun with Circles" realm and was truly just way too much fun. I used a bunch of the scraps from this project to make buttons with all these random button covers I had lying around.

Aren't they awesome? I had so much fun making them that I practically ripped my studio apart trying to see if I could find any more of the button kits. I am pretty sure I inherited a bunch from my mom, but I couldn't find them this morning. Bummer. But I may have a new favorite way of using up scraps.

SO...what did YOU do today?

DaGMT - Day 1, "Ready....Set.....SEW!"

2012-02-01T10:58:00.008-05:00

"I, Beth Helfter, Original Quilting Hottie, pledge to chain myself to the sewing machine for at least 90 minutes a day for the month of February. This is despite the fact that they (ie my daughters, ages 9, 9, and 5) will have two Feb break weeks (because they go to school in two separate states and it would in fact kill someone to suggest that Feb break weeks should be either outlawed or at the very least streamlined), and I may quite possibly be insane."

January 24, 2012 11:05 AM
That was my official (and slightly revised) commitment to the DaGMT challenge last week. And here we are - finally ready to sew our faces off every day for a month! I was so excited last night I could barely sleep. Not really, but I'm trying to create some buzz here. Work with me.

A few orders of business before I reveal my progress in my 90 minutes today:

1. Yes, Michelle Banton and others, you CAN sign up to participate today, tomorrow, or any day until February 29. Of course the earlier you sign up in the month, the more you will accomplish, the better you will feel about yourself, and the brighter the sun will shine, but absolutely, join any time! Just comment on any post having to do with this challenge and state your goals, and you are in.

2. I have created a group flickr for us. I know. Me. I created a group flickr. AND it seems to work. I think the sun is shining brighter already. To find it and add your photos, go to www.flickr.com/groups/1861891@N25/ and upload! It's really pretty easy and I can't wait to see all your accomplishments. I'm also going to make the blog button for the challenge over on the left side of the screen link directly to the group flickr. Watch me roll, hotties!

So, what did I do in my 90 minutes this morning. Well, after my obligatory writhe on the floor in ecstasy after all my family members have left the building and therefore ceased to be able to pepper me with questions, I decided to finish a project I started last week, a new quilt for Greta's bed which only needed borders. As I do not know exactly when or how I will use this design for EPQD, I'm only showing a small portion, but you should be able to get the idea that I added 4 triple borders to a full size quilt, so therefore 12 borders in all, none of which was cut or pieced prior to this morning. Aren't I impressive?

Since all that only took me 83 minutes, and I felt that as the moderator of this challenge I need to set a good example, I spent the remaining 7 minutes fixing the one block out of 64 that I screwed up on my friend Barbara Townsend's log cabin swap block. I had to move one lovely chartruesey-orange** log from the light side to where it belonged on the dark side. And voila! 90 minutes was up. I post a photo here of the last quilt that resulted for me when my guild did this swap as I can't show Barbara's turquoisy-puce** block, because the reveal is not until June.

(**some color names may have been changed to protect the innocent)

So what did YOU work on today?

QH and her amazing technicolor vacuum

2012-01-30T13:11:00.004-05:00

So I was doing a little housecleaning on Saturday (try not to die of shock) when I noticed the vacuum was not sucking. Normally not sucking is a positive thing in life, but I think we can all agree that vacuums are the one exception. I announced to my husband that I was going to take apart the vacuum and see where it was clogged. Mr. Quilting Hottie, being equally techno and electronically challenged as myself, didn't even attempt to wrestle the screwdriver out of my hand, but instead started looking at new vacuums on Amazon while I went off to tame the beast.

I never did find a clog. But I did find this, and it was a reminder to me how colorful the lives of quilters are, right down to their cleaning implements.

Yes, it does show that I do not take care of my vacuum as I should, and therefore it likely will never recover. But in a weird way it was a little bit pretty. And how many other hobbies can live on in your vacuum brush like sewing and quilting?

On another note, have you officially committed to partaking in "Drop and Give Me Twenty" yet? Or are you just going to be content to sit back and watch as the rest of us try to out-UFO each other? The fun starts Wednesday, February 1 and goes through the 29th. Sign up by commenting on this post: http://www.evapaigequiltdesigns.blogspot.com/2012/01/drop-and-give-me-twenty-minutes-that-is.html. You know can only feel better about yourself and your UFO pile if you do it!

Drop and Give Me Twenty! Minutes, that is....

2012-01-24T10:05:00.005-05:00

Announcing my first ever Quilt-A-Long on Quilting Hottie Haven - "Drop and Give Me Twenty!" No, I have not secured the services of Jillian Michaels to come in your homes to force you to do push ups, because I like you and that would just be mean.

"Drop and Give me Twenty!" was created by me last night while I was wearing my penguin jammies and contemplating how I might possibly get about 5 pending projects (what I like to call UFOs because it makes them sound like maybe there is a prayer of them being finished at some point) done over the course of the next month or so. In going through my pending project stash, it occured to me that I may not be the only one with upwards of 10 pending projects that need some attention, and I decided to put out a challenge to myself and invite you all to participate. That's the power of the penguin jammies.

I've long preached that if you devote just twenty minutes a day to your quilting, you will be amazed at how quickly your projects come together, but must admit that sometimes even I fall off the twenty minute wagon. But think about it. Twenty minutes a day equals two hours and twenty minutes a week. Two hours and twenty minutes a week equals close to 140 hours in a year. If you spend about 12 hours per quilt (probably my average), that's over 10 in a year! Just from twenty minutes a day! OMG! I can't stop using exclamation points over the brilliance of my deductions! And my math skills!

At the moment though, in order to get the necessary quilts finished for my new trunk show, I need to devote well over twenty minutes a day to my machine over the next month, but I realize I can't ask you to do the same just because I've been a slacker. That's why I'm sticking with 20 minutes for the QAL. To me this seems to come at a perfect time, though - it's February, which is a dull month for the most part and I am certain you all have nothing better to do than join me in this venture, and it's also a short month, so we will be cheating right off the bat. Awesome.

So here are the rules:

1. Fill in the blank "I, (insert name here), pledge to quilt for (number of hours, minutes, seconds, specific time of day like 'while the baby naps/kids play Just Dance 2 on Wii/I am supposed to be making dinner', etc) for the entire month of February because Beth told me I had to/I have nothing better to do/I don't want to leave my children with 457 pending projects/etc."

2. Grab a button if you like from the top of the sidebar, and place it on your blog, FB page, or wherever, to show the world that you have committed to this challenge you are creating for yourself. Note: Because I have no computer skilz, the blog button will not link unless you create a link for it. www.evapaigequiltdesigns.blogspot.com should suffice, but is not necessary. Again, I don't need you to suffer due to my mad lack of skills.

3. Tell us about your progress! Post photos on your FB page, post them on my EPQD one, blog about it, post comments here whatever! I not only plan to quilt every day of February, but also plan to blog about my progress every day of February. And yes, I also plan to have my head examined at some point in February.

I'm excited and I hope you'll join me. Together we can be models of quilting hottie productiveness for all slacker quilters everywhere.

When the fabrics won't just shut up already

2012-01-19T12:52:00.006-05:00

Last week I received in the mail a package that made me extremely happy on so many levels. It was soft, it was snuggly (What? You don't snuggle your mail?), it arrived just as I was ready for a new project, and when I opened it up, it was so much more beautiful than I ever anticipated.

It's the "Dreaming in French" collection by Art Gallery Fabrics, and anyone who knows me is looking at these and saying "Yes, the only more perfect name for this line of fabric would be 'Quilting Hottie Goes to Paris'." It is just that perfectly me. I'm a bright girl. I'm a purple girl, with a little lime and pink thrown in. I love big prints, wild patterns, and crazy color combinations that just work. I can't stand ditsy dots or bitsy bows or anything in the reproduction vein, and I break out in hives from plaids or checks. So these pretty much screamed at me "YOU MUST CUT US AND YOU MUST DO IT RIGHT NOW!"

So cut them I did on Saturday, and in between stopping every few minutes to let one of my fellow open-sew-ers touch them because they were so soft (see? cuddly.) and pass around the Art Gallery catalog, I started throwing them together in a pretty simple design that would maximize the fabric gorgeousness. Or so I thought.

Last night I gave it up and gave in to my tendency to need to make things more interesting by slashing here and there, and I am loving the result. I'll give you an extreme close up of my still fairly simple, but much more interesting design as of this morning.

Okay, so the photo doesn't look all that interesting, but trust me, if you could see the whole thing it would be much more exciting. I know I am close to pant-wetting state myself, but I can see the whole thing. You will have to wait for a bigger reveal. I'm such a tease.

If Nascar had a quilting race, I know who would win

2012-01-17T14:41:00.006-05:00

I also know I wouldn't watch it because I don't enjoy Nascar, but whatever.

Did any of you have visions of being the first to get your Scrappy New Year blocks back to me? Give up the dream. As predicted, Angie Callbeck of trash barrel diving fame from the previous post has won. As usual, and much to the chagrin of Judy "Speed Demon" Damon, who will have to settle for some other number this time. We love Angie, but really, it's like you almost have to get up last month to beat her at anything quilting related.

I went to my guild's open sew on Saturday, whereupon Angie handed me her four blocks, which she had made the night before. Many of you may be saying "What??? I didn't even get my directions until Saturday afternoon! Cheater!" but let me assure you that no, she isn't alone in cheating. I gave her the directions early at her request, thereby becoming the enabler that I love to be so that I may then turn around and give her crap for being the first one done. I'm a fantastic friend.

But aren't they cute? Minus the fact that they look like I threw them in the bottom of my bag and forgot to take them out until today (no comment)? Nothing a little iron won't fix and I am so excited to have more come my way soon! There is nothing like the thrill of getting the mail when I am running a group project, and it has nothing to do with the hotness or lack thereof of my current mailman.

I was so excited to be overwhelmed by responses from quilters who wanted to participate. I should have enough blocks for two quilts! It isn't too late for you to throw your scraps in the ring too - just let me know and I can get the pdf to you asap.

Scrappy New Year! New Group Quilt needs you!

2012-01-12T20:16:00.001-05:00

It's that time of year again. The time when I look at my overflowing boxes of scraps and think "Really, I need to get a handle on this situation, and while I'm at it I probably should make a new scrap quilt" and then seven minutes later I see something shiny on the other side of the room and thoughts of a new scrap quilt have vanished for another year. Granted, I know you are looking at that photo and saying "She calls THAT a scrap problem??? I can't even shut the door of my studio closet because I have 16 trash bags full of them/My husband has threatened to start using my scraps as oil rags because they have taken over the half bath/The Red Cross called me last week because they heard I could supply them with bandage rolls until 2037/What-evah, girl!", but yeah, I call it a scrap problem. Don't judge my scraps, I won't judge yours. I admit I don't tend to save pieces that other people consider scraps, say anything under 8" square, and have been known to stand idly by watch my friend Angie Callbeck trash barrel dive for my discards at quilt retreats and then pretend to be properly remorseful while she and others to chide me about throwing away perfectly good 4" pieces of fabric, promising never to do it again while crossing my fingers behind my back. Maybe this will be the year I finally do the kind thing and just hand them over to her rather than make her go into the trash for them. But I digress. Yes, I do find these scraps to be a problem, few as they may seem.

But hotties, let us mark 2012 on the calendar as The Year I Finally Did Something About My Scraps. And you get to help me.

I've played around with EQ and drawn a block that I really sort of like for numerous reasons, but the main ones are thus:

It is pretty simple
It doesn't have matching points
It looks cool in a lot of different settings
and most importantly, I have a prayer of getting rid of at least a few scraps

So in the interest of combining my scrap reduction with a new group quilt, let this serve as the official announcement - Scrappy New Year Group Project is ON!

Some of you may have participated in my group projects before, so you know I'm pretty easy going when it comes to running them. In 2008 I did a version of Syncopated Ribbons with 16 people participating, including an 8 year old boy and 10 year old girl, and it went on to become my cover photo for that particular pattern and is a stunner wherever it goes.

Last winter I ran my infamous Diamond Dazzle group project, wherein I almost lost my mind trying to reason with computerized design, but the actual group project part was great fun. Over 20 quilters participated in that group quilt, and while I got to use the prototype as my cover quilt for the pattern again, everyone who participated received enough blocks in return to make a table runner or baby quilt.

SNY will be the third group project of this type I have run, and I'm happy to say I've already got several people signed on who are threepeats themselves, so it must be at least a little bit fun, right? Are you chomping at the bit to get started yet? Let's get back to that block I showed earlier and tell you what we're going to do with it.

Here's the actual, real, fabric block I made.

It took me about 40 minutes start to finish, including time to locate proper fabrics, becoming distracted by many other pretty ones, cutting the pieces, winding a bobbin, breaking a thread, and an iron that I forgot to plug in. So in a perfect world, it would take 22 minutes or so.

Note that like the drawn block above, it has a white background and four fabrics from the same color family, in my case lime green. That's what we're going for this time. White background, four fabrics from the same color family. It's that simple. I am not going to tell you what color family to choose - that is up to you, and how you choose it can be as simple and scientific as seeing which of your bins is most overflowing (my method of choice), or asking everyone you know what their favorite color is, charting all the answers on a bar graph, and then throwing the bar graph out and choosing your own favorite color. Any color family will do. Really, I cannot stress enough how little I care which color family you choose.

You will make four blocks using directions I will provide to you. All four blocks can be made of the same fabrics and/or be from the same color family, or you can make four completely different blocks. Again, my apathy on how you choose to proceed with that is stunning. One of these blocks I will keep to include in the group quilt I will put together, the other three will be shuffled about and you will receive three blocks back, all made by other quilters. Kind of like a mini BOM. You can either make a few more blocks and whip up a baby quilt with a group flair, or make them into pillows, or use them as handkerchiefs or dishrags - again, I cannot stress how little I care what you actually do with them when you get them back - they are YOUR blocks, so YOUR choice! Each participant will also receive a Quilting Hottie button to prove to the world that they are awesome, and, if they so choose, will be allowed to borrow both the finished group quilt and myself for a half price "Plays Well With Others" group quiltmaking lecture for their guild anytime in the next few years, but is under no obligation whatsoever to do so. Just an offer I'm putting out there because I know this quilt will be beautiful and will want to be seen.

I anticipate wanting all the blocks in the mail to me postmarked by 2/8/12. If this is a good time frame for you and you are at all intrigued, I hope to hear from you!

Potential participants, please contact me directly at evapaigequilts@charter.net and I will email you the pdf of directions. Like all my group projects, I know this one will be a blast.

Step Back, Lawrence Welk

2012-01-09T09:29:00.009-05:00

So Saturday morning I met my friend Michelle Banton, she of "biggish font over there on my Cloud thingy" fame, to do an exchange of a quilt she had quilted for me on her new long arm for a check and a hug. Despite the fact that she can now deposit money into her account, which is always a good thing, I still think I got the better end of the deal.

I can't show you much of this quilt at all as it is tentatively contracted to a publication, but I do want to show an extreme close up as so you can see what a fabulous job Michelle did on her very first computerized design.

Yes, you read that right. Her first computerized design. Many people would hear that and politely take their quilt elsewhere, but not me. I'm the type who will make a brand new gourmet recipe for the very first time when expecting 8 dinner guests, so handing over an important project to a newbie wasn't a huge deal to me. Call me a risk taker. Plus as a winner of the "My HQ Story" last fall, I knew Michelle had had lots of lessons and a rolladex full of contacts to help her along the way. Because Michelle quilts in 1986, after all.

I knew I wanted circles of some sort on the pattern, and that was something I would never be able to do on my own. Michelle admitted she couldn't do it on her own either, and that is why she suggested using the computerized design. The one we chose was called "Bubbles" and was completely perfect for the pattern design.

This is not to say there were not moments of panic along the way for both of us. Michelle's first attempt at downloading her "Bubbles" program resulted in a day of frustration for her until she called the company and was told that she must have gotten a corrupt file. Then she had to figure out how to tweak the design to fit my quilt size (remember, she's never done this before). I saw all this on her FB status and started to panic that she was going to give it back to me and tell me I was causing too much trouble and I had to do it myself. I had no idea how to quilt the thing on my own, so this was a serious fear as I saw the deadline approaching. But I said a little prayer rather than panicking, reasserted my full trust in Michelle, and although we were down to the wire, we did it, and it is gorgeous.

Many thanks to all the people who helped Michelle along the way as she did an amazing job on it! Again, I am sorry I can't reveal any more about it than this for now, but stay tuned and all will be revealed in time. I promise.

Visions of summer picnics ahead

2012-01-05T12:16:00.004-05:00

Regular readers will recall that summer is not my favorite season. The heat. The bugs. The constant packing up of towels, snacks, goggles, etc for an afternoon at the pool, to be closely followed by an evening of unpacking a variety of empty snack wrappings and wet towels. Packing for day or overnight trips almost every weekend, wherein I as the mom get to make sure all bills are paid; everyone's laundry is clean; supervise packing for three young girls who remember their DS games but forget their actual clothes (yes, this has happened); be sure we have all accoutrements for wherever we may be going which may or may not be limited to food for a week, bicycles, scooters, 765 floaties, air mattresses, air pump, sleeping bags or other bedding, enough towels for 10, projects and books for everyone, and Smore making supplies; load it all in the car along with the children after having set up the video system and have the husband stroll in 15 minutes before we leave, throw his bag in the back and say "Wow. We did a great job packing and we're only 10 minutes off schedule." Operative word: We. Operative level of annoyance: High.

But I am not bitter. He's lucky to be cute and he does do most of the cooking at the lake.

Anyway, even in midst the deepest cold we've seen thusfar this winter, I must turn my thoughts to summer, because I am participating in Becky from Patchwork Posse's latest Round Robin adventure, which this year has the theme of "Summer Picnic". So I must start thinking of ideas for my row which do not involve heaps of laundry, attack bees swarming my daughter, sweating off 10 pounds a day during heat waves, or the words "I'm bored." Hmmm......maybe gin and tonics. It's all I've got at the moment.

I participated in Becky's round robin last year, and the result is just about to be quilted. This means, of course, that it has been hanging on one of the ladders in my sewing studio buried under several other UFOs for almost a year. But yeah, it's time to quilt it. I'm thinking of adding another of the top and bottom borders (which also happened to be my contribution to the project) to the sides. What do we think?

The new project starts January 13 and goes to May. Lots of awesome designers will be participating, and dreams of summer will dance in your heads. Or give you nightmares, as the case may be. Check it out at www.patchworkposse.com/blog! Hope to have you participate!

Lessons of 2011

2012-01-04T09:21:00.005-05:00

My friend Michelle Banton, who was a guest blogger here a few months ago, recently posed this question to our quilt guild "What 5-10 things did you learn in 2011?" Unfortunately, the response to her question from guild members was rather pitiful, but I thought it was a fantastic exercise in "The Year's Important Lessons in Review", and I would like to restate my list here. Some editing has occured because none of you care to listen to me remind people to bring food to our meeting this evening. I can make anything work in a list.

1. Yes, I CAN quilt with variegated threads. They don't hate me like I thought they did for so long. Metallics, however, are the spawn of the devil.
Check it out! No breakage! And the stitching isn't bad either, if I do say.

2. Yes, I CAN match points. I just don't normally choose to.
Wow! Watch out! One could get a pretty deep cut on that point!

The block right next to it is more my style.

3. Having a tired, hungry, dress-rehearsaled out 8 year old in the backseat at 9:30pm is the best way to avoid a speeding ticket when caught going 45 in a 25.

4. Said 8 year old cannot remotely keep a juicy secret like "Mom just got pulled over" from Daddy.

5. EQ7 is fun, but still not totally my style and I still feel like I am cheating.

6. You can't lose through the attempt. It's how you react to the result, whatever that may be, that makes you grow.

7. My "Twenty Minutes a Day" rule is the most brilliant by far of any I have ever created. A close second is "In Our House, We Do Not Lick Our Sisters."

8. Nothing makes me cry more than Greta asking how far away heaven is because she wants to hug Angel Grandma just once. I know it sounds crazy, but this kid has always had a real relationship with my mom, who died 4 years before she was born. It's an indescribable thing, but one of the most peaceful things I know. It's brought my beliefs in God to a whole new level.

