My goal this year was to finish strong by finishing three small quilts that I started back in the Spring. Check and check! And check! In the end I gave up on my dream of doing the quilting myself and sent them all over to Mary at Longarmed and Dangerous , who did a fabulous job of quilting. Mary's super-power is pulling together any project to make it beyond your expectations. I think they all came out fabulous. Here's California Poppies, a quilt design by Tina Curran . Made with all scraps plus two or three green fabrics I ran out to buy at Pins and Needles in Mayfield mid-project. (I didn't have as many greens as I thought I did. The problem has been rectified. 😉  Meet Audubon Society, a quilt design by Laura Heine of Fiberworks . Paper-piecing these birds, with all of their different personalities, was just too much fun. I used Even More Paper fabrics by Zen Chic, and some other neutrals I had in my stash for the background, and for the birds used anything I could ge...

I love making summery quilts in the winter. While cozying up in front of the fire, the evening before our first snowfall of the winter here in Cleveland, I put the binding on this quilt. It was fun to imagine the picnics and visits to the park that this quilt will be a part of next Spring and Summer.  This is Amy Gibson 's Triple Barnstar quilt in a throw size and featuring fabrics in blues, green, yellow and gray florals, plaids, checks and just plain fun designs.  I love the big chunky angles in this quilt. Modern but traditional at the same time. I couldn't resist using this quote on the quilt back, which was on the selvedge of the fabric in this collection. Linzee Cull McCray of  Seams Write  creates beautiful selvedges that are as pretty as the fabric they edge.  Yep, that's snow on the ground out there. But this quilt holds the promise of Spring. I love this traditional swirly quilting design by Mary, aka  Longarmed and Dangerous . This was my last gi...

  Dianne and I had a special friendship. The kind that is borne from being a stay-at-home mom with babies, toddlers and preschoolers, where you consider yourself lucky if you can find one kindred spirit, one other mom with whom you can share your heart, your soul, and as many laughs as you can afford. We shared so many adventures, and now that she's gone, there are stories too many to count.  Twenty years after her death, Dianne's stepmother, Linda, and daughter, Jasmine, were going through a box of sewing projects that Linda had stashed away. They came across "the infamous shirt-and-tie-quilt," a quilt that Dianne was working on while she was fighting her last battle with cancer. No one liked the quilt, not even Dianne. Especially not Dianne. "All she did was complain about that quilt," Jasmine told me. "We all got tired of hearing about how much she hated the stupid shirt-and-tie-quilt." No one wanted the quilt, not even Dianne's husband, fo...