'ticia and me

Here's me and a wonderful friend.  We seldom see each other (it'd be great if we lived in closer proximity), but the friendship has remained constant for more years than we'll admit to!

We've both moved here and there, but always manage to hook up now and then.

But we need a l-o-o-ng visit sometime soon.

New patterns!

Two new patterns are out today!  It's been a tad o' work.  Hope you like them!

Is there perfect harmony in the world?

Of course there isn't perfect harmony in the world.  It wouldn't be an interesting place if we lived in utopia.  BUT life always has perfect moments.  One of those happened recently when we unpacked ALL our books for the first time since the earth's crust cooled and the dinosaurs roamed freely.

Love those utility bookshelves.  This is our junk room.  You all have one, but perhaps you're still in denial about actually calling it a junk room.  Our 4 year old grand daughter named this room the "junky room".  Razor sharp, that tot.  And kissable.

Mischele

He Lives

Here's a cross I designed in Electric Quilt and then pieced. The real quilt looks very much like the design program image, doesn't it? It's scrappy and it's made with my One Block Art blocks.

This is the second cross I made and is a variation of the first.  The first one was made just before Easter this year and hangs in one of our church's ministries for women.

Mischele

I'm in Scrap Therapy

One of our local quilt shops has started up a program, or class series, titled Scrap Therapy.  The premise being that we'll figure out a way to use up our scraps.  We met last week and heard a great presentation with all sorts of clever tips about how to use scraps, sizes to consider cutting scraps to make them more easily used, etc..   Then we started cutting scraps into sizes for a project that we'll sew the next time we meet.

Goodness gracious.  I don't have enough scraps and all the other ladies in therapy all had scraps that were SO much more bodaciously wonderful than mine.  I have scrap envy. So...it looks like I have to go into my stash to make scraps.  Yes!  Bonus!  I can feel pious about using fabrics from my stash!

 

I get all tingly just thinking about all the scrap possibilities, having always thought that more fabrics in a design increase design potential and add greatly to eye appeal.  

And there's that whole "green" movement now encouraging us to use up what we have and recycle, recycle.  

Nothing to buy. Huh. Yeah.  Right.  (Can you smell the sarcasm wafting from your computer monitor as you read those words?)

I quilt.  Therefore I am. .........am buying fabric, that is.

Now then, is there a 12 step program to get us off scraps?  I might need that in a few months.

Mischele

P.S. Never mind that I had to buy fabric on the way out of the quilt shop.  Let's not talk about that.  Nosirree!

Southern Girls wear cast iron skirts and channel Mary Ellen Hopkins

Here's one that I designed several years ago for Mary Ellen Hopkins' Quilt Sitter Circle organization and remade a few months ago.  Now that I live in the deep south,  I know that we southern ladies can stand on our heads without displaying the lace on our rigorously ladylike and proper thongs.  We're willful enough to make our skirts defy gravity. This quilt aptly demonstrates proves that hypothesis.

 And is the phrase "rigorously ladylike and proper thongs" a contradiction ? Is it even seemly to group those words together in a sentence?

See if you can find the free spirit.  I named this design "Connecting Up With Your Inner Child". It was inspired by Mary Ellen Hopkins.  If you know her, you love her.  And she's probably a thong kinda grandma.  She's free wheeling like that.

Mischele

I'm the Maverick who married Goose

Here we are on our wedding day.  July 11, 1970.  About 6 weeks later, I would finish nursing school. Don's squadron, RVAH-1,  would deploy for a cruise and he would start flying reconnaissance over north Viet Nam. 

I love him madly! Probably from the moment I first saw him. Definitely forever.

Another top done!

This is my Radiant Wreath design that is published by Animas Quilt Publications.  I'll be teaching a class at Somewhere Sewing in Johnson City, TN in October. 

It's real easy to piece.

Here's a graphic rather than a photo of the quilt.  So far I've made 3 of these.  2 with this traditional color way and one with the Vintage color way.  The fabrics, which are the deal makers with this quilt were designed by Jackie Robinson for Maywood Studios.  Hope you see this pattern and Jackie's fabrics in your local quilt shop!

One Block Art wearable art

Here's a vest made by Darla Beverage of Gray, TN.  Though the vest is lovely, the lady herself is even lovelier.