9. Car mechanics may mean well, but I truly believe they do not take women seriously, and therefore we must pull out our inner bitch when necessary. After 18 months, 7 visits to the shop, and 3 attempts to fix my car by replacing the exact same sensor three times, my car was finally fixed when someone heaved a great sigh in my general direction and said "Okay, I will bite. What do YOU (implied in the tone was that "lowly woman" should be inserted here) think it is?" Then they hated every second of having to admit I was right. I will never allow mechanics to brush me off again. And next time my Japanese flag will remain firmly planted on the front lawn until my husband gets the notion of another American-engineered car out of his head.

10. The word No is very powerful. Use it sparingly.

Cloudy with a chance of Jewel-it

2011-12-31T12:28:00.004-05:00

We're in the last few hours of 2011, I've officially rid the house of 8 year olds and replaced them with two 9 year olds, the new electronics are miraculously working, and I'm ready for a festive NYE celebration of fondue and falling asleep by 10:30pm. Just call me the party animal that I truly am.

I had a little fun this morning, and by that I mean "I found it fun, but you will likely find it almost as pitiful a way to spend time as passed out on the couch at 10:30pm" creating a cloud of my labels for my posts over the last 16 months of blog ownership. You can find it over to the right under my lecture info but ahead of the popular posts. You might even find your own name if you are lucky.

Creating the cloud taught me a few lessons:

1. I need to be better about labeling. I mean really, only THREE labels for Jewel-it?

2. I am Terri Sontra's biggest fan, apparently.

3. I crack myself up with labels like "hot mailcarriers" and "corneal damage".

So as much as I hate New Year's Resolutions, I am going to try to be good about labeling my posts in 2012.

I'm also going to attempt to keep my studio organized - it's not QUITE as fab as I first showed you 8 weeks ago, but it's still pretty good and I'm proud; keep ongoing projects to a manageable number so as not to become overwhelmed and give up on them before finishing (yep, that was a problem this year); take an EQ class at Quilt University so as not to have to ask inane questions; and use the color red in a quilt because apparently I hate red. So far this seems fairly manageable. But give me a month.

Anyone have any more exciting resolutions or advice?

Last minute crafters unite

2011-12-21T09:33:00.009-05:00

We're in the final countdown to Christmas week, or as we call it in the Helfter household "Cakefest (insert year)". With three birthday girls eight days apart and Christmas smack in the middle it's nothing if not a caloric extravaganza to strike horror in the hearts of personal trainers everywhere around here this time of year, so it's good that I am able to find little last minute projects to work on that allow me to unstrap the feed bag now and then. Impressive how I brought that back around, huh? There was a moment there where I didn't think I was going to be able to do it.

When I cleaned out and rearranged earlier this fall, I found several UFOs. I know. Can you even imagine not finishing every project you start? What would be the point? Horrors. Anyway, one thing I've done for years is to turn orphaned blocks into little quilts or even tree ornaments, and I've made a few this year. Wanna see?

Don't those trees look familiar? I only know how to grow one kind of tree, and it's the funky kind. These guys are all about 3" tall at the most and I just think they are so cute.

I'd make an amazingly consistent tree farmer, wouldn't I? Doesn't putting them on a red background make them all that much more stunning?

Imperfect snowflake, anyone? I should stick to tree farming and leave snowflake making to the water fairies. I do like the red/white contrast, though.

A close up of the beads in the middle confirms what we have all feared: I'm going to have to mention Jewel-it in a post again. Because I clearly was out of my head with fever or something when I made this one, I decided to (wait for it...you might want to be sitting down...) SEW these beads on. "Why?" you ask in horror. "Why would she ever do such a mad thing as thread a needle and sew on a bead when she is the president of the Jewel-It Fanatics Club?" Your questions are well justified and the answer is thus: I truly have absolutely no idea. I don't recall my thought process here and I would like to think that is because there was not an actual sane thought going on, as evidenced by the fact that I chose to use red thread with clear beads. Really? What kind of wacko am I?

One who needs to stick to gluing, that's what kind.

My final project for the season, which I'll have to show once they are done, is turning three wooden beds into retreats worthy of the American Girls. Eva wants "Julie's bed", the one with the hippy beads hanging down, and I'm pretty sure this is a job for Jewel-it. Paige and Greta want canopy beds for Emily and Marie-Grace, which means some sewing of curtains, and with any luck I'll be using thread to coordinate with the fabrics. But this being me, don't count on it.

If you've gotten this far, I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for reading this blog this year and supporting me in all the ways that you have during 2011. I have so much fun writing it, and hope to be able to keep connecting with all of you on a regular basis in 2012. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and if I don't see you before then, I'll see you in 2012!

Winner annoucements - Blog Hop Party and Giveaway Day

2011-12-19T09:53:00.003-05:00

Or in other words, the Blizzard Buddies pattern and What's for Dinner placemat have new owners. Woo hoo!

I won't make you wait today:

Blizzard Buddies pattern and iron-on braid (which is fabulous): Kess
What's For Dinner tablemat: (And how apropos is this?) The Hungry Crafter

Congrats, ladies! Check out your inboxes and get back to me with your addresses!

I do wish you all could win as you all seem like lovely people and many of you wrote heartfelt essays about your love of my designs and wish to own one. Thank you for your lovely words; they truly remind me why I am doing this! Several of you asked about kits, patterns, or sets of the tablemat. I do have an etsy site where the mats can be custom ordered - lots of different oilcloth patterns to choose from, and if you enter IDIDNTWIN3 I'll waive domestic shipping for you. I also sell the kits there. http://www.etsy.com/listing/86836573/kid-friendly-tablemats-tablesetting. As for my patterns, please do ask at your local shop for them as I always want to support LQSs. If they can't help you, I am always more than happy to provide what you might like via email, so don't be afraid to ask.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the two giveaway blog hops last week. I feel blessed to have seen a lot of new faces at my blog and hope you will come back often. Several fun things are already in the works for next year, and you don't want to miss out!

Stop me, I'm giving something else away

2011-12-15T13:46:00.005-05:00

www.sewmamasew.com/blog is having a giveaway week, and somehow I just can't resist.
Clearly I didn't listen to the sage advice of Maria Peagler during a webinar earlier this year - "Free is not a business plan." Or we could look at it this way - I've had a good year and I need some more tax writeoffs. Let's go with that.

I'm a little late to the party, but I honestly thought it was next week so yay me for finding it better late than Monday. And I'm giving away a lime green stripe version of my "What's For Dinner?" tablemat, a great tool for teaching messy kids to set the table, read what is for dinner because you've written it on the chalkboard part, and avoid utter ruination of your quilting fabrics for all eternity because it is totally wipeable rather than stainable. Kits and patterns for this design also available for those do-it-yourselfers, but hey, sometimes it's fun to win something premade.

A second chance to win can be had by becoming fan of EvaPaige Quilt Designs on Facebook, www.facebook.com/EvaPaigeQuiltDesigns.

Now go make the spaghetti.

Good luck, and enjoy the giveaways!

I am the 10%

2011-12-14T13:41:00.004-05:00

The thing I remember most, or shall we say the only thing I remember at all, about my training session before my first day of work at JCPenney as a junior in high school, was this tidbit from the lovely video we had to view: (Quotation likely not exact, but you get the picture) "If you give good customer service, 1 out of 10 people will tell their friends about you. If you give bad customer service, 10 out of 10 will tell their friends." Amazing the random thoughts that stick in my head and yet I can't remember to buy Tide when we have no clean socks left in the house.

It must have stuck with me in part because to me, it is not only a sad statistic, but fairly unbelievable. Because, hotties, I am a gusher. If I like you, or something you are wearing, or think your garden is pretty, or you opened a cafe and make incredible sandwiches (shameless plug for my friend's place, Blackbird Cafe in Groton MA), or you take one of my classes and I love your fabrics, I am all over you with compliments and telling you and everyone else exactly how much I love whatever it is I love about you. True, if you chomp your gum at me the whole time I am in your checkout line, or spell "Catherine, Caroline, and Douglas" as "Cathrin, Cardine, and Douglas" on my friend's baby shower cake, or sell me a computer that OOOPS! never had the control panel turned on before it left the store, yeah, I'm going to talk about you too. But I like to think at least I make up for being one of the 100% who will complain with being one of the 10% who gush.

It is in this spirit that I need to gush today. As some of you who have been readers for a while know, I was very skeptical about buying EQ about a year and a half ago. I tend to design things that are rather freeform blocks, and I didn't see how it would help me. I got a good price on it, though, so between that and the urging of Jen Eskridge at ReannaLily Designs who promised me it would change my life, I caved.

It has not changed my life to the same degree that Jewel-it has, but that would take a miracle.

Anyway, I really have had fun with it and actually designed two things on it that were groundbreaking for me for reasons which will become clear at a later date. Suffice it to say that yes, I do enjoy it and yes, I am really glad I bought it. Not a HUGE gush, but gush nonetheless. Stay tuned, the waters will burst momentarily.

Fast forward to all of my computer meltdowns this year, including an actual gush of hot tea frying out my laptop containing my EQ software. Crap. Got the thing fixed, reloaded software. Took laptop on trip, and after it went through security it never woke up. Double crap.

I finally had a new laptop delivered last week, and I attempted to load EQ7 (AGAIN!) onto my blank (AGAIN!) laptop. This is all getting very old. Imagine my horror when I find that I cannot use the software because the activations were both used for my copy. So I had used two activations on two computer crashes and had nothing to show for my software purchase. I was a little devastated.

But, going with the adage we all know is true that quilters are nice people, I wrote an email yesterday to tech support, outlining my dramas and dilemmas, and basically begging them to allow me a new activation. I expected to be told "I'm sorry, you are a complete computer dummy and should have known better than to drink a hot beverage near your laptop; it is not our problem if you are an idiot" and I really couldn't have blamed them.

Instead, I get this "We are so sorry you have had so many troubles, but we aren't going to add to them." Really? REALLY? You don't want to confirm my story with the repair guy (who actually has also been quite awesome)? You don't want to have me ship this one back, you just will reactivate my code and allow me to fix this problem in a matter of seconds? EQ people - YOU ROCK!

And I will tell everyone I know. Even if they aren't quilters and really don't care. Because I'm a gusher.

Party it up, Hotties!

2011-12-09T09:02:00.011-05:00

It's Quilting Gallery's 4th birthday (http://quiltinggallery.com/quilters-fun/quilters-blog-hop-party/), and we all get presents! Fantastic! By now you probably know what's going on, but if not, here's the scoop:

To celebrate, Michele Foster of Quilting Gallery is hosting a Blog Hop Party, with something like 300 quilting bloggers participating! And not only will you find some cool new blogs, but you'll have a chance to win something AT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Feeling lucky? Just comment on the individual blogs for a chance to win their giveaway.

For those coming to hang at the haven for the first time, welcome! I started this blog a little over a year ago as an outlet for my incessant need to overshare of myself with the quilt world, and I've had so much fun with it. I do try to keep it quilting related for the most part, but now and then it's also been cheaper than therapy for me. I consider myself a quilter who likes to let loose my goofball side and that's what you'll find here. I've been very lucky to have been chosen AQS Blog of the Week back in August, and was also Michele's guest blogger back in May.

I've often said, here and in real life, that my favorite part of my design career is sharing my designs in person through my trunk show lectures. I'm currently hard at work to finalize the details of my second trunk show "Plays Well With Others", which will be available to guilds at the beginning in April. The show focuses on group quiltmaking of all sorts beyond your basic round robin, because over the years I've discovered that I am no longer that control freak third grader who never wanted to work in a group in school because no one was quite as good as she was. I now leave that role to my daughter Paige. I've found a lot of joy in working on projects along with other quilters and quilt designers, and I want others to discover how fun it can be to give over a project to someone else and see what they might add to it.

To that end, I now and then will call for participants in a group project here on my blog because I always want new fodder for my lecture, and I am currently planning a new group quilt project for January. The basic block we will be creating is shown here, and I promise that in real life it is totally square so I have no idea why it looks so wonky here, and can be made from scraps you already have - in fact, that is what I am going to WANT you to do. More details will follow, so you'll want to come back in January, won't you?

Another way to keep apprised of the goings on of my random thoughts is to become part of my facebook EPQD community. I try to update it daily with just a Twitter-like statement or link to my newest blog post, and I've really tried to make it a fun place to be to exchange ideas and inspire each other. I also give away a gift (often patterns, kits, fun notions I love, once even a table runner) at the end of every month from a drawing of my new members for the month. To get to my FB page, click here. I'd love to see you there and have you join the fun, and joining this month will give you yet another entry in my giveaway!

So, you've sat through my intro/sales pitch and by now you are surely wondering if I will ever tell you what I am giving away. After all, you have 299 more blogs to visit, and I have taken up plenty of your time. To celebrate winter and all it's splendor, I am giving away a copy of my "Blizzard Buddies" pattern, along with a spool of light blue iron-on braid for embellishing your snowmen. In the snowman close up (also the profile photo for my FB page this month), the hair was made from this stuff. It's way easy to use and totally addictive. You'll be ironing braid to everything and we'll have to call you fancy.
To enter, all you have to do is leave me a comment below. In it all I ask is that after you tell me how this is your favorite new blog site (totally kidding), you let me know what your favorite and least favorite colors to use in your quilts is.

Have fun at the Blog Party and good luck! I hope to see you back soon at QHH.

Sounds of the Seasonal Sewing Studio

2011-12-07T10:20:00.007-05:00

Try saying that 5 times fast.

So lately I've been doing some writing for an upcoming pattern, and therefore much of my time in the studio has been spent at the computer with music in the background, and because it is officially December much of what I have been listening to is Christmas music. I find it amazing how little variety there truly is on the stations that play holiday songs 24/7, which is where Pandora is a godsend. Their "Contemporary Christian" and "Christmas" Christmas stations are delightful.

So because we all have our favorites and our least enjoyed songs of the season, I thought I'd share with you mine. Let's get the top three Songs Which Never Should Have Been Written And I Would Be Thrilled If They Died a Much Overdue Death out of the way first.

1. "I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas." Really? Did a zookeeper at an underprivileged zoo write this? Because that is the only excuse for this piece of drivel.

2. "Dominick the Donkey". If I have to hear "EEeee Aweee EEeee Aweeee" one more time, I will not be responsible for my actions. It's like blue food, touching wool, and fingernails on a chalkboard all rolled up in one for me.

3. "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer." It was extremely slightly amusing the first time. After that it was nothing but stupidity, and it needs to go away.

Who's with me? Anyone actually enjoy these songs? God love you. You are more tolerant than me. Granted, that may go without saying as you may have surmised, correctly, that I am rather opinionated.

My top five "Songs I So Far This Season Can Listen To Ad Nauseum and Not Be Tired of Them" are as follows. They run the gammut from traditional to contemporary, religious to sassy, and I hope you enjoy them. I'm also hoping the videos actually embed as I planned. Fingers crossed.

1. "We Need a Little Christmas" This song always makes me smile. It's happy, it's bouncy, it makes me want to run right out and buy a spinnet. This version is sung by the cast of Glee. It gives me a little shot of Christmas every time.

2. "Believe" by Josh Groban. Now, granted, Josh Groban could just stand on my front lawn for the day and that would be enough for me**, but any of his Christmas songs really just up his wow factor immensely. This one is one of my favorites.

3. "I Need A Silent Night" by Amy Grant. I first heard this song last year and it became an all time favorite immediately. It is a wonderful message, and something every mom can identify with this time of year. The video has some cheesy moments, but some of the photos are really cool and/or cute, and the lyrics get me every time.

4. "Baby It's Cold Outside" (Will Ferrell/Zooey Deschanel version). Truly, I love all versions of this song and always have. It's just a little bit of naughty mixed with the seasonal nice. Add in it's inclusion in the movie Elf, which is a family favorite, and it had to be on my list.

5. "Joseph's Lullaby" by Mercy Me. Joseph was quite a guy. It's hard to imagine being put in his position and not running away screaming. This song is just beautiful.

**Let it be known, however, that should Josh Groban break into a funky rendition of "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" while standing on my front lawn, or of his own volition in the recording studio, I will renounce him. Big time.

So what are your personal favorites and personal cringe-inducers this time of year? I'm always looking for new music to brighten my season!

Winter Whites Winner!

2011-12-05T09:38:00.005-05:00

Thank you so much to all who visited my little slice of blogdom during Sew Cal Gal's Christmas Quilt Show this past week. It was so much fun to share my quilt with all of you, and your comments truly made my day every single time a new one posted. I also am astonished by how you all helped that one post ratchet all the way up to the number one read post of all time on this blog in just five days! I do love how QHH has made me feel more connected with quilters everywhere.

I have chosen my winner for the pattern for "Winter Whites", and must admit to you all that unlike every other time I chose a winner, this one was not random. Several things about her just struck me, and I hope you will understand if because of that I feel compelled to give her the award. Her name is Kelli, she is from California, and she is a nurse (I'm not, but I certainly enjoy them) and a quilter who has a blog called "Seriously....I think it needs stitches" (http://thatlookslikeitneedsstitches.blogspot.com/), which I think is the most fantastic blog name ever for a nurse quilter, so props to Kelli. Kelli also won me over with her blog tagline "Mostly crafty....sometimes personal....never perfect". HELLO! Kelli is me living in California. Add in her five year old, and the resemblance is uncanny. So Kelli, congratulations! I am thrilled to give you a copy of my pattern, along with some beads and Jewel-it so that you might be inspired to give it a go sooner rather than later.

So many of you commented on my bead work that I must thank you again for your wonderful comments. My head is larger than life. Those beads are easier than you could ever imagine, I promise. I often tell people who admire all my beads on my quilts "I did this in one 10 minute segment of Glee." Castle seems to work as well, and I have heard tell that Grey's Anatomy is equally productive.

Again, Congratulations, Kelli!

Poinsettias I could never kill, no matter what - Christmas Quilt Show 2011

2011-11-28T11:00:00.010-05:00

It's time again for SewCalGal's Christmas Quilt Show http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/2011/11/2011-christmas-quilt-show-welcome.html- . I love seeing all the fantastic creations and being able to share a little Christmas cheer with quilters everywhere. It makes the internet feel small and cozy this time of year.

Okay, the sappy part is over. Here's my entry for this year!

One of my favorite parts of being a quilt designer is being able to play God and create flowers which will never die, because in real life I am a nightmare when it comes to keeping them alive. For no flower is this more true than the seasonal poinsettia. I have many memories of pots of poinsettias, lush and dewy, gracing the mantle of my mother's living room and the sideboard of the dining room throughout the Christmas season and into Lent most years, finally to be thrown into the woods by Good Friday.

Sadly, I did not inherit the poinsettia nurturing gene. When I buy a poinsettia, it is lucky to make it one week in my home before it starts to wither, drop leaves and petals, and start whimpering "Help...help...get me out of this house of torture and let me warn all my friends to hide when they see a redheaded lady in a Rendezvous pull up to the garden center."

My only hope was to create some out of fabric, and several years ago I did just that. Behold my "Winter Whites" wall hanging pattern by EvaPaige Quilt Designs, designed for the black thumb quilters we all know and love.

In this design, I used one of my favorite modified stack and slash piecing techniques with several fabrics of similar tone and value in a rich maroon for the background, then added white and cream petals via machine applique. My petal templates are big and loopy and easy for beginners while still looking enough like a real poinsettia petal to keep the garden club satisfied. For this particular sample, I machine appliqued using gold metallic thread, probably swore up a storm while doing so because metallic thread hates me although it was years ago so I can't be exactly sure, and beaded the centers with pink beads as shown in the next photo.

Three guesses as to what I used to attach the beads. If you don't know, welcome to my blog! You are clearly a new reader and I am delighted to have you! (It's Jewel-It, of which I am an obnoxious supporter.)

This fall I was introduced to the joys of making this quilt in silks when a silk vendor at my guild's show asked if I might make them a sample for their vending purposes. They picked out the silks they wanted me to use, and I will admit I was a little skeptical at first when I saw how different it was going to look from the original since the tones and values were much more disparate. However, in the end, it's different - in a harlequin-esque kind of way - but really quite gorgeous in it's own way.

