Back to Work

I went  back to work recently, giving a few presentations to a couple of quilt guilds.  It's fun to show my quilts because they look so much nicer in person than they do in the books.  I usually start off with the small ones and work up to the larger ones - that always surprises those who think I only make little doll quilts. I guess I have a reputation for that, LOL. (Note to myself: I need to scale back and bring LESS quilts next time! Takes a long time to show all of them.) When I see the guild members' Show & Tell I'm always amazed to see how large their quilts are. Wow, some of you people make HUGE quilts.

At Prairie Star Quilters in St Charles, IL

Here's my Calico Comfort quilt from Remembering Adelia.

My old friend Mary Z was there and it was so nice to see a familiar face. She's actually not that old, LOL. You know what I meant, Mary. She and I met in Jo Morton's very first Little Women Club in 2003. Funny, but I didn't realize it had been that long ago until she reminded me. She commented that she visited my blog recently and was shocked to see that my daughter had grown up and wasn't a little girl anymore. I had forgotten that Mary had met her  - she was about 10 then and I used to drag her along with me to some of the Club meetings at a local quilt shop if my husband was working late and I couldn't leave her home alone. I was trying to expose her to quilting early. Guess what? It didn't work!

Here's Mary's latest beauty - she told me that the blocks were from swaps and she put them together using a design created by Wenche Martinsen. I believe she's still attending Jo's Club this many years later and the fabrics are all Jo's prints. I'm a sucker for that light blue border! Don't you love it together with all the scrappy blocks?

Elaine "Truffle Queen" the Blogger was there too - it's fun to meet people face to face after you get to know them from comments on blogs and I love it when they introduce themselves to me. We talked about how therapeutic and addicting blogging is for us. I'm always surprised people read mine. Sure, technically, I know people read my blog, but usually when I'm typing away I'm often not aware that anyone will remember something I wrote. Someone else approached me yesterday and said "What kind of dog do you have? She's so cute!" How did  she know I have a dog?? And a CUTE one at that! Oh, yeah, the BLOG. It's beginning to follow me around like a puppy.

Favorite blankie and favorite toy bunny

When life gets busy my husband will read my blog to catch up on what I'm thinking about (in my OTHER life) and on occasion will say to me "Are you sure you want to tell that to a bunch of strangers??" Oh, don't worry, I don't think anyone actually reads it . . .

But, just in case, here's another cute dog shot - Yes, I have TWO dogs. This one is waiting patiently for some food to drop.

And TWO kids. But they're growing up fast. See that foot in the upper left-hand corner? It belongs to my son. I didn't realize until now that I was recording a somewhat historical moment with my camera. Oh my. He's WASHING dishes . . . . At least I think it's my son.