Blog update!I loved reading all of the resolutions and I hope we all attain them! I would love to see pictures of works-in-progress or works completed so feel free to email them to me, and I can post on the blog. The winner of the fabric is Brigitte Baierl. Congratulations! I will email you for your address.

I think y’all know how this works by now: I ask a question, you answer, and I randomly select a winner. The first free loot in 2013? How about a stack of fat quarters from Riley Blake Designs!

Aren’t these colors yummy?

They kinda’ remind me of my breakfast this morning (before I turned all this stuff into juice):

Since it’s only the second day in 2013, I’m going to ask the queen of cliché questions, but ask it with a twist:

Question:

What is your quilt-related New Year’s resolution that you will ATTAIN by year’s end? This mean that what you write in the comments area–whatever goal you type down–you WILL accomplish by the end of the year. And at year’s end, I am going to check back in to see if you actually attained your goal.

My attainable goal: I will start and complete two art quilts by the end of the year, one of which I would like to enter into a juried exhibition. Maybe making two art quilts doesn’t sound like much, but I have two ideas in mind, and I would really like to see them through…not just keep the ideas in my head.

Now it’s your turn. Leave your attainable goal in the comments area and on Friday I will post the winner in this same post. Think hard and think lofty (but attainable)…

I hope everyone enjoyed some rest and relaxation with loved ones this past holiday season! I had a very mellow, quiet, and restorative break; the highlight was visiting my mother for a few days just outside of Las Vegas where she lives.

Above is a view of “The Strip” in the distance, just beyond her rose bushes in her backyard. This is as about as close as I ever get to The Strip, because the only gambling I can handle is hedging my bets on how well I will free-motion stitch a quilt I have to make for someone!

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Bogie on his very own quilt.

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My mother picked up quilting again exactly one year ago, and she has been prolific ever since. I think she showed me about 10 quilts she has made in the past year alone, and the one above is one she made for her rescue pooch, Bogie.

From left to right: Dianna, Bonnie, Kathy (my mom), and Sonia.

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Just after I landed, my mom told me she wanted me to meet her quilting friends, so off to the “Sewing Club” we went, which is a room in her local community center. It’s a pretty slick quilt/sewing facility outfitted with massive cutting tables and ironing stations, a long arm machine, and at least a dozen Janomes and Berninas. I was very impressed!

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My mom’s dogs, Tee and Bogie, resting on two of my mother’s quilts.

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On the first full day of my visit, my mom and I enjoyed a pumpkin facial (which smelled lovely!) and a deep tissue massage (which hurt like hell!) at a local day spa. Afterwards, we visited my mom’s favorite independent quilt store, Quiltique, where I loaded up on fabrics, and we spent the rest of the time quilting in pajamas while the dogs supervised. (I even caught the remake of “King Kong” with Jack Black, but I couldn’t watch the last 10 minutes and chose to go to bed because there was no way I could watch King Kong die.)

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By the time I left Las Vegas, I had finished this tote that will be a part of a fundraising effort. (More on that soon.)

Today is January 1, 2013. A new day, a new year, a new chance. Here’s to cramming in as many positive, healthful, creative, friend-filled, and quilt-filled moments as we can.

Happy New Year,

What!? You don’t believe in Santa?! Shame on you! OK, let’s pretend for a minute you do believe in this guy…

Besides asking Santa to come to our Quilt Festivals next year, here  are nine other things I recommend asking St. Nick for the holidays. (Just click on all the photos to take you to each product website.)

1. The Portable Gidget II Sewing Table by Arrow

The Gidget II is sturdy, has an adjustable, drop-down platform so your sewing machine is flush with the table top, stores easily, is relatively inexpensive, and requires no assembly. Here it is in action in my living room:

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2. A suitcase of Auriful thread. This really requires no explanation:

3. A Mack truck full of Marcia Derse fabric. Who could ever have enough of this stuff?

And Marcia’s fabric makes for fine home accents and upholstered furniture!

