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May 27, 2014
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. This post is a milestone-my 250th post at this blog. I talk a lot I guess. If you read all the way to then end, I’ll tell you how to enter to win a prize from me to celebrate this “achievement”. One thing you might know if you’ve read these posts for a while is what some of my favorite blocks are. Take a minute, can you name of few of my faves? … Drunkard’s paths should be in the list. Here’s a link (click here) to a modern looking drunkard’s path. I think this one would be great for a fat quarter collection of some of those gorgeous, somewhat solid, fabrics that are now appearing in the shops. How about Grunge from Basic Grey? Love it! Another favorite of mine … hexagon quilts, not grandmother’s flower gardens–bigger hexagons! I tried the English paper piecing […]
November 22, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Finally awarded the 40,000 visitor blog candy prizes at last night’s guild meeting. Thanks so much to all of our readers, with special thanks to those who comment. Marija and I appreciate the support you show for this blog, whether you’re lurking or commenting. Here’s to many more visitors. All of those who commented from the entry announcing the blog candy until yesterday’s entry had their names put in a random drawing. The more times an individual commented, the more times they were entered into the drawing. We drew 7 names for “basic prizes”–Roxanne, Karen G, Sue K, Mary D, Kathy T, JoAnne C, and Sue K (who won a 2nd time). All names were then returned to “the hat” and one name was drawn for the grand prize–Jane B. Hope you all will enjoy your prizes and keep those comments coming please. It’s more […]
November 5, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Been playing catch up lately. First, do you remember that I announced a run for some blog candy after we hit out 40,000 visitor milestone? I bet some of you thought I forgot all about it. I didn’t forget, but I did put it on the back burner for a while. I have since counted up how many comments have been made since I threw down the gauntlet and will shortly be announcing the winners. I plan to award the prizes at our November guild meeting. Thanks to all who have commented; please keep it up. It’s an incentive to me to keep posting when I know some one is reading. I keep a little notebook of quilting ideas for “out of the ditch” quilting done with a walking foot. I love the chevron quilting on the quilt here. I’ll be adding this one to […]
September 27, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Yesterday I went on a “back stage” tour of the Heritage Village Archives. This is a perk of being a museum member-not a part of the guild membership. I had received the same mailing about it that all members receive and decided I’d love to see what’s up in the museum ” attic” so to speak. There were only two of us in the afternoon group so we got a great opportunity to be up close to the items (this tour focused on quilts and textiles) but since there were only 2 of us Jessica and Kayla showed us just about everything. How cool is that!?! Take advantage of these museum opportunities–there’s another tour tomorrow. Maybe there is still space-you do need to reserve a spot in these tours. Besides the quilts and garments of the same eras, I really enjoyed looking at the garments […]
August 16, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen here again. We had a very nice presentation by the WNY chapter of the Modern Quilting Guild at our regular guild meeting last evening. Many of us had some of our questions about “modern” quilting cleared up for us. Those of us who consider ourselves to be “traditional” quilters have more in common with the “modern” girls than we might have thought. Several of the quilts that they brought along to share didn’t look “modern” to me at all. Some of the fabrics used looked like repros to me more than brand new designs, which is not to say that others of the fabrics did not have a really fresh new look to them. The use of solids in many of their quilts reminded me, and perhaps many of the others in attendance, of the days of old (now I’m really aging myself) when solids and […]
March 11, 2013
Hi everyone, jumping-in here on another lunch break just to quickly let you know about few things! There is a new tutorial to show you and this time – it is mine! 🙂 Here is a springy little wall hanging or a table topper made almost entirely from Flying Geese blocks – those easy, 3D, one-seam Flying Geese blocks! Add a few little tricks and you will have some neat-looking curved blocks and accent lines – check it out HERE! If you go back one post on my blog, you will find another fun thing – a giveaway! I am participating in current Blog Hop Party and of course besides my blog, there is over 200 others you can visit, be inspired, learn something and maybe win some goodies – hope you have fun! Now if that is not enough, there is yet another big “party” brewing up in cyber […]
February 14, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen again. This is really cool beans, I think. A few days ago I got an e-mail asking me (by name) to vote on a cover design for a children’s book. Sounds innocent enough. The book involves a quilt lost along the Oregon Trail. So far so good. The e-mail asked me to pass it along to my guild members as well. Whoa! Not so fast. But, something about it sounded legit to me, so I wrote back asking how the author had gotten my name and e-mail address. I received a very nice response which I am sharing below. It seems we AMQG members really get around. Someone attending the Sisters, Oregon show (I’m so jealous–I’ve wanted to go to that show for years, since the days of Jean Wells making multiple, frequent appearances on Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson) mentioned our guild and museum gift […]
January 22, 2013
Hi everyone, MIA-Marija here…finally!! Hope you are all doing great in this still somewhat NEW year and maybe even have a few resolutions intact? 🙂 Not the case with me, but hey – I didn’t even make any! Clever, huh? No not really, but I did declare to myself a “word-of-the-year” to be DISCIPLINE. Well…we can talk about this over pages and pages here, but that is for another time. Today, I want to tell you about much more important thing: Thursday, January 24th is National VISIT YOUR LOCAL QUILT SHOP DAY!!! Yes, yes my friends – we need to go visit, shop, have fun – and it is all legitimate and justified!! YAY!! But wait – that is not all! Industrious, creative quilting community made it into a real, big, national party – there is a web-site , a Facebook page and even a great photo-contest for all of […]
January 9, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Only had three comments on the post last week offering blog candy, so each comment had a pretty good chance of winning. I counted the first comment (judged by time stamp) as number 1. As usual I used the internet random number generator to decide the winner. Kit Willey was our second comment. I’ll award the prize at our next guild meeting. Been sewing up a storm of late-making more four patches from my scraps, and am working on a strippy hexagon quilt, using the 60 degree triangle ruler. Also have dug out 2 UFO’s. I’m hoping that sharing about that here, will keep me on track to finishing them. I’ve got a plastic grocery bag of assorted christmas/winter scraps in a variety of sizes which needs a good home. Let me know if you would like it. First response gets the scraps. Gone! TTFN.
Hello stranger…. (and a tiny surprise at the end, so read on! )