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My Favorite Things...104...A Quilt for a Little Girl...

Happy New Year Everyone!
The other day I was in the car listening to WNYC, They were talking about many of the customs to bring in the New Year, all over the world.  A lot were food-related, like in Spain they eat 12 grapes at midnight... what's that about?  Some were spirit-related, like opening all of the windows in your house to free the souls held captive in your home from the year before. And in New York, they were activity related...like the yahoos that drink themselves silly (while freezing their buns off & while having their pockets picked) in Time Square.

Paton and I, we took the "path of least resistance".  After a picnic in bed complete with some divine desserts from a favorite Japanese bakery, we cranked the mattress pad way, way up...That's when the real fun began as the kitties became heat seeking missiles under the comforter. We all started to watching a video ...and that's pretty much all I remember.

And no hang over this morning...so it's all good (more energy for other things!)

So here's a fun new project to 'whet your whistle' for the new year.  (I never tire of pink, and I'm crazy for my new Floating Petal fabric.)  It was commissioned by Jill Meade of Quilts & More magazine...

This sneak peak* is actually part of a room ensemble designed for a girl's room, compete with shams, dust ruffle and a really cute window treatment, if I do say so myself, it's a cutie pie!...A prize goes to the person who guesses the name on the pillow.

Today I'm making my second attempt this winter to fly away for a little R&R with some family and friends.  I'm crossing my fingers as I look out again at another gray and stormy, winter's day. 

Back in two shakes...H2

*Sara, I was just being "kute", peak as in high(light), get it? But thanks for asking!

My Favorite Things...88...Cherries Jubilee

Remember my Cherry Baby quilt from Fall '07 market?  Some people like shoes (think Imelda), some people collect cars (like Paton, whose motto "he who dies with the most race cars & trophies wins") me, I am besot with sewing notions, or as most of you know by now...covered buttons & ric rac to be specific.  (Besot, you say?...I don't know why I like this word so much...I guess it's from being a junkie for those Word-A-Day Calenders...) 

I could have sold that quilt over and over again...I'd committed to our distributors to have the pattern for Cherry Baby available, so when Beth Hayes from McCall's came by our booth and went "coo coo" over that quilt, I had to reinvent it for her...I might like this version even better...

The working name for this quilt is "Black Cherry", it's a similar idea, but actually very different.  The thing I really love about this quilt (besides the curved front buttons that make up the cherries) is the way so many of the 2007 LakeHouse fabrics (both old and new) go together...I used little vines, lattices, dots and even little rosebuds (which look like cherries on a quilt!)in the background areas. I am crazy for using plaids and dots and stripes on the leaves, and the cherries too, but those of your who know me already know that.

Here's a sneak peak of the quilt that is scheduled to be in the McCall's Quilting June 2008 edition...

Now if I only had a clean room to put this in here at "Sawdust-Central",  :0)

It's official, "12 Bears for Christmas" starts on Tuesday...Have your kidlets and grandkidlets watch along with you!

Back in two Shakes...H2

My Favorite Things...85...Working on a Chain Gang!

In the midst of all of the other post-market things to do, I've designed a new bedroom ensemble (quilt, accent pillow, shams, etc.) for Amercian Patchwork & Quilting's June 2008 issue (newsstand April).  Here's a little sneak peak at a couple of the items that we'll be sending out tomorrow...Kathleen Nitzsche and Cheryl Winslow did the lion's share of the work (thanks gals), but I managed to find the time over the Thanksgiving weekend to piece the little checkerboard pillowtop below...It's a bit of a "Charlie Brown Xmas tree" compared to the quilt...If I do say so myself,the quilttop is "supercalafrajalisticexpealidocious" (which is to say, something about it reminds me of the beds in Mary Poppins!)

Lots more to show and tell in the weeks ahead:  be there, be square, see the bears, see the bee...now ten times fast!

Back in two shakes...H2

My Favorite Things...55...New Fabrics & New Friends

Day 8 of 13 A Dazzling Dozen Delicious Desserts

It's a big day here at our humble studio-by-the-lake...lots of new goodies...you're on notice Brenda, Elizabeth, Pam, Anne & Annie...It's better than Christmas morning around here when the first rolls of fabric arrive before market...

We could have waited until tomorrow, but then again, who knows when the courier service would have arrived...?  So we drove to my agent's office tonight and got the boxes of ROT...FYI, we don't say it like its rotten, we say R-O-T...that's the term for fabric, when it comes "rolled on tubes"...

Paton, wielding a box cutter under the cover of darkness...

"Paton step back", I said.  " I need to get a shot of this for the blog"...(taking my instructions from the LHDG shameless promotion department, of course)...

