Maria Peagler, whose book on Color Mastery is designed to help you get over your fear of playing with color, has just published this video on her blog and facebook pages.  If you’d like to vote for your favorite and win a free (my book, her book, Inklingo or fabric), take a look at the video, the surf over to Maria’s place and vote (more on that below).  Here’s the video:

Maria profiles four must-haves for quilters, starting with my book, ThreadWork  Unraveled.  Most of you who visit here have heard plenty about the book, but just in case, there is more info here plus lots of very kind reviews of the book on Amazon (and if you’d like to add your own review, please do!). Maria’s Facebook fan page is http://www.facebook.com/colormaster .  You can visit the page even if you’re not a member on Facebook.

Maria also shares Linda Franz’s Inklingo, a system for  precise piecing using any size scrap.  Linda is the author of the FANTABULOUS Quilted Diamonds, which is a diamond-variation on the theme of the Jane Stickle (Dear Jane) quilt, liberally salted with Jane Austen quotes, and which has some of the BEST hand piecing and hand applique directions you’ll find.  I treasure this book–clear, precise directions, stupendous photos…a keeper! Linda’s website is here, and more about InkLingo is here.

Third on Maria’s list is a Clothworks kit with the fabulous Laurel Burch fabrics.  As many of you know, the talented artist died not too long ago, but she spent a lot of her last years making art which her children could then turn into prints and designs for the many facets of Laurel’s work which include not just fabric, but mugs, earrings, totes, socks…..lots of fun things! You can find the kit here.

Finally, there is Maria’s own award-winning book, Color Mastery.  To learn more about her book, check it out on Maria’s website, here (scroll down to the bottom for the link to purchase Maria’s book).

To vote and have a chance to win your favorite, click here.  First it appears you need to “like” the post.  Then click on the photo of each of the items;  you can leave a comment to enter to win.  It appears, however, that you may need to be a Facebook member to actually vote.  Give it a try and see if you can vote! Update:  Linda Franz posted really good, thorough instructions on how to vote here.   Thanks Linda!

And if you’re not the lucky winner but just HAVE to have one of these items they are (what a surprise…not!) available from the maker!  I hope  YOU win!

OK...draped over the double-sized antique canopy bed...read on!

So, you might ask, does Sarah EVER make quilts any more?  Art quilts?  Bed quilts?  Lap Quilts?  ANYthing?  Some days it feels like the answer is no, there is so much life happening that I can barely manage to get myself dressed and stumble through a day!  But I have managed a few new class samples and a few other things.  A while back, I wrote about Jenny Bowker’s totally awesome idea (seen in her blogpost,  here) and my riff on the subject here and here.

Well, I had been collecting tropical colored big prints (Kaffe Fassett, Martha Negley, Phillip Jacobs and the other designers from the Westminster Fabrics crowd) for a possible project for a possible (in a couple years) new book.  Well, I had (still have) this totally cool idea, but decided it was probably too complicated for a simple book project and, honestly, was more piecing work that I wanted to do.  Then I made my sample a la Jenny, and had a brainstorm!  A QUILT made with bright squares and simple sashing.  PRESTO–fabrics re-directed to new project.  So I got out my graph paper and charted out sizes for a BIG new bed quilt for us!

I decided to use squares of the tropical prints cut 8 1/2 inches, which meant I could get four pieces plus some leftover from a fat quarter (usually about 18 x 22 inches or thereabouts) of fabric.  A sashing that finished at 3 inches would look good.

Blocks cut, order set out on wall, vertical sashing on first six rows...

I was VERY careful cutting, and used my AccuFeed foot on my new Janome Horizon 7700.  I even went to the extent of cutting the strips on the non-stretchy lengthwise grain of the fabric because I wanted this to be perfect.  Drat!  It wasn’t!  The white pieces, on the bottom, were coming out 1/8″ too short, and I KNOW (and triple checked) they were cut to the same length.  Luckily, I am on this great Yahoo group for 7700 owners and another one for 6500/6600/7700 owners (a lot of us on the first list are also on the second one, which was the mother list).  Someone (and boy do I wish I could remember who so I can say THANK YOU) mentioned the button on the right of the machine and some instructions in the manual (yes, I had read it, but just didn’t remember this part!).  If your fabric isn’t coming out even, you can turn the knob to fine-tune the dual feed!  PRESTO! Problem piecing solved.  I told the little red guy with forked tail and spear on my shoulder making rude noises at me to go away, that it wasn’t MY piecing at all…I just needed to learn how to be smarter than and adjust my machine!

Here’s what it looked like as I was chain piecing lots of blocks and strips:

(Notice the lovely “Lemon Grass” Fiesta Ware mug amidst all those lovely prints!)

Here’s the quilt top a bit farther along,

Then I measured.  SHRIEK!  adjust border plans to smaller!  Eliminate the white what *was* going to go all around the center blocks and go straight to the pieced (from leftover bits) border of all colorful prints!  Here it is as I am ironing…. under the top is an ironing board with a 60″ wide Big Board PLUS a 39″ (one metre) wide table….and it drapes over the ends!

Aren’t those colors awesome??????

Trying to get a picture of the enormity of this thing was beyond a do-it-yourself photo shoot, so you’ll have to put up with me!  The finished top is 107″ square!

It's too big to fit...this shot, before all the borders are on, shows only 6 1/2 of the 9 color squares going across and up...so it's about 2/3 of the quilt!

