Lavender's quilt shop and more...

Once again our quilt group, Northeast Quilting Friends, is traveling to interesting places for the enrichment of our hobby. That enrichment includes, this time, a 300 mile round trip. While we are not usually a long distance traveling group, we do, once a year, make this annual trek and have done so for the last 3 years. So if you or your group are looking for a wonderful time to share together, here is our prescription for what ales some quilters-that being not enough laughter and not enough fabric...er, I think I'm not lacking either of those, but, never can get enough of a good thing!

Itinerary for a quilting good time:

9:00 Leave Northeast Christian Church parking lot

10:30 to 11:00 Arrive: Wilderness Road Quilt Company This is a first class quilt shop with a Bernina dealership. They have the latest and greatest of new fabric and notions, as well as yarn.

12:00 Leave: Wilderness Road for Bread of Life restaurant

12:30 to 1:00 Arrive: Bread of Life restaurant. This is a regular country food restaurant to benefits the local community with a buffet and menu and oh yes, shopping.

2:00 Leave: Bread of Life for Lavender's quilt shop

2:30 Arrive: Lavender's quilt shop-this is a cash/checks only establishment-keep those credit cards in your purse. This year every yard of fabric in the shop is $2.75, during the month of June.

3:30 Leave: Lavender's for Quilt King Products

4:00 Arrive: Quilt King Products This store is an interesting mix of farm clothing/accessories and very inexpensive fabric and batting as well as notions, very unique and fun.

5:00 Leave: Quilt King Products for Louisville

6:30 Arrive: at church (home)

Battle at Kruger

Watch it till the end. We always watch out for our babies!

Funny Commercial: Wife Goes Shopping

Besides making impulsive fabric buys, there can be other surprises on the credit card bill...

Sewing is a pressing matter...

The Bloomin' Rose Signature quilt block exchange quilt top, is mostly done. I need to pick out a couple of borders and add some leaves and the top is complete.

Last Christmas, 2006, for a present from our group members, we all made 16 blocks and signed them. With lots of excitement and laughter we sat in a circle and exchanged the colorful blocks with the other members that participated. This was a wonderful way to get a little something from everyone, without spending any money. That time of year we spend so much on our families and we all had fabric, of course, so we made these easy blocks for our exchange. After the exchange, each member was on their own to decide how to put the blocks together in a quilt. I've seen butterflies and flowers and some very creative borders. We will be having our party for the unveiling of the quilt tops in June. I can't wait to see what everyone has done.

I'm sure all you quilters know how important it is to set your seams. First using the cotton setting, and I like to use steam, on the side just sewn press and then open and press to either side of the seam. Shadowing is a factor-don't press to the light side. Here's my Bloomin' Rose bloomin'.

This makes 2 quilts in the queue almost ready for quilting. I might be sending some quilts out for quilting, if I stay this prolific.


Springtime in Kentucky is to be the theme in our quilt challenge for the Quilter's Day Out quilt challenge, March, 2008. I can't say what my design is going to be. I've thrown out all kinds of hints to the ladies in the guild. They think I've given them all my secrets, but, ole Julie ain't telling all she knows...hehe...smile...

Double Secret Quilt Productions will unveil that little jewel later on. Does anyone remember that phrase? Double Secret? Where did that come from? I just made the name of that "quilt company" up. I don't have one, just like to quilt for fun. Maybe someday...naahhhh...smile

NYC, Quilt show and Job Shadowing...smile

This is what quilting looked like in the 1850's. Can you imagine? All that stiffness, not to mention how hot it must have been under those skirts. This is a picture at the Chester County Historical Society's quilt show. This is an excellent show and I highly recommend going. It is not large, but it has very well documented information about the quilts and the makers of the quilts. Sorry about the glare on this civil war era quilt, but, it was in a glass case...anyway, it was beautifully made in the mid 1800's. I really like the printed pictures in the centers of the blocks.

I've always liked making feathers in my machine quilting designs, but, I'm going to try this willow tree designthat was hand quilted in a whole cloth white quilt from 1802. It was a little discolored with age, but, you could see the detail of the quilting very well.

The collection included a lot of fund raising signature quilts.

