For about the past 18 months, I have wanted a new tea cozy as the old one was seriously exhausted, stained, beyond redemption.   Then a few months ago, after a trip through the wash, the ribbon which gathered it up on the top came out and I never put it back.  It was getting annoying.  So a week or two ago, I took a break from “ought to do” stuff and did a “want to do” thing:  I made a tea cozy that actually fits the current teapots…smaller than the old one so it will keep the pot warmer (in theory).

Finally, new tea cozies and a mat/pad

The first one I made was a little bit too small, so it got turned into a little hot pad.  See, I make Irish steel-cut oats most mornings and, rather than dirty a dish, I just take the small pan to the table and eat from that.  In the interest of not scorching the placemats or table, and with the idea of something a little less decrepit than our kitchen hotpads, I made the hot pad.

The two tea cozies are the same size, but have four different Rowan/Westminster fabrics, those lovely color-saturated florals!  You can see three of the four fabrics in the photo.  So now I am going to go pull the cozy off the pot and have another cuppa tea!

Coastal Quilters 2013 Challenge: Favorite Place

Hi all…yes, I’ve been seriously missing, and as usual, that also means BUSY.  Among other things (which I will blog about in the coming days), I made this small quilt (in this photo, not yet quilted….that tells you how busy…it’s done except for sewing down the facings now).  Among other things that keep me busy and happy, is Coastal Quilters, the local chapter of Maine’s Pine Tree Quilt Guild.  I’ve been active on the board doing this or that for, well….basically since we moved to Maine 7+ years ago.  At the moment I am co-Program Chair and co-Challenge Coordinator.

Every August, CQ has a picnic at one member’s camp cottage (a “camp” in Maine is usually a rustic, uninsulated building somewhere in the woods or on a pond or lake).  Like most camps, this one is reached by a dirt road which astonishingly now has a name, not jut R.R.  (rural road) or F. R. (Fire Road) plus number.   But the road is still dirt, still so bumpy you need to drive at a crawl, and has “camp tree”…. a tree at the fork in the road with boards nailed to it.  Each board has a name and some sort of arrow so you know which way to go.  Joan also kindly always puts out some cheater-cloth dresden plate squares as flags to keep us going to the right place:  the family cottage on the shores of Pitcher Pond.

Why this digression?  well, we announce the Challenge in December or October, so by August I am starting to think about getting things organized.  And for the past two years, I have deputized all present at the picnic to be my advisory committee!  Since it was rainy and dreary this year, there were only a few of us (five, plus Joan’s husband and their dog).  Eleanor had been greatly inspired by the Twelve by Twelve book and Challenge.  See, my friend Deborah Boschert is one of our mini-group as well as part of the Twelves (see their website here), and she came from her home in Maryland for our show this summer at the library (see here 1, here 2 and here 3).  Eleanor really wanted to do a challenge like that.  So we summarily decided that in addition to the 2012 Challenge (using a vintage block, inspired by Mary Kerr’s Vintage Revisited, here), we would ALSO announce the 2013 challenge! We came up with a list of themes, and will announce one every other month at the unveiling of the “current” theme quilts.

Our first theme was Favorite Places.  Eleanor also completed a quilt  (interestingly, I chose my spot on the sofa in the living room, and Eleanor did a site map of her home–totally unknown to each other), and since this challenge was her idea, I asked her to pick from our list of themes for the next one:  Cycles!  Try Googling cycles and you’ll come up with all sorts of cool possibilities.  I hope we get more participants; I hope to let others choose the themes.

So that my local chapter members have a place to look, I’m going to include the instructions right here, along with the themes.  Hope you enjoy–feel free to adapt / use these guidelines to set up your own challenges!

Themes:

• Due December 2011:  Favorite Place
• Due February 2012:    Cycles

The 2013 Coastal Quilters

Chapter Challenge!

In a nutshell:

• Every two months from October 2011 to April 2013 we will issue a challenge theme.
• Make a 13×13 inch quiltlet that relates to that theme and bring it to share two months later.
• You do NOT have to make ALL the challenge themes.  You can make one, several or all.
• For at least ONE of the challenges, you must incorporate a traditional quilt block pattern/design/something into the piece is some fashion.  You may do this just once, a few times, or for every challenge.
• Please include a label on the backs with this information (see below for possible limits on display)

Your First Name Last Name

Date (May 2012 or whatever)

Coastal Quilters 2012 Chapter Challenge

Your address/contact info

More details:

At the 2011 Picnic at Joan’s camp on Pitcher Pond, Eleanor  said she was inspired by Deborah Boschert’s Twelve By 12 Challenge group and the book.  She wanted to do something similar.  Sarah deputized those present (Joan, Louisa, Louisa’s sister, Eleanor) as her Challenge Advisory Committee, and we came up with the general guidelines and themes for this 18-month challenge to be shown at Maine Quilts in 2013.  Here’s what we decided:

• Quilt must be 13 x 13 inches to go with the year 2013
• Puns are allowed/encouraged
• Each quilt must have a front, batting, back and suitable edge finish
• You must include a traditional block in some fashion in at least one of your challenge pieces
• We will have 9 themes distributed over 18 months
• The first three themes are decided; we have ideas for the rest, but participants may suggest additional themes and we might possibly revise the list

If we have too many 13×13 quilts, Sarah will figure out how many we can display, then set a maximum number that any individual can have on display.  Those with less than that number may display all their quiltlets.  Those with more than that number will select which ones they want to hang at Maine Quilts.  As has happened the past couple of years, Sarah will do up the entry for our challenge and arrange the display.