One of Louie’s last photos, posing on a Marcia Derse-upholstered mini rocker.

4. A  stitch retreat with Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn

What is not to adore about these two?

And they are teaching in Puglia, Italy next May! I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind stitching poolside drinking chianti…

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5. A weekend trip to Art Cloth Studios in San Antonio with Jane Dunnewold. Talk about a playground!

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6. A new Bernina sewing machine! I saw this 750 series machine’s debut at Fall Quilt Market and was blown away by all it can do.

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7. And heck, since we are asking for premium gifts, let’s ask Santa for a sit-down, mid-arm machine, too,  like HandiQuilter’s Sweet Sixteen. I have played on this machine and if you like to free-motion quilt mid-to-large-sized quilts, this is a dream.

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8. Now on to stocking stuffers: All quilters need a set of reliable, sharp scissors, and I really love the rotary cutters and scissors by Havel’s. Always sharp, always reliable, and well priced:

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9. And no studio is complete without a studio pet. This little gal can fit into a stocking, too, although she would probably squirm a bit.

I am thinking of adopting her.

“My little dog. A heartbeat at my feet.”–Edith Wharton

UPDATE: Fabric winner…Congratulations to Amanda Kattner! I will email you for your address and ship these Ty Pennington fabrics to you!

It’s an exciting time of year here at Quilts Inc. headquarters, as the last of the quilts on loan for Fall Festival are being shipped back to their makers, many of us are busy stitching holiday gifts for loved ones, and we are pleased knowing that Friends For Life is putting the money raised for Festival’s Pet Project (more than $20,000) to good use saving animals!

From left to right: Meredith Wierick (Communications Manager), Me, Clarence (my pooch from Friends For Life), and Salise Shuttlesworth (Founder & Director of Friends For Life)

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It’s also (past) time for me to announce the three book winners from my previous book post:

Congratulations to: Patricia S., Tetonmountaingirl, and Hueisei! I will email you all individually to obtain your shipping information.

Monday’s Fabric Giveaway

I have an assortment of fabrics designed by Ty Pennington to give away. (Sorry, Ty doesn’t come with the fabric.)

Answer the following question and I will randomly select a winner tomorrow (Tuesday).

Question: What quilt-y gadgets are on your holiday wish list?

I know I have been off the radar this past week, and well…I have been, simply put, a bit heartbroken. Louie, my Min Pin, and my pal in All Things Mischievous, who graced many pages in Quilting Arts Magazine with ads and articles, appeared in online videos, Quilting Arts TV, e-newsletters, and countless pix posted on Facebook, passed away this past week. And two days later, our cat Dickens, the most amazing creature, who my friend and former colleague Larissa Davis lovingly adopted this past year so Dickens could be spared the Houston humidity, passed as well.

Louie and Dickens used to be best buds, and Dickens, who was three times the size of Louie, used to spoon Louie at night, cradling him protectively. I like to think that Dickens sensed Louie had passed, and Dickens, ever the gentle guardian, thought maybe it was time for him, too, to cross the rainbow bridge, and take care of Louie once again.

Dickens with Larissa.

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They inspired me to make a lot of artwork over the years. A small sampling…

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It’s been hard for me to put this blog post together. I admit I can’t quite find the words, but I think a fitting thing to do is write a brief letter to them, letting them know–not just on behalf of me–but for John, the extended Quilting Arts family, Larissa and her family, and all the friends and fans these two had…how grateful we all were to them.

So here goes…

Dear my beloved Dickens and Louie,

I want to thank you for all of the love, compassion, joy, humor, and affection you gave to so many people, and also:

For being my little editing buddy…

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And being the Task Master during “National Take-Your-Dog-To-Work Day!”

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For reminding me not so subtly to maintain my workout regimen…

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For supervising all photo shoots…

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For forgiving me after I accidentally ran you over in the driveway. (That was the most harrowing day, but you forgave me right away!)

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For attempting to keep the chipmunk population under control…

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For letting me know how much you will miss me.

