Hi all!  I can’t believe I haven’t had time to blog about this yet, but I have been published again!   This time in the new book Quilt Essential:  a Visual Directory of Contemporary Patterns, Fabrics and Color by Erin Burke Harris, part of C&T’s “Stash Books” series.  If you are new to quilting and want an overview book, this one is a good one.  It has a very “Quilt Modern” feel to it:  fresh, airy, not fussy, and covers a lot of basics.

The cover of Quilt Essential

I was thrilled when I was invited to submit some quilts for consideration, and even more thrilled when I received a copy and learned I was in the book three times!

My Haleakala Sunrise quilts ( pattern available here in my shop and also at Pacific Rim Quilt Company, a great resource for Hawaiian and applique patterns) are both featured on the opening pages for the Hawaiian Quilts Section (mine are the blue-yellow and red-green).

The book is divided into four major sections:

• 1.  Fabrics:  covers types of fabrics, yardage and measuring, and caring for fabrics.
• 2.  Colors:  color theory, and matching fabrics and colors.
• 3.  Designs:  Shapes, quilt blocks, block layouts and settings, styles and arrangements, sashing and borders, embellishment.
• 4.  Assembling:  piecing, quilt sandwiching, quilting methods, bindings.

The book includes profiles of well-known quilters as well as works by other quilters (including me!).  Here’s a couple more photos:

My Koi quilt is in the Pictorial Quilt section (detail, bottom left, where I’m thrilled to share a page with Lura Schwartz Smith-no relation).

A big detail shot of The Tide is Hire, my pieced, appliqued and beaded quilt which is in the International Quilt Festival Collection (!!!!).

If you know of anyone who is beginning their quilt journey or just wants a good single overview book with a fresh feel to it, this book would be just the thing!  Thank you Erin for including me!

Let’s start with some beauty: sunrise yesterday en route to the All-State (Maine) New England Qualifier tournament at Nokomis High School in Newport, Maine. LOOK at those colors on the snow, the farm on the crest at the right, the maples silhouetted (and likely soon to sprout sap buckets)…. sigh..swoon…

It’s been an action packed few days:  it is now 9:34 a.m. Friday.  Since this time Wednesday morning…..

I received two memory cards (RAM, not hard drive) for my 2010 MacBook Pro and successfully installed them!   WOW what an improvement now that I’m at the max. for this machine, 8 GB!   Why did I wait so long?

In the upper left you see one of the two old RAM memory cards. The two new ones are installed, in the center of my laptop. The Apple Store no longer does upgrades on machines as “old” as my 2010 model, so I had no choice but to do it myself. Luckily, there were handy videos online and it was easy peasy! And boy does my laptop switch from one thing to the next faster!

Then I got to go downstairs.  As promised, I’m sharing some of the fabric–since I can’t share the in progress pics until the quilt is done and juried (either in or out).

Here are the pre-fused fabrics for my current quilt. There will be plenty leftover, but that is the joy of Mistyfuse–it never goes bad. I can keep and use all the scraps and leftovers. In fact, many of the fabrics on the table that aren’t big rectangles are leftovers from previous projects. Yep–I’m a Mistyfuser! I’m gonna have to blog how I use it, maybe even try doing a video….

Yesterday was Eli’s final meet/tournament of the wrestling season:  a new one, but a worthy addition to Maine’s line-up.  In the past, the three state champions for each of the 14 weight classes (from 106 to 285), one each from Class A, B and C schools went to New England Regional Championships.   This year, in an effort to have the best of the best, they instituted a New Englands Qualifier tournament the week after States.  The top four finishers in each weight class got to compete.

As usual, I had to take “good luck” photos of Eli warming up. Here he has doffed his sweats, put on his headgear and is running into the gym for what became his final match.

As my loyal readers (thank you! I am still astonished at that concept!), you know Eli is a GOOD wrestler, hubby/dad Paul is an Asst. Coach, and I’m a loud fan of Eli and the Camden team.  Last weekend, Eli placed third in States, having lost by just two points to the eventual winner of the 145-lb weight class in an early round, thereby ended up in the Consolation bracket where the top spot was number 3 (which he got!).

