Page 82, baby

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

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

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!

Diamond Dazzle Group Quilt - Part 2 or "God Bless the PDF"

A few weeks ago I announced my first group quilt project of 2011 and the response was overwhelming. About 20 quilters from the US and Canada quickly agreed to take part, making the quilt which will eventually result an epic project of international proportions.

I sent directions and templates for making diamonds in shades of hot pink, orange, and medium blues to all of my co-conspiritors, and not 10 minutes later the fun began. Given that templates might or might not copy exactly the same for everyone via email, I had taken the liberty to send it as a pdf file to ensure it would copy as exactly as possible. But one tester, Corrine Goeke, wisely suggested that I also make sure everyone knew the exact dimensions so they could double check measurements before cutting and I would not receive 27 different sized diamonds from 27 different (and possibly differently sized, but that I can't be sure of since I haven't even seen most of these women in real life) quilters. Excellent point, so I sent out those dimensions.

Almost everyone had no problem retrieving the pdf in it's correctly sized format. I did get a couple of panicked emails and phone calls, but every single time I did, before I even saw the first message I already had in my inbox or on my answering machine a second message of "Never mind! I figured it out!" I do believe these women are the smartest quilters I have ever worked with, and thank God, because askng me to try to explain a computer related issue is like asking a giraffe to live underground.

The next averted disaster was the discovery that I had not allowed for enough seam allowance in two of the four different options for strip piecing. Thanks to a couple of very smart and math oriented testers, we quickly got the word out that I was a dolt and corrections were made by one and all. By now I was sure every one of these testers thought I couldn't tie my shoes in the morning and was sick of hearing from me, but this is why testers are just so important to the pattern writing and publishing process. Anyone can make a mistake, and it's so much easier to have it made on a small scale and corrected than get a reputation in the wider market for innacurate directions. So I thank these ladies for making sure the diamond directions worked out and apologize for all the crazy emails of those first few days.

The fun part, at least for me, began only days after the directions were sent out when Judy Damon, whom I have nicknamed "Speed Demon" and feel she should legally change her last name to accomodate me, returned an envelope full of gorgeous diamonds in hot pink, orange, and blues to me. From that day on, I couldn't go to my mailbox without having it stuffed with 3-6 envelopes a day for a week! It was fantastic! I mean, look at this pile of envelopes!



Not all of the testers have sent their diamonds to me yet, but I just couldn't wait to show off what I have any longer. Every last one is stunning, and perhaps more miraculously, every last one is the exact same size! I heart whoever invented the pdf.

Don't they all look adorable? I truly could not be happier and hope everyone who participated will enjoy getting their package of blocks to make their own quilts back in the next 6 weeks or so. Hope springs eternal that I can pound this out in the timeframe I have set internally.

Next up - find my framing and contrasting border fabrics and get a scrappy version of this new quilt design together! Stay tuned.

Mother Nature, you're killing me

"Blizzard Buddies", the pattern I created recently to remind myself I still love winter.

I am a die hard fan of winter. I always have been. I love the snow. I love snuggling in a quilt with a book. I love a roaring fire at a quaint inn somewhere. I love skiing now and then. I love sledding. I love hot beverages of any type. I love that many of you want to punch me right now.

This year, however, I am being tested to the limit. I will not bore you (again) with my rantings and ravings about the number of school days my children have actually been at school for a full day since before Christmas (but suffice it to say I can count them on both hands and do not have to remove socks because I need no more appendages - and good thing because it's pretty cold), but I will rant about the fact that today, for the first time ever, I had to cancel a trunk show booking due to snow and that is so upsetting to me. I think some of my long lost flight attendant guilt is kicking in from when I had to apologize over and over for weather-related flight delays that were oh-so-clearly my fault; but this time I feel like I wasn't a hardy enough New Englander to brave the freezing rain and ice and get to Portsmouth RI this evening, where in typical New England style it is just raining and the perfect night for a guild meeting. Seriously Mother Nature. You're killing me. So let me take this opportunity to apologize publically to all members of Quilters by the Sea for receiving the great distinction of being my first ever booking to cancel due to weather (or anything else for that matter), and I trust that because quilters are inherently nice people you are not all going to spend the meeting this evening standing around cursing my name and demanding I provide free alcoholic beverages like my passengers of yore. When we meet again it will be a lovely June day in 2012, and I promise to be worth the wait.

So did you see my new pattern up there? Brand new this week - "Blizzard Buddies" celebrates all the joys I normally love about winter with some jaunty cute snowmen I've (of course) pieced crazily and embellished heavily. It was a quickie project I created and loved and wanted to share with the world. Or it was meant to be quickie, anyway. I got the background done, then realized I owned absolutely no white or cream tone on tones. How the heck is that even remotely possible? Thank God for quilt shops, but the shopping slowed me down a little. My absolute favorite parts are two of the embellishments I did:

1. How cute is that quilting? Maybe you don't consider quilting embellishment, but I think these snowflakes spiralling all over the place like a flurry using a very light baby blue-to-white verigated thread is nothing short of brilliance.

2. Look at the hair. And yes, snowmen can have hair, IMO. Didn't you ever use an old mop head on your snowman as a kid? If not, you have not lived. I feel badly for my children who just can't make a Swiffer wet pad look quite as cool as a snowman wig. Anyway, the hair is made from my newest embellishment obsession, Kreinik iron on threads. If you not tried this, you must. I order you. It was incredibly easy, incredibly fun and left me with a couple of curly headed snowmen and a couple, like this one, who look like they are trying to hide some bald patches with some crazy almost comb-overs.

The project is perfect for winter-loving quilters advanced beginners and up, so get to your snowman building!