Please include a label on the back with this information

Your First Name Last Name                        Coastal Quilters 2013 Chapter Challenge—[theme]

Date (May 2012 or whatever)                        Your address/contact info

More information:

If you have any questions, contact Sarah Ann Smith at  sarah@sarahannsmith.com.

The Twelve by Twelve International Art Quilt Challenge book is available in many locations, including on Amazon.com.

ISBN-10: 1600596665 or   ISBN-13: 978-1600596667

I wanted to share with you that my friend Deborah Boschert, one of my Frayed Edges mini-group, is one of the artists teaching online through Alma Stoller’s Stitched!  STITCHED is a collection of 20 online video workshops by 20 talented fabric artists. Students have access to all 20 workshops and can choose to view and work on the projects any time of the day, any day of the week. Registration opens on Dec 1 and the workshops kick off on Jan 1 and run through June 1. Registration is only $89. Deborah is teaching a workshop titled, “Branches, Buds and Blossoms: A Botanical Fabric Collage.” She includes videos on selecting fabrics, adding surface design, composing and improvisational hand embroidery.

Deborah Boschert's Buds, Branches and Blossoms class is at Stitched!

If you’re interested, visit Deborah’s blog, here.  It sure sounds like fun!
And no, I have not dropped off the face of the earth…. when my blogging slows up it means I’m busy in real life.  Have TONS to share… just need time to write the blogposts and size the photos and whatnot…. I promise to be back with good stuff…Soon I hope!

I was interviewed and videographed (filmed?) by a student at nearby Maine Media Workshops (used to be Maine Photographic Workshops) in Rockport, Maine–also found on Facebook here.  This came up almost at the last moment back in October, and I am finally (hanging my head in shame) getting to sharing it with all of you! I quickly tidied the few messes in  my studio—I guess having been too busy to work there paid off!  I took out a bunch of my quilts to put on the design wall, and learned a lot from the filming process.  Thank you so much for picking me!  How lucky I am to live near the workshop, eh?

Anyway…here I am….  Hope you enjoy seeing the clip and learning a bit about my “life before quilting” and my journey in quilting. And special thanks to our son Joshua, whose quilt is featured at the end of the video along with his music (you can here more on YouTube here and here and here) and to the videographer who wanted to use his music to accompany his quilt!  WOOT!

First, I WANT her photo-flood lights, the kind with the silver rectangular umbrella and a white cover that diffuses the light so well.  Then, in filming, there is an “A Roll” and a “B Roll.”  The A roll is the main interview (took about 10-14 minutes), which you will hear in the soundtrack, and see parts of the interview (Gosh… I hate the way my mouth moves when I talk!  Usually I hate the sound of my own voice, but that was OK this time… but … erk!  Anyway, that is totally to do with me and nothing to do with student or how cool this experience was!).  The B Roll is the next 5 hours of filming, edited into a coherent 3-minute video.

PS:  The student (a woman about my age or a bit younger) is employed by a major US Corporation and is in charge of the film/photography.  Since they subsidized her attendance at the workshop, she asked that I not name her or the  company so there would be no appearance that this clip was related to the company.  So that’s why the anonymity–but THANK YOU sometime-quilter and awesome photographer and videographer for picking me!

To see this larger, visit the link you YouTube, here.  And one last PS…the clip of the ambulance is stock footage…nothing like that big city anywhere near where I live!

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust

Here's to a White Thanksgiving

Greetings from Snowy Maine!  Yes, we had a White Halloween, and now a White Thanksgiving.  Luckily, the snow came down on Wednesday, making turkey-day travel easy as the plowing has been done and the plow-guys can stay home and eat today!

For my readers not in the U.S., the fourth Thursday in November is perhaps the most “American” of all our holidays, at least for me, and that includes our National Day, The Fourth of July.  The holiday springs from a feast the new settlers had back in the Colonial era, when rough times and rougher weather made it uncertain that they would make it.  Help from the Native Americans and hard work got them through it, and the colonists had a celebratory after-the-harvest feast inviting the first peoples to share.  That tradition is now perhaps my favorite holiday of the year:  family and friends, without all the crass commercialism that has sprung up around Christmas.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Morna McEver Golletz of  IAPQ (association of Professional Quilters), in which she had the quote at the top of this post and this one:  “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent.  (Cicero)”

So today I give thanks with abiding gratitude:

First and foremost for my family:  we may be small, and have gotten smaller by one this year with my mom’s passing, but we are fiercely loyal and love each other, no matter what.  Here’s to Paul, Joshua, Eli and our critters (current and departed)!  And to my extended family, beginning with beloved sister-in-law Joyce.  Life is so much better because of you—you are my life.

Here’s to friends far (Marie! Lunnette!) and near (Kathy, Kate, Deborah–who’s a bit far now, and all the Coastal Quilters), you enrich my life and I am so honored to know you and be able to call you friend.  And to friends from long ago in the Foreign Service, and before that school… I’m glad to still be in touch.

Here’s to art and the internet:  without the internet, I would never have embarked on this incredible journey which has filled my soul.  I’ll start with the QuiltArt list which I joined in 2002 (and WHIZZZZ WHOOOOSH…that wind tunnel you hear is the years flying by) and which has been instrumental in my growth–and in connecting me with like-minded souls.  And to the internet and my blog–I have come to know many of you who read this page, and am so grateful you take time from your lives to visit with me.  I’ve loved meeting many of you and hope to meet even more!

So let us give thanks, for each other, for our families, for art, for sharing, for learning, for the internet, and for being able to share!