Wow…. it’s hard to believe that the time is here… I can now take pre-orders (here) for my book–and yes, I’ll ship outside the US!  AQS worked like whirling dervishes I think; I had the page layout version of the manuscript to edit over Labor Day weekend, and they still got it to the printers who will have it ready in the nick of time to have at Quilt Market in Houston starting October 10th!  I’ll be at Market working to promote the book before I start teaching.  If you’d like to pre-order a copy, read on!

PRE-ORDER My book on understanding and using thread on the surface of a quilt which is now available!

You’ll learn everything you need to know about thread, from how it is made to what will make your life easier, and your quilting better!  You’ll learn how needles, tension, your workspace, sewing machine, stabilizers, and other tools all help you in using all those wonderful threads now available.  I’ll help you understand how and why certain tools and notions work best and when another option is a better choice.  And there are fun projects, from a quick and easy needle-keeper to decorative-stitch leaf appliques, free-motion quilting with fancy-fiddly threads, and a leaf-printed table-runner.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Please let me know if you would like me to autograph or add a dedication in the comments area of your order.

Please note that books will not ship until LATE OCTOBER.  The will be hot off the press in mid-October, when I am teaching at Quilt Festival in Texas.  I’ll need to get home, receive the books and process the orders (hopefully finding a little time to sleep, eat, and say hi to the family, too! )  Books will be sent in a Flat Rate Priority Mail envelope.

Price:  Book 28.95 +  US Delivery  5.00 =  33.95; prices for first class mail delivery to Canada ($11 in postage) and the Rest of the World ($13 in postage) are slightly higher due to postage.  Please make sure when you order you:

1. select the correct shipping (US, Canada, Rest of World)
2. put down correct snail mail and e-mail addresses
3. let me know if you’d like me to dedicate the book (for example:  to Denyse, Happy Quilting, Sarah); if there is no  note, I’ll just sign it on the title page.

Thanks…I can’t wait to actually hold a copy!

Wowie zowie…that was a snowstorm!   On Sunday it began to snow, and snow, and snow… when it finally stopped on Monday (yes school was cancelled for the day) we had 11 inches of fresh, WET powder in the driveway and a prodigious snowplow pile.  The photo above is of our house, from the street.  Here is my handy dandy quilting ruler in the snow next to the snowplow ridge…that is an 18 1/2 inch ruler, dwarfed….:

I always take pics of the St. Francis birdbath and the nearby pot.  The latter is large, and buried.  Here, you can see the snow is almost up to the basin!

Paul and Joshua in front of the snow-crusted garage.  See that little bitty orange thing sticking out of the snow?  That’s the 3 foot post to show the plow guys the edge of the driveway…..

Eli took Widgeon for walkies, cross country in the little woods across the street.  Are those not the cutest two things on six feet?  Widgeon LOVES the snow and doesn’t care if his tummy and dangly bits get all cold and red! Silly sweet dog!!

And coming over the plow ridge…if we have much more snow we’ll have to park in the driveway or have a bonfire as there is nowhere else to push the stuff:

Shortly after the Oscars began, the power went out.  For 21 hours.  Since we have a woodstove and gas range, this isn’t too big a deal.  Except the water pump is electric.  That means each toilet has one flush.  Ooops.  So what to do?  Well….melt snow! All this barely made a dent in the mound on the front porch steps:

Then there is the mailbox…see that lump in the middle…that’s it!

The boys were at first at a loss without iPod (battery gave out), cell phone for texting (ditto), laptop (ditto), internet….so they got out the board games and I treated myself to reading a fluff quilty novel! Paul slept or read. Then, at some point, I discovered we had a scant half-loaf of bread, so decided to bake some.  I had forgotten that while we can light the burners (they have knobs), the oven does NOT have a knob.  So I had 12 cups of flour (4 loaves) kneaded, risen, punched down, and formed into rapidly rising loaves.  What to do????  Well, I figured if I could find a metal box (yeah right) I could improvise an oven…Paul’s thermometer on the stovetop tells him when the surface is 500, where he keeps it.  I needed a 375 degree oven.  So….I thunk on it….the canning pot!   Down to the basement.  But the bread would burn on the bottom…hmmm… my sad iron trivet…kinda like this … under the pan.

And here’s the improvised oven:

Guess what…It WORKED!

And one of my favorite pics just because….the ancient bike on the deck:

I have a few Christmas traditions….. putting certain ornaments in certain spots on the tree (mostly high up for safety from the cats and dogs–some of these babies are now more than 45 years old, but were new when I got them), watching White Christmas, listening to The Night The Animals Talked (becoming problematic…. none of our cassette players works any more except for the one in my car… had to sit out there last year, and can’t find my box with the old 33 rpm records to get the record copied into digital) on Christmas eve, and for the past decade or so, listening to the Peter, Paul and Mary Holiday Concert.  For a girl who was baptized a Protestant Christian and went to 10 years of Catholic schools, I don’t know if it is odd that one of my favorite songs is “hayo, Haya”,  about the miracle of the lights and another is “Light One Candle.”  Since today is the first day of Hannukah, when the light in the temple should have burned out but lasted for eight days, I’d like to share it with you.