My apologies for the weird angle of the photo. I hope you can get the idea.

This is one of my favorite patterns, and I would love to give one to a lucky commenter below. I'd also love to have you vote for "Winter Whites" if you love it like I do in SewCalGal's Viewers Choice contest this weekend.

Thank you for stopping by Quilting Hottie Haven. I hope you come back frequently for more fun and inspiration!

Small Business Saturday offers

2011-11-25T10:59:00.003-05:00

I've wanted to participate in SBS, but since I'm not an actual store I wasn't sure how. So I came up with these offers and I hope you'll find one interesting no matter what category you fall into in this crazy quilting hobby of ours!

Shop Owners:
Take 25% off any wholesale order of 12 patterns or more. Sample Trunk Shows available on a first come first served basis. You know samples sell quilts, after all. Ask about borrowing some of mine!

Retail Consumers and Hobbyist Quilters:
Several of my patterns are available for download on www.patternspot.com/users/127. No shipping, no waiting. Several of my patterns are available for download or purchase on http://www.quiltwoman.com/ - and they are having free shipping from Saturday to Monday. If you don't find something of mine you like at either of these sites, you're sure to find something else you like - there's just so much to choose from!

Also, I've re-opened my Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/evapaigequilts, and am featuring my "What's for Dinner?" tablemats, made to order, just like dinner! Choose from six different oilcloth patterns and get the perfect gift for everyone under age 10 on your list. Free shipping from 11/24 - 12/10: Enter SBS2011 at checkout.

Guilds:
If you are looking to fill out your program schedule for this year or next, you know I'd love to help. Contact me between 11/24/11 and 12/10/11 to schedule a trunk show lecture or workshop and receive 25% off the cost of the workshop or lecture if it is on the books for 2012 or 2013 by 12/31/11. That's a $75 or $87.50 savings, and your treasurer will thank you! (Domestic guilds only.)

No matter how you choose to shop small this season, I hope you find some really cool new vendors and great opportunities to support them. Happy Holiday season!

The lost art of language

2011-11-22T10:43:00.002-05:00

This weekend, I became temporary possessor of a scrapbook of family history that my dad and his wife brought out when they came to visit. In among the photos and cards and clippings I found this fabulous wedding announcement from the Marlboro NH paper back in 1903, detailing my great-grandparents wedding. It is far superior to any the Boston Globe publishes these days, so I had to share it. (Spellings and grammar copied exactly from newspaper. Perhaps not what I would do today.)

"Page - McRoy.

A very inviting wedding occurred in Marlboro the 29th instant at the country home of Mr. Weston McRoy, known as "Point Comfort." It is beautifully situated among the maples, fronting the south, having an equisite outlook upon woody hills and evergreen vales, and just above the buildings is one of the finest and most extended landscapes anywhere to be enjoyed.

Here at mid-day were joined in holy matrimony Ray H. Page and Grace E. McRoy, both of Marlboro, by Dr. S. H. McCollister, using the ring service. Both bridegroom and bride, as they stood under the flowing arch with a bell of flowers over their heads, and the fairest of all, being the centre of attraction and causing all present to rejoice and be thankful for such a happy union of hands and hearts to make a blissful home. The attire of the bride was cream colored silk with silk lace trimmings. She held in her hand a large bauquet of bride's roses.

At the close of the ceremony there was a season of greeting the new husband and wife, and then all present sat down to a table of bountiful and most palatable refreshments, according all partakers a delightful experience, making all feel that such a dinner is not to be surpassed.

As the carriage was driven out to take the wedded twain to the station the wheels were richly adorned with shoes, the top with flags, with many other attachments to add grotesqueness to the polished vehicle as it drove to the door and especially as the honored pair ascended into it under showers of rice, good cheer, and well wishes.

They will be home after August first on Church Street."

How fantastic is that? Don't you feel like you were there? Why do we no longer name our homes? Can you imagine the reeming out a reporter would get today if they tried to include the word "grotesqueness" in a wedding annoucement? How much pressure does this put on you to make the big meal later this week "a dinner which is not to be surpassed"?

Take that, texting.

An animated morning with Herring Run Quilt Guild

2011-11-17T12:27:00.014-05:00

A little over a month ago I had the pleasure of visiting Herring Run Quilt Guild in Norwell MA and giving them my song, dance, and general floorshow. As much as I love the lecture part of my business and audiences really seem to enjoy it, I always have a moment or two of panic beforehand that no one will show up; this particular booking I had an even bigger panic attack because I knew I was competing with Mark Lipinski being at the quilting mecca of New England, Keepsake Quilting, at the exact same time on the exact same day. Clearly his people did not call my people.

Imagine my surprise when the hall was filled on that rainy Saturday morning. Hey, maybe the rain kept people from driving the 2.5 hours to Keepsake, but I'll take it. Herring Run was an awesome group of quilters and I had so much fun with them. One of their members took a bunch of photos and sent them to me on a CD (so sweet) and have to say I had an hysterical laughing fit looking at them, so I thought "What the heck. Let's share my dorkiness with the world." So prepare to be amused/disgusted by the montage of bizarre facial expressions I exhibited to Herring Run.
I love this photo. Standing where I am and lining my head up with that doorframe, it looks like I have a mohawk. Awesome. It also shows that I have not gotten over the pigeon-toedness that gave my pediatrician fits at age 4. While you are looking at my feet though, be sure to admire my beaded shoes.

These lovely ladies got quite a workout during the lecture. They were amazing quilt holders and probably only held a quilt upside down once or twice, which is fabulous. I love showing how color and fabric choices can really change the look of a pattern, and I always bring as many colorways of my quilts as I can.

Yeah, I like to talk with my hands. And apparently also with my eyes closed.

People always love the back of this quilt. It really is an adorable panel fabric from the "Life's a Hoot" line by Adorn-it Fabrics.

I promise I don't THINK I usually yell at my audiences. My apologies to Herring Run.

Air quotes are so awesome. Was I suggesting all self proclaimed "Quilt Police" leave the room? Did I use the word "embellishmenty" properly? Was I mocking the idea of "perfection" in quilting? I guess we will never know.

Cardinal rule of public speaking -YOU be the one to grimace rather than your audience members.

This just kills me. I have a look on my face like "These people are hopeless." Nothing could have been further from the truth. This was a hugely talented group who were unbelievably welcoming and fabulous in all ways.

Want to see what amazing faces I can make for your guild? Be sure to contact me for a lecture booking and I'll be sure to give it my best shot. While wearing some fabulous beaded shoes, of course.

Tour De Clean Studio

2011-11-14T09:30:00.011-05:00

Strike while the iron is hot, hotties. You know it can't stay this clean and organized very long. I give it until Thanksgiving, tops. Many, many thanks to my friend Jennifer Hannon, who uploaded 18 months of my photos off my camera onto her computer so that she could email me these few photos and I could share them here. Let's all say a little prayer that my laptop is actually fixed this week, shall we?

When I returned from Market, I had no choice but to follow through on the threat I had made to my family before I left that I was going to lock myself in the studio and not come out until it was workable again. I considered "before" photos, and truly you would have benefitted from seeing how horrific it was pre-massive cleanout, but in all honesty, you also would have never respected me as a person, if you do at all now. It was that bad. So as you are taking my virtual studio tour, I want you to just picture in your mind every item you are seeing in the photos thrown in the air into a massive wind machine creating a artificial cyclone in the room and landing whereever it wanted. My husband says that is a completely accurate description.

So here we go!

This is what you would see first if you came to visit me while I was working. If you were here to actually help me work, I would be thrilled to see you. If you were under 9 and here to ask if you could play on the computer while fighting with your sisters over the mouse, I would not be so much thrilled. But either way, your first view is of this ladder displaying some completed quilts. This is actually only 1/3 of a 20 foot apple ladder I got off of Freecycle several years ago and I love it. You'll see another 1/3 later. The final 1/3 is in my living room holding quilts we use on a daily basis. Don't you love being a party to my cheap decorating secrets?

As for the door, that's just our utility closet. It's also where I deposited a ton of crap during my redo. In the words of Jim Carrey/Ace Ventura, "Do NOT go in there!" Trust me.

Immediately to your right as you turn into the room you will now find this cozy little nook where you can sit down and chat with me. This couch used to be against the wall with my Syncopated Ribbons quilt on it, and also used to be a depository for armloads and armloads of general stuff brought down to the basement and not put away. It also cut off my floor space, so I'm trying this arrangement for a while. I also have a basket of UFOs right there on the floor next to it in plain sight so I can be inspired to finish them. Pause for hysterical laughter.

Right around the corner of that wall the quilt was hanging on in the last photo is my favorite part of my redo. My "scrap central" bookshelf, where I have organized all my scraps, which for purposes of redo were defined as "anything less than 1/4 yard in size that I think I might use again at some point for a scrap quilt before I die even if I truly have no idea what possessed me to buy the fabric in the first place". Each little tub is labeled with the color family within, so I can't get lazy and just throw them anywhere. Here you will also see some bolts and rolls and NQFs (non quilting fabrics) that I just know someday I will use, if only to annoy my children with their very presence when said children have to clean out my studio after they move me into a nursing home. This bookshelf used to contain my books (imagine that), some UFOs, some completed quilts, and I even found a quilt on it while cleaning out that I honestly thought was lost forever about two years ago. Total score.

Here's my new and improved cutting corner. I used to have that little dresser at the front end of my awesome cutting table, which again messed with my floor space and ended up being another repository for random bits of stuff, and my pressing station was on top of the cutting table and took up way too much space. In a brilliant HGTV-esque space saving move, I relocated the dresser (which contains lots of tools like Mystifuse and pressing cloths as well as kit fabrics) over in the corner, stuck the iron on top of it, and gained a pressing corner and more room for projects on my table. My books are now on the little built-in shelf, and that half-open tub contains the remainder of my kit fabrics, conveniently located close to the cutting table for kitting. I used to keep all my fabrics in bins on the shelf under the table, which was truly a disaster at all times. I took them all out and redistributed them around the room, and am now using the shelf as a flat storage area for my quilts. One my daughter's friends saw it a few nights ago and asked if it was a little bed. I hadn't considered that I had added napping space to my studio, but hey, from the mouths of babes.

Here's where the magic happens. Machine, thread racks, design wall (created from a leftover piece of foam insulation from when we finished off this side of the basement covered with batting), and another ladder part, this one containing mostly quilts that are ready for a binding or quilting. I don't ever think about what might happen if that wastewater pipe ever burst.

All of my "Bigger than a fat quarter but still probably not much bigger than a yard because I am the cheapest quilter on earth" fabrics are out of their bins and into these racks now and I love being able to actually see them. Each little cube space is big enough for four stacks of fabrics, and I tried to color coordinate as much as possible. In the process I discovered I own NO red fabrics. Apparently I hate red. Who knew? My fat quarters in this photo are in that blue crate; since this photo was taken I have removed them to a much more attractive organizer thing I bought at Target. But I'm too lazy to rephotograph.

Pegboard full of random bits and bites. Had to share because I truly cannot look at this giraffe picture Paige drew in art class in Kindergarten without cracking up, which is why I keep it there. Frued would have a field day.

Our final stop in the tour, because you don't get to see my computer area to the left of this wall due to a file stack that is still unorganized, is my little wall of fame. Operative word is little, but it keeps me going when I get discouraged and need to remember that yeah, I've done some cool things so far in my career as EPQD and will do more in the future.

Many thanks for stopping by! I'd love to know some of your studio organizing tips, so sound off in comments if you like!

E-commerce and me, a love story

2011-11-10T22:03:00.005-05:00

I hate shopping. I truly do. Shopping in actual stores, that is. The hassle of driving 12 miles to even find civilization in the form of row upon row of box store, the fact that I hate box stores, and the fact that it is taking up valuable quilting time to do it all combine to make me avoid most real live shopping at all costs.

Now, internet shopping is another thing entirely. You don't have to drive anywhere. You don't have to risk life and limb in a mall parking lot, and you don't have to stand in a line waiting 6 hours at the cutting table of JoAnn's or waiting on a price check at Target. You don't even have to be wearing clothes if you don't want to, although in general I don't take it quite that far.

I love that not only can I do almost all of my Christmas shopping on line now (http://www.americangirl.com/ has 25% off Marie Grace and Cecile stuff until Sunday, just letting you know!) but now I can even do a lot of my quilting supply shopping online too. Allow me to tell you of two of my favorite sites, both of which feature some of my patterns. I'd enjoy them regardless, but that does make them all that much sweeter.

http://www.patternspot.com/ is now featuring five of my designs, the latest upload being "Diamond Dazzle". The 16 page booklet-style pattern costs $12.50, and can be downloaded instantly to allow you to start quilting immediately. No waiting for the mail. No driving to the quilt shop. Just click, print, and sew. Lots of designers on there even have free patterns to download. It's for sure a "make a cup of tea before you open the homepage" kind of site - you are going to be there a while.

http://www.purplemoosedesigns.com/ is my friend Terri's online shop, which is awesome in that it always has cool gadgets and great prices, but is now featuring several of my patterns, including "Funky Tree Farm" and "Blizzard Buddies" just in time for the Christmas season. Check her site out and I know you will find some fabulous item you can't live without.

Happy Jammie Shopping!

Market = Awesome. Reality = Bites.

2011-11-02T13:59:00.002-04:00

So I'm back now from International Quilt Market in Houston, and my head is spinning for about 19 different reasons. I'll only bore you with a few:

1. Fall market really is way huger than spring market. Plus maybe more quilt shop owners have just said "Screw the bad economy, I'm off to spend some money!" or something, but especially during Schoolhouse, you could barely walk between classrooms for all the people. Quilting is alive and well, hotties. But you knew that.

2. Houston is hot. And the cabbies clearly have never seen women before.

3. During my own Schoolhouse presentation, which was way better attended than my last one a couple of years ago so yay!, I actually recognized a couple of shop owners who attended the last one. I still can't figure out if they wanted to see me again or accidentally came in the room, saw it was me and said "Crap. Her again." but were too polite to leave, but I had a great time and I think the audience did too. It's what I do, after all.

4. Sample spree is crazy, but crazy fun too.

5. Learned that my website home page does, as I have known and feared and not known what to do about it, indeed suck. But hey, now I have confirmation of this from a professional. Yip-de-do. Now to find time and the smarts to fix it. Or $600 extra bucks to pay someone else to fix it.

6. I want to be BFFs with Debbie Gabel. Among other things, she created a Quilt Police voodoo doll and I bought a bunch to sell at my lectures because they could not be more perfect or less overrated.

7. It was fun to hang out in Jen Eskridge's awesome booth a bit - if you don't know her stuff, check her out at www.reannalilydesigns.com because she is amazing - and pick the brains of Carol Dockery and Kristine Poor to try to figure out if I am ready to take the plunge for a booth of my own next fall. I still have absolutely no idea of the answer to this question that was my main purpose in attending market to solve.

8. My "Night Owl" quilt looked adorable in Adorn-it's booth. Which was way adorable itself. (Photo to be added if I can figure out how - see reality bites section for more details.)

9. I may be a northerner through and through, but you do have to love a good southern gentleman, such as the one who overheard me say to my colleague and travel companion Cary Flanagan that I was bummed the airport gift shop didn't sell blank notebooks because I was teeming with ideas to work through on the plane home. Random nice man came up to me and offered me several sheets from a steno notebook, which made me happy for two reasons - a. I now had paper, and b. OMG I am NOT the only person in America who does not do everything on a computer!

By the time I reached Manchester NH, I had filled all the pages and outlined so many projects I shocked even myself, and I cannot wait to get started. "Woo hoo!" said me. "I will land, say hello to the fam, then immediately start sewing."

Enter reality. Have I mentioned reality bites? No? Have you not been listening? 13" of wet heavy snow on top of leafy trees while I was gone made a complete disaster of my town. Thankfully we have power, but there are still those without, and with power I should ostensibly be able to use my machine, right? But I have this little problem called three daughters home from school for October and November snow days.

And another little problem called my studio looks like a bomb went off due to all the last minute sewing I was doing for my Schoolhouse.

And another little issue called my laptop got zapped by the xray machine and died. AGAIN! Just when I was ready to give EQ a run for it's money.

But I soldier on. Make it do or do without. I'm using my laptop-free time to organize the sewing studio, and using my children as babysitters for each other. That's why one should have more than one kid anyway, isn't it?

Ah, but the memories of the fun and joy will remain.

Quilting Hotties for Hooters

2011-10-24T10:28:00.010-04:00

A couple of months ago, I received an email from Tracy Szanto, quilter and friend of a friend, who had seen my Quilting Hottie buttons at a show and wanted to incorporate the Quilting Hottie name into her Breast Cancer walk team's name. Was this okay, and could I get her some buttons for all of them? I could not answer yes fast enough. My first sort of corporate sponsorship, and for a great cause. I mean really, let's be honest, who doesn't like hooters?

Thank you to Tracy for being my second guest blogger in 8 days. Keep this up, hotties, and I may never have to write a blog post again!

2011 Quilting Hotties for Hooters. Tracy is third from the right, reddish hair and big smile.

On October 16th 2011 our team Quilting Hotties for Hooters joined over 5,000 others in Concord, NH to participate in The Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk. My daughter Sharon Zimmermann and I started the team for my business "DREAMLAND Machine Quilting" (www.dreamlandmachinequilting.com). This was my daughter's 7th year and I think my 5th year of doing the walk, but our 1st year of having our very own team.

In 2010 at our annual quilt show my daughter and I met Terri Sontra of Purple Moose Designs and who also belongs to our guild (The Belknap Mill Quilt Guild). Terri was a vendor at the show and she was selling these buttons that said,"Quilting Hottie!" It turns out that Beth Helfter of "Quilting Hottie Haven" (the blogspot for Eva Paige Quilt Designs) created these buttons. We had been planning to start our Breast Cancer Team and thought it might be fun to incorporate that into our team name and so that is how our team name came about.

Sharon and Tracy on registration day

The team enjoying some breakfast before a nice long walk.

Sharon showing support for her friend who was recently diagnosed.

Beth generously donated her buttons to our team which helped us raise money. I'm proud that our team raised around $2,400. The Concord, NH event raised a record breaking $568,089. We are proud to be a part of this very important event and thank everyone who donated and walked with us. I would like to thank my special team captain who kept us all in line to meet our goals, that would be my daughter Sharon Zimmermann, I couldn't ask for a more wonderful and giving daughter. Also our whole team would like to say thanks to Beth for her generous support.

Ladies, it was my honor.

This group just goes to prove what I have always known: Quilters as a whole are just really awesome people.

My HQ story by guest blogger and hottie extraordinaire, my friend Michelle Banton

2011-10-16T21:34:00.008-04:00

Please join me in welcoming my very first guest blogger, my friend Michelle Banton, whom I met about 9 years ago when she became a Squanicookie. Michelle recently was a national winner in the "My HQ Story" contest (you can read her winning entry here: http://www.handiquilter.com/myhqstory/story/326/) and graciously accepted my begging her to tell us her story of the retreat weekend as a guest blogger. I know you will love it like I do!

The 14 national winners themselves

I feel like I just won a beauty pageant! After years of considering it, I finally bought a long arm quilting machine - test drove them all at MQX in Providence, RI last spring and decided on the Handi Quilter Fusion. Handi Quilter likes to use real people in their advertising, so I entered My HQ Story and was a national winner! Notice, I said "a" national winner, not "the" national winner. Fourteen total strangers were flown (ok, to be honest, the winners from Utah actually drove) to Handi Quilter's headquarters outside Salt Lake City for 4 all-expenses paid days of instruction and fun. In less than 24 hours, we felt like we'd known each other for years.

http://www.handiquilter.com/videos/my-hq-story-2011/ (--- Editor's note: This is a fabulous video that will make everyone want to enter this contest just to have silly string thrown at them. Our guest blogger Michelle appears at 3:31 in the video, as well as being that gorgeous thing in the red top in the front row in the photo at the top.)

