Techno-dog Time Out

My quilts turn up everywhere! Here is a star quilt in my favorite setting. I made it about 20 years ago. Now it lives in my daughter's keeping room. Family dog, Woody, finds it a perfect place to take a nap. He has finished his computer search for a better bone and stuffed his cell phone in the pocket in the back pocket of his sweater while settling down for a post-Thanksgiving dinner nap.

The blocks in this quilt are the simple Sawtooth Star...8" size and then each block is squared off with big quarter square triangles that position the stars "on point". Then just sew the blocks together to finish the quilt. I used star blocks but any block can be set on point using quarter square triangles. These stars are 8" blocks (finished size). To figure the size of the triangles add 1-1/4" to the finished size of the block (in this case it comes to 9-1/4". Then cut the triangle in half on the diagonal twice to make 4 triangles. The block with triangles added will come out to an odd size, but if they are all the same size they will sew together with ease.

Destination: Deb's Cats n Quilts

I'm spending Thanksgiving in North Carolina with my daughter's family. Ellen picked me up at the Atlanta airport and we drove up to Black Mountain via Hendersonville. Since we were passing through  Hendersonville, I had her stop at Deb's Cats N Quilts debscatsnquilts.com so I could surprise my long time quilting buddy, Deb Heatherly. I popped my head in her Saturday AM class and, yes, she was surprised.

We are standing in front of a display of quilts made from our rulers. The Curvy Log Cabin quilt uses the 8" Curvy Log Cabin Trim Tool, The little Square on Square quilt uses the 6" Square On Square Trim Tool. The star quilt uses Deb's Strippy Stars Ruler. and the quilt in the bottom left corner uses Deb's Cat's Cradle Ruler.

When you find yourself driving in the southeast, drive through Hendersonville and take the time to stop and visit Deb's Cats n Quilts. You'll be glad you did. She has lots and lots of fabric and a big collection of gadgets....not to mention all of the Creative Grids rulers and trim tools.

Quilters Rule!

My Georgia driver's license expires on Monday. I devoted this week to obtaining a Washington DC license. It took 4 days.

Tuesday: I took complete DMV forms (2 of them) to my eye doctor and my primary care doctor to get a medical sign off.

Wednesday: Off to the DMV armed with doctor's forms, social security card, GA license and two utility bills (to prove I live in DC). Stop! No birth certificale, no license. REALLY! Back home and a two hour search later I found the certificate.

Thursday: I decided to get my expired passport renewed for backup documentation, just in case the DMV didn't accept my birth certificate. A visit to the passport office at the US Post Office. Mission complete, the passport is on its way.

Friday: Back to the DMV with my funny little birth certificate, black background with white printing. It's a photograph of a microfiche record. I was born before copy machines. I wasn't sure if DMV would accept such an ancient certificate. I walked right in, got a number for my turn, and it was called right away. I went to the designated clerk and presented all my documentation. She was examining the forms and noticed that my occupation was listed as Quiltmaker. She said, I'm a quilter, I meet with a group called DC Threads www.dcthreads.org in your area of town, come join us. She breezed right through my paperwork. In less than 30 minutes I had my new license. No hassle today, just lots of happy quilt talk. We need to infiltrate quilters everywhere so the whole world can be happy.

Here is a happy quilt I made several years ago. It's called Delectable Mountains. I'm sharing it in honor of celebrating my birthday in the mountains.

Jolly good news

Now that I live in Washington DC and have to drive 30 to 40 minutes to reach a quilt shop that is only 12  miles and two interstate highways away, I order most of my fabrics from fatquartershop.com. It comes in a day or two and there is nothing like getting a package of fabric in your mailbox to brighten your day.

Their blog, Fat Quarter Shops Jolly Jabber found through this link fatquartershop.blogspot.com just listed their staff's favorite rulers...all by Creative Grids©. I was excited to see that Kimberly's favorite my very first ruler, the 8" Log Cabin Trim Tool. If you haven't visited the Fat Quarter Shop website, I recommend it. Also follow the blog, the Jolly Jabber for lots of good information for quilters.

Thanks Kimberly for loving my tool. I love your site for having my favorite fabrics just a mouse click away. 

Another favorite is the Stripology ruler by Gudrun Erla. I use this ruler to cut the strips for all my rulers. It has marks along the bottom of the ruler showing where to cut for 1-1/2" and 2-1/2" strips so I don't have to think when cutting these sizes, just slice at the square symbol or the star symbol. For 2" strips I can do the math, counting by 2's, a skill I acquired in 2nd grade.