I couldn’t find Hayo, Haya by Peter, Paul and Mary on You Tube, but here is a California high school chorus singing the song (in Hebrew I’m guessing, since it isn’t in English)… but the melody is just as haunting:

As with  so many wonderful things, you can find it on the internet, and in this case on YouTube, so here you go  for Light One Candle (with, I think, Korean subtitles!):

So in the spirit of peace, joy and equal opportunity faithfulness, go in Peace to love and serve the Lord, whichever and whomever you choose, for there are many paths to what is good and right.

My how time flies!   I totally love my new totebag…which I made back in JULY!   I bought the glass button for it after teaching at Lowell, and here is is nearly November….. Well, better late than never!

The pattern is by Penny Sturges of Quilts Illustrated (click on name for website homepage), and the pattern is listed here.  I think this must have been one of Penny’s first patterns, as the production value is–to be rather blunt–not so great…. the written instructions are on one page, the illustrations are on another….    Still, since I sew well I was able to make the pattern easily.  Because  the bag has fusible fleece on both the lining and the outside, it stands up beautifully, which I really like. I also really like how I customized the pockets… usually when I go to Houston / Festival I leave my regular purse at home, but this one is perfect…pocket for phone, for pencils, wide enough for wallet to go flat on the bottom, carry a small notebook AND the camera…. so it is going with me!

However, I would change a few things…. even my beloved work-horse Janome 6600 had trouble with the many thick layers on the sides where the pockets and lining (all with fleece) are stitched together. I think I’d trim the fleece so that it just barely misses getting stitched into the seams, at least on the pockets. One of the local quilters has made MANY of these, and she tried doing one with just a single layer of fleece, but we both agreed it was kinda floppy and we prefer the “stand-up-ish-ness” of the two layers.  Wonder if I can find a slightly lighter-weight fusible fleece somewhere?

And, I solved the problem of “embarrasing stuff spilling” by using an old round case, purchased in Gabon (central Africa) when we lived there in 1990.  All the little messy stuff goes in there…available but hidden.

Finally, the fact that you can tighten up or loosen the bows on the end means that when tied snugly to create the tuck, the opening on the top is really quite small…when on your shoulder it would be very difficult for someone to pick one’s pocketbook, so I don’t miss a zipper or flap at all.

Yes, I am waxing rhapsodic about an IRON!  And the cherry on the sundae…it is lime green!

I had an iron by Panasonic with the Titanium soleplate for about 3 1/2 years before it died… I think the thermostat went haywire.  Alas, calls to Panasonic said they couldn’t repair it…it was “too old.”  Talk about a use-and-toss wasteful society!  Snarl… anyway, I couldn’t figure out a way to open it up without breaking the plastic housing, meaning even if I could find a handyman and the parts, or figure it out myself, I wouldn’t be able to re-assemble it.  Internet searches turned up the iron I wanted… In MALAYSIA!  Well, that wouldn’t work…

See, the problem is that MY definition of non-stick is different from most people, and different from iron manufacturers. To the companies that make irons, “non-stick” means doesn’t stick to fabric (well DUH) or to starch or spray sizing.   To ME, non-stick means you can get fusible adhesive web (Misty Fuse being my favorite, order here, or Wonder Under in a pinch) on the iron and wipe it off.  Other “non-stick” irons just didn’t cut it…only the golden-colored titanium soleplate seemed to make the critical difference.  The specifics:

Panasonic NI-S300 TR 1200-Watt Steam Iron with Curved Titanium-Coated Soleplate, white/green

YES… it is TRUE!  You can put this iron down on top of fusible web, melt it all over the place onto the iron, then WIPE IT OFF with a paper towel!   No gunky mess, no “Iron-Off” brand hot iron cleaner with its seemingly-toxic fumes (that set off the smoke alarms!), no smelly dryer sheets to try to clean the iron, no scratchy salt-on-washcloth to try to clean the stuff off…. just wipe and go!

And where can you get this lime green beauty… AMAZON.com of course!  Here’s the link:

LINK TO Fuser’s Joy IRON by Panasonic

I can share this link now that I have mine…and my back-up iron is on order!  Yes, I have ordered a second, brand new iron as a back up for when this one dies…that’s how much I love these irons.

The only caveats I would add is that the soleplate can get scratched from pins, and after being dropped several times mine died after 3 1/2 years.  For $30, I can live with that.  I used to spend that much just on Iron Off or Faultless Hot Iron cleaner, and now I don’t have to breathe those nasty fumes from the cleaning products.

OK, I will now STOP raving about this wonderful iron…..