Questions?

Good Morning!!! We had some questions about "Breath of Spring"!
Hi Holly! The pillow pattern is in the Jan/Feb 2009 issue #125 of Quiltmaker magazine. Hi to you too, Kathy! The stitchery is traced onto the background fabric and then tinted with plain old Crayola crayons. All you have to do is color lightly...make it look the way you want it to turn out when you're done - the crayon won't fade when it's heat set with an iron! .... then place a paper towel over the colored portion of the design and iron with a hot iron. Look at the paper towel to see if any color has transferred to it. If it has, put another clean paper towel over the design and iron again. Do this until no color transfers to the towel (usually 2 paper towels do the trick!!). It's important that you color on the traced design BEFORE basting.... anything on the back of the fabric such as a piece of thread, lint, crumbs on the table etc.... will cause the crayon to be darker in that area. Remember the crayon or charcoal rubbings we all did when we were kids??? It will do THAT! YIKES!!! The coloring doesn't have to be really intense. A very, very light tinting will be intensified once the stitching is in place around and on top of it..... SO pretty!!
OH!! The new house is a beehive of activity this morning! Trucks and men everywhere!! YAHOO!!!!.................................................... that came out wrong.......................... yahoo because of the activity, not because of the men everywhere! LOL!!!!! It's like they're dressing it up for the ball, and now they're putting on her jewelry! What a transformation after all these months of waiting... and WAITING!!! Door handles..........yeah, I remember picking those out!, mirrors and light fixtures and sinks and appliances, OH MY! It's been such a long wait, but today, really well worth it! I'm doing a little happy dance!
Hope your day is happy too! xox Meg

New Patterns!

Hi everybody!

We're working away trying to get the three new designs ready to release!! All we're waiting for now, is "Susan's Dresden Garden" to get back from Jill, our quilter so that it can be photographed for the pattern cover. HURRY, HURRY JILL!!!! It's supposed to arrive tomorrow or Tuesday. I CAN'T WAIT!! The picture above is a peek at "Breath of Spring". Some of you may have seen the pillow in a quilting magazine last summer, and since I used all three of these for classes a couple years ago, some of you may have already made one of them! Well, finally.....as promised......... here's the pattern with all three! It's just for the images though... no pillow pattern..........but then, how hard is it to make a few little 9 patch blocks and sew on some antique crocheted lace??? You don't need a pattern for that!! I look for old pillowcase edgings when I'm antique-ing. The pillowcases get old, thin, ripped and stained but their hand crocheted edgings hold up really well and make such pretty trims!!

Spring IS coming... this weekend I saw so many people out cleaning out their gardens so that the daffodils & tulips will be able to poking their heads up soon! Have a happy week!! Meg

Spring??

I've been grumbling all day.... trying to get a few good pictures of Windflowers to use for the pattern cover and advertisement.... I have to have a picture & bio of myself for a magazine (two things I HATE to do!!)....the house isn't done and the painters are missing in action, I'm outside trying to get a closeup of the quilt with the crystals sparkling in the sun.....grumble, complain, poor little me......

Then I realized... holy mackerel girl!!! The sun is shining and it's almost 65 degrees! The birds sound like they're all twitterpated and I know absolutely, for sure that my son is alive & healthy and safe. I know that my husband is at work, just on the other end of a phone line & is healthy & safe. I know where all of my friends are, and that they're alive and safe too.

How horribly selfish and thoughtless am I that I can complain on a day like this? So, I can't get the perfect shot! So, my submission to the magazine may be a day or two late! So, that house is unfinished! I'm going to take a break and call Jon & Phil and bother them at work. I want to hear their voices.

Then I'm going to call that Red Cross cell number again and donate another $10 for the earthquake victims in Haiti. Hope you will too............then hug your family!!

xoxoxoxo Meg

New Designs!

Well, the three new designs... Windflowers, Susan's Dresden Garden, and Breath of Spring... are almost ready to release!! The patterns are complete and being printed. I'm just waiting for the quilts to return from our quilter, Jill Therriault, so that they can be photographed for the covers!!! Sooooooooo................... that means it's time to get started on all of the ideas that have been running around in my brain!!! They're causing trouble... and they need to get out & on to paper! I've been drawing all afternoon and decided to add color to one block and scan it in! That's it above......... I think this is going to be SO MUCH FUN!!!
We've received some pictures from our friend from Jacksonville FL, Susan Ache. She's been freezing her tushy off for the last week or so... in the deep freeze that's hit the southern states. We've learned that those Florida girls don't have alot of warm winter clothes! I'm trying to arrange an air lift of turtleneck sweaters and long johns for them....but they'd probably arrive just in time for a heat wave!! LOL!!! So....guess you're on your own! Bundle up in some of those embroidered quilts!? Anyway..... Susan, it seems, is staying at home where it's warm and sewing! She sent these photos of her Flight of Fancy quilt, but she's an over-acheiver and did birds in flight blocks as it's alternate blocks. IT'S GORGEOUS!!!! Thanks for sharing!

Keep Stitching! xox Meg