When the Going Gets Hot

When the weather gets hot, the hot get to a beach.

Lake Michigan has some of the best beaches. Beautiful, clean and serene. You can always find a few without crowds. But Shhh, don't tell anyone.   

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park. Voted  "Most Beautiful Place in America" by Good Morning America. 

Living and growing up in Illinois, on the other side of the lake, this was the first I heard of the legend of the Sleeping Bear Dunes. I thought all of my bear-loving quilting friends would appreciate this story. You know who you are . . . 

I didn't try it myself but I talked to a guy who said it took him 5 minutes to get down the steep sand dune and almost an hour to climb back up. 

Princess Lia prefers Lake Michigan beaches to salt water beaches. No sharks.

Of course, I made sure we took the quilt barn tour. 

Traverse City, Cherry Capital of the World, has the Best Cherry Pie ever. I had to try it several times to make sure  . . . 

Gotta love dog-friendly towns and restaurants.

It felt great to be "unplugged" for awhile . . . . 

I'll get to all those unread e-mails in a bit. Doll Quilt Club patterns for August will be mailed out sometime next week.

Kathy's Doll Quilt Club

Here's Cherry Baskets - the first pattern in my new doll quilt club, Papa's shirts & Mama's Dresses. Quilts made from scraps. Isn't it sweet? A perfect little summer quilt. I really had a lot of fun designing this one for those of you who purchased the monthly club.

I wanted it to be a surprise to subscribers so I deliberately didn't reveal the quilt until I was sure almost everyone who signed up had gotten their pattern.

More surprises await! There will be four more patterns for cute little quilts made from reproduction fabric scraps and shirtings arriving in mailboxes in August, September, October and November. 

Sign up for the club here. 

Dinner in a Box

Have you tried one or seen ads for those meal-in-a-box subscriptions containing food delivered right to your door?  My sister-in-law ordered one from Martha Stewart called Marley Spoon and they gave her a free coupon to give to a friend. The coupon was good for 3 meals. She gave it to me! 

Martha and Marley Spoon

The boxes come with a choice of meals and include recipes for 2, 3, or 4 meals per week. For my free box I was allowed three meals and ordered ingredients for Summer Chicken & Vegetables, Spinach-Strawberry Salad and Almond-Tomato Pasta. Good choices I thought. If Martha likes it, it's usually okay with me.

Here's what came in the box:

Everything was incredibly fresh and looks very tasty. There's orzo, balsamic vinegar, capers, Kalamata olives, chicken breasts (packed nice and cold with ice packs), rotini pasta, tomatoes, spices, garlic, zucchini, strawberries, more tomatoes, almonds, fresh Romano cheese, Pecorino - everything you need to prepare three easy meals. All you need to add from your pantry is oil, salt and pepper. Or a loaf of French bread to go with the salad. It all came refrigerated and packed nicely. (But HEAVY - I had to drag it inside, couldn't pick up the box. Need to do some serious strength training I guess.)

They sent waaaay too many strawberries for tomorrow's salad so I thought I'd just sneak a few now for a snack . . . .

Cooking is sure going to be fun the rest of this week! No thinking or shopping necessary . . . . I'm going to prepare the chicken and vegetables tonight.

Small and Scrappy

Happy day! My new book is up on Amazon.com and so that means it's coming soon. Now you can finally see the cover and read a little bit about it. 

Small and Scrappy, Pint-Size Patchwork Quilts Using Reproduction Fabrics by Kathleen Tracy 

It has a nice ring to it, don't you think? 

The book includes patterns for 16 delightful little quilts. The quilt on the cover was made by - drum roll, please - my friend Marian from Australia. How exciting that this particular quilt that I designed for the book that she made for me was chosen for the cover! I can almost see those of you in my small quilt groups jumping up and down in excitement. You all know Marian and know that her quiltmaking talents and skills are awesome. It gets better. Then, as soon as you open the book you will see another quilt on the title page that was made by another familiar name.  Sorry, you'll just have to wait till you have it in your hands to see that one. 

All of my quilts are still with the publisher so I have no photos to show you yet.

You can pre-order the book from Amazon.com.  Books will for sure be available for purchase from your local quilt shop sometime in December. You can ask them to order it for you. 

I will also be taking pre-orders for signed books on my website but probably not until October or November. I'll let you know. I have it on good authority that books will be shipping from Martingale (my publisher) to shops in early December. If you order a signed copy of the book, I'll do my best to get your book out to you as soon as possible after my books arrive. 

Amazon.com has a wonderful feature where you can take a peek inside books but I think they wait to show that until the book is actually released. Keep checking the page and soon you'll be able to see some photos from inside the book. They look wonderful.

Here's the link. 

The book includes some cute pincushions you can make that match some of the quilts.