So Much to Tell

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
Marcel Proust

The Earl de Schlep and I just got home from teaching in Florida for a fantastic group. 67 women from as far away as Alaska were in Panama City for a retreat sponsored by Quilting by the Bay. I was their retreat teacher. I think we had more fun than they did! They have moved the site of this retreat to a new location (I've been down there on two other occasions). The new place is sooo nice. We really enjoyed it. Did I tell you how I love being able to travel with the Earl. He takes good care of me.


The ladies were busy working and playing and enjoying all that the retreat had to offer. The shop had kits cut from some of the quilts from my book. That was so much fun watching everyone carrying around my book and making the quilts. Joy JOY JOY! Here are a a few photos. With comments from the peanut gallery.

 

There were two giant rooms of people.I wore my roller skates.

Jill was making this version of my Sunnyside quilt in Stonehenge fabbies..oh my. This quilt is going to be sumthin I'm tellin ya. Jill had the cutest purple featherweight machine. I was going to steal it but I decided that might not be a nice thing to do. First impressions count. I'll get it next time.

Scrappy Nines in batiks...zowwie!

And Scrappy Nines in black and tans. yummy as always

And here we have Scrappy Nines in color. Yes my friends you can make any quilt from dah book in color...yes sirree you can, be not afraid.

Holey Moley look at this. It is HavenStone in cowboy fabric. Sylvia was making it for her husband. Yippee ky yay! And isn't she smart for throwing that blue in there! A pop o' culah! good goood good

Janice with all her organized Scrappy Nines segments all ready to go.  What a sweetie pie.  Suzette is busy over there sewing away. Those girls has some fun let me tell you. (and they didn't know each other prior to coming on retreat!)

 I wish I had taken more photos but I was busy bouncing around with 65 other women. Not much time to think about photos. Bouncing is important. If you ever have a chance to go to this retreat in Panama City Florida. Jump on it. You will have a ball I promise.

I really want to thank Kelly over at I Have a Notion for the very special review of my book. I'm one lucky quilter to have such great friends out there diggin my book! Check it out! Thanks again Kelly.

I swear I will do a post about the big surprise! I'm home now for a week so maybe I can get caught up. HA...like that is reeely going to happen.

On the Road Again

                                         Borrowed from Pinterest
  ON THE ROAD AGAIN...JUST GOTTA GET ON THE ROAD AGAIN..sing with me please. Tap those toes cuz here we go! ON THE ROAD AGAIN deedahdeedahdeedahdee. OK I'll stop. 

Traveling, retreats, workshops, guild talks/trunk shows and joyful family news. I have been zooming through January like I'm on fire and having a ball. From Georgia to Tennessee and now onto Florida. I have stories to tell so here we go. 


Last weekend was THIMBLES CLUB. I don't need to repeat the wondermus time we all have when we get be together. (you have heard that before).  We met for the last time at our home at Highlands Presbyterian Church and now we are movin on to an even bigger facility with tons of options and open arms of the THIMBLES QUILT CLUB.  We will continue the luv fest and welcome new friends! There is tons of room for tons of quilting and fellowship. I'm so excited.  If you live in the Atlanta area we will be meeting at Saint John Neumann Church  on each and every third weekend of the month. Come play with us. If you are passing through Atlanta...stop by! 

Lets look at what this group showed up with this month. 

Suz and a quilt she said was out of the box for her to work with these colors. It was lovely.

Teresa and a busted small travel iron that she hot glued a pen or sumthin to the handle and fixed the darn thing. As for me, I probably would have jumped in the car and headed to JoAnn's and bought a new one. I'm not smart like Teresa!

Pam and Elaine bought the Emily Jane kit, split it and each made a smaller version of the quilt. love love love.

OK so Shelia made this monkey and the quilt below...read on..

Shelia has a new GREAT GRANDBABY on the way...go back and look at Shelia..did you hear me I said Great grandbaby. Shelia had children when she was 6 years old. She is a testimony to living with a joyful spirit. Keeps you lookin young and gorgeous. Lucky baby.