The skill of the signatures is amazingly beautiful in it's own right. These 1800's beauties haven't been seen in 10 years and are only on display until September. Besides the quilts, there is a wonderful grandfather clock collection from the 1700's to 1800's. Lot's of eye candy here.

We made the trip to New York City, in order to bring our daughter, Chelsea, to Columbia University. Oh and guess what...IT'S FLEET WEEK!

Just another thing to add to the list of worries about her time away from us...yikes! She's supposed to be at the American Natural History Museum learn about a meteorite. She wants to be a geologist. I hope there's not a lot of distractions...yeah right! Our other daughter, Jennifer, was thinking about being a teacher and she got to shadow her aunt Kathy while she taught a special needs class in Pennsylvania. If you or your kids are considering a profession, this is a wonderful way to get some insight into a given field. Just spending a day at work with someone, might not give the complete story, but, it'll give a good sample. She has lots to consider. The job of being an English teacher failed in comparison to being a French teacher after a day spent observing, at least as far as my dd was concerned. She also was interested in being an English as a Second Language teacher. Oh well, it's another cog in the wheel of the decision making clock...smile.

These Boots Are made For Walking Original

Enjoy...some of you might remember...smile

One of the best take along projects...

Can you guess what this is a picture of?


Only one of the best take along projects a quilter can do.








This is my assortment of Aunt Martha's. This is an embroidery pattern company that's been around for over 70 years. These patterns are usually inexpensive, but, I've seen, I suppose what are the original year printing for 20 to 30 dollars, you can buy them elsewhere for under a dollar, depending on the pattern you choose.

I learned to embroider using these patterns when I was a little girl. A feisty widow woman, named Mrs. Park, taught me how to embroider. She never remarried and always said "there are far worse things than being lonely." She liked sharing her love of quilting and embroidery with whomever would listen, so much so, I think my mom dreaded another trip with a visitor to her home, when she felt she had to bring out all the quilts she'd made and lovingly share where each piece of material was from whose dress. I guess that really was my beginning of my love of quilting, because, I was not board by it all.

Mrs. Park showed me how to iron them onto my tea towels. I would make a trip to the dime store, as they were called, before the main streets and down towns of small town America disappeared. The Dime Store held all the little items like sewing notions and kitchen gadgets and small toys, it was a treat to go in there. Once I purchased my embroidery thread at the dime store, I used to sit around my house in my mini skirt and white vinyl go go boots like Nancy Sinatra, doing embroidery. My mom used to laugh at me, all of 8 or 9 years old, trying to look like Nancy Sinatra or somebody like that, embroidering. Hey, I was nothing if not stylish for the 1970's...smile...

Anyway, I like cows. I think I'll start this one on some white cotton fabric. I do like to add an interfacing to the back of the piece for a nice lay of the stitches. I know I have a bunch of cow themed blocks in my special closet. Most quilter's have one, you know a secret place that hides fabric and most of our quilty things that I know won't go bad on the shelf and that someday will become wonderful finished projects.

I doubt if Nancy Sinatra likes cows...or embroidery...

I'm having to come up with a take along project, because we are on our way to take my youngest, Chelsea, to New York City, USA. She is studying to be geologist and is starting an internship at the American Museum of Natural History, to study a somewhat famous meteorite, the Allende.

Well you know, I think it's exciting, but, my DH is beside himself, a bit, with worry...too much Law and Order on TV. I think we've given her a healthy dose of fear-stay inside after dark; don't talk to strangers; and for heaven's sake DON'T LOOK THEM IN THE EYE!...did I forget to mention she's 19? We might have gone overboard...smile...

But, you know, she's going to be there for 8 weeks! Oh well, it'll be a good opportunity for us to visit NYC a couple of times, hopefully. I'm looking forward to it and so is she, it's my DH that can't understand why women like NYC so much. I think I'd like to live there for 6 months, just to see all the museums, then that's probably enough, back to my Old Kentucky Home...smile.

I have a suggestion for a day trip in Louisville, Kentucky. Get your bicycles to or walk the Riverwalk. My DH and I started at the waterfront, at the turquoise parking lot and rode a 16 mile round trip on the bike trail that is both wide and shaded in most places. It follows the Ohio River. Then we loaded the bikes back up and went to El Mundos on Frankfort Avenue.

Happy quilting and biking!