Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Let me eat cake!

 Did you see this beautiful cake!! Wow.


Now onto the blog...














I was tempted to whine my way through February - but passed it by. What's the point, anyway? To make yourself and everyone around you miserable? Who needs that? So, here is why there was no post in February: the DH and I were both down and out for almost 2 weeks with the flu that has been going around. Period. Now onto other things.

Spring is in the air around here. The pear trees are blooming and the daffodils are in their glory. The DH even found a crocus bravely poking up it's blossom. Ain't she purrdy.

The big news is that the insurance company finally decided to put a new roof on the house! We had some wind damage from a couple of storms last year. They pushed the chimney flu off it's moorings, creating a leak. So we hired a roofer, and now we have a beautiful new roof. (And the bid came in under the insurance estimate and with better shingles!)

Off with the Old
On with the New - Affordable Roofing
And, Voila!

Appalachian Heritage Quilt Show is coming!

Irish Pinwheels
The Appalachian Heritage Quilt Show in Gray, TN will be March 31-April 1. It will be at Crossroads Christian Church, 1300 Suncrest Drive (hwy 75). I will have a few quilts in the show as will many quilters from the guild and the region. There will be a boutique too! I will have some of my patterns there on discount, and maybe a few quilts for sale. We will have a drawing for the "Opportunity Quilt" with 100% of the funds we raise going to our charities. None of our costs for the quilt or supplies will come out of those funds. It's called Irish Pinwheels. I'm working on a pattern for it as we speak.

News from the studio

 

Miss Margie Longarm is on vacation.

Wayne Waldroup - message me if you want his contact info
Yes, her mom (me) probably stripped a thread in her needle bar. Poor thing. I did the same thing to my sewing machine a couple of years ago. What is it with me and needle bars? Oh, well. My favorite machine service guru, Wayne was supposed to come look at her a couple of weeks ago, but I had to cancel because of the flu. He is only in our area once a week, but he makes house calls!! He will be back this week with tools he needs to finish the job.

Working on Hunter's Stars

A blessing of Margie's vacation is that I got to spend time working on my Hunter's Star blocks. AND, I discovered an easy way to attach a diamond shape to a trapezoid without a lot of anguish! Just mark the edges of the diamond's seam line, and line up the marks and the edges of the pieces - and Bob's your uncle!












Can you make out the pink marks? Be sure to sew scant 1/4".













Sabrina's Garden is at Pigeon Forge for Quiltfest!

I hope you are planning to go to the Mountain Quiltfest in Pigeon Forge this year! (March 23-25) My Sabrina's Garden will be there! God is good! He got me on my feet for one day while I was sick, and I was able to drive Sabrina down to Pigeon Forge to drop her off. Yea!







Wish I'd invented that

Bloc-loc rulers

My Hunter's Star blocks are trimmed to 8 1/2" square. I ordered a 9 1/2" square Bloc-loc ruler hoping it would make it easy to trim the blocks. And wow, does it ever! I had one little "issue" with my new ruler, though. It hung onto the blocks for dear life and would not slide easily to allow me to position it correctly. A light bulb went off over my head and I thought of how we used to slick-en up the slide, down at the park as kids. We rode a piece of waxed paper down the slide a few times. And we could just fly down that thing.

So.... I rubbed the back of that ruler really good with a piece of waxed paper! Now it just locks onto the diagonal seam, and slides easily into position. It will make quick work of squaring the Hunter's Star blocks!

Learning for the week

Taxes aren't as daunting as I always make them out to be. Whew!