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For guarding art in progress…

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And for guarding art nearly finished.

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For showing me how yawning is done!

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For being my copilot on long trips…

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And my pilot on the shorter ones.

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For gazing at me like I was the most special person ever.

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For showing affection to those who just entered our world…

And for showing affection to those who had been in your world a long time.

For all of these reasons, you will be dearly missed.

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About three years ago I was painting fabrics outside with the animals nearby. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon with a little Dave Matthews on the iPod docking station, and I grabbed my flip video to capture the moment. Nothing really happens here; it was just an inconsequential but exquisite moment on a happy day.

Love to you guys…

As I write this blog post on this lovely Cyber Monday afternoon, so far I have gotten a heap of discount offers in my in-box–everything from lip balms and soy candles to ear plugs and temporary mustache tattoos–but I haven’t gotten anything for free. Maybe I can start a new trend…

I have three fantastic books on hand courtesy of Stash Books that I would love to give away to three people. If these books are not on your wish list, they should be! In my little Santa’s sack I have:

Whether you are a budding or experienced free-motion quilter, if you are looking for motifs with a modern twist, you will want this book! Angela taped several segments for QA TV earlier this fall, and she makes complicated motifs fun and easy to accomplish.

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Written by Alissa Haight Carlton, one of the founders of the Modern Quilt movement, this book is packed with 20 contemporary quilt projects that would make those on your gift list happy little campers, indeed.

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Whether you want to whip up a cute clutch to complement a holiday outfit or stitch a tote in an afternoon for a gift, with 19 projects that yield about 75 variations, you wont run out of ideas!

My Giveaway Question:

Are you taking the handmade pledge this holiday season by stitching holiday decorations or quilting some gifts? Write in the comments field what you plan to accomplish this holiday season (and if you have posted a picture to your blog of anything you’ve made, share the link) and I will randomly select three winners–each to win one of these books–on Wednesday.

Yesterday morning the local news was all aflutter about the spaceship Endeavour flying over the city of Houston as it made its way to retirement in California. The 747 jet plane that carried Endeavour took off at sunrise, at exactly 7:02 A.M., heading west and hovering a mere 1500 feet above sea level so Houstonians could pay a final tribute as it flew by.

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Living a bit north of downtown, I didn’t think I would be able to catch it in the early morning skies, but then I heard a loud rumbling, and rushed out my front door in my nightgown…only to discover the noise was from a lawn mower.

But then when I went back upstairs, my house began to tremble, coupled with a deafening noise from the skies. I opened my bedroom window, and after noticing a looming shadow traverse across my pool, I looked up, and there was the most awe-inspiring site: The shuttle Endeavour flying piggyback on that 747 right over my house. To see it so close and see it in person…well, there are no words.

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Photo Credit: (NASA/ Sheri Locke)

Years ago, my good friend Cait Florschutz, who was reading a lot of Carl Sagan at the time, encouraged me to read his book Pale Blue Dot. There is a passage in it that is one of the most powerful bits of writing I have ever read.

He writes:

“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam…

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena….Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

To read the full passage click here, or better yet read the book, but this bit of writing inspired me in 1998 to make my very first quilt block. It was a crazy quilted piece featuring a number of hand-embroidered constellations: Cassiopeia and Gemini, Orion and Ursa Major, and in the center of the block, depicted in a tiny cluster of French knots with thread in robin’s egg blue, was Earth.

I would share a photo of this very first block I ever stitched, but I’d only embarrass myself because the stitching is so bad.

But needless to say, I was inspired by Mr. Sagan’s words to quilt this, and the other morning while watching Endeavour sail across my bedroom window, I thought about how I will always remember that very brief moment in my life–where I was, where I have been, and where I have yet to go. It is a moment that I wouldn’t be surprised inspires a quilt someday soon.