Jane and her first row of the quilt in progress. Beach cottages. There was some discussion of the red windows. I think it involved a red light district on the beach..OH MY!!!!

Sarah and the pattern "Kitty's Baskets" from my book..sniff sniff. She did it in batiks, hand needle turned every motif. It is so lovely. Thank you Sarah you did me proud girlfriend. (and yes you can make my neutral quilts with color! send me a picture please.)

And again, I have two more photos but I'll stop here...

Mercidene with her fun quilting.

Suzanne C. with her gorgeous batik all sashed up and ready to go!

Lookie. This is Suzanne's block of the month quilt that Debbie and I designed. Patchwork cottage offered this program in 2011. Suzanne was the first one I had seen with it all finished. WoWzer another hit. Good job Suzanne!

Holey Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt "Orca Bay" That is Karin the  fantastic quilt maker in front of it..Karin the Amazing! Look at that quilt will ya! There are no words for this beauty.

Gretchen and a bit of the Schnibles. I want to live in those houses. It was great to have Gretch back with us..we love her and missed her while she was not with us for a few months. She is back and now we can smile again!

Orca Bay needs one more look. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!

Pat and her black white and red goodness. Goodness me oh my.

I can't remember who is behind this quilt. I think it is Shelia, or Julie, or Gretch..no maybe it is Suz, or Pat..OH WHO CARES IT IS A GREAT QUILT.

And here come the wagons all decked out for Valentines Day. Jane got a decorate me note from the principal to decorate hers. Similar to public humiliation..

She needs to tidy the thing up a bit too. More public humiliation. We don't mess around. You have to be strong to be a quilter with a big group of women. 

Now we are talking..a Valentines basket and some red tinsel and hearts all around. Good job Karin.

Sarah with her kitty wrapped up in a heart blankie, shiney tinsel and that horn! Keepin that dollar store in business yes sirreee.

That is it from Thimbles this month but wait till you hear the surprise I got!!!

Great Trip

Life is like a bicycle in order to keep your balance you must keep moving. -unknown

We are home from our visit to the Village Quilters in Loudon TN. Tellico Village to be precise. Whata trip. This guild is HUGE and boy to they have it goin on. So much fun! I took some photos of their show and tell. (finally she had her camera ready and her brain engaged and focused!!! I know that is what you are thinkin right?)   It was a great guild meeting, they have around 300 members so the place was jumpin. They do a lot of community service projects and workshops etc. Lets look at some quilts!

The room was huge and they kept comin in! There was electricity in the air. Or maybe the heat was on...

Who took this photo of me. I was NOT singing.

Twister = fun

Not a great photo, but it was a great quilt...Hunters Star quilt using the fabulous Rapid Fire Ruler by Deb Tucker. If you have not seen or used her rulers...say tuned.

Wondermus!

Little quilt for a little someone.

Isn't this interesting. I really like the setting.

How much is that doggie in the window?! I mean can you believe this!

Darling runner with some dimension. Those petals of those flowers were not stitched down.

I SPY...I'm going to make one of these for my future grandchild...in the future.

Scrappiness...love

I was talking..was anyone sleeping? I hope not.

This was my show and tell. There is NOT a body under that stack. I bring about 75 quilts to share. The ladies who hold up the quilts were exhausted I'm sure. WELL IT IS OFF TO THE SEWING ROOM FOR ME TODAY. I'll take me camera.

 

 

On the Road Again

Do What Makes you Happy

Be With Who Makes you Smile

Laugh As Much as You Breathe

Love As Long As you Live

January is a month full of travel for me. I'm off this morning to Knoxville for two fabulous days of teaching. Yup a huge room full of quilters. Lecture/Trunck show and 2 workshops. Sir Quilt Dude is packing the 75 quilts we bring to show and we are off! I'm looking forward to this trip so much. Do you think I may get to stop by a quilt shop on the way? Keep your fingers crossed. There are some great shops in Knoxville! I'm getting some hand work to play with in the car. I'm one of the lucky ones, I can read or sew in the car. No motion sickness for me, so I'm perfectly happy to ride shot gun!