We were treated like royalty from the moment we arrived. Every time we turned around we were given gifts. Cool gifts. Quilt-y gifts. Rulers. Gadgets. Fabric. Quilt Magazines. Batting. Instructional DVDs...even an Accuquilt Go! Baby. Things we'd buy ourselves if we hadn't already spent all our money on those really nice HQ long arm machines. It was truly better than being in Oprah's audience!

http://www.handiquilter.com/videos/my-hq-story-2011/?id=139 (--Editor's note - Seriously. Oprah's got absolutely nothing on this company.)

We each had our own Handi Quilter machine to work on as we were instructed by HQ's fine team of educators: Vicki, Mindy, Marie & Cheryl. Mark Hyland, HQ's CEO took us on a behind the scenes tour of Handi Quilter where we got to meet most of the HQ "family". He gave each of us a copy of his book, "Help! I Married a Quilter" (it should be required reading for any quilt spouse). He and his lovely wife, Suzanne Michelle Hyland, hosted us for dinner in their beautiful home. Suzanne gave us a tour of her "to-die-for" studio...maybe if I emptied the main level of my house, my studio could be as nice as hers. Then, because she knew we liked gifts (It doesn't take long at all to become accustomed to receiving gifts), she gave us her set of instructional DVDs. It's like we got to bring her home with us!

On our last morning there, Suzanne gave each of us a personal assessment on a quilt top we had brought - offering suggestions on how to quilt it, based on the design and colors of the top. She told me that my top would have to hang on her design wall for several weeks to inspire her. Maybe it was her polite way of telling me "It's really waaay too busy and bright. Perhaps you should keep your day job." Unfortunately, I don't have a day job that pays me money.

How should I quilt this? Or should I throw it away and try my hand at pottery?

The 14 of us will appear in Handi Quilter's print ads during 2012 in major quilting magazines. But, what's really exciting is that we'll get our picture on the side of a truck! Ok, maybe I'm a bit weird, but I think that's really awesome. I'd like to think that I am now contractually bound to appear at any and all quilt shows that the Handi Quilter truck will be driving to. At least maybe I can tell my husband that I HAVE to go - it's my duty as a HQ spokesmodel. I'll make sure to wear my tiara - look for me at MQX, Paducah, probably even in Houston next year.

Michelle Banton

mabanton@gmail.com

www.LittlePupDesigns.com - longarm quilting service and retreat planning

Thank you, Michelle! I cannot wait to see your truck on the highway and scream at the top of my lungs "I KNOW THAT FAMOUS PERSON!" I am so proud of you and so glad you agreed to blog about your experience for us.

All of 2009's hot new quilting tools - now being used in my studio

2011-10-14T10:49:00.010-04:00

If there is one thing you hotties all know, it is that I am borderline proud of my lack of technical skills on the computer, don't own a smart phone, have never texted, and (here's a new confession) two of the three phones in my home still have cords. Yep. I'm way cool. 1988 ruled.

But I always considered myself a little bit more hip and now when it came to quilting. I'd never call myself a gadget guru by any means, but I love new products that make my quilting life easier and I will happily watch demos and probably buy them. I cannot resist an embellishment, and own more Angelina fibers than I know what to do with (quite literally, too, as I have yet to use any of them). I'll try new things and if I love them, you will hear about them incessantly until you try them just to shut me up (Jewel-it, anyone?).

So imagine my surprise this week when in the midst of my pre-market sewing frenzy, from which I am currently taking a much needed 30 minute break, I discovered two fantastic new tools which are both far from new. How did I miss these gems? And how can I prevent the rest of you from missing out? Well, I can write a humorous and informative blog post about them, that is how.

The first tool is this little chalk marking doodad from Clover. I'm pretty sure it is circa 2002 or even earlier, and also that I am last person on earth to discover it, but after using it for one millisecond I was hooked. I've long been a user of those basic blue markers for marking (when I even mark, which is about one time in 25), and just last week was bragging to my friends Judy Damon and Terri Sontra that I was pretty sure my blue marker was 10 years old and was never going to dry out. Yeah, it heard me from 50 miles away, and two days later I went to use it and it was dead. Well, lucky for me I had some of Judy's notion stock in my garage from a show NEQDC had done that weekend, and I had only to walk 40 feet to replace my marker with this chalk liner. It has a tiny little wheel on the end reminiscent of those carbon paper wheelie markers from back in the day, and is just a basic tube filled with chalk dust and seriously marks like a dream. I bought mine in bright red so that I couldn't lose it and with pink chalk because hey, a girl needs things to be pretty, but they come in other colors too. Check out that mark. Smooth and perfect and GONE once you sew on it.

The chalk can also be rubbed off easily so as to redraw your lines when you do them too quickly and they suck, as seen here.

2. No, my hand is not really pink.

The second tool making my life perfect right now is aptly named "The Binding Tool", which I bought immediately after Terri Sontra of Purple Moose Designs demoed it at our booth last weekend. It was copyrighted in 2009, but it's new to me. I've stolen Terri's photo off her website not only because it is better than what I could take, but also because I want you to check out her online shop because she has some fabulous wares at very reasonable prices. And she includes chocolate in every order.

www.purplemoosedesigns.com/rotary.htm

Holy revelation in continuous binding glory. No more will you make your binding just a bit too big or a bit too small at the meeting point! No more will you twist the tales and swear a blue streak! As Terri promised, I did have to look at the photo tutorial on her site the first time I used it on my own, but the bottom line is it worked and I could not be more thrilled with this purchase. I'll never be a fan of binding, but this tool may make me less inclined to dread the entire event.

Finally, I've discovered a cool new fabric this week as I have been furiously whipping up a sample of my "Winter Whites" pattern for a silk vendor. That fabric would be Teflon.

Just kidding. It's silk, of course, and it is a bear and a half to keep from raveling, especially when you decide to ignore all advice to cut it on a dry day and instead wait for the wettest day in a week to start your project, but a little interfacing helps with that. Isn't it nice of me to have left some of the raveling in this photo so you could see for yourself? You cannot beat the richness of color and the sheen and it is making this project look like 8 million bucks. Lucky for shoppers, it's only $9. Doesn't it seem like a bargain now? Here's a sneak preview of the awesomeness of the silk colors. I'll post a photo of the finished project later this weekend.

Okay, it's back to sewing now. Please pray for me that Greta naps this afternoon so I'll have more to show for my day!

Giving back to where it all began - special lecture offer

2011-10-05T09:30:00.004-04:00

It's October, which means it's EPQD's birthday month. I'm registered at Bunkhouse quilt shop if you care to send a gift. (Totally kidding! But I'll shamelessly plug http://www.bunkhousequiltshop.com/ because it is awesome.)

Anyway, birthdays generally do mean gifts, but in this case I'd like to give a gift if possible in memory of my next door neighbor, Kimberly Francis, who died five years ago next month at the age of 41 from ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). Kim was a great neighbor, but also a great big reason that I took the plunge from hobby quilter to designer and I've really never had the ability to give back in a quilty way until now.

In the spring of 2005, Kim showed up at my door and said "I have a job for you." I wasn't looking for a job, but I trusted her and listened to her proposal. She had a friend who needed a t-shirt quilt made for her daughter, an accomplished amateur figure skater. Did I want to help out? What the heck, I figured, it'll give me something to do besides sing "The Wheels on the Bus" 56 times a day.

I made the quilt and GOT PAID for doing something I enjoy. Holy cow. It was a revelation. A few months later "Feelin' Hot Hot Pink", my first pattern and still one of my faves, was born when I decided to try my hand at designing. I had started something I never knew I was going to, and it began with a nudge from an unexpected place.

Kim was diagnosed that next winter and unfortunately succumbed very quickly to this awful disease. We miss her in the neighborhood, and on the five year anniversary of her passing, I feel strongly about doing something to honor her memory and the part she played in the birth of EPQD.

To celebrate Kim's memory, I am hoping to donate the lecture fee ($300) from any lectures booked in November and December to the ALS Association Massachusetts chapter. I know most guilds probably have plans in those months, but if yours doesn't, or you know a guild who is in need of a program, this is a great way to help both of us give back, so please spread the word!**

In addition, from now until the end of 2011, I will donate 20% of all sales of my "Sunflower and Sky" pattern and/or kits to ALS Association of Massachusetts, the sunflower being the adopted symbol of hope for ALS patients. Patterns are $9.00, kits containing all you need for the top and binding are $30. Wholesale orders (pattern only) will also apply to this donation.

Thank you as always for your support. Please spread the word if you can!

**Donation of entire lecture fee of $300 only. Guild pays for lecture, moneys are then donated by me to ALS. Copies of proof of donation will be sent to guild. Mileage, housing, per diem, product sales (other than sunflower), etc not included in donation.

Dear Mark Lipinski,

2011-10-03T10:05:00.000-04:00

I truly love that you commandeered the pink "Quilting Hottie" button right off the person of my friend Linda Pearl at Keepsake Quilting yesterday. I can think of no hottie more deserving of his own official badge of Quilting Hottiedom than you.
Love seeing you sporting it in this photo. Love that quilt too.

Clearly it is preaching to the choir to tell you that hottiedom is a state of mind. Just remember..... with great power comes great responsibility. And the power of the hottie button is great indeed. Among the many powers I have discovered:

- Wearing of the hottie button while picking up dinner at your local Chinese place will lead you to find an extra order of crab rangoons in your bag. It's certainly possible that you actually are bringing home someone else's food, but you will prefer to believe the button made you completely irresistable to the staff.

- Wearing of the hottie button when a boy scout arrives to sell you popcorn will lead to said boy scout asking his father as he walks away "Dad, what's a Quilting Hottie?" and allow you to hear the dad say "I'll explain later." And would you ever love be invited to that conversation, but sadly the powers of the button don't seem to extend to "fly on the wall" status. Yet.

- Wearing of the hottie button will inspire real quilters to real greatness, as in the team of walkers I'm so proud have adopted my pin to wear for their breast cancer walk later this month.
-Wearing of the hottie button will periodically cause you to be irritated that the state of Massachusetts only allows 6 spaces on their license plates, so QLTN HTY is not an option for your car, even though it would be awesome. (Of course, you will have to be irritated for me in this case. I have no idea how many spaces NJ has on their plates, but I feel you've probably already got a cool CUPCAK plate anyway.)

Wear it well, sir. I know you will.

Much love from the original Quilting Hottie to a true original.

Share this and win - and answer the age old question of "What's For Dinner?"

2011-09-29T10:27:00.007-04:00

It's not really my style - asking for likes on my EPQD Facebook page. I figure if you care to see that much of me, you'll find it. But this month I apparently need an ego boost, because in a month that saw record gains in hotties reading this blog, I've only added a handful of new fans to my EPQD community. Since that's where I really feel like I can get to know all of you, I'd love to change that, and I am not above bribery thrown in with a smidge of self-promotion, something I also kind of avoid when I can. So if you are not above being bribed, read on!

Remember my post in June about these fun placemats that were appearing at the time in Quilt Pattern Magazine's June issue? Well, as of Saturday October 1, the pattern AND a kit is mine to add to my inventory, and I'm giving you a chance to win a kit to create this one of a kind tablemat for the messy kid in your life. Don't have a messy kid in your life? Borrow one. Trust me, they are everywhere. I have a few I might be persuaded to lend out if you really can't find one.

My inspiration for these cute oilcloth and chalkboard cloth mats was the ruination of at least one placemat a week by my girls, and, truth be told, once in a while when red sauce was involved, myself. As a quilter, I'd seen a lot of quilted placemat patterns, and while I think they are all fantastic and way fun to dress up a table, I also know that they are insanely impractical for many families like mine who have kitchens that look like a tornado hit after every meal. It seemed to me there was a niche that needed filling, and I set about to fill it.

I combined some simple reverse applique shapes of table setting elements with the chalkboard cloth and oilcloth and created a mat that has several benefits to messy families:

1. The materials are completely wipeable. Just a few swipes of a wet washcloth and you are done. You can even run them under the water at the sink for huge nasty messes. Oh don't give me that. You know you've had them at your house too.

2. Fabulous teaching tool reason #1: No longer will your kids put the fork on the right and the spoon on top of the plate when you ask them to set the table. They will not have any excuse to say "But I didn't know where it went!" The shapes are full size, and because they are reverse appliqued (which really isn't hard, I promise!), there is a ridge around each to prevent the different elements from slipping around on the mat.

3. Fabulous teaching tool reason #2: The chalkboard cloth allows you to write the day's menu right on the mat, and young readers can practice both reading and writing while they are waiting for you to finish playing Emeril in the kitchen. If your family is like mine, and insists upon discussing what will be for dinner within 10 minutes of waking in the morning, you could even hang one up on the wall with the menu for the evening on it all day long.

So how do you go about attempting to win a kit (contains patterned oilcloth and chalkboard cloth for one mat) and pattern to make these fabulous mats? So glad you asked.

1. If you aren't already a fan of EvaPaige Quilt Designs on facebook, become a fan. All my new fans every month are entered into a drawing for a Giveaway Extravaganza gift, and this month the tablemat kit just happens to be it. www.facebook.com/EvaPaigeQuiltDesigns

2. If you ARE already a fan, I sincerely thank you for your support and I love having you there. To enter the "current fan" drawing, simply share this blog post on your FB page, and leave a comment under the post on the EPQD page telling me you did so.

There's only one catch. If I don't make it to 375 fans by Saturday am, I'll only be able to give it out to new fans, not current ones. I need your help, hotties! The world needs to be free of stained placemats! Like and share and be well. Thank you!

What I did with my September freedom

2011-09-22T12:58:00.004-04:00

It's been three weeks since the kids went back to school, so I know you are thinking "Has she accomplished anything more beyond the daily dance of joy followed by lying on the couch eating bonbons in the pure, unadulterated silence?" Lucky for you, I have accomplished a few things and I will be so excited to share them with you. Thanks so much for asking.

1. Because my husband was threatening to shut down my basement studio on the grounds that it was a hazard to enter due to all the piles of paperwork on the stairs, my first job was to organize and file it all. Which, as you can imagine, was almost as joyous as a root canal. But it's done.

2. While on the husband-imposed organizing kick, I decided to organize my thread racks sort of by color, sort of by brand, sort of by which ones I use most frequently. There's nothing more satisfying than an organized thread rack. Or three.

3. Sent out my first ever Constant Contact newsletter in September. Yeah, I know. That's hardly exciting stuff for most people. But for me, it was absolutely huge when my personally assigned customer service representative Carson (not Kressley, although that would have been awesome) reviewed my template before I sent it and said "I've seen some hot messes from first time users, but this one is really good." So exciting to know I've got him fooled with my mad computer skilz. If you didn't get on my distribution list and would like to be among the first to know what is happening in EPQD land, please let me know and I can fix that pronto.

4. Managed not to kill myself while dragging a 200+ pound, 5 feet long and 2 feet wide cumbersome package of 7 rolls of oilcloth and chalkboard cloth up one step and over 4 feet from my front step to the front hallway. Trust me, this may have been my most major accomplishment of the month, and I'm almost sad there was no one filming it for youtube. Look at these patterns! Aren't they delish?

No, I am not planning to make raingear for 600,000 American Girl dolls, but good guess. My placemat pattern becomes mine October 1, and I'm busy cutting out kits so that quilters who want to try something kind of new and fun and great for kids gifts can have all they need right at their fingertips. And not have to drag 200 pounds of oilcloth off the front step to do it.

5. Acted as Chair and entire committee of the Silent Auction Committee for the Squanicook Colonial Quilt Guild show this weekend, Sept 24-25, at North Middlesex HS in Townsend MA. See the post following this one to check out some of the cool things you might win if you come by and place a bid. There's a lot more where those came from - and you guessed it, all 40+ items are sitting on the stairs down to my studio. I'm learning to just shut the basement door and avoid all the sideways glances and commentary from the peanut gallery.

7. Oh, and now and then I even got to sew! Some of it was sewing 729 Brownie badges onto vests, but still.

Onward to more glorious accomplishments.

How did a loudmouth like me end up in charge of a Silent Auction?

2011-09-15T11:21:00.007-04:00

It's almost here - the biannual Squanicook Colonial Quilt Guild "Autumn Festival of Quilts", where myself and my fellow Squanicookies put on a show we'd challenge any other guild to better. Okay, maybe that's a bit over the top, but really, we do put on a pretty darn good show and if you are in the area of Townsend MA next weekend, September 24 and 25, follow the awesome signage all around northern Middlesex county and get yourself to the gym of North Middlesex Regional High School and see what I mean.

One thing we do as part of our show is a Silent Auction of small quilted items donated by our members so that we can raise some money for our guild (let's be honest, this show is our one and only money maker and it only happens every two years, so we do all we can to make it successful). The Silent Auction was added to the show several years ago and has been a popular event, both with visitors who don't quilt themselves and want the chance to win something they couldn't make, and with quilters who for sure COULD make these items, but want to take the easy way out and buy them instead. Either way, it's fun and another cool way to showcase the cookie talent.

This year I am in charge of the Silent Auction, which is a bit of an oxymoron if you know me, but they let me do it anyway. Probably because no one else was volunteering. As part of my duties as SA chair, I got to collect some of the items up for auction at our last meeting and I want to share a few with you to see if I entice anyone to come make a bid.

First up is a cute embroidered and quilted Christmas wallhanging made by Shirley Harrison. Shirley is well known in our guild for her stunning craftsmanship, and this piece is no exception. I love the diagonal striped border, and at risk of Shirley hating me for all time, I have to admit that one reason I love it is because the stripes do not line up with like stripes at the corners. They DO line up perfectly with other stripes, as I would expect no less of Shirley, but I love that there are different patterns lining up as it adds some scrappy interest. Isn't the whole thing just too cute?

Here we have a dancing pinwheels doll quilt made and quilted by Cathie Shoemaker. Cathie is one of our very own premier, award winning long arm quilters, and you can bet the quilting on this is no exception. Some doll will be very lucky to sleep under this creation.

I apologize to the maker of this quilt, but I don't remember who gave it to me. If you let me know I can edit this post and give you credit! To make up for my lack of remembering, I will announce that this is my favorite of all the items I received. I love the colors and the simple pattern and the craftsmanship is lovely. Another lucky doll or little girl will love this.

Again, I forget who gave me this absolutely awesome wool candle mat. The saddest part of my forgetting is that I had like a 10 minute conversation with this person wherein I exclaimed over its beauty and she wondered if I was for real with my gushing. I am for real. I love this thing, and I can't even touch wool without cringing. This does not mean I don't love the look of wool stuff, and I truly love the look of this. Doesn't your Yankee candle deserve a mat like this? Oh, you bet it does.

Last up is a gorgeous bow-tucks bag donated by Marie Anderson. You can't see them, but Marie sewed some buttons to the bottom to give the bag some "feet", and therefore it won't get as dirty on the bottom as it might when the winner sticks it on the floor of the car or under the pew at church. Isn't Marie brilliant?

September 24 and 25, North Middlesex Regional High School in Townsend MA. Be there and bid!

My former life ended 10 years ago today

2011-09-11T13:42:00.002-04:00

I'm going to take a big risk and for the second time in two weeks write a blog that has little to nothing to do with quilting. Somehow today I just feel compelled to reflect.

Ten years ago this morning, I was in American Airlines operations at Logan airpost in Boston, signing in for a quick overnight trip to Dallas to complete my annual emergency training. There were about 11 of us heading down on an 8:15 flight, and many of us were chatting with other flight attendants who happened to be in operations that morning signing in for their flight - American Airlines flight 11 to Los Angeles. I remember saying Hi in passing to Amy Sweeney, a woman I had worked with many times and who was always very sweet and kind as well as very professional with the passengers. When I think of how she had to use that professionalism that morning I know there was no one better to be a calming presence...but that doesn't make it better.

I remember about 2 hours into our flight, a fellow training-bound crew member seated behind me came back from talking with some other flight attendants in the galley and told us "Something huge is going down. Planes are flying into buildings in NYC....we're landing as soon as the captain can." Surely he was kidding. Planes didn't fly into buildings. Within minutes, the captain told us our country was under attack, that no one was to think about getting out of their seat for the next 20 minutes, and we'd be on the ground in Memphis asap. I spent the rest of the flight praying to God we didn't have any terrorists on our plane.

