I have to tell you all how I spent my day while waiting for the HST package. Our community host "The Great American Pie Festival" and it is this weekend. I spent the day judging pie! My lucky category was Citrus, yes Lemon Meringue! Well there were other citrus pies,too. 21 pies in all had to be sampled just like with quilt shows we inspected the whole pie, sliced pie, and yes had 21 different bites of pie, well maybe more since a few deserved more sampling. Today's were commercial pies but tomorrow I will be back again to sample amateur pies with another day on Sunday! I think my next experience should be training for a marathon to work off all the pie. But we quilters do need to feed our passion sometimes!

Gee, Debbie, I haven't thot about attending Houston's IQF, but...you have planted a seed! I did attend the show once about 6? yrs ago with my poor husband who had (horror of horrors!) ...shingles at the time! I wanted to cancel our trip but he said, "No." So for one day we thoroughly enjoyed the show and saw Ricky and 3 other famous quilters do a fun concert for us in the evening! It was great! Fred's chest was burning from the shingles, and my heart and soul were burning with passion for quilting! It would be p-h-u-n to meet all of you guys! I'll give it some thot! Thanx for the suggestion.

I'm not real computer-savvy about posting photos, but I will give it my best shot!
Happy Quilting,
Shirley
Gresham, OR

sforster395 wrote:

That sounds like a really, really great project, Shirley. I hope you'll post some progress pictures and then pictures when it's completed.

Shirley, you seem to travel quite a bit...are you planning a trip to Quilt Festival in Houston this fall? Hopefully a lot of members have plans to go and we try to coordinate a reunion of the SoTTTs, Batiks-R-Us and Strippers at the TQS Booth. Since the exchanges were all at the same time and most of us did all three exchanges, it only seems natural to treat them as one!

Just wanted to tell all of you who are sharing your "love for quilting" stories that I'm enjoying reading every one of them. I've been printing pages from this exchange and am going to make a "Memory SOTTT Album" which will include many of the posts from Chapters 1 and 2 so far. When I get my HST's, I'm going to try to match up each triangle with its quilter's story...and do a lot of scanning! Clara, this was soooooo cool of you to suggest sharing our quilting histories with each other. How fun and nice it is to meet all of you online!!
Shirley
from "sunny" Gresham, Oregon today!

I'm Lesley and a relatively new quilter (2006)! I have finished 5 quilt tops, a dozen quillows, and 30+ pillow cases. I'm learning to quilt and bind these now. My formal quilting education has been slow and steady because I work full-time as an Operating Room Nurse. I learned to sew from my Grandmother when I was eight and made clothes for myself and my kids later on. I became interested in quilting because of Alex! I was hospitalized and watching HGTV during my stay! After I was discharged from the hospital, I needed to make some changes to my life and discovered that quilting helped me to do it ! Big stress buster for me! I am so grateful to Alex and Ricky for guiding me to this lifestyle! I was very upset when Simply Quilts got cancelled because of this connection and very happy that TQS was born out of the void! The TQS community rocks! I have taken classes with Annie Smith, Alex Andersen, and Sue Nickels and loved every minute of them! I attended my first show last Fall! I plan to take more quilt classes! I also will be renewing my TQS membership regularly because I learn so much here! I'm proud that my daughters are following me into the crafting world too! I introduced one to quilting & a TQS membership recently and taught the other to knit.

Thanks to all the SOTT volunteers for their hard work!
Hope the sorting is going well!

NaneeWolf wrote: I'm liking this a lot. It used to take me only a minute to check the posts. Now I have all this cool info to read. It's great to get to know all my buddy quilters. Clara

Hi,
I'm Brenda I was pregnant with the first of our four children when I was introduced to quilting in August, 1979. That first class was from Kay Barr in Parker, Colorado. She had a wonderful studio in her home. The pattern we learned was called Bumblebee and it introduced piecing and applique. We only made a quilted pillow. I so enjoyed the handquilting process that I made three more for that Christmas.

I made a promise that once the little ones were grown I would become a quilter. Over 20 years later I decided it was time to do just that, so I bought Thimbleberry's Guide to Weekend Quilting. Ambitious and a bit unrealistic I chose a queen size pattern, sure it would be done in short order. That was in 1997. I wanted it to be handquilted...after all, that was all I knew at that time. I visited a local quilt guild and proudly showed off the unfinished top declaring that there was going to be handquilting around every small square. Yeah, you could just hear the polite um-hums and sure-ya-are comments. I can still remember one woman's verbal prophecy that it would never get done. She was older and wiser...and she was correct! It will get done...someday.

I was introduced to one of my favorite designers at a guild in Norfolk, Nebraska. My daughter was attending with me. When Jinny Beyer's Moon Glow quilt was shown at the Show & Tell, my daughter leaned to me and said, "If you ever make me a quilt, that is the kind I want!" I finished it two years later.

I am currently working on Home Sweet Home and Nose Gay for Mama by Barb Adams and Alma Allen. Two others in progress are using Civil War reproductions. I have a few stitches left on a Baltimore-Album-style quilt. My newest project is one from Erin Russek...My Tweets. One of the ladies in the BOM Ruffled Feathers posted a block from this designer.

I also enjoy flower and herb gardening; herbal soapmaking; baking breads and spending time with family and friends.

Enjoy each day,
Brenda

Debbie
Thank you
Katie

Katiezquiltz wrote:

Good morning, Katie. Several days ago, Clara posted a project to help keep members busy while waiting for their HSTs to be returned. See her post on Page 80, the 2nd to last on that page, and you'll see what all the 'bio stuff' is all about! It's been fun reading such a variety of shared stories!

I missed a bunch of posts while on vacation and am noticing little bios. Are we to do a bio if we choose to? Peace and light, Katie Gomez

I was not being mouthy...missed an "O" there! Just think you must be well beyond a go home time! Thanks again for all you are doing for all of us!

WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT THIS HOUR F YOUR DAY???

kelii98 wrote:

Weltha...your package did arrive safe & sound a few days ago!

I'm Patti and like many have been sewing since a small child - doll clothes then my clothes and then designing & sewing my clothes. I started sewing quilts in high school but had not been very prolific. I think I have most episodes of Simply Quilts on tape. I got so much instruction & inspiration from those shows. During my pre-midlife crisis, I was noticing people who had a passion got so much more out of life. I started to wonder what my passion would be and realized I had always wanted to let loose and do more quilting. So the passion grew exponentially from there. I'm still not as productive as I want to be but am SOOO much more passionate about it lol! This is my first exchange too and hope more are to come.