Tip: Take Time to Enjoy Tuesday

I finally surrendered yesterday to the two year old's demands and pieced instead of planned. I got another Lady of the Lake block done, put together my daughter's remaining cousin challenge blocks, made a tree block, and decided I like the reindeer mittens 'up and down' instead of even.

But more than this, I realized an important time tip:
remember to give yourself time to be inspired and renewed.

It helps alot when you have great things to look at.

This is the first time I've looked at the Irish quilting magazine - and it won't be my last! I spied the cover quilt online and was delighted to find the pattern in here! It is a very well laid out magazine with lots of projects that I want to do. It speaks intelligently to the reader - do you know what I mean? It doesn't assume knowledge, but suggests techniques and methods in a way to encourage you - not make you think you have to go back to quilter kindergarten.

Pat Sloan is a regular contributor and doesn't disappoint with this quick, cute, bold, folksy wallhanging.




Here's a delightful surprise I found in my public library. There's not too many books there so I rarely check back on the shelf. This one - is a keeper!

STAR QUILTS: With Patterns for More than 30 Stars, Mary Elizabeth Johnson, Clarkson Potter Publishers, New York:1992. (ISBN 0-517-57418-7)

Here's just a few for today. She categorizes the type of star quilts and then has amazing examples of each. You can click on a photograph to enlarge it. (I took them at night at my cutting table, apologizes for some slight discolourations, but the inspiration is still there!)




The author's inspiration quilt. Made 1810-1825, in either Marion or Selma, Alabama, by a Miss Jones: all cotton, some chintzes, never washed; 82 1/2 x 94 inches. (p.16)





Octagon star from the LeMoyne star. 1885, by Isabella Fleming and Doris Boucher, Paducah, Kentucky: 81 inches square. (p.106)





Providence unknown, possibly Chambers County, Alabama; c. 1965; 55 1/2 x 72 inches. (p.60)

This quilt reminds me of Kaffe Fassett, Sarah Fielke, and Mrs. Schmenkman. It has also renewed my desire to make a red quilt!

One more for today. . .



Bull's Eye quilt, by Alverda H. Herb; Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; c. 1920; 84 1/2 x 85 1/2 inches. (p.84)

This quilt again draws on red, but also repetition to pull in the viewer and to achieve symmetry.

Take time to be inspired today.

With Joy,

Sarah V