That would lead to some questions:

Q1:  Is Sarah sane?   Answer:  obviously not

Q2:  How do you plan to baste this?  Answer:  I don’t; bless Doris and Debbie at Quilt Divas (great quilt shop in Rockland, Maine), they will baste it for me with water soluble thread on their longarm.  I don’t care what it costs.  I am NOT basting it.  Answer, part 2:  re Q1, perhaps she’s not as far gone as we thought

Q3:  What about the quilting?  Answer:  Yes, I plan to do it, but NOT for a while.  And at least the worst part, the basting, will be done by checking account!  Also, my big treat once we get moved in late January and next year’s teaching is done, is to buy myself an HQ sitdown model for working on very large projects.  I think a quilt 3 yards by 3 yards square qualifies.  Answer to Q3, part 2: ummm…OK, Sarah is clearly certifiable; either that or she has no life

Q4:  What quilting design will you use?  Answer:  I’ll do something similar to the sample I did  up in the links posted above.  When I shared an in  progress picture with a friend, she was concerned that the white is TOO bright.  I agree, it is!  But once it is quilted the starkness will be toned down and I think it will be a lovely summer quilt.

Q5:  Is Sarah insane?  Answer:  Ayuh!

Our younger son has joined jazz band, and practices are Weds. mornings before school.  So instead of sending him to the bus at 6:50 a.m., I drive him to school.  In winter, this means GLORIOUS sunrises, and today was one of the best.  The pictures are with my cell phone camera, so not as good as my good camera, but still pretty darn amazing.  So just an hour ago this is what I got to see after dropping Eli, snapping a shot over town to the harbor and distant islands.  I uploaded LARGE files, so I apologize if they are slow to load; they should be clickable to see a larger view.

Sunrise over Camden, 6:55 a.m. That tall thing is the smokestack from the old woolen mill. Notice the cool vertical flare from the sun peeking through layers of the clouds. The vertical brightness was there in real life; it's not a camera flare!

And here is the sunrise in my neighborhood:

A woodsy sunrise, downhill from our house

And from the road, by the driveway of a downhill neighbor whose house faces more towards the East:

From a neighbor's driveway, looking East

Ahhhh…..Maine!

I keep thinking of my Dad…he was born in 1899, when gaslight was not common, was a teenager when the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, when telephones were rare. He used to be amazed at men on the moon, think of what he’d think of the internet and cell phones!  I can’t imagine what he would think to see me have a phone smaller than a deck of cards, that is also a camera, so I can send a photo to my son and to myself then post it to share with the *world* in a matter of minutes.  He’d be amazed and smile!

Just a short post today to share the second round of postcards I made for a recent swap.  The theme for this one was Windows!  I had made a postcard a couple of years ago with a swinging door… a second bit of Peltex (the stiffener that I use inside the postcard instead of batting..the stiffer middle makes it FAR easier to quilt on the machine) that was sewn to the top with yarn as strap hinges.  So I decided that for my windows, I would make shutters that move!

I found the stone print fabric in my stash, so thought I’d make English (or Irish or Scottish) stone country cottages with windowboxes and shutters.  Then of course every good cottage needs a cat (or several!).  I had a print fabric with kitties in green leaves, so I fused up a chunk, then fussy cut the kitties and some of the leaves.  In my stash of fused fabrics, I had some leftovers from previous projects, and used the prints to cut up more leaves and flowers for the window boxes and for the “wood” of the boxes themselves.  The coral windowframes are the same fabric I used to make the guitar in the portrait I did of my son, here.

I used a VERY wide zigzag set to almost zero stitch length to make the “hinges” where one end of the stitch just caught the edge of the shutter.  This left enough wiggle room to swing the shutters open and closed. Here is one with closed shutters:

Because of the shutters, I mailed the postcards in those plastic slipcovers that you seen on fancy cards at the stationery store.  Enjoy!

A shot of the batch, with a post-it note to tell the recipient to open the shutters:

And a different kitty-in-the-window:

For this round, I wrapped the stone fabric around to the back to finish the edges of the card and used printed cardstock on the back side.  The shutters are edge-finished with a metallic paint and a bit of stitching around the edge to secure the fabric (I never trust any fusible to hold forever!).

We woke up today to the first snow-misting (too light to be a true snowfall) of the season, so I’m celebrating by sharing this YouTube video with you.

The first time I heard the Hallelujah chorus was shortly after college when I was living near Washington, D.C.  I was friends with a Jewish guy (whom I wanted as a boyfriend, but alas he was coming off a serious break-up and wasn’t interested….sigh….don’t recall his name but his car was an ancient Pugeot named Ogg) who loved classical music and opera.  For Christmas, he gave me a gift of a ticket to go with him to the Kennedy Center for the holiday performance of Handel’s Messiah.

I was utterly mystified when everyone suddenly stood up!  The not-a-boyfriend explained that when first played for the King, the King was so moved that he instantly jumped up on his feet.  Since no one was permitted to sit while the King stood, everyone else in attendance at the performance also stood, and that tradition has continued now for what, almost 300 years?  So, I invite you to stand up with me and enjoy this—wouldn’t you have loved to be there?

Here’s to joy and sharing and the unexpected in life!

PS—just looked it up in Wikipedia, there it said about the King (George II of England) and standing during the chorus:

• He was so moved by the performance that he rose to his feet.
• Out of tribute to the composer.
• As was and is the custom, one stands in the presence of royalty as a sign of respect. The Hallelujah chorus clearly places Christ as the King of Kings. In standing, King George II accepts that he too is subject to the Lord of Lords.

Cool beans (as my teen would say)!  And I can sing along and my lack of ability to carry a tune won’t offend anyone except perhaps the cats and the pug!