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May 6, 2012
Good morning all, Mary Ellen here. What a gorgeous morning! Had a great long walk with the dog early while the dew was still sparkling in the sun. Needed a sweatshirt but once we got moving, the temperature was perfect. This weather can stay year round, if anyone is taking a survey. From my spot at the seminar table during our quilt show, I got a perfect view of all of our demos. We have some talented people in our guild! I watched Kelly and Jackie talk about paper piecing–two different methods, both interesting. I love to paper piece, but haven’t done much of it lately. This morning on the computer I came across this pattern for a Starburst block. Her samples in those gorgeous modern brights have motivated me to give this one a go. I mentioned doing a quilt-a-long in one of my posts at the previous home […]
May 5, 2012
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Nope, I’m not starting off with words about fabric or sewing machines. My Favorite Things is the title of a concert I went to last evening. The director of the Buffalo Choral Arts Society is celebrating her 25th anniversary as the director, and chose many of her favorite songs for the program of the concert. I know of 2 guild connections to the chorus–Judy Balcerzak’s grandson has a solo in the concert. He is featured in the song “All that Jazz” from Chicago. What a surprise to hear the deep bass voice come from this young man! Kim Guido, one of our members, is a soprano in the chorus. The evening was great. Beautiful singing of a collection of tunes from Broadway shows. There is another performance tomorrow (Sun. May 6) at 3:00 at Rockwell Hall at Buff State. Wonderful way to spend a relaxed […]
May 4, 2012
Hi everyone, Mary Ellen here. Love that garden bench idea. I don’t have a work bench or wood working area, so building with the concrete blocks is right up my alley. The idea of planting right in it has lots of possibilities. Also love that there would be no painting/staining/water proofing involved! Have finished my two versions of the table topper I wrote about previously. Here they are. Different color placements–different looks. Can see lots of possibilities for this pattern. It would be very easy to change the size, since it uses basic blocks plus borders. Definitely a keeper pattern. (Table Cozees II by Clothesline Quilts) I hope my audience likes this pattern choice. What’s up for your weekend? Shopping? Stitching? Hobby? I hope it’s a great one for you. TTFN!
May 4, 2012
Hi everyone, I think Fabulous Friday is not bad at all! 🙂 Or at least that could be the first part of it? Anyway…I have couple of surprise-extra hours here at work , can you believe it? (well that’s enough for me to make Friday fabulous, lol!) Its just that normally we have a lab meeting on Fridays from 10 to noon and today’s one got cancelled- me not knowing about that, came to work early to set all the experiments ahead of time…and voila! – some free time! So while checking my email, in the newsletter from Better Homes and Gardens (highly recommend that one!!) I found this – and since we are all in the gardening mode now I had to share: Isn’t this cool?! A nice bench made from just cinder blocks, with so many “extras”! Love the idea of planting some herbs or flowers right in […]
May 4, 2012
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Marija and I have a flexible agreement about posting-not a schedule exactly but Monday is her day and Friday is mine. Just an easy arrangement to make sure that at least twice a week, something will get posted here. So far we have had no problems keeping up the flow of “information” to you, but if we ever don’t have something to say (LOL), we each have a once per week assignment! Since Friday is my day, I’ve wondered if I should come up with a theme for the Friday posts, and perhaps a catchy title. I know, “Fabulous Friday” doesn’t really do it for me either. I’m hoping you’ll help me come up with something. I might have written about this website, Colourlovers, at our previous blog. I really enjoy exploring there when I have time to spend. It is designed for all lovers […]
May 3, 2012
Hi Y’all, Mary Ellen again. Shady #1: The huge tree I wrote about a few posts back has been down for about a week now. A friend has been busy cutting up the majority of it for firewood. He’s down to the huge parts of the lower trunk now, so work has slowed down. You can imagine how much saw dust has been generated. My dog thinks it is a great cushy mattress and has enjoyed laying in it. His fur is the soft fine type, to which sawdust just loves to cling. Hence lots of sawdust has come into the house. I spent some time yesterday cleaning up what the loose sawdust I could-not easy because of the rain of late making it heavy and clingy. I was surprised how heavy and dense wet sawdust is-had to fill the paper lawn bags only part way full. They got to […]
May 1, 2012
Hello all, Mary Ellen here Aren’t those photos on Marija’s post fun to look at? It’s nice to have time stand still for a moment in each shot, so I can really give a good look at everything in each photo. Somehow when it’s all happening in real-time, things go by so quickly they can’t be savored. How did Marija find time to take all those shots, with everything else she was doing at/for the show?! Real life is back–getting caught up on laundry, tried to catch up on yardwork but the rain intervened yesterday (will finish when it dries out), grocery shopping, dog training class, sewing for an upcoming class, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da. When I chose the pattern I will next be teaching, I was looking for a small-scale project that used some traditional blocks and could be made up quickly for gifts. I chose one that uses just […]
April 30, 2012
Hi everyone, yes, I did have a great ambition to post photos (even videos!) every night during our Quilt Show this past weekend, but every night after all other family happenings after the show I simply – crashed! My husband did catch me falling asleep with the laptop, pointed out the silliness, so I realized it ain’t going to happen. 🙂 Oh well, but today is a new day and here I am during my lunch break – ready to have some blogging fun and hope you will too, reading it. First of all, I have to say it again – IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL, INSPIRING AND FUN QUILT SHOW! BRAVO AMQG MEMBERS!! And equally as important – I want to express my heartfelt thank you to all volunteers at the show and all Museum staff, but specially all of you who helped with the Show set-up and take-down – […]
April 30, 2012
Hello all, Mary Ellen again. We all were so impressed by Kelly’s (Kelly Miller, the chairwoman of our quilt show) speech at our preview party. I am sharing it here with you. Thank you to Kelly for permission, and for providing the text. “Quilts, Glorious Quilts. It’s finally here! We made it to the show. All of the planning and preparation has come to an end and we get to enjoy the result of all our combined efforts. Quilts, Glorious, Quilts! What a truly grand name for a quilt show. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this show title when we first voted on it as a guild. I thought that maybe it was lacking a theme. No garden flowers, no sea of quilts, no artist’s palette, no theme… But that might be because I trained as a teacher and many teachers group their lessons by themes. However, then […]
April 30, 2012
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. What a quilt show! The whole thing was glorious in my book. If you weren’t able to attend, the photos will be coming at our website (see sidebar) soon, and who knows what you’ll see right here at our blog in the near future. I saw Marija in paparazzi mode several times, and I know she is anxious to try out our guild YouTube channel (yep that’s right, she’s got us on YouTube!). Sincere thanks and compliments to all the members, particularly Kelly Miller the chairwoman, for our glorious show. Two years in the making and a spectacular success. Brava! If you are not a member of our guild, please consider joining us. You can go to the museum website (in our sidebar) to get info on how to join the museum, with an add-on guild membership. That would include all the perks of museum […]