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I hope everyone has a lovely, inspired, and stitch-filled weekend,

It’s a soggy, dreary Monday here in Houston, but we don’t mind the grey skies and puddle-ridden roads…the rain is finally cooling things off.  I hope everyone had a nice weekend; I had a quiet one–my favorite kind–spending hours stitching. I began working on about 20 fabric postcards for our Pet Project, our upcoming fundraiser for stray animals in dire need here in the city of Houston. I like to make fabric postcards in batches, and this first batch features Louie, my 13-year-old Min Pin whose image I screened on fabric, then fused to some pieced backgrounds.

I have a lot of embellishing as well as hand and machine stitching yet to do on these, but I had fun working with such graphic prints for the backgrounds.

Speaking of which, I have a stash of Malka Dubrawsky fabrics that she designed for Moda that I would love to give away to someone who might use them to create fabric postcards for our Pet Project.  Are you interested?

If so, answer the following question and I’ll randomly choose a winner tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.

Question: Fall is coming, and with it cooler temps and more reasons to stay indoors and quilt. What are your bigger quilt projects on the front burner right now?

Today was Day One of our next season’s taping of Quilting Arts (airing late January of next year), and it was an industrious day. Eight segments down, 31 to go!

Here I am with Penny McMorris (one of my favorite people) of Electric Quilt Company and a new acquaintance, AnneMarie Cheney, who started her local Modern Quilt Guild chapter in Columbus, OH.

AnneMarie brought her baby! Our first baby on the set! Oh, he was so adorable…I think we need an entire baby episode next season. Calling all babies with quilting mamas…

Heather Jones from the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild came to tape, too. Wait until you see her quilt!

Ellen Anne Eddy taped three segments today. If you only know her through her art and her books, you should meet her in person. She is absolutely hilarious. In this shot she is showing me how she stores her keys (and other things) on her person.

Not only is she extremely talented, but she is cute, too…

And when not on set, she could be found entertaining Sophie Rubin in the green room. (Sophie and her mother Luana from eQuilter.com came to tape today!) Here, Ellen and Sophie are free-motion quilting a little horse drawing.

Sophie with her free-motion stitched drawing. Sophie is growing up so quickly…

More from the taping tomorrow. I am in need of some food and a little sleep.

I am happy to report that Sweetie has been adopted! Here I have spent all this time trying to get her hooked up with so many agencies and exhausted my social media efforts, when all I really needed to do was simply walk the dog through my neighborhood.

The other night I realized I had no food in the house and wanted to walk to get take-out for dinner, so I took Sweetie with me. A woman entering a restaurant saw Sweetie and just fell in love with her. Her name is Kimber and she called me yesterday morning and told me that she very much wanted to adopt Sweetie. We had a long conversation, and last night, armed with a tote of treats, a bag of dog food, six months of heart worm preventative, Sweetie’s medical records and tags, and a Ziploc baggie with a Kong filled with frozen peanut butter, Sweetie and I walked to the same location to meet her new mom. I handed her leash over to Kimber, knelt down and gave Sweetie a hug goodbye. I admit I got really choked up, and on the walk back home alone I felt very wistful yet so happy Sweetie will have a happy life ahead of her.

Sweetie’s last morning at my house, napping with Clarence.

Thank you for sharing your rescue stories and your ideas for quilters to reach out and support strays. I have printed out all of the responses and have some ideas that I will share with my team. One thing I thought about doing in the meantime is stitching some doggie bandanas that fostered dogs could wear on walks to let passers-by know they are adoptable. Something like this drawing I whipped up this morning…

When I get back from the Quilting Arts TV taping next week, I want to issue an online drive on my blog to make some so we can all drop off at our local shelters. Are you game?
Speaking of QATV, I leave this weekend for Cleveland, and beginning to pack up my segment prep:

Some very talented guests are coming next week, and I will post pictures and behind-the scenes stories when I get to Cleveland. In the meantime,  I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend! And congratulations to Becky Bowles–you won the doggie fabric! Please email me at pokeyb@quilts.com with your shipping address and I will get the fabrics to you when I return home.