Friday, October 2, 2009

Historical cemetery of the day

The state of Rhode Island has nearly 3000 historical cemeteries. If I counted correctly, Westerly has 97 if those.  Even many natives don't know this one, in Watch Hill, exists. Yet it's just a block away from the center of the village, a couple hundred yards past this lovely old yacht. 
Here's RI Historical Cemetery #31, 
containing approximately 100 graves with stones dating from 1740 to 1830. You can see headstones, many barely peeking up from the ground.
 Sadly, this lovely stone broke off its base. The carving is barely visible, it appears to be a setting sun. The name and date of the person interred below is no longer legible.

A lovely autumn morning...


and a good time to take advantage of the sunshine before the rainy weekend arrives. This happy fellow greets visitors to Smith's Flower & Farm here in town.  

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Quilting Spooky- A freebie for you



Now that your Halloween quilt top is completed and is ready to be quilted (you DO have a Halloween quilt, don't you?), you need a quick and easy quilting design. If you have basic free motion quilting skills, you can do "Loopy Bats." 

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Upcoming Events


October 3 I will be teaching "Take Four", a set of four placemats designed by Cary Flanagan of Something Sew Fine. The class will be held at Quilts & More, Mill Pond Plaza, Westerly, RI.

October 14 I will be doing a trunk show for members of the Clamshell Quilters at the Waterford Community Center, Waterford, CT; the next day I will be teaching my pattern "Earth, Air, Fire, Water", pictured above.

Oct. 23, 24, and 25 I will be vending at the Ninigret Quilters show (this is my local guild), at the Westerly Armory, Westerly, RI

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

And yet another pattern...


Totes for Two is my newest pattern, a pair of matching Mother/Daughter tote bags. It's a very simple pattern, using 1 yard each of two great fabrics for both totes. Every piece is individually lined, so by the time the tote is stitched together, all the lining is already there- no fussy finishing work left to do before you can enjoy your bags. Although it makes two items, it is not a Patty Piper pattern because each tote is individually cut and sewn. On the Patty Piper patterns, you cut, stitch, cut again, and create two quilts from the (already partially sewn) pieces.

Totes for Two, all the Patty Piper patterns, and more, will be available at the New England Quilt Designer's Cooperative booth at the Greater Hartford Quilt Guild show this weekend in New Britan, CT. Stop in to say hi. Mention this blog and get a free gift!

Who is Patty Piper...


and why does she piece in pairs? 
     Patty Piper is my alter ego. She's notoriously frugal with my stash, and tries to create quilts that make use of the scraps that would otherwise be tossed or, even worse, find a home in a dark corner of my sewing room where they could propagate like rabbits. She rears her quilty head from time to time.
    Patty Piper pieced pinwheels; painless pointless ones to be exact. And from those pinwheels she created two quilts. Not satisfied to end there, Patty Piper tackled circles next- twice! A remnant of Parrot home-dec fabric got Patty's creative juices going with Patty Piper Strikes Again (see photo in previous post). Knowing some quilters prefer smaller projects, Patty then pieced a pair of pretties for the dining room, Dinner with Patty Piper.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Sneak Peak


Here's an upcoming pattern hanging on my first clumsy attempt at assembling my gridwall display.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Fairie Feet Part 2



Here are the Fairie slippers I got back from Kay, as well as the ones I made for her. What fun! 

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Vintage scrap self-challenge




Yes, I have won yet another pile of someone else's unwanted scraps. This batch had an intriguing assortment of vintage (early '60's???) pieces that appear to be fabric samples as they are all the same size and include different colorways of the same prints. Some are quite pretty, others less so. I tried to sort them into groupings of somewhat coordinated colors as the assortment taken as a whole was...um...difficult to do anything with. I have an idea for one of the groups, the one with the warmer colors, but don't want to cut into those babies just yet. Click on the pictures to see them in all their dubious glory.

Fairie Feet


I'm hosting a swap on the Fairie Goddess Mothers Yahoo group. Six of us are swapping "Fancy Funky Fairie Feet". We are paired off and each player sends a new pair of slippers in her own size to her partner. The partner has until April 30 to turn the slippers into fairie slippers and mail them back to their owner. These are my unembellished slippers, which have just arrived in Minnesota at my partner Kay's home. I can't wait to see what she does with them. I have her slippers, and will post pictures of them in progress if she promises not to peek!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

A video for animal lovers...