By the time we hit the ground, we all knew the towers were down and as we sat on the runway all I could do was try to call someone, anyone to let them know I was okay. My husband wasn't picking up at home. My parents' line was busy. My sister wasn't home. (You have to remember, 10 years ago not everyone had cellphones.) Finally I got hold of my friend Heather, who as luck would have it was home sick from work. All I remember about the conversation was telling her I was alive, that I loved her, and could she please call everyone we knew to tell them the same? Because she was, and is, a fabulous friend, she didn't even tell me she was practically on her death bed from stomach flu - she just did it.

I remember finally getting ahold of Joe, who had been sent home from work because his boss knew I was flying out of Boston that day. All we could do was cry. I'd worked flight 11 more than 100 times in my 9 year career. There was no way that couldn't have been me.

I remember the relief my parents had when I finally got ahold of them, my mom in a battle for her own life against ovarian cancer. Sometimes I wonder if I was spared that day because God knew our family couldn't handle any more crap right then.

I remember standing in the lounge in Memphis with the rest of the passengers in stunned silence as we saw our first footage of what most of America had seen 20 times over by then. The pole I was leaning on was all that held me up.

I remember how eerie the sky was over the next 23 hours as all 11 of us on the way to training piled into a rented van and drove back home to New England. Perfectly blue, perfectly gorgeous, and perfectly empty of air traffic.

I remember reading the list Joe had written of everyone who had called wanting to make sure I was okay and crying my eyes out to think that so many people whom we hadn't seen in months or years cared enough to find our number and call.

I remember telling him I didn't care if we had to eat pasta every day for the rest of our lives, there was no way in hell I was going back to work as a flight attendant.

In truth, I did go back - once. I did manage to complete the training about a month later, and I did one trip in late October before I was awarded an overage leave for 6 months. I got pregnant with Paige and Eva on the last week of the leave, and that was that. I was given the best reason of all to quit, and I have never looked back.

But I will never forget.

"Night Owl" pattern and child, now available from EvaPaige Quilt Designs

2011-09-09T09:48:00.005-04:00

It seems you can't visit Target, Homegoods, TJMaxx, Justice, or The Triple B (Bed Bath and Beyond) these days without running headlong into owl themed stuff. Probably other stores too, but those are the only ones with which we tightwad moms of preteen girls are allowed to be familiar. What is up with owls being all the rage right now, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. They saw my "Night Owl" pattern in Quilt Pattern Magazine last spring and said "THIS is someone we must emulate! Owls are it, people! Burn the peace signs and bring on the hoot!"

As if I could ever start a trend. This pattern name is truly just a happy accident as far as being in with the cool crowd.

"Night Owl" is a super easy, super cute pattern, if I do say so. I love that because it uses a nice size rectangle as the main blocks, it's quick and easy to put together but so much fun to use to play with lots of different fabrics. I also added a ruffled bias strip to give it just a little more visual and tactile interest - after all, let's face it, it's a pretty simple design and it needs a little OOOMPH, and that ruffle does wonders. I'm thinking of giving it a bonus at the end of the quarter.

The baby size, shown above in "Life's a Hoot" fabrics by Adorn-it fabrics (are you seeing those owls?), is 45" x 54" and therefore perfect for snuggling your infant during those lovely 3am feedings. Gotta be honest, I don't miss those too much. But if I'd had this cute quilt to snuggle in during them, they might have been more enjoyable.

On the baby size sample, I did the ruffled bias strip in scraps from the blocks. I love how it looks against the brown and white polka dot. And aren't those owls adorable? And so trendy?

The lap size sample (my cover girl) is also done in Adorn-it fabrics, this time the "Long Live Vintage" line. I love Adorn-it fabrics and they were so lovely to let me use their lines for these quilts, but I honestly believe this is a quilt that lends itself equally well to a fabric line or scrappy. For the lap size quilt, I used just one fabric for the bias strip rather than making it scrappy. I really like the look of it as well.

As it turns out, the lap size (57" x 66"), is perfect not only for snuggling with a book on a rainy night, but also for snuggling and rocking your 8 year old who is up at 1:00am for the second night in a row freaking out about the MCAS test she will be required to take in March. So many uses, so many sleepless nights to enjoy the quilt.

If you love it, let me know!

A clear method of egress is so not overrated

2011-08-29T14:28:00.012-04:00

And electicity rocks. Hard.

Like half of the country this weekend, I got to experience a bit of the wrath of Irene. Living 45 miles inland and practically in New Hampshire, the prospect of a real live hurricane actually getting close enough to us that we'd have winds over 30 mph was truly just a little exciting. To listen to the media, you'd think we were all going to go the way of Dorothy. I boldly went on record as saying that we'd probably end up with just a little rain.

There was a little rain, then there was a little wind, then there was a little more rain, and a little more wind, but never that much of either for longer than a minute or two, and as the storm wound down around 2:30 Sunday afternoon, I got cocky and started spouting off about how it was yet another media-induced storm frenzy. Which I will stand by no matter what. But then the lights went out.

I calmly went the the refrigerator and drank a beer just to make sure that if we lost power for a while all of them would not go to waste, then I suited up myself and my girls in our rainboots and coats and out into the dregs of the storm we went for a little neighborhood post mortem. For those of you who have never had the joy of coming to my home in person, it would help you all to know right now that our street is a cul de sac directly off of Main Street consisting of 21 houses placed around an open grassy area in the center. So picture my girls and I happily splashing about in the puddles as we walk around the circle, inspecting the damage to the fairy houses they have built on the circle and planning the insurance claim to Fairy Home Companion Inc for the rebuild, and generally enjoying the fresh air on our faces when we come upon this:

Forgive the distance - the wind was still gusting and I didn't want to stand next to those other trees you can see. But you get the picture.

That's the way out of the neighborhood. The ONLY way out of the neighborhood. And, consequently, the only way IN to the neighborhood. Thirty feet of tree tangled in live wire and an electical pole smashed to smithereens all over the road now separated Independence Road and it's 85-100 citizens from civilization.

Word spread like wildfire, which incidentally would have been useful for removing the tree, and all of a sudden everyone was pouring out of their houses to see what was going on. I ran home to tell my husband not to have a heart attack, stroke, or aneurysm in the next 24 hours unless he wanted to make me a rich woman and to grab my camera.

Over the next few hours the police caution-taped off the area and important assessments were made: Who had ice? Who had hot water? Who - and these became the coveted neighbors - had a car on the outside? Who had generators? One neighbor admitted to owning a generator but choosing to keep it in a storage unit across town, now approximately 3 miles and 30 feet of tree away. However, this same neighbor is a licensed electrician so we voted to let him stay on the island despite this issue, knowing his skills would come in handy. Our immediate next door neighbor offered to run a power cord over to our home from his generator so we didn't lose everything in our refrigerator. We gratefully accepted, set it up, and then figured we'd better have another beer just in case anything went wrong with the generator. Plus, we clearly weren't going to be driving anywhere anytime soon.

5 Positives to Being Without Power:

1. I had 30 hours free from having to listen to Taylor Swift's song "Enchanted" over and over again.

2. My electrical bill will be smaller next month.

3. Perfect excuse not to have to bake yet another cake for Greta's real birthday, which was Monday, after making an awesome lady bug cake for her party last week.

4. Got to talk to neighbors in my pajamas without feeling weird about it.

5. Kids go to bed early because there is nothing else to do. So do parents.

Note that there are no positives to being trapped in your neighborhood.

As evening came on, we all hunkered down, a bit dismayed by now at the lack of any sort of progress on tree removal, and I was personally a little freaked out by the idea of lighting candles in a house that could not be saved should it go up in flames. It was not a relaxing evening. To add to my fun, the lack of progress on tree removal meant two things:

1. I was likely to have another fun day of family togetherness ahead of me.
2. Greta's 5 year old physical, scheduled for Monday am, and which she needed before being allowed to start Interim Kindergarten next week, was in serious jeopardy. This, my friends, was enough to send me into panic mode.

Every friend in town with a phone number in my phone or head who owned a minivan was now at risk of being called by me to be begged to get us all to the appointment. I am happy to say it only took two phone calls to find someone with power who was willing to help me. I truly love this town. And I took the fact that I had made alternate arrangements to mean that National Grid would clearly now be working through the night to clear our road and I wouldn't need help in the morning.

Because I should really bring quilting into this post somehow, here is a photo of our one personal item that did not make it through this drama unscathed - a table runner which is now covered in wax.

The light of day brought a huge change to the situation:

That's right. Now instead of rain there was sun.

By now, about 19 hours post-tree-smash, we had moved beyond annoyed and put out to full out pissed that we were still trapped with no sign of action from the outside. If Irene had truly been a menace in our area, it would have made sense that we had to wait a little, but even the police couldn't tell us why it was taking National Grid so long to get to us, and kept saying "Independence is our number one priority." Ours too, buddy. Ours too. We bandied about the question of who owned chainsaws, but having been assured by our electrician island-mate that the wire was still live, the Independence Road Chainsaw Revolution was an idea that had to remain just that. I decided to climb through the rabbit hole and take a walk with the girls down Main Street, and check in in person with the police, using the logic that it is much harder to ignore a real person than a phone call. My daughters could not have been more embarassed and horrified, and Eva was in all seriousness certain they were going to throw me in jail. Which would have been rather ironic given where we were living at that moment.

The "rabbit hole", our only method of getting in or out for 22 hours.

I didn't find any police at the police station (I'm refusing to spend any time thinking about why that could have been) but I did find the fire chief. I enjoy the fire chief, because when I asked him what his plan was if we had an emergency on Independence he looked dead at me and said "We have no plan, and we are pretty freaked out at the possibility." Despite the gravity of the situation, somehow his honesty and acknowledgement that we truly were in a serious mess made me feel better. I know, I'm weird.

Back home we went, where I discovered from a neighbor that I had just missed a reporter from the Lowell Sun. Being the squeaky wheel that I am, I was disappointed to have not gotten a chance to tell them how National Grid was useless, but I was thrilled to find out that my husband had been able to give them a statement. I have no idea if he mentioned me or not, but just knowing a statement came from our opinionated home I feel better. But since I had missed the reporter, I decided to take other action, calling WHDH, Fox News, and WHEB to report a trapped neighborhood. Fox was most intrigued because I was the third person from the neighborhood to call. They actually sent a helicopter out to do a fly-over.

And hotties, because I had called to report and intrigued them enough to gas up the helicopter, not 30 minutes later, 22 hours after tree smash, National Grid finally showed up and flicked whatever they flick to deaden the wire. Many of us were ready to flick something else at them. The town of Pepperell was immediately on their heels with a backhoe or some such tree moving monstrosity, and cries of freedom resounded from the citizens once trapped and now free to drive, walk, scooter, bike, ballroom dance, tumble, etc into the world at large.

Hotties, I thank you for reading this far. It was an experience, but one I am blessed to have come out of truly unharmed. I hope that all of you can say the same about Irene's visit, and that maybe you even have a new hurricane quilt to show for your time indoors.

Happy Hour just got way happier

2011-08-19T20:50:00.003-04:00

Oh my goodness. I just found out that apparently my little blog was selected this afternoon as "Blog of the Week" by the American Quilter's Society. I am amazed and astounded that such a group took the time to read a few entries, and yes, AQS Facebook team, I do insist that you send me a photo of all of you - and your American Girls, if applicable - hanging out in your jammies and sleep masks soon. Thanks for the shout out!

So those of you who may be new here thanks to their post - WELCOME! It won't take long for you to learn I don't take myself or the techniques side of quilting terribly seriously. I'm in this business to have fun and to make sure everyone else does too. I hope there is something for everyone here, and I hope everyone can find something to make them smile.

Does your husband have absolutely no inner GPS when it comes to locating objects? Scroll down just a bit to the post called "You Can Lead a Husband to Your Stash...." I think you'll find yourself nodding in agreement.

Ever wanted to know exactly how hard it is for a fairly computer illiterate to create a her first pattern using EQ? Check out any of the posts with "Diamond Dazzle" in the title from February to April 2011. You too may need a Motrin after reading.

Have small children that prevent you from quilting as much as you like? Check out "Mother Nature, You're Killing Me" wherein I give up and cry uncle to winter and snowdays.

Ever decided to teach a too large group of children anything at all? Then you must read the "Fun With Fabric" posts in October and November 2010. They will cure you of any thoughts of ever trying such a thing again.

Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope to see you back soon!

When the lists have lists

2011-08-16T09:44:00.006-04:00

It's that time of year....when the height of summer and most of its insanity is over (and surely you are saying "Thank God! She hasn't even had a moment to write a blog post and I miss her so very much!"), the back to school outfits are purchased and ready for action, and daily I unapologetically recreate the "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" best Staples commercial ever on my front lawn. It's also the time of year when the looming "free time" I will have starting in 21 days (but who's counting) starts to take shape, and the ideas for how I can improve/grow/continue world domination with EPQD are flowing like mad, resulting in more than one sleepless night since I really will need about 42 hours in a day to get it all accomplished before next June.

Over the next few months I will be announcing some exciting new patterns, revamping and recommitting to my newsletter, attending Fall Market and doing a Schoolhouse with one of my distributors, and running a new group quilting project online. I figure if offically write those things down, they will all have to happen! I also hope to repaint the powder/laundry room. Now that is exciting stuff.

I've done some quilting this summer, some of which will be revealed very soon, and some of which is going to have to remain secret for a little longer but trust me it's big news, at least for me. I did do one project with my older girls that I'd like to share here: some quilted throw pillows for their newly decorated "preteen-style" room. I know most of you will be supremely jealous when I tell you that I now possess a room in my home that is painted hot pink and electric teal. I know. It's all you imagine and more.

I attached Mistyfuse to the reverse side of lots of different scraps, cut them into 1" squares, and had them arrange the squares into cute pictures on a 20" square of tone on tone white. I then fused the pieces down and just stipple quilted it all down while I was actually quilting the top of the pillow. Score another point for lazy quilting! Paige, my 60s flower child, made this little number:

Paige's pillow

And Eva, always one to have to correct people who call her "Ava", made this one to help them remember her actual name:

Eva's pillow

I also made them new quilts (same pattern, one pink, one teal) but I cannot show you them yet for reasons which will be revealed at a later date. I also cannot let them use them, touch them, or be in the same room with them because my children are the messiest children on earth for several more months, again for reasons which will be revealed at a later date. Suffice it to say they are P-ISS-Y about this, and I can't really say I blame them, but short of making two more quilts exactly the same for them, which I am not a nice enough mother to do, there is nothing I can do about it. Instead we made these pillows and that will have to be enough for now, although you know it won't be and I'm going to hear about it every day for the next six months.

Until next time!

Real Girl and American Girl doll sleep mask tutorial

2011-07-21T09:57:00.012-04:00

When I posted my "American Girl doll hoodie towel tutorial" last fall, I had no idea it would still be getting daily hits 7 months later. I love knowing that I had a part in all those Emilys, Rebeccas, Kananis, and Kits out there who are surely rocking their fab new hoodie towels. Because of the popularity of that post, and because I might as well ride the wave of "stick 'American Girl' in your post title somewhere and it will get hits", it's time for another tutorial for another must have item for your doll.

Somewhere along the way in the last year, my daughters became sometime-primadonnas who will insist upon wearing sleep masks several nights a week. Unfortunately, they refuse to take my advice to always put them in the same place when they are done wearing them, so we often have emotional breakdowns at bedtime if the masks are not found. Those of you with girls between the ages of 4-10 are nodding in agreement. Those of you without are saying, "She really should just make them clean their rooms." And while that may be true, if I did, there would be no tutorial today because I wouldn't have been inspired yesterday to make more for them and in doing so surprise them with matching ones for their dolls. I am a pretty cool mom for sure.

So here's what you need to whip up these masks - and by whip up I do mean whip up. A set of girl/doll masks will take you less than 15 minutes.

Supplies:

10" square of scrap fabric

10" square of backing fabric

10" square of batting

1/4" wide elastic - lengths will vary based on the size of your child's head (my big headed child Eva needed about 11", my pin headed child Greta needed about 8", my normal sized headed child Paige was somewhere in between).

thread

pinking shears

a printout of this pattern:

Jellybeans for Mask

1. Print out the pdf of the mask shapes, from here out referred to as jellybeans because good Lord do they look like them. Cut out on lines. (As many of you know, I am completely computer inept. The fact that I have figured out how to pdf that thing and embed it this morning is a personal triumph of immense magnitude, but if you have issues printing it I likely will not know exactly why. If you cannot get it to print, PLEASE email me at evapaigequilts@charter.net and I can forward you the actual pdf, no problem. I may be a computer idiot, but I have no issue going above and beyond to make everyone happy.)

2. Cut out one large and one small jellybean/mask from your scrap fabric.

3. Place the jellybeans on top of the batting, and the batting on top of the backing fabric as shown in the photo below, wherein you can see that I am making three large masks at once with a piece of fabric about 12" x 15" and a backing fabric scrap that I have not even bothered to trim. It's a free tutorial and I know you get that if you are making a small and large jellybean set, yours will look a little different. I like to use some 505 spray to keep the sandwich together, but pins work too.

4. Stitch 1/4" along the outside edge of each jellybean.

5. Using pinking sheers, cut out each jellybean from the fabric sandwich, coming close to but not slicing the stitching you just did. If you do not have pinking shears, or if yours are 14 years old and have never been sharpened, you can instead serge or zig zag along the edge after cutting out the jellybeans. Or you can borrow some pinking shears from the next door neighbor. The possibilities are endless.

6. Attach the ends of the elastic bands to either side of the jellybeans.

7. Rejoice that the AG dolls will no longer be keeping you up all night with their incessant partying. With the aid of their new sleep masks, they will be off to dreamland in no time.

"Who turned out the lights? Molly...are you there...? Zzzzzzzzzzzzz"

Eva, Greta, and Paige with Amelia, Kayla, and Emily

One housekeeping note. If you make a sleep mask for a Bitty Baby, which I did as Greta's doll Kayla is a Bitty, be aware that because these babies are baldies, the mask will not stay on properly as the elastic has nothing to grip onto on their shiny little heads. Greta doesn't care, as the mask also makes a lovely necklace, but some children might not be thrilled with that outcome.

So stay tuned for my next tutorial - Bitty Baby wigs.

I'm totally kidding.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

2011-07-14T11:20:00.007-04:00

This week I've been working on a quilted sign for NEQDC to hang out into the aisle at our booths at our future shows. It's a concept we saw done at Genesee Valley quilt show in June and we loved it so much that I was elected/offered/last one to say aye is it to make a fun sign for us to use. I came up with the concept of a two sided sign with our name in a block at the top and then each of us was to make two blocks representing our pattern style and I would throw them together in a row at the bottom. Quick, easy, and relatively painless. Ha.

Quick quiz, what does the NE stand for? I know, you thought it might be Naturally Elegant. Or Newly Emergent. Or Nasty Eggthrowing. All of which would be great names for my designers group, which is in actuality New England Quilt Designers Cooperative. Northeast would also work, and lucky for us, New England and NE on a map of the USA is the same thing. Good planning, forefathers. But Hotties, that is a LOT of letters to cut out for the sign, especially when you consider I had to cut them all out TWICE so I shortened it to "NE" with the group's blessing, and last night, thanks to Netflix, I was able to get all of them cut out and adhered to both main blocks of the quilt.

This morning I headed downstairs to take these cute little strips of our blocks and sew them to the bottom of each block. Gaze upon these strips and you will see one in each row from each member of the group. If we look at the top strip, that would be a Lava Lamp block from Judy Damon, a fun applique block from Kristi Parker, a snowbally block from Barbara Chojnaki, a Take Four block from Cary Flanagan, a Syncopated Ribbons block from moi, and a very fun Purple Moose from our head moose, Terri Sontra. I will be honest in tooting my own horn to say this block part of the sign was my idea and was brilliant.

