We arrived here on Sunday night and decided that not to wait until New Year’s eve to open our presents.

My son was very surprised and pleased with his Adirondack quilt.  I was happy to see it on his bed. 

A king size quilt just does not show on a queen size bed.

The original pattern was for a double bed and was square.  I enlarged it to make it a king size rectangle by adding pieced and Seminole patchwork borders along with plain borders.

I named the quilt Adirondack Dreaming and printed the label with one of Tom’s pictures of the Adirondacks.  I found the perfect sentiment to use for the label:

Adirondack Dreaming

“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind…because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.”

Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth

It seemed appropriate for someone who enjoyed the Adirondacks so much when he lived in upstate New York.

Earlier this week, I had lunch with two good quilting friends (Lisa & Mae) to celebrate Christmas.  We look forward to seeing what each of us has put together for our annual gift exchange.  Of course one of our favorite things to do is shop hop and we’re always on the lookout for things that each of us would like.  Lisa’s favorites themes are penguins and patriotic, Mae’s are gingerbread men, and mine are hummingbirds and cardinals.

I made each of them a candle mat along with a few trinkets including a gingerbread pattern for Mae and a “quilt sayings” panel for Lisa.

Mae's Candle Mat

Lisa's Candle Mat

They both (unknowingly) added to my cardinal collection.   My house is pretty small, but I’ll have to find room for these.

In addition, the fat quarter collection is happy, bright colors.  Quite a change from what I normally choose.  Can’t wait to see them in a quilt.  A group of us in the guild are making fat quarter quilts next year.   This should be a perfect palette for the project.

My Favorite Things

Winter in Upstate New York

Our Camper - All Loaded and Ready for the Trip South

Now that we’ve celebrated Christmas with my daughter and her family and Tom’s family here in upstate New York, we’re headed for North Carolina tomorrow to spend the next week with my son and the granddaughters, Shannon (age 14) and Jordan(age 11).  I told Jordan that I was bringing a casserole of baked lasagna that I had made last Sunday and frozen.  “Yum,” she said. “Are we making pasta salad while your here?”  Grandma can’t say, ‘No”.

Jordan had asked me to show her how to quilt when they visited earlier this year.  I helped her make a’ paper’ crazy quilt.  Now I’ve borrowed a book from our guild library on teaching children how to quilt. Both she and Shannon want to give it a try.  So our camper has the sewing machine along with my supply of scraps, rulers. cutting mat etc.  It should prove interesting.

We’ll visit with them until New Year’s day and then end our short winter get-away with a week in Charleston, SC.

Check out our website Tom and Lucia on the Road for an update on our travels.  Of course I’ll be bringing along a couple of projects.  I have two table runners that I will finish binding and an applique/redwork project that is a great take-along project while traveling.

At a recent craft show in upstate New York, I came across an interesting display of well executed quilts.  Carol Hesselink of cmhCreations displays a number of  quilts designed by her after being inspired by a specific fabric.  She then adds coordinating and complimentary fabrics.    In many of her quilts, the pattern or technique becomes the inspiration.

Check out some of her quilts on line at:  Pictue Trail; member name cmhCreations.  Carol’s creativity fosters itself in many different ways such as when she designs an item made of  ‘fabric leftovers’  as she makes a unique bag or tote.  I’m sure her stack of UFO’s is quite a bit smaller than mine.  Quite a crafty lady!

Each of Carol’s quilts comes with a digital photo card of the quilt.  Not only does the recipient get a beautiful handmade quilt, but also receives a matching note card.  She also packages and sells note cards separately.

A brief demonstrations on paper piecing at her booth shows how easy paper piecing is to do .

I enjoyed meeting her and her husband, Chuck at the show.  He praises  her accomplishments as he shows off some of her quilts,  “See what can be made from scraps!”

I also learned that they live in Amsterdam NY – just a few miles from my daughter’s home.  Small world!

Who says that quilters are not well rounded individuals?  At a recent guild meeting many of us were introduced to beading by our guild president.  She is a teacher by day and has fashioned many beaded treasures.  Her students think that she must have enough necklaces that she can wear a different one each day of the year.

This attractive amulet took only a couple of hours to make and was very easy once you got the hang of the technique.

Yes I do really need another outlet for my creative ability!

The only problem is that I’ll probably have to move to a bigger house.

Ten years ago we downsized and moved from a 2,000 square foot house to our present home of 1,100 square feet.  It seemed like a good  idea at the time:  the kids have moved away taking the grand-kids with them and we wanted to spend more time traveling in our RV rather than house upkeep.

So much for advance planning.  I didn’t start quilting until after we had moved.  Now my ‘stash’ is taking over our storage room.  Not a problem as far as I’m concerned, but my husband is finding it increasingly difficult to do things like fix the hot water heater or add salt to our softener system.

Now that I’ve found out how much fun beading can be – I have to find some room to store the supplies.  Guess it’ll give me a good excuse to organize my stash.  It seems to give me quite a bit of pleasure to go in and just stroke the fabric and imagine what I could create.  What a delightful problem to have.

In her book  Loose Threads, quilter and author Helen Kelly describes  the “…unfettered pleasure I experience when I am feeling fabric, letting it slide through my fingers, watching it change colors in the clear light and discovering grand new ways to stitch it together in fanciful gardens or geometric puzzles.”  I can really relate to that!