A Little Help from My Friend

I have been a little more inspired to quilt lately, or at least am thinking about it more, thanks to well-meaning friends. Julia keeps sending me e-mails with photos of antique quilts for sale on eBay - "Look! Isn't this one cute??" "Why don't you buy THIS one?? It's Blue and White!" She's doing it just to keep me going I know.

I've been so sick for so long that we haven't been able to scan the Flea Markets for some time the way we used to . . .

I went over to her house last week, before the storm, and became inspired by looking at some of the quilts she's made over the years and wanted to show you. But then the POWER went out (did you hear??) and not only could I not blog about them I couldn't even sit down at my (electric) sewing machine and take advantage of my new-found motivation.

Many of the quilts in this cabinet are ones she has made from my patterns and designs. Some from before I became published even. My first and truest fan . . .

Here's a picture of my all-time favorite quilt she's made - Julia's Ancient Stars quilt (designed by Sue Garman). I've almost always seen this quilt done in browns but Julia used blue for the border and lots of colorful scrappy prints for the stars. Very inspiring! I remember how hard she worked on it a few years ago.

Totally scrappy, just like a wonderful old antique quilt

Julia loves Log Cabin quilts. This is to show you that, even though many of the patterns for quilts in my books are for SMALL quilts, Julia decided to just keep going with the little Log Cabin blocks in Prairie Children & Their Quilts to make hers much bigger (she made the small one too). Again, with the beautiful blue border. Gotta love her.

A cute little assortment. (Candle mat is not my pattern.)

Julia has made all of the quilts from my first 2 books and is now plugging away on the ones in Remembering Adelia. She broke her wrist last year (walking the dog) and had to take a break from quilting for awhile so that's why she's a little behind, LOL. Hey, Julia, did you hear I have a NEW book out with more patterns?? Better get cracking, my dear!

Small quilt in progress -  free pattern for this one here

Friendship Star quilt, also from Prairie Children - and look! That's my house across the street, where the friendship star points are pointing. I'll be very sad when she moves next year. Did I tell you that we also share a birthday? I believe there are no coincidences. She's irreplaceable, of course, but will I ever become lucky enough again to get a neighbor who quilts??