I follow a lot of bloggers. Sometimes it seems like there are too many and I just delete the emails. 

 A post by one of my favorites really touched me. She's having some health issues and quilting would have to be put on the back burner for a while. I reached out to her and told her I'd longarm her quilts for her. I wasn't sure she'd take me up on the offer, but she did!

After a few back and forth messages, we decided on quilt pattern and thread color, and I turned on my machine.

 Now it's finished,

and on its way back to her.

But of course it can't go in just a plain, boring package. 

It needed some sprucing up! 

I hope she loves it!

Seeing patchwork everywhere!

Last week while watching the Olympics with my family, I noticed the most amazing patchwork designs in the background of some of the events.

I rewound and made them watch for the designs.

They weren't as amazed by the patterns as I was and they certainly didn't "Ooh and Aah" as enthusiastically as I would have liked.

My husband just nodded politely while secretly hoping I would hit the play button soon.

I began to see those designs all over the Olympics! 

I knew I was on to some big secret so I used my Google skills to figure out what was going on. I discovered I wasn't the first one to notice this strange phenomenon. In fact, it was very deliberate on the part of the Olympic Organizing Committee to honor Russia's heritage. 

You can read more about the story behind the designs here, get some free patterns inspired by the designs here and even buy some clothes with the designs on them here. 

(Check out the faces of Anton & Dmitry. They cracked me up!)

So you see dear family.......

I don't imagine quilting everywhere!

College Love!

I was contacted a few months ago and asked to make a quilt for a college graduate who REALLY loves her college. I didn't know how much she loved it until I saw the bag of shirts. 

There were 35 Shirts in various shades of purple (with a few golds sprinkled in.) She graduated from James Madison University in Virginia where they embrace their purple.

By the time I cut them apart and combined the fronts and backs, there were 45 designs to incorporate. This turned out to be a very large and heavy quilt - just the way she wanted it. 

She was so happy with it, I thought she was going to sit on my living room floor and snuggle under it all afternoon.

Hazardous Hungry Caterpillar!

My sister in Oregon is also a quilter. She made Very Hungry Caterpillar Quilt for me to give to a friend. She stuffed it, a small book and stuffed caterpillar in a Priority Mail Flat Rate envelope.

It should have gotten here in 3 days. 

A week later, it hadn't been delivered. 

We looked at the online tracking information only to see that it disappeared soon after hitting the Oregon Post Office. 

We called her post office, we called my post office, we called a few random customer service numbers, we emailed customer service. No one could offer us any explanation as to where it had gone.

Priority Mail is supposed to be trackable, but no one could track it. Go figure!

We gave up and she mailed me another quilt. This one included a long note on the outside of the package! (I wish I had taken a picture of it!)   It explained all about the previous disappearance and if there was anything anyone could do to find that quilt, we'd love them all to pieces!

I got the new quilt and my mail carrier and I discussed the mysterious disappearance of the original package.

3 days later, this appeared in my mailbox:

It was the original package!

Apparently, someone thought it was hazardous material! It had clearly been opened and repackaged!

Here's what they found inside:

I hoped they found it as funny as I did!

Will it be ........

a boy, or will it be a girl?

I know someone who's having a baby so I thought I'd get a head start on a quilt for her. Since I don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet, I thought I would make two quilts and be ready! This one is On the Go from Moda Bake Shop

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The fabric is Riley Blake Cruiser Blvd - lots of cars and stop signs.When Fat Quarter Shop had it on sale a few weeks ago I went kind of crazy. Now I have to use it!

This swirl quilting pattern is one of my favorites. I figured out how to reduced the size 50% so the scale was more appropriate for this size quilt.

This quilt was made from the extra pieces from this quilt. I was determined to use up every bit of fabric and I think I succeeded!

Now we just need to wait to see if it's a boy or a girl!

Starting is easy, continuing is hard.

So much for starting a blog! I guess if we were all able to continue what we started, there would be a lot more skinny people!

As soon as I started this, I decided to buy a longarm quilting machine. It's been an educational experience, but I'm loving it! It's so much fun to be able to finish all my quilts.

So, now you can see what I've been up to.

This quilt was made for a friend who kept me well supplied with chocolate last year. Maybe I should have made her a brown one?

This is the front. The pattern is Taking Turns by Happy Zombie and it's so easy to make. I made this in a weekend.

I love to use up all the last pieces, so I included the extra strip on the back.

I really wanted to see if I could figure out how to center the back with the front. It took me about 4 hours of staring at it before I finally came up with the solution and I think it worked pretty well.

Inspiration!

I've been saving red and blue fabrics for a while. I decided last month to use them when I saw this quilt on Cluck Cluck Sew's blog. I found the striped fabric for the borders left from some 4th of July shorts I made my kids years ago. It just screamed "mitered corners!" so I screwed up my courage, watched a lot of YouTube videos and tried it. It worked and I love how it looks!