Earlier in the day, he and buddy Connor Winchenbach (who placed first at 152-lbs at Class B States) take a break between rounds to have some lunch. In the far mat another of the Camden boys is wrestling (tiny figure in red with white lettering down the spine).

Earlier in the season, the kid from Massabesic tooled all over Eli at a duals (regular season) meet. Eli was in a better frame of mind this day, but Eli told me the Massabesic kid is **really good** on his feet. You don’t often see Eli in this position, about to get dumped! (Eli is in red, Massabesic — a Class A school from the southern part of the state — is in white-green-yellow.

But it wasn’t one-sided:  it was back and forth and tied at 5-5 until halfway through the third period:

After getting brought down, Eli came back and here is in control, trying (but not succeeding) to get the boy onto his shoulders.

PK and Coach G are on the right, watching Connor who is wrestling on the next mat. Eli and Massabesic wrestler are in the back, with Eli on top and in control.  Eli is doing a cross-face, which makes it hard for the kid to maneuver.

But in the end, Eli couldn’t hang on to the very strong senior from Massabesic, who got back on to his feet and managed to score two points at the end of the third period to eke out the win.

That makes Eli one of the top SIX 145-lb. wrestlers in the State—all classes! (there is no wrestle-off for 5/6, but the other one tied at 5/6 is the boy won won Class A States!).  As a SOPHOMORE!   Of the other six, one is a sophomore (he placed third), and four are seniors.  WAY TO GO, ELI! (Yup, bustin’ my buttons proud!)  AND, Eli placed higher than ANY other Class B or C 145-lb wrestler (meaning he did better than the boys who won first and second last Saturday)!  The top three in each weight class from the Qualifier meet will compete in two weeks at New Englands.  And (drum roll) Connor Winchenbach, a senior, qualified to compete, too!  Way to go, Connor!

Then came food!  Connor’s parents and three teammates who traveled with them (the school did not provide a bus!) and the three of us went to Pizza Hut, and boy could you tell only Connor has to make weight.  Those boys ATE!  <beam>

Eating continued this morning with the first waffles in 3 1/2 months. My recipe, from Joy of Cooking, uses 3 eggs, and I generally think of it as feeding 3 people. I had 3 waffles (small). Eli had ALL the rest. <Beam!> I’ve missed feeding Eli!

Hmmm…just noticed my watermark needs the date changed! ….Anyway….

During breakfast guess what it was doing:  yep, snowing.  This is the FIFTH snowstorm/snowfall we’ve had in the past seven DAYS.  I ran out during breakfast to get this photo.  Good thing as the temperatures have just pushed above freezing and it has changed to (yuck) rain.  That means slush and, when the temperature drops tonight, ice.  Yuck.

HUGE snowflakes coming down during breakfast.

So that’s the past 52 hours.   Today:  work more on that quilt, hopefully work on a drawing lesson/class, and hang out with Eli on the last weekday of Winter Break.  Tomorrow:  to Portland with Eli to buy new running shoes for the upcoming Track and Field season, then to a SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) meeting in Portsmouth, NH on Sunday.  WOOT!  And fabric dyeing with Kathy, hopefully on Tuesday!!!  Double WOOT!

Well, I can tell I’ve been really busy when I realize how long it has been since I’ve blogged!   Maine’s Wrestling State tournaments were last weekend, and we are Class B. I am thrilled to say that Eli wrestled the best he has ever wrestled and came in Third!  AND–massively huge and loud DRUM ROLL Please!   The CAMDEN HILLS WRESTLING TEAM, well over half of which is Freshman and Sophomores (though Varsity is mostly Soph-Jr-Sr), WON STATES FOR THE THIRD TIME IN A ROW!   (and you betcha I’m shouting!) For such a young team to do so well is just amazing.  As usual, the rest of the state hates Camden, mostly because we keep winning.  Everyone said we couldn’t win last year, but they squeaked through with a 3-point victory.  This year it was a 24 point margin!   And for Eli to do so well as a Sophomore!   WOOT! More below…

Camden Hills Wrestling gets a THREE-Peat, winning Class B Maine State Wrestling Championship! Well done lady and gentlemen!

There has also been snow, more snow, more snow, and more snow coming.

The view heading out with the dog this morning, looking north.