What was not brilliant were my math skills. Just to review, 4 x 6 = 24. Not 18. Which is what I was thinking when I cut my main blocks to 12 x 16. Imagine my horror when I saw that this is how they would go together this morning, while I was still dealing with cramping hands from scissors last night:

Thankfully, I remembered that I suck at math but immediately rejoiced that I had at least done the central block with one side divisible by 4. Dumb luck at it's finest. So I just reworked the design (after all, if I couldn't do that I wouldn't be much of a quilt designer, would I?) and the result, I have to say, is adorable.
Here is one side:

Here is the other:

I decided I didn't care to put a binding on and take away from the blocks at all, so it's just poor-man serged using a big old zig zag. Much quicker than trying to set up and figure out my serger this morning.

If you are heading to Maine Quilts in a few weeks, please stop by and check out our sign in person! It will be its first time at a show and it needs some lovin'!

Name game

2011-07-08T12:34:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about quilt names this week, so over on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/EvaPaigeQuiltDesigns) I have an informal poll asking about how you came up with your favorite quilt name ever. I'd love to have you add your two cents! Just like talking about baby names ("OMG, can you BELIEVE Sheila named her child Hildegard!?!?!?!"....."Don't you just love the name Simon? It's so manly."), quilters should never tire of chatting up quilt names.

You can lead a husband to your stash......

2011-07-07T10:26:00.000-04:00

...but it will take a miracle for him to actually find what you asked him to bring to the cottage with him despite the ridiculously detailed description.

I have waxed poetic more than once on my personal Facebook page about how joyous it is for me to be the only person in my family who can ever find anything. Anywhere. Ever. The response has always been overwhelmingly in favor of all women everywhere feeling the exact same way. And yet I keep giving my family members chances to redeem themselves, always with the hope that they will this time triumph over the Black Hole of Things Visible Only to Women.

It was in this spirit of hope that last Friday I called my husband from our lake cottage, where I had taken the children earlier in the week to spend some time with their grandparents and cousins. I had also taken my sewing machine so I could work on a project for my friend Barbara Chojnacki's upcoming book, a project I had totally forgotten I had signed on to do and which was now unstarted with a few days to the deadline. I blame my computer meltdowns for everything I can, and this oversight is no exception. But I was not going to let Barbara down, especially as she did an adorable sample for my "Once Upon a Time" book, so while the kiddos built fairy houses and played street hockey and in between my own gin and tonics, I got the entire top pieced the first day. I had not packed batting, backing, or spray baste with me as I never imagined I could be so productive, but now I needed my husband to bring them that night so I could move on to the quilting process. Dare I ask him to find these items in my admittedly not overly organized sewing studio? Oh, I dared.

The following is an approximation of the message I left on the answering machine for him:

"Hey Lover, it's me. For whatever reason the girls are allowing me to sew up here. I may move here permanently. Anyway, I got the top of Barb's project done and I want to quilt it but I don't have batting or backing. So here's the deal. Go downstairs and look on my cutting table. There is a stack of batik fabrics sitting directly in the middle of it. They look a little like tie dyes, but they are called batiks. Quilting lesson for the day. Lots of different colors bleeding together on one fabric, really cool looking. It's a stack of about 15 or so fabrics. Grab me a few of the larger dark pieces, please, so I can use one for the back. Then go to the box on the shelf underneath the table and grab me a piece of batting that will fit a quilt about 24" x 24". Awesome. The last thing I need is a can of the 505 spray baste - that should be in the cabinet by the computer, on the top shelf. The can is yellow with a blue top and says "505" on it. Bring all that and it will make my day complete. You are awesome. See you soon."

As we women know, you really can't be too specific, and I figured that would work.

The following is a photo of the stack of batiks, which as of this morning was still sitting on my cutting table.

Witness the neat stack! Witness the multi-coloredness that almost looks like tie dye! If the photo were bigger, you could witness how the stack was dead center in the middle of the cutting table!

Witness what my husband brought instead.

Yes, that's right. A jumbled mess of random pink fabrics that were sitting off to the right after a recent project was completed. I can totally see the resemblance to what I asked for.

We won't even go into the batting. Suffice it to say at least he went with the "more is more" rule. I could have quilted fifteen 24" x 24" quilts.

The spray baste, however, he got right. I truly was expecting a can of hairspray by the time I got to that item, but he redeemed himself. Lucky to be cute, is all I can say. And luckily there was a big chunk of hot pink batik in the jumbled mess that I could use for a back, so the day was not totally lost.

I can't show my entire project that I was working on, and have now completed, for Barbara's book, but I will show you this little snippet. It combines my batiks with my newest toy, my Kanzashi flower maker. Way too much fun and the quickest way to make a 3-D embellishment ever.

I really loved being able to use not only the flower maker, but all the batiks I have collected for years and never done a thing with. Barbara's ideas for putting shapes together are really fun, and I hope she likes my attempt.

Pack carefully for your summer sewing, hotties. Our husbands are cute, but I venture to guess that few of them possess the object location gene.

Hotties Hotties Everywhere

2011-06-16T13:26:00.005-04:00

Let me be honest right up front that this post will contain no photos. I'm in the midst of a dual computer meltdown of epic proportions, and while I now have two running computers again, I have yet to reinstall any photo software. So think of this post as a magazine column, with my photo at the top and that is it. Oh, hey, I could even make it look like that:

(forgive me, I'm starting the summer vacation punchiness early)

"Hotties, Hotties, Everywhere"

My husband came up with the Quilting Hottie nickname for me several years ago, pre-third child body and back when I truly could pull off actually being hot. Now when he says it I am sure he mostly thinks of it as "she can sew on a binding and give me some lovin' all in the same evening - I am the world's luckiest man ever", and hey, if that's all it takes, I will keep the nickname. I've found that quilters enjoy joining me in being Quilting Hotties, happily slapping on the little pins I have made and wearing them proudly, and when I started this blog, I knew I had to have Quilting Hottie as part of the title.

Perhaps I should have given it more thought. If you don't believe me, go ahead and google "quilting hotties." But be forewarned - it will make that slightly suggestive sentence up there in my first paragraph seem practically virgintile.

But to me, the most amusing by-product of my blog name has come in the form of the list of "search keywords" on the stats page of my account here at blogger. You hotties can't see it, but as the owner of the blog I can, and do, check in on the stats from time to time to see what you are reading and how you are finding me. And the things you are putting into google to get sent here are awesome. Without further ado, my "Top Five Favorite Search Phrases That Lead Quilters to QHH":

1. "Hotties who quilt/hotyies in quilts"

Obviously, someone who have vaguely heard of me in passing just threw "hotties who quilt" in the google toolbar. I'm honored to have made the cut of hotties who quilt by google. In fact, on my google screen I appear to be the only one in existence. As for the "hotyies in quilts", I only hope that is another language because wow on the spelling.

2. "Using quilts to teach the gospel"

This one just befuddles me. Make no mistake, Jesus is my homeboy, but I don't believe I have ever created a pattern that could be described as a quilt that could be used to teach the gospel. Unless that gospel was "perfection is overrated." In any case, I found it a bit of a scream.

3. "The world's best quilt photo"

If by "best", we mean "passable", sure, I've got lots of those here. Pretty sure I was a disappointing find, though, for that person.

4. Quilting guilt

Is this a real thing? Do people actually suffer from this? I'm disturbed and a bit saddened that anyone would think quilting related guilt was a big enough problem in their life for them to sit down at the computer and google it in hope of finding a support group or something. I only hope that whoever found me that way found something to put them at ease here. I don't think it should come as a bit surprising to regular readers that I have never suffered any guilt related to my quilts.

5. "Hotties - photos of bikini clad chicks"

One word. Ew. And one promise. You will never find bikini clad chicks here, at least not until my daughters start demanding custom quilted bikinis when they are teenagers.

Google with care, my hotties. Google with care.

Storming the Festival

2011-06-08T09:51:00.011-04:00

I recently returned home from Rochester NY, a town famous for two things:

1. I was born there.

and

2. The Genesee Valley Quilt Festival.

Since they were not planning any parades in celebration of my birth 40-some odd years ago, the Quilt Fest was going to have to do for a reason to return. So a week ago I hopped in the car on a dreary afternoon and headed down the Massachusetts Turnpike, rocking out to all sorts of 80s music on the radio and generally enjoying the moments of solitude before driving boredom was sure to set in. I needn't have worried. Not an hour into my drive, the sky opened up like a car wash, the winds were insane, and hailstones started hitting my car. I couldn't see two feet in front of me. Then, stuck 8 miles between exits off the pike in either direction, my radio starts beeping the National Weather Emergency beeps that normally are reserved only for tests in the middle of Elmo's World because there is a Flipping TORNADO in the vicinity. I had about 5 minutes of sheer panic attack not knowing where the hell to put myself and the car, and just kept going because everyone else on the road was doing the same. Visions of the 30-ish quilts belonging to myself and other members of NEQDC in my car cycloning over central Massachusetts filled my head - and then it was over as soon as it began, blue skies ahead. I later found out that yes, there was an F3 (does F stand for flipping? Because it should.) tornado less than 20 miles from where I was at that moment. Well, played, mom and my other guardian angels. Well played indeed.

So, as Cary Flanagan, one of my NEQDC colleagues who joined me on the trip (although she took the wimpy way out and drove through only beautiful weather the next day) noted, I can now "say for sure that neither hail, nor rain, nor tornados will keep me" from bringing EPQD to the masses. But I must admit I hope never to have it happen in such a dramatic fashion again. And my heart goes out to all those in MA who lost their homes or worse that afternoon. It was a freakish thing and truly terrifying.

Anyhoo, on to the show! Genesee Valley Quilt Guild is a 300+ member guild and they truly know how to put on a show. Over 1000 quilts, several traveling exhibits, a fashion show, two live auctions, and my personal favorite, the Iron Quilter competition. I was chomping at the bit to participate in that one; quilters were given 5 hours to create a quilt, start to finish, including quilting, binding, embellishment, sleeve and label , and when I tell you these quilts were A-Maz-Ing I am not giving them enough credit. Holy insane talent.

New England Quilt Designers Cooperative was one of 41 vendors at the show. Terri Sontra, another NEDQC member, and I arrived a day early to do set up and I must say we did a fantabulous job. If you have read our "Strength in Numbers" article in The Quilter (shameless plug), you will recall we often refer to setting up even a double booth with all of the samples from six designers as trying to fit 10 pounds of sugar in a five pound bag, and this time was no different. Thankfully we did have another show going on in Connecticut (where member Barbara Chojnacki was doing a bang up job representing us), so this time we were down several samples and that actually was a blessing. I snapped these photos toward the end of set up:

Note "Beth's Embellishmenty Corner," where I spent much of the weekend demo-ing my favorite glue, Jewel-it, and selling it by the truckload.

The show was held in the RIT Field House and was way cool to look down on from the upper track area. See that marquee on the left? It's a little blurry, but it says "New England Quilt Designers Cooperative" - all the vendors were scrolling all weekend long. Very cool. If you wonder where the people are, well, we'll admit this was the slow day, but these photos were also taken during the fashion show, so most people were sitting at the very end of the room enjoying that event.

Despite the tornadic experience of getting there, I'm so glad we participated. Not only was it a fun show, but I learned two very important things about the women who worked the booth with me:

1. Cary Flanagan (Something Sew Fine Design) unwinds in the evening with a Port and Orange Juice cocktail which is actually quite pretty.

2. Terri Sontra (Purple Moose Designs) has as crazy a life as I do and her dog receives a pension from the state of California. Love it.

God only knows what they learned about me.

Little did I know that

Forks on the left

2011-06-01T09:44:00.003-04:00

Last year at Spring Market I enjoyed meeting some of the oilcloth vendors and salivating over their offerings. I'd never before considered using a material such as oilcloth for a sewing project, but being the risk taker that I am, I was definitely intrigued.

As with most of my sewing and quilting projects, an idea started to take shape in my head involving using oilcloth for kid-friendly placemats. I thought they might fill a niche that I as a quilter and mom of young kids felt was missing in what I call the "Quilted Placemat Craze of the early 201-'s." Yes, quilted placemats are gorgeous. Yes, they are a quick project to give a quilter serious "I didn't make another UFO, I made an actual object" satisfaction. But yes, they are ridiculously impractical for use with children, or dare I say, anyone messy. I name no names. So I figured wipeable, non-porous oilcloth might actually work for me. And my kids.

When I went to purchase some oilcloth, right next to it was chalkboard cloth. I then had a revelation right there in the fabric store, which is always very dangerous for my wallet and my sanity for the next two weeks while I figure out how to translate that revelation into a finished work, but this one actually came together pretty well.

The result is my "What's for Dinner?" table mats, featured this month in Quilt Pattern Magazine. Why do I love this project, other than the obvious practicality and adorability of it?

1. It features reverse appliqued place setting shapes, set as Miss Manners would approve (with the exception of the knife which I have been told has the blade reversed. Perfection is overrated.), so you can hand a stack of these babies to your kids and know that if they follow the shapes, your table will be set perfectly. And maybe someday, they will be able to set it from memory. Dare to dream, hotties. Dare to dream.

2. No more answering the question "Mom! What's for dinner?" 98 times between the hours of 4pm and 6pm. Or for three days prior to dinner as is the case with the 43 year old kid in my house. Again, I name no names. The plate area is just exactly the right size to write the menu for the evening, as long as said menu is not a 7 course meal. And if it is, I beg of you to please stop showing the rest of us up. When dinner is over, wipe the chalkboard cloth clean and you are ready to write tomorrow's menu.

3. Younger children might just get some help with their reading and writing, too. If dinner is a bit late because your Coq au Vin didn't coq properly, hand them some chalk and let them draw some letters and words. When they get bored of that, they can draw you standing in the kitchen swearing at the chicken or fighting with the spaghetti. The possibilities are endless.

"What's for Dinner" is available this month and next for all Quilt Pattern Magazine subscribers. Enjoy!

Celebrating quilting through unifocal lenses

2011-05-24T08:48:00.003-04:00

Yeah, I have no idea if that is a word or not either.

I'm here today to announce that at 6:30am tomorrow, 5/25, I'll be the guest blog post for the week at www.quiltinggallery.com. And that blog post celebrates the joys of discovering quilting at a younger age, something that many of us, even if we are a bit past being able to firmly place ourselves in the younger quilter realm, can relate to because we were there once. So whether you are currently a quilter under 45, or under 35, or under 25, or once were a quilter under those ages, please stop by Quilting Gallery (either click on the link above or on the image in the left sidebar) and check it out!

As part of the fun, I'm giving away a kit for my "Funky Tree Farm" quilt, which is featured in the post. You just have to post a (kind) comment on the Quilting Gallery site under my post to be entered. You are always welcome to post comments here, too, but they won't be entered for the drawing.

I'm off to enjoy the waning days of my pre-bifocal life, myself.

The family who quilts together...

2011-05-17T14:20:00.011-04:00

....is in the case of my family, being forced to do so by one wacko person, and that would be me. Thankfully they humor me.

So excited to participate in another of Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festivals at www.amyscreativeside.com. I was all set to show you all three of the quilts my extended family helped create for each of my three children, but then I actually read the rules and determined I was only allowed to show one quilt. So because everyone worries so much about my daughter Greta being in therapy someday due to her not having her name in my company like the other two, I chose her quilt. Plus it just really shows some clever creativity on the parts of my non-quilting family members (ie everyone but me).

Greta's Love Bugs

I got the idea to have our families welcome each of our babies with a group quilt from my husband's cousin, who had had all of her family members decorate teddy bear quilt squares to suit their personalities. The result was adorable, so when my twin daughters were born in 2002 I had all of our family members decorate not one but two penguin quilt squares. I provided the square with the penguin all appliqued on it (you know, because I had nothing better to do while pregnant) and sent out care packages to all our family members with the squares, some random fabrics, some fabric paints, buttons, beads, jewels, etc and the explicit instructions that they had to deck their penguin out in some manner to reflect themselves and send it to me by 3 months before the babies were due so I could put them together OR ELSE. Only the pregnant can use OR ELSE as effectively as all that. I truly had no hope that my father in law or three brother in laws would do this at all, and had serious doubts that my mother in law and sisters in law would do it either, but I prayed they might take pity on me. My own family members got together at my parent's dining room table a month before my mom died of cancer to create their blocks all together. Really a great memory.

Suffice it to say the entire family, father in law included, shocked the heck out of me, and every square came back on time and completely adorable and creative. But you don't get to see those quilts unless I get a lot of begging in the comment section.

Three years later we were expecting a third baby, and I had no idea what theme to use for this one's family quilt. I feel certain many family members were hoping I would not come up with one, but eventually I determined that this time everyone would work even harder. (I do tend to use pregnancy to get my way, as all women should do.) This time, everyone got a square of green fabric and the instructions to "create a bug that reflects your personality, something you like to do, etc." I don't even want to know what was said behind my back. Again, fingers crossed, I went about my business and prayed for results.

OMG did I get them. "Greta's Love Bugs" came in by the truckload (since we had some more family members by then) and every one of them was knock down drag out creative. Here are some of my faves:

My dad, known to my children as Poppa, likes to (or more accurately, is often called upon to) fix things around the house and is quite handy. He came up with the idea of making a carpenter ant, and, as we can see, totally ran with it. The ant is some black fabric I provided, the overalls were part of some of his old jeans, and the tools were from a Christmas ornament he had had for years and sacrificed to the cause of his new grandbaby's ultimate happiness. The pencil was a little stick whittled on one end and painted to look like an eraser on the other. I just love my dad for being so awesome; I love picturing him at the table working on this and coming up with all these ideas and being proud of himself, and he should be.

Poppa's Carpenter Ant

Next we have my husband, exhibit B in the "But men who aren't quilters can't possibly be creative enough to do this, can they?" rebuttal. I apologize that the photo doesn't do the block justice, but he chose to make a Daddy Longlegs. How freaking cute is he? On the block he wrote "Daddy doesn't have long legs, but he longs to meet you." Yeah, he's pretty cute.

Daddy's Daddy Long Legs

Next up we have my daughter Paige's block for her baby sibling. Paige was three and a half at the time of the quilt block creation and even then was my most creative and crafty child. She wanted to make a bee, and did so with some fabric scraps, sponge paint stamps, and fabric paint. She even made some little button flowers. She's really quite fabulous. My favorite part of this block, though, is where I wrote the little message she wanted to tell the baby, and I do quote: "I hope you are a baby brother because we already have girls here." We did not know what kind of baby we were having, but Paige had always been steadfast in wanting a baby brother, and I felt it really did need to be documented on her square. (We were slightly concerned that she would be bitterly disappointed by a baby sister, but as it turned out, she was the one running around the house screaming "We have a baby sister!" when we called to let them know. So it's all good.

Paige's Bee

Last but not least I would like to highlight my sister's block, because again, the choice of bug is so creative. Alison is a book editor, working mostly on children's books, and chose to make a bookworm. She used some marketing materials from her work to make little books on the square and wrote "Aunt Alison will read to you." I'm not really sure of the significance of the pink bow, but overall it is just too darn cute. And again, just way more creative than I ever expected.

Aunt Alison's Bookworm

Thanks for checking out my post in the blog tour. I'd love to hear what you think, and would love to hear if you have ever made such a quilt in your family!

Trick or Treat! I'm dressed as a Technologic Wonderkind.

2011-05-15T17:27:00.007-04:00

It is a well documented fact among everyone who has ever met me, even briefly on the street, that I would have been an excellent 1950s housewife. Not, mind you, because I keep the perfect home, keep my children stain-free, mannerly, and unrumpled, and greet my husband each evening precisely at 5pm with a martini while wearing pearls. Hardly. More because my level of technological awareness and understanding is more suited to a typewriter and adding machine than iPads and Nooks (0f which I own neither, although the former is on the horizon and I believe the latter should be outlawed, but that is another post for another time). Thankfully, I married a man who was raised by a lovely couple who still do not have cable television and only recently got a tv with a remote. So he gets me.