So here they are ladies, the first of the new fall fabrics...The colors are soft and clear and remind me of sherbet and ice cream...What's really great is that the new things for Fall 07 cozy up next to the May 07 collection really, really well.  One of my "ab-fab-favorites" is the Saturn pattern...the pink circle tone-on-tone.  "La Grande Rose"...is one of the new additions to the La Belle Rose collection.  It's big pink rose on the pearl background, and let me tell you, it is not fooling around!  The roses are 4-5" across and they are in bouquets that fill an 8" square. So now the La Belle Rose collection (that has only been out since July), has teensy-weensy, small, medium, large & now extra large roses too.  Still delicate & pretty enough for a smaller quilt, but big enough for a knock-down-drop-dead-gorgeous queen size bed quilt as well...It's a beauty, if I do say so myself!

More show and tell soon...we have the whole back of the wagon to unload in the morning.  I'll be sure to have my camera with me.

Meantime, let's not forget about dessert...(quel horreur, certainment pas!)

Tonight is a blogger who puts a smile on my face.  I still remember the first time I went to Thimbleanna's post...She had all sorts of amusements...I instantly fell in love with her banner...you simply must see it, the banner is worth the cost of admission!  Next, she had a place in her side columns for other blogging "Anna's"  (that touched me, in a "being kind to others sort of way").  The thing that made me crack up was her description of her family members.  So genuine, and yet such a kick in the pants!

Meantime, she too likes to cook and has many yummy sounding recipes in addition to her sewing and quilting posts.  From her description of her dessert, it sounds like a winner to me...So take it away, Anna...(I want to taste it all by now, don't you?)

Back in two shakes...H2

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My Favorite Things...28...A Mid-Summer Night's...Quilt?

Faithful Blog-ettes...here's a little sneak peak at one of my new quilt designs from the La Belle Rose collection.  Make no mistake about it, it's been a long time a comin'...It reminds me of the old fashioned high top shoes with buttons.
    

It took me more than a few late-nights on my laptop propped on pillows in bed, to get this quilt to look like anything. I had designed one small block for the cover of our sales booklet for spring quilt market, and sho-nuf, Beth Hayes of McCall's picked right up on it and wanted me to develop it further...

My ever-diligent, queen-of-all-things-fabric: "QOATF" Cheryl Winslow just dropped off this new quilt...(adorable--if I do say so myself!) Picture this delivery..."QOATF" pulls up on a shiny new retro-style Harley Davidson with a HUGE throughly modern black helmet and large bulging knapsack on her back.  I squealed with delight when I laid this quilt out...promise you this...for those of you who loved Victoria magazine...this quilt will not disappoint.  It's nostalgic and romantic, and yet fresh & new at the same time (she said humbly!)

The piecing is pretty much standard-fare for Cheryl...impeccable! The quilting....sublime. So "up my alley" I can't even tell you!

So here's the scoop on the quilt: It will be in McCall's February '08 issue...newsstand late November early December...And, if you are at all like me, you want it when it comes out...(weeks before it actually hits the newsstand)--get a subscription!

Oh and in case you are wondering (and I am sure many of you are!) why I am not making my own quilts...honestly, the day-to-day demands of this business are just too great, and my eyes frankly are really not great anymore.  I have been severely near-sighted since 2nd grade, (and I have the pictures of me in my brownie uniform and brown coke-bottle-cat's-eye glasses to prove it!) On top of not-so-great eyes, I have been overusing them for 10-12 hours a day for over 30 years...Oh, and most of you know about lasix eye surgery...dozens of my friends have had it with great success...well, let's just say--I'm in that 3% that no one ever really wants to talk about...I am just thankful that I can still see at all.  So I guess what I am saying is, pretty much the last thing I can do for fun & relaxation involves hours of working at a sewing machine! Honestly the best thing I can do for my eyes and to relax is stare into the distance (like across the lake from a deck chair) and focus on something a mile or two away.

That said, I do still love applique and I do think that I will be doing some of that again sometime soon...Also, my excuse for that is that I can take that in a car, and do it while I am waiting for things to happen.  It's generally portable and I I don't have to make a huge fuss to do an applique project.  Megan and I had a lot of fun with the LOVE HOPE FAMILY quilt that we did for Spring 06 market, and it reminded me how much fun applique can be. The pieces in that quilt were ginormous, so I could actually see what I was doing without too much stress!

Meantime, back to my second favorite past-time...eating!  It occurred to me that there were a lot of other people out there in bloggie-ville who also loved to share their recipes and thoughts on food.  I have read some mouth watering descriptions of late...

So I "wrastled up" some fellow quilt-lovers and we are going to do a  "Blog-able Feast"...The fine points of this are not finalized, but it will go something like this:  every day of this event, you'll come to my blog and I will give a little intro about the person, the course that they are doing and something about the recipe, etc. that they will have that day...I will provide a link to them. Then you'll go over to them and have a treat!

I'll have more on this as soon as it's all laid out...so keep checking back and I'll let you know the who, what, when & where within a week or so.

Back in two shakes...H2