And on the way back up the driveway. Our house faces north, facing the prevailing winds, so not much left on this side of the roof. It is hard because of drifts to guess how much snow we’ve got, but I’m guessing an average of about 18 inches. At least it is warm–we’re up to 30 degrees!

And I’ve been busy quilting, again, something I’m not at liberty to share until after jurying some time this summer.  Sigh.  It just pains me not to show in progress.  Maybe I’ll take a photo of a heap of pre-fused fabric just to be a wicked tease?  Anyway, here’s my week in pictures.

Eli pins a kid from Fryeburg (lovely town on the western border of the State) to get into the Consolation Finals (meaning he would place 3 or 4).

It seems all of us parents have good-luck things we do. I wear a C. Hills fleece vest to all his sports events, and I take photos of Eli warming up and getting ready for his next match. Most are totally worthy of being deleted–I just need to take the photo to have good juju! But here’s one of the kids and coaches on the sidelines (with the Belfast coach on the left).

Eli wrestled Belfast’s (neighboring town) Michael Mcfadden for 3rd/4th. Eli (and many of the rest of us) are pretty sure that he had Michael pinned, but the ref didn’t call it.

The customary shake before the ref raises Eli’s hand for the win. Still, Eli won by Major Decision (more than 8 points, I think final score was 15-4). Michael is a class act–told Eli he was glad his last high school match was against Eli. I didn’t get a chance to shake his hand at the meet so I Facebook messaged him (he and Eli are FB friends), to say congrats and he said the same thing to me. Let’s all wish Michael the best of life!

And on the podium–Eli doesn’t often smile this big even when he’s done well, so I’m really happy to see him SMILE!

As for the other part of the week: Shadows on snow this morning. I need to do some “Winter” quilts…. I just love the season! So crisp and bright and beautiful!

And the giggle moment, Pigwidgeon in snow after morning walkies. He could still walk it (not too deep, path not shoveled at the time), but definitely belly marks in the snow.

One of the things I love about winter is seeing critter tracks in the snow. Of course, these are likely mouse prints on our deck…which means we probably have at least one or a few additional residents. Hmmm…..

And more tracks on the snow heap in the corner between the kitchen/Eli’s bedroom and the master bedroom. I *think* they may be getting in the vent that is below the water spigot. Will deal with that in warmer weather!

Tomorrow we head off to All-States Wrestling Championship.  This is a first in Maine.  There are three “Classes” of schools (based mostly on size, though the logic of who is which class and how big the schools are and how a school can be Class A in one sport and Class B in another defies comprehension).  Some years, the top two or three in one class could easily beat the champion in another class.   But in the past the State Champion for each class would go to the New England Championships.  This year there will be a “king of the mountain” wrestle-off of the top four finishers in each weight class in all three classes.  Eli is a  long shot to qualify for New Englands, but it should be a good tournament with the best wrestlers in the state.  And on Friday, Eli finally gets WAFFLES for breakfast!  It’s been a long season without our Sunday treat!

And this week, that is definitely the priority order!   Last Saturday was Maine’s Eastern Regional Class B Wrestling Tournament, and this morning (I leave in an hour) is States!  Eli placed second last week, to a kid he beat at Eastern Regionals in 7th Grade (three years ago).  So today he is headed out to States with determination!  Eli was leading 7-3 until the last minute of the third period (three two-minute periods).  The other kid spotted an opening, took it, and won.  Bummers!   Eli handled it well, and we will see what happens today…I am VERY nervous, so send Eli “wrestle your best” thoughts please! He has worked SO HARD, that I would love  him to be able to meet his own and the coaches’ expectations!

Eli in the Finals at Maine’s 2014 Eastern Regional Wrestling Tournament

I’ve begun working on an entry for a juried invitational (where they set a theme, invite some folks to submit entries, and you hope you get in), but if I share, then I can’t enter.  So I can’t share.  And I have another good thing that happened, but can’t share that either!  AAAARGH!   So I’m really busy, happy, but must fight all natural impulses to share.