One Block Art Again

The star quilt was made by Lori Pulaski.  She is in the Air Force and pilots those big tankers that refuel planes in flight.  One of our military heroes.

 

More One Block Art

I have to do something while the iron heats up, so here are a couple more quilts.  Both of these are by Lucy Terry from Johnson City, TN.  Don't you love the way she offsets the design and breaks into the border?  Of course it helps a tad when you have a Ph. D. in textiles.

Lucy, your edumacashun ain't been wasted. (sic to the nth?)

Enjoy!

One Block Art: It's an addiction!

  I finished my One Block Art Cross and it looks amazingly like the Electric Quilt image you see on the right.

I started this idea for a class in the late 90's when a friend gave me some watercolor squares and I was looking for an idea of how to use them that wasn't watercolor, if that makes any sense.

Plus, the squares were already cut, and you know how labor intensive that can be!  And how much we like being able to just jump right into a project.

Oh, and I am too cheap to throw some things away.  But mostly too cheap to throw away fabric because I work scrappy. I've made a bazillion blocks and have been amazed at what others have done in classes.  Here are a few:

The piece with the incorporated black border was made by Ann Moore from Kingsport, TN, the the one with the red border was made by Eloise Kominek of Johnson City, TN.

Aren't these terrific?  More student work to come.  I'm stitching on a Christmas project today.  You can see what it looks like in my very first blog post.

Granny's got a brand new ride

After being married for a zillion years, I finally goofed and learned to do something that I'd avoided for years by professing ignorance (easier done than said). 

I've also practiced wedded faithfulness. 

But that can only work for so long.  

I learned to mow the grass. 

I've fallen in love with Mr. John Deere.

Yessiree.  Green and yellow make me tingly all over.

We've got a very hilly acre or so to mow.  That means, dang it, that there are slopey, hilly dirt things outside in the yard that are just covered with grass.   On a riding mower, you can have more fun with them than you can on the Wild Mouse at the fair, and when you fall off, the hospital is much closer.  And you don't have to fill in an incident report or worry about suing the fairgrounds.   Much less complicated.

I can have all the fun of the outdoors just, well, outdoors.  Even without liquor and guns.

And provide great entertainment for my sweetie as I run laps here and there giggling and screaming.  Giggling when I get up some downhill speed and screaming when I get some tilty action.  That's so much better than, say,  cleaning toilets because my sweetie doesn't find watching me do that demonstrates any entertainment value.  But if he'd watch closer he might get some educational value out of it, if you catch my drift.

A kid on a go cart could have even more fun.  Heywaitaminute, maybe I shouldn't say that because it might give the grandkids some ideas.  

Lemme think about that for a minute.  Excuse me.

Okay.  I'm back.  The go cart idea is a great one and I can write about it because the grandkids aren't old enough to read yet.  Or at least they don't have internet privileges yet.  

Okay, the scent of gasoline is out of my nostrils.  Time to go spritz with some estrogen and Chanel and turn back into a southern lady.  Maybe that Title needs to be in Caps.  

Southern Lady.  

Gracious,  using caps looks so much more genteel and prissy, doncha think?

Mimi

Southern Lady.  Yeah. Right.

Channel Ambition and Fun with Paisley and Ronstadt

Working on quilts in my studio is greatly enhanced by cacophonous music, particularly the songs by Brad Paisley and Linda Ronstadt.  Call me crazy, call me an aging baby boomer or say my taste in music is just plain dated (and don't do it when I can reach you) , but it's great to listen to songs with words that you can clearly discern and are not SHOUTED to the point of excruciating distortion.

So if anyone looks in my studio window and sees me "juking" about the room and singing loudly and off-key to the tunes being emitted from my computer, just relax.  It isn't that I have taken psychotropic/hallucinogenic drugs, it's just that this 50-something babe knows how to get her groove on.

 

Thinking of Daddy

Earlier today, I was stacking some quilts as I was readying for a speaking engagement that will take place in a couple of weeks.  One of the quilts in the pile is a very old one made of rectangles of wool in very masculine, dark colors.

I was told that the rectangles of wool are tailor samples used by my grandfather, Claude Milton Jackson, Sr., who, for some period of time, had a store named "Jackson's Cheap Dry Goods".  It was located in Chester, Georgia in the last part of the 1800's and the first of the 1900's.  He would show customers the samples and he'd order suits for them.  