"Syncopated Ribbons"

Now available for download on Patternspot.com

(Side note - our local grocery store is currently running a "Recycle your Electronics" campaign - Give us your old electronics, we'll give you a gift card. Joe and I just about needed Depends while we were reading the list of things they would accept for recycle, because every one of them was way more fancy than anything we own. You know that commercial where the family comes home and the house was robbed but the thieves left the computer? That's us. We're actually quite hopeful that we will be the charity to which all the recycled electronics will be donated.)

"Greta's Kaleidoscope"

Now available for download on Patternspot.com

So taking all of this into consideration, most of you should be sitting down when I make this announcement: I've not only had a quilt in a downloadable magazine this month (http://www.quiltpatternmagazine.com/ if you missed my previous post) but I now have three of my patterns available from PatternSpot, a downloadable pattern marketplace run by C&T publishing. I know. I too worry that I have actually been taken over by alien beings. www.patternspot.com/users/127 - there I am, with my three patterns.

Traditionally, I've been wary of the downloadable pattern. Not only does it rely soully upon the t-word, but for someone like me who likes to actually touch and feel my books and patterns on paper, it was way too bizarre to think about actually keeping them on a computer file. Or making a consumer print out their own pattern. The horror. But hey, times, they are a-changing, and it is time for me to move into the 20th century. (Not a typo, btw. :) )

PatternSpot.com is a gorgeous website full of fantastic patterns for all different skill levels by tons of designers all available at the press of your enter key (and a few other keys, like your paypal account access and/or cc for payment, but really, that's just details). I love the way the designer photos are all in B/W, too. Not only does it look classy, but it really hides a myriad of skin and/or brassy hair color imperfections. Speaking for myself, anyway.

"Confetti Toss"

Now available for download from Patternspot.com

The patterns I chose to include for starters at PatternSpot.com are three from either my "holy cow this is so easy my four year old could do it (or at least pick out the fabrics)" collection of designs or my "wow I am letting loose and having a ball without having to worry about matching any points or making my seams exactly 1/4 - are the quilt police banging on my door yet?" collection of designs. I choose these three because they are fun, they are relatively quick, and they don't contain any templates, so they were easy for me to upload and know the directions should be just fine. When I get braver I'll add some from my collection of "easy machine piecing and embellishing - lots of wow with little fuss" designs.

Please visit the PatternSpot.com website, even if you don't look at my page. But hey, while you are there, check that one out too just to humor me. Happy downloading!

Road trippin' with NEQDC

2011-05-11T11:57:00.004-04:00

NEQDC, or New England Quilt Designers Cooperative for those of you just joining us, is packing up and moving out in just a couple of weeks as we will be vending once again at Genesee Valley Quilt Club's Quilt Festival, June 3-5 2011 at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY. This will be our second consecutive time at the show and we are very excited. Come along as I attempt to excite you as well!

Quilt Festival is the biannual show for Genesee Valley Quilt Club, a huge club from Western NY that really knows how to put on a show. It's three full days of non stop action, including fashion shows, auctions, special lectures and exhibits, a chance to sew a pillowcase for charity, and of course about 900 billion quilts. The ladies, and I would imagine a few gentlemen, of GVQC are not only prolific in and of themselves, but they also secure travelling exhibits for show at their event, so the floor is just amazingly full of gorgeousness. I spent three days there and couldn't see it all. Granted, I was supposed to be helping in NEQDC's booth, which cut into my show viewing, but as anyone who has worked with me in the booth in the past knows, I tend to wander off and hope no one notices.

Add to all the fun the vendor shop hop. This is such a great idea and I wish more shows would adopt it. Perhaps it only works for GVQC because the vendors are so fantastic (they truly are!), but here's the deal: As you shop, save your receipts. Then head on over to the shop hop booth. Volunteers with calculators will add up your totals, and for every $100 you've spent, you get a ticket to put in a Chinese auction style basket raffle. Baskets feature products donated by the vendors, from patterns and notions to alpaca sweaters. It's truly fantastic and a win win for the vendors, the show, and the shoppers.

This year's special guests are George Siciliano, Pat Pauly, Rami Kim, and Carol Ritter-Wright. Carol will be doing a live auction with some of the proceeds to benefit Gilda's Club of Rochester, a support system for women with ovarian cancer and their families. As a daughter who lost her mom to ovarian cancer almost ten years ago, I absolutely love that I can be part of a show that supports fighters and survivors in this way.

NEDQC will be in booth 610/611 - oh yeah, we sprang for the double! - and we'd love to see you there. Myself, Terri Sontra of Purple Moose Designs, and Cary Flanagan of Something Sew Fine will be there in person. We aren't George Siciliano, but we think we are pretty awesome, so please stop by!

Quilt Pattern Magazine and my Sally Field moment

2011-05-04T10:46:00.004-04:00

Several months ago I received notice from someone, somewhere, that there was a brand new online magazine, http://www.quiltpatternmagazine.com/, coming out and they were looking for designers. Being one to jump on new magazine bandwagons before they realize I am a relative nobody, I immediately contacted them for more information and within a month had sent them two new designs, one of which had been soundly rejected by one publication already. But I'm not bitter. If I were bitter, I would name names. (In all seriousness, I am not bitter at all and totally get that rejection is part of this business and am actually quite good at not taking it personally. Just in case people were worried. :) )

Anyway, off went my two designs, and off I went to go about the business of living my life for the several months I expected it would take to hear that they likely were going to go in another direction. Which was fine. They make wine, I am happy to use it to soothe my weary soul. Props to Folie au Deaux and Jerry Lohr (who went to high school with my father in law, BTW - my own personal "Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon/ Tom Helfter" ).

Imagine my surprise when 6 HOURS later I was innocently checking my email to see what stellar products Overstock.com was trying to sell me when BAM! Two acceptances in the same day as a submission! Holy crap. Does this mean I have talent? I commenced to running around the house yelling "They like me! They really like me!" while my children ushered their friends out the door so as not to be permanently embarassed by my behavior.

Enter May, and it's time for Quilt Pattern Magazine to run the first of my patterns - "Night Owl". It's right there on page 12 for you subscribers. The photo is not the best and I am not terribly proud of that part. So here's a close up of part of it that shows the cool fabrics by Adorn-It and the really cute ruffled bias strip part.

Part of the reason my photo stinks is my mad non-skills as a photog, but mostly it is that polka dot fabric. LOVE the fabric, DO NOT recommend polka dots on something you plan to photograph. Cameras hate them. What do cameras know? They are awesome. But unfortunately, if the cameras hate them, they can screw you. And the camera did so. Are we loving my "It can't possibly be MY fault!" attitude?

Anyway, questionable picture aside, it's a great little quilt. Quick, simple piecing and way fun to choose fabrics for ultimate wow factor - the simple design makes it a true "the fabrics make the quilt" quilt. And that applique bias strip is to die for. So cute, and a simple way to make a fairly plain quilt a whole lot more interesting.

Here's another close up of my quilting. I'm quite proud of it and believe it needs to be highlighted because it took me about 900 hours to do. That's an exaggeration. Probably more like 600.

I love that QPM included so many alternate ways to do the bias strip, including a photo of one of the tester quilts. Great minds together can make even a simple quilt something special.

If you aren't a subscriber to QPM, I encourage you to check it out. It's one of the best bargains out there and comes out monthly! We all need more quilting ideas on a regular basis, after all! June's issue will feature my second submission, which if at all possible I love even more than this one just because it is completely unique, practical, the perfect gift for any child, and beyond adorable. Not that I am biased.

April Giveaway Extravaganza is here!

2011-04-26T14:48:00.003-04:00

For those of you who are my "likers" on FB, and how horrible is it that they took away the "fan" button and replaced it with "like" because "likers" is just terrible English, you may have seen that throughout 2011, every month I am giving away a little prize to new "likers" (there it is again) for the month. If this is the first you are hearing of it, clearly you need to visit the page now and then.

For the first three months I kept the prizes smallish and the pool of eligible winners was only new "likers" (ugh - it just gets worse each time I write it). But for this month, in honor of my brand new pattern which if UPS ever brings me the box of my first printing will be out any moment now, I am giving away a real live actual quilt, and anyone who cares to enter to win may do so.

Here's the quilt:

It's a 23" x 45" table runner or wall hanging using fabulous spring-y fabrics purchased from my favorite quilt shop, Bunkhouse (www.bunkhousequiltshop.com) and looks great on a table, wall, or even hanging off the side of the garage since the lighting was terrible inside the house and I'd appreciate you not telling my husband about how I use the garage for this purpose and allow him to believe those little tack holes are just imperfections in the wood.

Thank you.

Anyway, here's how you win this joyous bundle of quilted heaven:

1. Go to www.facebook.com/EvaPaigeQuiltDesigns.

2. Locate the post featuring this picture (posted 4/26).

3. Hit the share button - this will post the photo on your wall along with what I wrote.

4. Make sure to tell your friends why you are posting it when it asks you to "say something about this". Otherwise they might think you are now in the business of randomly hanging quilts up on your garage and taking their photos. And we can't all be in that business, now, can we?

5. Be sure to then comment "SHARED" under the original post on the EPQD page. Otherwise I won't know you shared it, won't be able to thank you, and won't be able to enter your name in the drawing.

Frequently asked questions about this contest:

Where is the "share" button?

It's right under the post, next to like and comment. It may be shy, because it only shows up when photos or things like that are posted, but it's very important and works like a charm.

Do I have to become a "liker" to enter?

Yes, I believe that in order to share the post and photo, you do need to be a liker. You would also need to be a liker to comment on the post, thus telling me that you shared it and entering yourself in the contest.

Must I stay a "liker" forever? Frankly I can only take so much of you.

Believe me, I completely understand. I feel the same, but yet I can never get away from me. Absolutely not, you do not need to stay a liker forever. However you will need to be a liker when the contest is over, so try to stick around until May 1. After that, if you want to unlike the page, please feel free. I'd love to have you stay and check it out now and then because overall it tends to be fun, but you are under no obligation to do so.

Can we please stop saying "liker"?

Yes, because we are done.

Share share share and like like like! Thank you

Diamond Dazzle Part 4 - It's Sneaky Peak Time!

2011-04-20T22:29:00.007-04:00

Or it will be if I actually was successful in converting that pdf to a jpg online. But what the hell. It's 10:30pm, I have nothing better to do than wait to hear a little 'beep beep' in my in box to see if it worked, so in the meantime I'll spend some time with all of you and update you on the lengthy ridiculousness of this project.

When we last left each other in the saga of "Beth attempts to use EQ7 to design a quilt", I was nursing a mostly dead all day computer - forcing me to face the learning curve of converting all I had done already to my laptop; I was sewing the Diamond Dazzle group quilt together and wasn't quite done yet; and I was completely dumbfounded as to how I was supposed to convert the template xps files to anything usable. All this while still maintaining my constant elegant demeanor of a 1950s housewife and making sure the children didn't go more than 2 hours without snacking on something. It's really been quite exhausting.

Suffice it to say the learning curve was steep but I am now on the downside of it, the group quilt is together and gorgeous and has even made it's debut in several trunk shows and a private viewing or two, and Andrea Bishop at EQ is a goddess on earth for putting up with my questions and issues with the xps thing. The bow in my hair and cold martini glass weren't always quite as starched or frozen when Joe came home from work, and the living room may have turned into a Formal Laundry room, but by God, the children had a snack every 2 hours. I'd say overall it was a successful month with a good outcome, if a bit long in coming.

Having sent Diamond Dazzle, which in it's infancy was an 8 page normal sized pattern and grew up to be a 16 page full color 8.5" x 11" booklet, to the best printer for these needs in the world (http://www.smartpress.com/) and with the expectation that a big box of patterns will arrive here on my doorstep at any moment, and there has been that 'beep beep' in my inbox I was waiting for, I now feel I can reveal, here for the very first time, the front and back covers. So Ta Dah:

The front:

If you can't enlarge it, that box under the title says "A ten carat quilt in five sizes with two finishing options". I debated on the size of the rock, but nine carats seemed two small and eleven was just gaudy, so ten it was.

And the back, which I honestly love for all the cool quilts on it:

Every time I look at any part of this thing I feel like I deserve champagne. It was that painful and I am that proud of it. As for the rest of it - well, you'll just have to wait a few days to request one of the very first, hot off the press copies.

One more thing, though, that might be of interest before I leave you to find my bed, is that the table runner in the lower left corner of the back, the blue/greeny one, will be showing up on my EPQD facebook page next week as the April Giveaway in my 2011 Giveaway Extravaganza, and all likers, new and old, will be able to qualify to win that very table runner as long as they play by the rules of the contest, which will be forthcoming mostly because I haven't figured them all out quite yet. That's how I roll, hotties.

Thanks for hanging in there as I have squirmed and complained and fretted and moaned and generally acted like the first designer ever to design a quilt. I'm hoping all the drama will qualify me for Quilt Diva-hood soon.

UFO-a-palooza 2011

2011-04-11T14:38:00.008-04:00

It's that time of year again. The day after my guild's annual spring retreat, where all my quilting crap is still in bags and boxes and taking over the main floor while I put off vacuuming the sewing studio for yet another day before putting it all back. This year's retreat was a frenzy of activity for me, and yet absolutely every project I worked on remains a UFO. But let's share the joy of what I did, shall we?

This is one of three of what will be 4 pillows (6? I can't remember, I need to call Jennifer and ask how many it was again like this) that I made for a friend. She is a photographer (http://www.jennifermacneilphotography.com/) and takes our family photos now and then, and we are trading services like the good Yankee swappers that we are. Three of these babies whipped up in about 1.5 hours, and are so completely adorable I may keep them myself. I mean, look how pretty it is on my couch! But they remain UFOs because the button cover kits we bought don't work with decorator fabric, so I couldn't quite get them done. Oh well!

Here we have a project that was started in a class last fall, taught by Sue Pelland. It is her own design and uses her own rulers and I think it is gorgeous. I worked on the machine applique of all the shapes this weekend and particularly love the way the verigated thread looks on that ribbon. The satin stitching on the flower petals is pretty awesome too. I had intentions of quilting it as well, but then someone told me about some thread that I need to use and I didn't have it with me and so it too remains a UFO. Thankfully there are 32 months until Christmas 2013, when I expect it will finally be done. Just nod your heads, hotties. You know it's how we roll.

Next up is a new sample of my For Love of Springtime pattern. I only had one sample and now and then had to borrow a completed one from my friend Regina Mohan if I needed samples in more than one place at a time. As much as she is possibly the most gracious and generous quilter ever, I hate stealing it from her and don't want to push my luck, so I thought a second sample was in order. It too is not done because I forgot to bring the pattern, apparently do not have it memorized, and screwed up the cutting of the top and bottom border blocks and ran out of fabric to finish. So another UFO was born.

On to the next project, this one arrived pieced and I just added the applique strip border thingy (it's proper name, BTW) and sandwiched and quilted it. Then went to add the binding so that I could finish a project. SNAP! I was one 2 1/2" strip of fabric away from enough to make the binding. So close, and yet so far. I won't lie, there was foul language involved. (A little aside - stay tuned to this blog and my FB page to see how you might win this actual table runner this month. I promise it will have a binding when you do.)

This is a sneaky peak wacky view of a piece of a top I made that will be a free pattern on this blog as soon as I get it quilted. But since it is not quilted nor bound, nor written up if we want to get technical about it, it too remains a UFO.

The crowning achievement of my weekend was to accidentally burn my right cornea with some contact lens solution, resulting in a trip to the ER and living dangerously by rotary cutting while on Vicodin. Long story, but even THAT situation was a UFO due to the fact that I only burned one eye, not both. However, I am not complaining about that small miracle. And there will be no photos of that achievement since from third grade on I have felt ugly and hideous when wearing glasses, so you will just have to imagine my current look.

So there you have it. My weekend in photos!

The C word

2011-04-06T12:02:00.005-04:00

Copyright. OMG, wash my mouth out with soap. For some of us designers, the word "copyright" is practically a four letter (plus five more - I didn't get that English degree for nothing, you know) word for all the trouble it can cause, both wittingly and unwittingly. Whenever we create a new design, the little voice in the back of our head is saying "are you SURE someone else hasn't done this before and is going to sue you for copyright infringment?" Whenever the topic is brought up among designers, it is sure to start spirited debate about what is proper and legal and what is not - some designers are more relaxed about their copyrights than others, and this always leads to some interesting discussions. And copyright comes up frequently as it is a problem in the quilting world; no designer is immune to the constant threat of having her or his patterns taken to the copy shop and copied for friends of the original buyer. I doubt anyone reading this is shocked by that, although it should sadden us all, since a designer's copyright means "I alone have the right to copy this. So back away from the copier, sister." Or some such thing. I for sure don't understand everything, but I do know this: I have never read other designers' copyright statements before deciding to purchase a pattern. I know they are there, I know I am not allowed to copy them, and if I like them, I buy them. But I also know that whatever the statement is, the designer has worked out the wording and they mean what they say, and I respect that. So anyway, for me, what the copyright says or doesn't say has no bearing in whether or not I purchase a pattern. Of course I am not looking to make quilts for sale, which might affect both my likelihood of reading the copyright and deciding to purchase or not, nor have I ever seen a copyright that offended me as a quilter, like "Hey. If you think you can make this quilt as well as I can, go for it, but if not, don't even bother because I am the Queen of everything quilt related." Because that would just be rude. Many of my FB followers chimed in yesterday and today after I posted that I wanted opinions on a copyright statement I was considering. And boy did I get them! Which is exactly what I wanted to do; if I didn't want to know what people thought, I wouldn't ask, and I feel very fortunate that the EPQD community I am attempting to build on FB is doing just what I intended - becoming a place we can share ideas and just have fun. Anyway, if you didn't see the post and discussion, check it out at www.facebook.com/EvaPaigeQuiltDesigns. I would retype the whole thing but I have to pick up a kid from preschool in half an hour and frankly there isn't time. While I love that most quilters seemed to love what I had to say and that is great for the ego, I also took into account those who weren't in love with it. After much debating about in my head, I have come to the following conclusions: 1. While copyright means it is mine to copy, the copyright statement is also totally mine to make. So why not make it totally mine? 2. The likelihood that a quilter will buy my pattern based on the copyright alone is doubtful. It will be a combination of the pattern love and what I allow them to do with it. If the fact that I am honest about why I request that my work be respected offends them, oh well. 3. Being a little cheeky in the copyright could only hurt my reputation in the quilting community if I had one to begin with. 4. And let's be honest, if other quilters who do have reputations in the quilting community wrote a copyright statement like that, people would be falling all over themselves to praise them. And with good reason, because it's honest and true and mildly amusing. So I've changed up a few little things (removed "almost killed me" and replaced it with "was a challenge", etc) and I put it on my new pattern. I'm taking bets to see if anyone even notices.

Oh, the humanity

2011-03-30T11:04:00.003-04:00

Of me, that is... At great risk of all of you opening your eyes to the fact that my perfection is overrated philosophy extends into the rest of my life now and then and comes back to haunt me, I must take this opportunity to admit I unwittingly have confused at least 12 quilters in the last week and possibly more depending on how far reaching the problem became, and now I am confusing all of you so let's get to the True Confession: I discovered yesterday afternoon that my latest "pattern stuffing while watching 'Dancing with the Stars' and drinking some shiraz" session resulted in my leaving the cutting chart out of about two dozen Syncopated Ribbons patterns that may well be flying about the country as we speak. I know many of them are centered in the Irondequoit NY area, where I was a guest of Irondequoit Quilt Club this week and made many members fall in love with and purchase this incomplete pattern. As for the rest, I have no idea where they may have landed, and if you have one, please contact me immediately for that page and more grovelling. Because that is always fun for everyone. I absolutely apologize for the omission of this vital page. So please, if you are a victim of my stupidity, please contact me immediately! Thank you!

Diamond Dazzle part 3 - Kickin' it Old School

2011-03-21T14:00:00.010-04:00

This past weekend I finally got to start putting together the Diamond Dazzle group quilt. If you've been with us now for 8 weeks or so, you will know what I am talking about. If not, go right ahead and check out the Diamond Dazzle part one and part two updates, along with the announcement of the group quilt project back in January/Feb timeframe. The rest of us can wait.......