I finished my big secret project that kept me busy for the last few weeks so now I'm back to sewing. I have a grand baby coming in May so I better hop to it. They are decorating the nursery in Aqua and white. Sweet soft baby. I'm looking for great aqua fabrics for a sumthin, sumthin,m sumthin I will be making. (ok so it is not a stretch to figure out what I'm making duh) And guess what..that has to be a sewing secret as well. dang, dang double dang. Sometimes I think I lead a secret life.  Which is not so swell when I want to blog about everything I do.

When I get back I want to show you (and I talked about this in December) some of my favorite "Special" quilt books. I collect coffee table books, you know the ones that make you wonder if you should really pull out the credit card to buy. I love these books and want to show you a few. So stay tuned!

You Never Know

Joy and sorrow are inseparable...together they come, and when one sits alone with you...remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

-- Kahlil Gibran

I have been away teaching and spending time with fabulous quilters from the Lake Oconee Quilt Guild. I have a little story to tell but will need to keep names and stuff out of my story. Here goes. After I finished my guild lecture/trunk show I was signing some books for some of the members. A lady came up to my little table and took my hand and got soooo close to my face. I'm talking nose to nose here! With tears in her eyes she said that she had lost her husband and had not smiled or laughed in months until today. She thanked me for helping her to smile and laugh again. Blown away...completely mush...shook to my core, I will NEVER RECOVER or forget this sweet lady. We talked briefly and I told her that I think quilting is NOT about the huge stack of quilts I brought to show. It is about relationships and has enormous power to heal, bring joy, and form amazing friendships.  I asked her to go home and take up the needle again, invite some friends over to sew...she promised she would. There are tears in my eyes as I write this...I can't explain it..I don't even know why I choose to write this.  I hope you will understand. This is NOT ABOUT me or anything I said or did.


Well, maybe I do know.  The lesson in this exchange between two strangers was huge. The first being...YOU NEVER KNOW...for me, it is that you never know the path God will put you on or the people that will walk into your life so suddenly and impact the way you think. I was bouncing around having fun with an audience of quilters, doin my think so to speak, without any knowledge that there was a person sitting in a chair that was suffering and was experiencing a tiny but of fun and joy that had left her life for so many months and found a few minutes of relief, WHO KNEW???? I know that I will see her face in every guild talk I do from now on I will never forget..and I will FOREVER be grateful that I have been allowed to do what I do and I will never take that for granted, because YOU NEVER KNOW!!!!!


So while I usually send you pictures of quilts after I visit a guild and such..No quilts today. JUST PEOPLE, wonderful wonderful ladies, quilters all traveling the same road with different ups and downs happening in their lives. Isn't being a quilter the most special thing???

BTW my special friend from the story above is not in any of these pictures. These are some of the fabulous ladies that attended the workshop. What fun we had too! 

AND WE'RE OFF!

The only thing I fear more than change is no change. The business of being static makes me nuts.

 -Twyla Tharp

Here we go...another new year.  Last year was full of such fun and wonderfulness for me and my family. This year has bright hope for the same!!! I'm not so much a resolution maker but I am a list maker.  There are so many things on my list that I want to explore in 2012. Don't get excited I will NOT BE climbing Mt Kilimanjaro's summit. We have settled that over a bag of Cheetos... but, I have many other things to explore. So lets just see where I go. I'm beginning right here.

 And here. BTW, Copic sketch markers.........a very good thing!

I've been in my sewing room playing with the above...I call this a return to my roots. In college I was originally a studio art major. No interest in commercial art for me, nope! There is also a reason for leaving the art world it is called WORK, family and life. No regrets just the facts. Now I'm making a return and doing some exploring. I'm lovin to too! Wonder where this will go. JOY RISING here at Silver Thimble World Headquarters.

HAPPY 2012 LETS MAKE IT COLORFUL!!!