Please watch this video.  The two tiny Chihuahua babies are currently being fostered by Just a Touch Rescue here in Rhode Island. A special web site has been set up to tell their story.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Another Snow Day




The other day I purchased a rather homely antique quilt (top picture). I love to use my antique quilts as inspiration for my own quilts, as I did for my little quilt in the lower photo. Read about my quilt, and how you can make your own little wall quilt at my other blog, New England Quilt Designers.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Still doodlin'


This is the third (actually number 3 1/2 if you count the quilt that never quite got finished) in my one and only quilt series. The original quilt  "Namaste", was made in 2006 and donated to my guild's miniature quilt auction in 2007.  A smaller variation, Namaste Redux, was donated to Ami Simms' Alzheimer's Quilt Initiative and purchased at Houston by Joyce Hartley. This one, "Namaste III, Conversations Under a Crescent Moon", uses a single small scrap of Caryl Bryer Fallert's "Gradations" fabric for all the people. The finished quilt measures 14" x 9".

And I doodled on...


I drew a radish. Then a carrot. Then more root vegetables. I pulled some out of the ground, leaving veggie-shaped holes. What happened to these missing root children? I gave my sketch a title, "The Mystery of the Missing Root Children". Then I added a "suspect", a sinister green-eyed red cabbage. Every mystery needs its "detective", here it's a quizzical worm. Can you find him/her? You will need to click on the picture for a larger version.

No, it's NOT a self-portrait...


it started out as a random doodle about two weeks ago. The original doodle was an alien-like creature, with big almond eyes and a pointed chin. I absentmindedly doodled some hair, then more hair, and more, until I had a beehive hairdo. I drew sunglass frames around the eyes, then added a neck and shoulders. I gave her a name, "Honey", then added the bees. She needed to be a quilt. Of course part of the fun was making her out of materials on hand.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

With a little help from my friends...

It's no secret that I love to read, but within the past few months my life has begun to resemble the literary version of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon". I know Donna, who is in the book club with Betsy who is reading (fill in title of book here), who tells me about it, then two days later Carol mentions the same book, and the next day out of the blue a person I barely know offers to lend me that book, and so it goes. The most recent instance of this concerned the book "One Thousand White Women". Betsy mentioned it first, the next day Donna raved about it, a couple days later I found a used copy in a thrift shop. I had barely started reading it when I told Mariette about it. She wanted to read it, but not at that time, as she had several new books to catch up on, but she owned "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle", which she had just finished, thought I'd like it, told me Jan had just read it, and would give it to me the next time I saw her. I was about half through "One Thousand White Women" when Carol asked me if I had heard of it. When I told her I not only had, but I had a copy and was currently reading it, she asked to borrow it. Then I came across a new Robert B. Parker paperback ("Now and Then") on our "lending library" at work (bookshelves where anyone can drop off, swap, or borrow used books)- I borrowed it for a quick bedtime read, and when I told Mariette about it, it turns out it was one of the books she wanted to read. And so it goes.
And a footnote- I caught about 2 minutes of Krista Tippett's interview with Mary Doria Russell on "Speaking of Faith" this morning while driving to work. Now I want to go back and re-read all her books. If you have never read any of her works, what are you waiting for? And thank you John M., wherever you are, for introducing me to her first novel, "The Sparrow".

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Saturday, January 24, 2009

What's Cookin'?


The picture of the Swiss Almond Apple Cake in my Pillsbury Cookbook caught my attention years ago; today I finally made it. You can too- here's the recipe. I'll have to wait until tonight to taste it, but if licking the bowls and spoons is any indication, this cake will be DELISH! By the way, you can't tell until you cut into it, but there's a red ribbon of raspberry jam running through the middle. Click the picture for a larger view and be prepared to get very hungry!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Better late than never


I haven't been TOTALLY remiss in blogging recently; I did post (once) on the New England Quilt Designers Cooperative Blog, on which I am a co-blogger. I can't use lack of time as an excuse; between days off around Christmas and New Year's, and several snow days off from work, I've had more free time than I've had in the last couple of years. Free time to cut down and hem five pairs of thermal drapes to fit my living room windows. Free time to jury rig bits and pieces of several second-hand curtain rods to fit across my huge triple window, and spray paint two new rods to match for the side windows. Free time to shop for a new stove the week before Christmas, narrowly averting a cookie and fruit cake debacle when my old stove gave up the ghost. Free time to finally put up the tree, give the house (and dogs) a much-needed cleaning before any holiday entertaining. Free time to make a second sample from one of my patterns (see photo above, as well as here for the original quilt), so I can have a spare for those times we have two quilt shows the same weekend, as well as having a second photo so I can update the cover.
Now it's a new year and I'm FINALLY getting around to starting on a new pattern. I've been agonizing for days over how to explain one part of it, finally tonight I had one of those "duh" moments. The difficulty lay with three bias cut pieces that were to be stitched together. I finally realized they were so close in color and value that you could hardly tell they were three pieces, and a single piece would not only be so much simpler and faster to make, it would actually look better! No pictures yet.