"Infinite Variety" (on-line photos)

Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts

My hat goes off to the Museum and Show organizers for not only allowing photography but encouraging visitors to upload their photos to a central place where everyone could also see them.
I can only imagine what it felt like to be in that room with so many people all oogling over 651 quilts owned and "accumulated" by Joanna S. Rose who kept them "in a big cedar closet most of the time."  I'd love to see that chest.

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A Day Out

The bathroom decoration-turned-renovation is still progressing. Grouting is finished and hopefully I can silicone around the bath tomorrow ... real showers are on the horizon.

So today we're off to Germany to have lunch with Axel's mom for her birthday. I finally get to give these to her.


I look pretty spiffy except for the grey paint that I can't get off. It is *definitely* warmer weather to stay here so the skirts have come out of the closet !! Yippeee.


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the not so "magic" frixion gel pens

Every once in a while we stumble on a new product that just seems too good to be true.  Quite a few customers have brought these to classes or bees and tell us how wonderful they are.

Me? ... I'm always skeptical.  My pretty much hard and fast rule is that if I don't know what's in it, I won't use it on my quilt.  Pretty much a wait on the sidelines kind of girl to see if the hype is really as good as it seems.

Plus I've been too busy to try them out ... so I was quite pleased to see a review written by Charlotte Warr Andersen posted on Becky Goldsmith's blog.  Charlotte doesn't have her own blog so has given permission for us to pass this information on.

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Things are Growing!

It's been busy busy around here ... we've had a few good days of sunshine and the wind / temperatures were mild enough that I managed to do some weeding in the garden. The 265 bulbs I planted in the courtyard really made lots of progress this week ... I can hardly wait for the mini daffs to open their sunny buds.

Monday was an amazing day here. It actually got too warm in the car ... whatta feeling! I took Axel to work in the morning so I could have the car to go by the garden center. I stocked up on primroses and spring bulbs and planted up two meter-long planters for our kitchen window sills. It's a wonderful feeling to come down in the morning, open the blinds and be greeted by an explosion of color.



Whisper and I were just talking the other day about how much easier this winter was. It seemed to go by much faster ... she thinks it's because we didn't have that very deep freeze over the new year. But I think it helped that we always had blue skies when we looked out the shop and kitchen windows into the courtyard.

Evenings are spent with Dots ... lots and lots of dots. I can't tell you how much I am enjoying this project. It's contagious and addictive. The layout here is not right, for that you need to look at the sketch in the right column of my blog but for now I'm one dot away from having 17 blocks finished. And I've trialled the Bowl Block, here's a close-up.

And Angéle has finished her table runner! Isn't it scrumptious. She chose not to quilt it so just hemmed a really long (over two meters) length of fabric then used the Dots template and overlapped the first row of dots each time to get this fantastic centerpiece. Yes, I'm drooling and seriously contemplating a 3rd dots project ... yes, I know, crazy! Third you ask .. oh yes, I still need to show you pics of my bright and cheerful dots blocks.

I have lots more to show ... another mini project, the beginnings of an Amish swap with Liz, new pillowcases .. and .. and .. and ..  I have been busy ... the spring bug has hit :)  But I might be a little AWOL the next little while, you see we're going to paint our bathroom and then our kitchen.  Both are huge jobs as both involve panelled ceilings and the bathroom has tons of really ugly tile to cover up.  So when I re-surface, I promise there will be more updates.  And if I get a chance I'll drop by with a few pics here and there.

Happy Spring, Happy Sewing!  xox Jovita Pin It Now!