Quilting Therapy for a hectic life....

Okay, so Mom went to the hospital for a week in October and dutiful daughter that I am....I spent every day visiting and fetching stuff from her apartment.   She's home now with new meds recovering from her stay in what she thought should have been a four-star hotel...but alas was just a hospital room.

Charity quilts completed this month included 4 quilt tops with fabric donated by Liz (left column), 2 cheater panels quilted and bound, 2 quilts made from donated blocks, and a bunch of preemie blankets with fabrics donated by Kathy.  This bunch of charity quilts completes the use of fabrics donated by Liz a few months ago.

I wanted to call attention to this charity quilt.  The blocks were donated by Diane Heller, who obtained them by participating in an Internet block exchange in 1995.   All of the blocks were signed.   Here are some of the contributors: Marilee Sherwood, Jessica Drennan (Ithica, NY), Pat Newbon (Pagelcyn, CA), Sue Trandt, Colleen Gaskin, Sari Goldbaum, Karen Kutzner, Miriam Siebenthall (San Jose, CA), Lynne Capehart, Cathy Slater (Little Rock, AR), L. Obetra (Chicago, IL), and of course Diane from Wheaton, MD.  It really is a small world, isn't it?

On a final note....Imagine my surprise when my senses woke up last week and I discovered that Fall had arrived in our neighborhood. I just love the crispness of the air.

Quilt Festival: Fall 2009

In November 2008, Friendship Star Quilt Guild sponsored a class from Jennie Rayment titled Tinkering with Texture. I barely finished this piece in time to submit it in our annual quilt show.   I couldn't think of a name for it, so I relied on one of my fallback naming systems.  I named this one after one of my favorite cartoon characters: Boris Badinov (the short soviet spy in Rocky and Bullwinkle).  But, instead of just using his name, I called it Boris Bad Enough.  Why did I pick him?  Well, I had just retired from working at an Agency where I belonged to a quilt guild named Undercover Quilters.  Having worked there for 37 years including durng the "Cold War", it just seemed fitting to pick Boris.

The lull before a new project

This is a quilt I completed last year for an auction at my son's high school. I learned a lot from this quilt....okay so I paper-pieced the building and then had to sew all over it to make it look right...big mistake. I understand it was a big hit at their Grand Celebration event. There's another grand celebration this year and I've got until March to complete it. Yesterday, I designed the new quilt:

Today, I'm going to the Sewing Expo near Dulles Airport in Virginia with my friend Chris. I'll be looking for some of the fabrics for this piece. I received permission from the school to use this photo, that was taken by staff members for some of their publications. I hope to incorporate some of the thread painting I learned on my last project to create the "grey" gradations in the statue.

There's a giveaway on the Quilts etc. blog. Why not check it out? http://karensquilting.com/blog/a-give-away/comment-page-1/#comment-2730