Family Ancestry, Snow and Quilting

The generations are important, I suppose, if for nothing else they give us a glance of what our future might be like and then again, maybe not.

Here is my 4 generation family. This is my Grandmother Margarete Julia Ann; Mom Marlene, named after marlene Dietrich; my daughter Chelsea Elizabeth; and me Elizabeth Julia Ann named after my dad's mom and mom's mom.

We've been in the deep freeze of winter and I've managed to clean my dining room/quilting room. I really like this room for quilting the windows bring in the right amount of natural light. The wooden floor is great for scooting my chair as I quilt.

Even though we are getting ready for Quilters' Day Out and I've been pretty busy helping with the committee for the event, I have managed to finish this quilt top. It was a 3 part series of patterns in Mccall's Quilting Magazine. I also subscribe to Quiltmania magazine. It's got really different projects and sometimes the English to French conversion isn't all that smooth, it's still my favorite magazine.

Great new (to me) quilting magazine

While perusing the isles at Barnes and Noble and spending my Christmas gift card, already, I ran across this magazine. What an nice new take on our beloved craft, Quilter's Home magazine. Almost all the patterns are free, you get them on line. You don't really need the magazine, but there is a lot more information about the patterns in the magazine. There are polls taken of quilters. One such poll is asking if you spend most of the money on fabric you purchased from an independent quilt store or other. The results are interesting. Personally, I am an independent quilt store supporter. I know we don't have this wonderful hobby without them. Mark Lapinsky has brought us into the current times. Yes, quilters in 2008, with computers and all. It is very refreshing to read. The current issues talks about all kinds of things, like the best vacuum for your quilt studio. Also interesting is the article on Mean Girls of Quilting, what I call the Quilt Police. Ladies that feel the need to look down on methods and quilts that are less than perfect. He makes a point, it's just a quilt, a blanket for goodness sakes! Yeah Mark-you go girl!

Read a great book: Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl.