What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

This week seemed super busy with various things and a big chunk of a day wasted with a stressful situation that ruined my creative mood. All was solved by the end of the day, but it was just maddening. When these things happen, I just have to slow down, and take a breath with a pretty dawn view, or marvel at the unexpected blooming of a violet in the kitchen. It just finished blooming a couple of weeks ago, and it was a delight to notice one morning that it had three blooms, and more to come.

The birds have ...

Reading this past month or two has been a mixed bag. Two books were meh, one not my cup of tea but others may enjoy it, and only one to recommend. Links are provided for some to Amazon so you can read the full synopsis.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley – This book was recommended by an employee at our local used book store, and she was so effusive in her praise I decided to get it without checking out the reviews. In my quest to find stories to read that are unusual, the book jacket synopsis seemed to ...

In the past two weeks, so much has happened with our quilt project for victims of Hurricane Helene. For the distribution of the quilts received I have concentrated on the areas hardest hit that have not been the focus of other groups. Boxes of quilts arrived over the course of a couple of weeks and I sorted some into categories to take to those who needed support. On a cold and overcast day, My Sweet Babboo and I drove down to Columbus, NC to meet Diane Nelson at Steps to Hope. Below on the left are Scott and Gay Pleune ...

With the weather turning decidedly toward winter, this past week was a good one for hunkering down and doing things inside. I got my fall decor put away, and all the Christmas decor is now up. I have my Santa collection displayed on the Victorian corner shelf next to the tree. The tree has been trimmed to the max, and I still have ornaments in the storage chest that won’t really fit on it – unless I hang them on the backside against the wall which doesn’t make a lot of sense. I was surprised one morning this past ...

Last week I needed to get busy on two Quilts of Valor. This one was loaded onto the longarm, but I didn’t get it done until midweek. I really like the way the piecer, Judy, did the borders around the panel, with pinwheel blocks and small eagles creating a frame.

I quilted it with my favorite pantograph for QOVs, a star and swirl design called Blue Star from Urban Elementz.

I chose a light blue Glide thread for the top, and a matching color Bottom Line in the bobbin. I thought the pale blue would blend well on the ...

When we concluded the last Carolina Hurricane Quilt Project in 2019 for victims of Florence and Michael on our North Carolina coast, I never dreamed I’d see the need for one for victims in my own county. But here we are, just weeks after Helene devastated our beloved Western North Carolina mountains. Our county was hard hit in the eastern part, with Bat Cave and Gerton totally destroyed, and major damage throughout the county. Just south of there, in Rutherford county, Chimney Rock and Lake Lure were devastated. North of us, Asheville has restored water service for most of ...

The last 10 days have been a challenge, but it was not as severe for us compared to many others. There are still power outages, and water problems for many, but we have power again, and the internet came back last night. With our generator, and our neighbors, we have weathered the disaster pretty well. Thank you to everyone who left a comment with messages of support on my last two posts, I have read and appreciate each and every one. Thank you to all who donated to our local recovery effort, too! We have many roads and hundreds of ...

Settle in for a long post, I have much to tell you all. If it is too much to read, just skip down to the last two paragraphs. Hurricane Helene hit our area with devastating force starting Thursday night and continuing well into Friday, causing massive damage, flooding and power outages all over Western North Carolina, and five more states. Thankfully, our home was spared severe damage. We only have some damage to a gutter and a bent fence section, along with a huge amount of debris to clean up. About a dozen trees are down in our forest, but ...