We had a couple recent snowstorms, were supposed to get one on Tuesday, then another one cropped up for tonight–predicting 10-16 inches!  On the one that ended yesterday it was supposed to be snow, sleet, snow, but it never turned back to snow.  So we ended up with about 6-8 inches of REALLY WET snow.  Luckily, Eli wanted to shovel it as training on the snow day from school (He told use we have used up the last of the school snow days, so if they have to have another, the school year will be extended!).

So that’s the news from Hope….stay tuned for today’s results.  One this is certain:  We will be and are proud of Eli!  Now, I need to eat breakfast, walk the dog, and then get on the road to Bath!

Woooohoooo!   I got IN!  Yep, I am thrilled that I will soon be spending a small fortune to send a 40 x 100 cm quilt to Australia to be in the Living Colour Textiles exhibit! The bad news is that I can’t share a full picture until the exhibit opens at the Australasian Quilt Show in Melbourne in mid-April!  But I can share some of the “early” pics…..

Fabric stretched out on some rigid foam core, manually pleated/folded, dye applied, ready to be covered and batched!

The exhibit is called Living Colour, and as the curator Brenda Gael Smith reminded folks, there are two parts to that title!   I have been noodling around with an idea for a week-long workshop around the theme Quilting the Good Life (c), and Quilting the Garden as a part of that.  The workshop would involve learning my collage and thread-coloring techniques with a small project (similar for all), then moving on to develop a quilt based on one’s own photography or imagery, then quilting it.  (If anyone wants to hire me to do this, please write!)  This quilt will fit in that rubric!  Although I usually use lots of batiks, this quilt was mostly my own hand-dyes with a few batiks.  And of course I left it to the last minute to make the quilt!  About 10 days before it was due, I dug out the dye pots (above) to make the red fabric in exactly the color and texture I needed, which I did by manually “pleating” the wet fabric and applying dye with a sponge paintbrush.

The resulting red fabrics used on the front (and back) of the quilt.

As long as I had dyes mixed up,

Last year’s $$ investment in the business was to put a sink into the basement. It is in the room with the water pump, oil tank, water heater, etc., but I have just (barely) enough room to put the 4×8 rigid foam core on top of a folding table and have this re-purposed kitchen cart on the side for mixing. Those of you who have take Carol Soderlund’s fabulous classes will recognize some of my color pages clipped above the mixing station. And I have learned to keep notes in my spiral notebook of what primaries I’ve used so I can replicate–like the green in a photo below.

I overdyed some hideously ugly fabric I had made, some in a workshop, some on my own.  The beauty of cotton hand-dyes is that if they turn out vile, you can just keep throwing on dye.  Either they turn good, or you add more dye and get some great deep browns and mottled forest colors!  These are clearly the before shots:

The plum fabrics on the left were from a workshop exercise. I cut a small bit off each to remind myself, then over dyed. The teacher won’t tell you the purpose of the exercise, she wants you to learn by doing. That’s fine, but if I had known the exercise was to force splitting of the dyes I would NEVER have selected the final plum color because the blue-yellow make that nasty mint green! Thankfully I did not follow her suggestion to use a yard each, but instead only wasted a fat quarter each. Which are still hideous enough!

This ugliness was a mopping up cloth. UGLY.

These are the after:

The green on the top is a hand-dye I like and want to reproduce. The blue on the bottom is a purchased batik. The pink-coral with blue splotches is the fugly piece just above. The orange-fuchsia-yellow are that plum-mint ugliness. The fuglies are going back for more color. Ugh. They will make good browns eventually!

Result:  less awful than before, but back in the over-dye (again) pile!

SNEAK PEEK:  and finally, here you can see a pile of red off-cuts from my quilt for Living Colour Textiles.  I fused the reds with Mistyfuse, cut my shapes, and had leftover bits.  Those will go into the next project, a quilt of Eli during cross-country season in his red team uniform of tank and shorts.   That one is already in the sketched out, fabrics selected, fusing happening stage!  I WILL make more than two quilts this year!

Off-cuts from my Living Colour piece, all Mistyfused. They were SO fiddly to cut I figure I will use these somehow…

And I had to add Tyger, who decided to help warm some of the fabric by sitting on top (thankfully the plastic extended well beyond the edges of the pan) of the fabrics batching by the woodstove!

What a silly cat! Tyger has his back half sitting on the fabric, his front half going paw-paw on the plastic on the floor.