While we are waiting for the newbies to catch up, can I just be really uncool for a moment and admit that it gave me a small thrill to have Mark Lipinski comment on my FB status the other day? The man has 5000 plus friends, and I am such a nobody compared to him; really, I just felt very special and this paragraph has proven I am a total geek with possible stalker tendencies.

Everyone all caught up now? Okay then! So for several weeks now I have had all these gorgeous diamonds hanging out in my house, as well as being the caretaker of a lot of gorgeous diamond blocks, and have been so busy writing the pattern, dealing with a mostly dead all day computer (a Quilting Hottie pin to the first commenter to correctly identify that movie reference in the comment section) and attempting to decipher the new carseat guidelines that I just have not had the chance to devote to sewing together my share of the close to 500 blocks total I was sent for this project. A crying shame by any stretch, I tell you. But last Friday I finally decided the time had come, and come hell, water in the sump, or a non-napping preschooler, I was going to start it.

The first thing I did was to go through all the envelopes and grab one of each unique set of diamond blocks (you may recall if you read for content that each participant was to make me four sets of blocks - if you didn't read for content or just pretended to read at all, well then, don't yell at me if you are confused). This alone was enough to send me into fits of ecstacy as I once again got to see how gorgeous all these blocks were. I lay them out on my living room floor because my design wall wasn't nearly large enough for the size quilt I was clearly going to get, which I would like to technically refer to as "big-ass". It's actually somewhere between full and queen, but isn't big-ass more to the point?

The next step was to sew the rows into strips; this part always goes really fast and gives me false hope that I can finish the entire thing by dinner. In reality, it's still not quite put together several days later. It was really fun to play a little game with myself as I sewed and tried to guess who had made each block based on style and fabric choices alone. I was about 75% right, which is pretty cool considering I only know about 25% of the people who contributed blocks. Call it more proof of my stalker-esque tendencies if you will, but I prefer to call it photographic memory mixed with exceptional name recall.

At some point during the day on Friday, my four year old non-napping preschooler who goes variously by Monkey or Greta to her face and Your Lovechild when we are passing the childcare buck, came walking by the layout on the floor and randomly announced to me "Mom, that's old school." I truly have no idea what the heck she meant by this and couldn't ask because I was too busy drying my tears from laughing so hard. Did she mean the colors? Did she mean because I couldn't fit it on the design wall so I was reverting to the floor, as in the days of yore? Did she simply mean to try out this phrase Daddy says all the time? In any case, it was highly amusing for it's complete randomness and she may have named that particular version of the quilt.

Old school or new school, I have to say the thing is stunning. There are so many fabrics in there that your eyes just keep moving, searching for

your new favorite every few seconds. One of my personal favorites is this pink and orange floral fabric, which has a little silvery thread thrown in to give it a fun metallic edge. But the most shocking thing about this fabric is....the maker of this block bent the rules and used (gasp!) FLANNEL! Yes, it is flannel. And while it wasn't in the rules as to whether or not flannel could be used, if I had been asked, I likely would have said no, please keep it all quilting cottons. But then I would have missed out on this awesome fabric which I absolutely love. Maybe being a controlling psycho for this project wasn't the best attitude to take after all; thankfully I was saved from myself just by being kept in the dark.

I also love this blue swirly fabric with a little teal and lime thrown in. While it reads a little lighter than the medium blue I specified for this project, I love that it lightens things up a little in its corner of the world. In fact, there was enough straying from the base colors of hot pink, orange, and blue into the worlds of lime, yellow, teal, and even a little purple that at first I was concerned about the overall effect, but once I put the top together these extra colors really became total poppers! Just another happy quilting accident.

Once my strips were together I had to determine fabrics for the framing diamonds and the borders. I had shopped for some basics in blue and orange prior to getting the blocks back, so really the biggest thing to decide was which fabric would be for which quilt element. I decided on the dark blue flowers ("Nobu" by Kona Bay) for the framing diamonds, and the dark orange mottled (Robert Kaufman "Marblelous") for

the border, and set about adding them to the strips so I could sew them together. And look at how well they came together once the strips were sewn together with the most perfect 1/4" seam allowance at the points! It's almost like I am a self-proclaimed professional or something.

So where is the photo of the entire quilt top, you find yourself wondering I am sure. The answer is: I am not showing it to you. That would necessitate that it be completely done and I don't want to have to admit to you that it is not completely put together yet and is still missing a very important element. So we are all going to pretend together like you have seen all you need to see and are incredibly impressed with my progress so far. And look at it this way - it leaves the door open for Diamond Dazzle part 4.

3 pieces of advice that changed my design career

2011-03-16T11:15:00.004-04:00

2011 marks the sixth calendar year that EPQD has been, well, EPQD, rather than just "Beth sewing in the basement like a drone". Not that sewing in the basement like a drone doesn't have its place and its joys, especially when in doing so one is allowing one's husband to take over the childcare for an hour or two. But, as usual, I digress.

So much has changed for this little design company since I took the Quilt University online class called "Make money quilting" or some such thing. It was a fabulous class and I really enjoyed getting perspectives from all sorts of quilt would-be professionals. The class homework centered around creating your business plan, and if it weren't for being forced to do it, I am sure I never would have started off on such a relatively strong footing, knowing what I wanted to do and how I was going to go about it all written down for me.

Now I look at that business plan and it is pretty outdated, and yeah, I should take the advice of the instructor of the class to rewrite it for my current business goals, but who has time? I'd rather quilt, frankly. So that's some advice that I am choosing NOT to take at this time. But as for the best pieces of advice I've received.....those are with me every day, and I would love to share them with you.

1. "Just because you are new doesn't mean you aren't good."

This bit of wisdom was shared on a yahoo list for quilt designers of which I am a member, and it was in relation to a discussion about how much to charge for trunk show lectures. I only wish I remember who said it. It came at a time when I had been lecturing for about 6 months, had worked out several kinks from the first few shows, and was getting praise and sharing joy whereever I went with my lecture. I had started with a pretty low price, comparatively, and was considering raising it a bit to be more in line with most lecturers I considered to be my compatriots, but I wasn't sure if I was allowed to do so quite yet. This advice kicked me in the right direction. When I considered the feedback I got after each lecture, I knew that yeah, I was new, but people seemed to really enjoy me, so I couldn't be completely bad. I decided to go for it, and raised my price all of $50. It's funny the things that you stress over sometimes!

2. "Free is not a business plan."

Also some advice recently found on the designers list, this one I do recall was shared by Maria Peagler. I think most quilters and quilt designers are nice people in general, and we just want to please our customers. I would like to think I am no exception, and I will admit that I have a hard time saying no to requests for pattern or book donations when I receive such things. But I am getting better about being pickier about who I give them to, because, well, free is not a business plan. (And if you see my lead in paragraphs, it's pretty much the only business plan I have right now.) I also no longer feel guilty when I insist on upfront payment for first time wholesale orders or any retail orders. With this bit of advice I know better than to give away the farm, and can see EPQD sales for what they are - commercial, just like Amazon or Overstock.com. And THEY don't send you products unless you pay first, right?

3. "Beth, they don't know. Just bull$%^ them."

Perhaps my favorite advice of all time, although the one I use the least, is this tidbit from my friend and the owner of Bunkhouse Quilt Shop, Wanda Makela. I was getting ready to make my Perfection is Overrated trunk show live several years ago and I was justifiably nervous that people would not take me seriously as a lecturer because I was not an expert in all areas of quilting. Not only did Wanda make me guffaw when she came out with this, she was right. No one is an expert in any area, and I can only talk to what I believe and know about quilting. If they ask something I don't know, there is always an option to make something up. Although I have to admit I don't believe I have ever actually made anything up, I remember this advice every time I stand in front of an audience, just in case. :)

I would love to know if you have any sage advice from others you keep in your back pocket for use either in quilting or your quilting career. The best way to learn is from those who have been there, after all!

A test you can't fail

2011-03-11T10:59:00.005-05:00

I am proud to say that every pattern I have published has been tested by at least one other and generally up to six other quilters, as well as checked over by a technical writer. This ensures several things:

1. I'm representing myself and EPQD in the best light possible.

2. As many quilters as possible will be able to read, understand , and sucessfully follow my patterns (I'd like this to be 100%, but since we all learn differently and relate better to certain styles of writing than others, that just isn't going to happen. Hey, I'm a realist.)

3. My inbox will not be deluged by angry quilters telling me I suck as a pattern writer. Here's hoping.

I personally could never skip this step because I know I am human and mistakes are easily made when creating a new quilt. Testers are an easy way to avoid sending a pattern out with stupid mistakes (we all make them, you know), random typos (even spell check doesn't catch it all, after all), and unclear wording. One of the reasons I like working with Quilt Pattern Magazine is that it is clear to me that they have the same commitment to pattern quality I like to think I have.

Even if you've never tested a pattern for a designer before, I urge you to check out http://quiltpatternmagazine.com/testing/. This new online magazine, for which I and several friends are doing some design work, is always looking for quilters of all levels to test the submitted patterns before they go into the magazine. At the link I just gave you, you can check out photos of the quilts that need testers, and choose to sign up (or not, there is no obligation) for any that look interesting. There is generally about a month turn around time to make a top, so if you are looking for a quick project and/ or another UFO, this just might be a great idea for you! Plus you get to get a preview of what might be coming up in the magazine (hint - one project up for testing is one I created, did you guess?) and you can feel really cool when it comes out in a few months and say "Hey, I already made that because I am awesome." And don't we all want to feel awesome?

What we did over February vacation

2011-03-08T14:00:00.007-05:00

After the rigorous challenges of 13 full days of school between December 23 and February 18, it was definitely time for a week off, otherwise known as Febrary break. I hate to think how overwhelming it might have been for our children to have a full week of school rather than a full week off. But I complain and digress. And in an attempt to have a positive attitude about the situation, I will list the positive attributes of February break 2011:

1. The house did not burn down.
2. No one threw up.

3. The girls and I drove to see my father and stepmother in Rochester NY, where we got to visit the National Museum of Play. Why is this National Museum not housed with the rest of the National Museums in Washington DC, you ask? No idea. I ask "If it is a National Museum, why isn't it free like the rest of them?" but I won't complain about this too loudly as it was a grandparental treat.

Anyway, the museum contains lots of cool kid friendly exhibits, such as the miniature Wegmans grocery store where kids can shop for, ring up, and restock all sorts of groceries. Those of us who grew up with Wegmans as our grocery store who now have to settle for Market Basket or Hannaford find any sort of Wegmans sighting or experience manna for the soul, so we spent quite some time in there buying pretend celery and wheels of blue cheese.

Greta manouevering through the throngs at Wegmans.

Now, quick quiz....who out there knew that Mama Berenstein Bear was a quilt shop owner? Anyone? I'll admit my children and I never read a lot of those books, so maybe I am the only one, but this was perhaps the most exciting thing I learned at the Museum of Play. In fact, the entire Berenstein Bear village was housed in the museum, but like the good little daughters of quilters that they are, my girls were immediately drawn in to the quilt shop, where they donned their aprons and attempted to sell me some quilts.

Some quilts were priced as high as 99 cents. Clearly I have much to teach my daughters regarding the worth of handmade quilts.

There was even a little area where you could do some designs with tiles and a light box. Paige, who is my little artist (of the three, anyway. She's cute, but she's no Van Gough) enjoyed that very much.

The Museum of Play - something for even the vacation weary quilt designers.

So did ya see it yet?????

2011-03-03T14:18:00.004-05:00

It's likely in stores this week, so you no longer have any excuse whatsoever not to have read the quintessential article in The Quilter (April/May 2011), "Strength in Numbers".

Let's review.

This is what the cover looks like:

Bright, cheerful, screaming to be thrown into your basket at your favorite fabric store. Don't let the lack of mention of the article you are seeking out on the cover fool you, it's in there. Page 82. Did I mention that?

I so appreciate you all humoring me. But today I want to share just a little about how and why we ended up writing the article in the first place, and how it got into such a fantastic magazine, besides just plain old luck. I promise it's actually a pretty interesting story.

Last August, NEQDC was vending at Maine Quilts in Augusta ME, a fantastic show if you have never been to it, and our next door vending neighbor was the fabulously talented, incredibly funny, too darn cute and sweet for words, and let's face it 9,000 times more famous than us Jo Diggs. We got to know one another a bit and she was very impressed with us (who wouldn't be, really?) that we had taken the concept of shared vending and run with it so successfully, a concept she had never seen pursued before in the industry. She suggested that we write an article and submit it to some magazines for publication because it was a new fresh idea. We knew we had something great, but really hadn't considered that we were doing something others might be interested in learning more about. But we told her we'd do it. And when you tell Jo Diggs you are going to do something, you do it. (Here I am totally kidding. The woman is truly adorable and not fearsome in any way.)

A few weeks later my children finally went back to school for the fall and gave me a moment to collect my thoughts, and in those thoughts was the idea of a magazine article. I volunteered to head up the project and no one else in NEQDC objected, which means one (or both) of two things:

1. They thought I could do a good job.

2. They didn't want to do it themselves.

So I was hired. I collected photos from everyone as we wanted to include at least one quilt from each of us to show how we all have very different styles, asked for some quotes about why we thought we worked well together and what worked for us at vending sites, wrote the copy and included photos, sent it out to NEQDC members for approval, rewrote where suggestions for improvement were made, sent it out for approval again, again rewrote where suggestions for improvement were made, sent it out with the declaration that I was not rewriting anything else because I had other things I wanted to do with my life than cater to these people (again, I am totally kidding and without their help this article would never have seen the light of day) and was granted the go-ahead from all to start sending it out to some magazines because by then they were afraid of me (yes, kidding again).

But who to send it to? As a group we had thrown around several names to start with, and The Quilter became our first victim for several reasons:

1. Most of us were familiar with it and liked it.

2. It had a good mix of patterns and quilter-interest articles.

3. I am FB friends with one of the associate editor, Natalie Rhinesmith. Had no clue if that would help us, or if it had a thing to do with anything, but the point is FB is a great networking tool. And Natalie is pretty funny.

Off it went to Natalie via yousendit.com, which I shamelessly plug here because it is awesome. Within hours Natalie responded that she had forwarded it to Laurette Koserowski, the editor, and I went on to do other things in my life after promising to the other NEQDC members I would let them know when I heard something, figuring it would be a year.

It was two weeks. We were told they loved it and wanted to put it in the Feb/March issue. From there it was just some copy proofing, contract signing, and joyous jumping from all of us. We were a little bummed when they had to put us off an issue due to space constraints, but no big deal and certainly not unusual in the industry.

Two weeks ago I received my advanced copy and could not even believe how gorgeous the real thing turned out. Even better than the proofs I had seen. I cannot say enough nice things about working with The Quilter - they were so professional, kept us apprised of every step and deadline and change made, and really just made the whole experience of having our first article published a really positive one.

So there's the backstory! We hope to see you at a show this spring or summer!

Page 82, baby

2011-02-22T13:00:00.004-05:00

Memorize this cover. Not only is it lovely, but it's the one you want to buy just as soon as it hits stands (3/12/11 or so) to learn all about my designers cooperative - New England Quilt Designers Cooperative. Why do you want to learn about NEDQC? Why wouldn't you, really? We are six designers from New England who have banded together to vend at guild and regional quilt shows, like Maine Quilts and World Quilt Expo, sharing a booth, a business plan, and a lot of laughs along the way.

Just look for the article called "Strength in Numbers", written by yours truly. I promise I kept it very professional. It wasn't easy, but it was necessary. Enjoy!

Just call me Dr. Ruth

2011-02-18T11:37:00.003-05:00

Just updated my 2011 calendar to add two more trunk shows for this year. Many of you have heard this, but it bears a quick repeat as I truly a day later am still laughing. One of said shows was recommended to a guild exec board, and a member of that board misheard the title as "Sex is Overrated". Then wondered aloud how anyone could think sex was overrated and why a quilt guild would want such a speaker. Why indeed? Quilts go on beds. Enough said.

I thank my sister for reminding me that I once introduced my husband (then fiance) as my lover to a friend of my mothers. While we were in church. I am not the one to give a Sex is Overrated talk, apparently. Lucky for these ladies, I won't be.

Secret Valentines revealed

2011-02-14T09:33:00.006-05:00

Several years ago, it became a tradition in my quilt guild, Squanicook Colonial Quilt Guild (and yes, do feel free to discuss what a weird name that is), to have a biannual Secret Valentine program. The rules are simple - create or purchase a quilty-themed valentine gift valued around $20 and secretly deliver it to you assigned valentine before the February meeting. Members tend to get very creative both with the gift creations and the delivery options; it isn't unheard of to drive several towns away from your own to mail a package with a misleading postmark - this year one member even sent her gift from Connecticut! I myself one year hired my babysitters, Molly and Katie Callbeck, to ding dong ditch the door of my Secret Valentine figuring if they were seen my SV would either not recognize them or assume their mother, Angie Callbeck and member of our guild, was their SV. We're so sneaky, we quilters.

I've participated every year, and this year I was chosen to run the program. And by "chosen" I do of course mean "volunteered to do it because it seemed like an easy thing to do for the guild and if I signed up for that and Refreshments no one could ask me to be president". As it turned out, I did do all of the assigning of secret valentines and mailing out names of their giftee to participants, but I was unable to go to the actual reveal meeting due to a prior commitment. I thank my friend Kathie Beltz for stepping in and taking over on my behalf that evening. Half the members probably didn't even notice I wasn 't there because everyone gets Kathie and I confused most of the time anyway. A compliment to both of us in the looks department, but truly, no one could ever confuse our quilting styles!

In honor of this Midwinter Celebration of Love, Romance, and a Long Dead Saint, I'm going to share some of the Secret Valentines I have received over the years. Enjoy!

2011 - "Bake some cupcakes with your sweeties"

I was in charge of setting up the Secret Valentine list and was in the unique position of being able to choose my own valentine. I could have stacked the deck and gone with someone with whose talents and style I was familiar, but I decided to go crazy and choose a new member, Linda Panny, about whom I knew absolutely nothing. What did I learn? Linda apparently knows I have three little girls and that they love to make cupcakes. Linda shops and finds very cute things for cupcakes, like some adorable boxes to put said cupcakes in for taking in lunchboxes. Not being much of a shopper, that was quite fascinating and very new to me. But most importantly, Linda makes her own homemade vanilla and enclosed a bottle in my gift. I could bathe in vanilla and not get enough of the heady aroma, so I will have to admit that was my favorite part of the gift. The girls and I are going to have lots of fun cupcaking soon!

2009 - "Sweet Valentine Dreams"

I wish I could remember the name of the SV who created these fabulous pillowcases for me two years ago. I honestly think she may have left the guild since then, but if anyone knows, please feel free to speak up. These are some of the most nicely constructed pillowcases I have ever seen - and I've made lots of these because for a while they were my go-to birthday party gift for my girls to bring to parties. We were that family who gave bedding, but in our defense, the friends AND the moms loved it. I love that in showing this gift I also sneak in a little of the quilt on my bed and the paint on my accent wall behind my bed which matches one of the fabrics so perfectly it was a true decorating moment for me.

2007 - "The Love in my Family is not so Secret"

As much as I don't really want to play favorites, I'm going to have to here. This valentine arrived on my front step bearing a postmark from another town that was immediately upon opening the box proved to be a fake. I knew in a second that a good friend of mine (and mother of my former sitters/espionage artists who are now adults), Angie Callbeck, had created it for me and I cried because it was so perfect. The note enclosed said something like "This quilt represents the love in your family"
and you can see that it does - two adult hearts on the outsides, two same sized medium-ish hearts for my twins, and baby heart Greta (who was at the time I received this was not even a year old) in the middle. It is beautifully quilted, which was one tip-off as to who made it for me, but the border was the true clue. Angie had recently tested one of my first designs, and that border is my own creation and I absolutely love that she used it in another setting on this quilt. Have I mentioned I love it?

As for 2005, I received a packet of 5 half yards of reds and pinks and a whole lot of chocolate. The fabrics have gone on to become other items, none of which I seem to have in the house, and the chocolate was likely consumed immediately upon opening.

I highly recommend this program for any guild. It's a great way to flex creativity in an otherwise sometimes dull season!