Wonder when he stopped being a merchant and turned to teaching.  He was a teacher when he met and fell in love with my grandmother, one of his students.  The rascal.

Anyway, the quilt rectangles are sewn together and trimmed in bright briar stitching that is done by hand.  For years I thought my grandmother had made it, but was later told that one of their house servants made it.  huh.

I think of Daddy when I see this wonderful quilt and since he died, I guess I grieve a little too....happy and sad thoughts.  Gawd.  I loved my Daddy. And that love stays constant. There have been so many times that I really have needed to see and talk to him in the 20 years he's been gone.  

Soon after he died I dreamed that I answered the door and found him standing there and he looked at me, smiled, and said, "I'm all right, sweetheart." 

That helped somehow.

With Father's Day approaching, our thoughts naturally turn to our fathers.  If you still have yours, hold him and tell you that you love him. And give him a chance to tell you that he loves you.  If you don't still have him, try to remember that when Daddies love us, the love doesn't vanish when they are gone. 

Happy Father's Day, Daddy.  I love you.

The No Crank Day

A day the car isn't cranked?

It's a myth.  I'm not talking smack here.  The days that the car is NOT cranked are becoming more and more elusive. This is not a complaint.  There are days that we all want to stay in, read, not answer the phone, stay in jammies, eat popcorn for lunch, swill Coca-Cola and pay little attention to the horrors displayed in the bathroom mirror. Throw in a thunderstorm, some quilting,  and you have a nearly perfect day to stay in your personal nest.  Yes, I hear you saying, "Amen!"

But the days the car is cranked are good too.  Lately, I've had the chance to kiss my grandbabies a lot, work with a couple of delightful ladies as they learn to make a hand pieced, hand quilted quilt (just like the pioneers did!),  and spend some time hanging out with the ladies that come into a ministry for women that our church established.

On the home front, I'm working on making a quilt from homespuns.  Holy cow.  I have a huge stash of homespuns to choose from (the effort of years of stashing), but apparently I didn't pay much attention to the quality of what I collected. Most of it seems to have all the nice stretchiness of rubber bands and fails to behave despite the best efforts of a strong right arm and clouds of steam.  Muttering leaves the fabric unfazed. But I do love the way it looks.  

I'm taking a break from pin basting it with a zillion pins so far.

Had to sneak a peak at American Idol and root for David Archuleta.  Yes.

Big Stone Gap

So far, today has been a tremendously satisfying goof off day.  A friend and I went up to Big Stone Gap, Virginia to the Southwest Virginia Museum to see an exhibit of about 115 quilts.  Lovely museum in a grand old house.  Beautiful new and old quilts, all respectfully and attractively displayed.  

Lots of inspiration.

Then a stop for lunch in the town drugstore  What a treat. Items on the menu included cabbage rolls, chicken and dumplins (their spelling, not mine), cornbread, green beans, blackberry cobbler and sweet tea.

Hallelujah, we live in the South!

Stopped by a used bookstore to buy Adriana Trigiani's book, Big Stone Gap.  That's something to read while checking in occasionally to see who gets the boot on American Idol.

It's the middle of the afternoon and tonight is church night supper, so there will be no heat (or chores) in our kitchen tonight.

A good reason to just be worthless for the rest of the day, if one is needed.

Life is good.

Radiant Wreath

I'm starting this blog as a way to keep up with what I'm doing with quilting, and to create within myself a desire to do more with this art.  Right now, I'm stitching a bit and designing for my friend, Jackie Robinson's fabrics and her publishing company.  Here's the pattern cover from the newest design.  It will be introduced at International Quilt Market in Portland, Oregon later this week.

It was a rush job to get the two quilts stitched because of delayed shipment of fabric from Korea. (It's great fun to sew under pressure!) A very talented local quilter, Donna Patrick, came through with flying colors and did truly wonderful and creative quilting on the tops.  

You can see Jackie's Poinsettia fabric line for Maywood Studios and the newest patterns for that line at Jackie's web site:

http://www.animas.com

Working with Christmas fabrics has inspired me to work on presents to give to my family at Christmas.  And to slow down at the same time. And try to really discover the child like enthusiasm that originally brought me to quilting.