I Have Always Known

that quilters are the nicest people. This "universal truth" could not have been anymore evident than when I walked through these doors last night.

The sweet lady in the middle is Annelies (of shared Pam Kitty Morning fabric win from Strawberry Patches with me ). She teaches here at Eleanor Burns Quilt in a Day Quilt store. 

I looked up the store on Mapquest and it was only about 35 miles from where we are staying, so when Anne invited me to visit a class, (actually, I think I invited myself) I decided  to attend last night.

There were about 12 ladies besides me and Annelies. I am terrible at names, and I didn't get pictures of all of them, but  they all had smiles and were so sweet to me.

This lady has a three year old at home, and she was sewing cutting and ironing right up to the last minute. I complimented her on all she got done, and she said she likes to take advantage of every minute of class time. I totally understood that...with a toddler at home...

I called this lady the keeper of the goodies. She worked hard all night and had that sweet blue and yellow quilt top done by the end of the evening. She said it was her first quilt ever.

Oh, and from

 what I could gather about the "goodies", theres always plenty when this group gets together.

One lady, (Laurie, I think) had this finished quilt to show us.

I especially wanted a picture of this as my granddaughter Lexie is determined to be a surfer since she read the book and saw the movie of the young girl in Hawaii who lost her arm to a shark while surfing. Now wouldn't that just make you want to surf too.?

Anyway, It was a beautiful quilt.

Annelies says this group of ladies meet to bring whatever they are working on.  She went from table to table asking anyone if they needed help.  She threaded machines, helped rip out, helped tape a quilt to the table read to be basted, gave color and fabric advice and was so encouraging. It was easy to see why people come to her classes.

She was teaching last night, tonight, Thursday day and an all day Saturday class.

To be truthful, I was  a little jealous.  Seeing her interaction with her students made me miss teaching.  I guess just being in that setting, brought back lots of memories.

You see,  when I first started teaching, I taught Quilt in a Day Log Cabin quilt. Back in the day when we ripped (oh how that sounds crazy now) strips. Before the rotary cutter.  I took classes from Eleanor Burns at Quilt market and became certified to teach her quilts. She is the one that "forced" me to use a rotary cutter by making me come to the front of the class and demonstrate.

Now, I don't know how I ever quilted without one.

All in all, the evening was just the most fun.

Mr. SS really doesn't like me to be gone in the evenings, but even he admitted he could tell how much I enjoyed my evening with Annelies and her quilting class.

Watch out Strawberry Patches, I am going to your newsletter right now to see how many classes I can sign up for.  Now if I can just convince Mr. SS not to take any more out of town jobs (not likely) and not to mind me being gone in the evenings (even less likely).  But a girl can dream, can't she.

God is Good!!

Life is Good!!

True "Sweet" Hearts

I have been so excited to do this post and now I finally can share how touched I was by the generosity of a very sweet friend. (Well, two actually)

Almost two months ago, one of those friends, Suzanne, at Strawberry Patches held a fabulous giveaway.

She was offering this fat 1/8 bundle of the then new line by Pam Kitty Morning.

I fell in love with these brightly colored fabrics with a retro feel, and entered along with many others.

This is the bundle of yumminess.

The next two pictures courtesy of Suzanne's blog.

After a fun video reveal of the winner done by Pam  of Pam Kitty Morning, I was thrilled to learn that my sweet blog friend Annelies of Sew Blessed had won. I couldn't have been happier for anyone (even myself) that my friend had won. I was dying to email her, but sat on my hands for awhile, then kept checking back at Notes from the Patch to see if Annelies had posted that she knew she had won.

You can go to here to read what happened.

Well, guess who really got the surprise when I read her comment to Suzanne.

That "Sweet" heart of a friend talked Suzanne into splitting the prize with me and Suzanne is just enough of a "Sweet" heart of a friend to do just that.

So one of these precious bundles went to Annelies and one came home with me.

So, why did it take so long for me to share this with you, you say?

Well, it was right before Christmas and of course it had to be just the perfect project, ya know.

Annelies and I decided  to do our projects at the same time so we could encourage each other.

I asked her to pick the project. Oh my gosh, she is a quilt teacher and does so many wonderful quilts. I trusted she would come up with the perfect project.  And....she did.

We are joining in with Anne Sutton Of Bunny Hill for her Scrappy Plate Club.

I have always wanted to do a Dresden Plate quilt. I have done a couple of pillows, but never a quilt.

These fabrics are perfect. I love hand work and appliqueing the blocks will be so much fun.

Here are all my little blades cut and ready to go.

Last night, I got one block put together.

I am so thrilled, I just can't tell you...

The background will be a white on white and I am going to SP soon to get the border...oh I hope they haven't run out.

There must be 50 or more different prints in the bundle. I picked out the blues, reds, and yellows because I am making this for the little blue and white trailer we are still in the process of remodeling. It has a retro look and this quilt will be perfect.

There are lots of pinks and greens that I can use for another project.

I must  once again say thank you to my blog friend, Annelies for sharing this treasure with me. Not just sharing the fabric, but sharing the fun of doing this together.

We haven't met yet, but I know we will soon.

Also thanks to my real life friend, (of almost 45 yrs.) Suzanne for her part in this fun ride.

We don't see each other often enough, but I know where I can always find her.

I gave you a lot of links and encourage you to visit those blogs for inspiration and fun.

God is Good!!

Life is Good!!



The Longest Day (Part II)

Leaving the cherry stand behind we started the loooong drive to Oakhurst.  It was beautiful country, but we were on a mission. It was already 1:30 and we still had 5 shops to go. Oakhurst is a gateway to Yosemite National Park with a woodsy feel and the Bear Paw Quilts shop front said it all.

Inside was full of fabric, models and displays, with the theme being evident.

When Linda saw their Shop Hop quilt setting, she thought that was the way she wanted to do hers. It was set on point with a scalloped border.

But they didn't have any patterns left. Oh well, we still have 4 more shops to find the perfect quilt setting.

Off to Fresno now....opps a few miles out of town and I discover I don't have my camera....back to Bear Paw Quilts to find it.....Yeah it's there.....we are further behind in our schedule.

We decide to stop for gas before we headed out again.

When was the last time someone came out to pump gas for you and wash your windshield.  Well at the Chevron in Oakhurst they do.

Linda went in to look up a name in the phone book of someone who she used to know in Oakhurst. While she was there, I looked across the street at this:

I commented to the "gas station guy" what a lovely cemetary and church it was and he said, "Yeah, the church used to be across the crick and they had moved it up on that hill and restored it. The rest of the trip, when we talked about Oakhurst, we called our gas station man Crick.

Yes, we drove up close to get a better picture...after all we had a church thing going here.

This told the story of the church and the restoration dates.

Isn't this so "cute" for lack of a better word. See the lamps

and the little wrought iron fence?

This memorial next to it had a flag flying from the pole.

I loved the detail of the wrought iron fence

Okay, off to Fresno and Clovis. It would have been closer to go to Fresno first, but we took a wrong turn and ended up in Clovis. (more delays to our time line)

I am familiar with Quilters Paradise and visit it at least once a year when our group goes to the street fair in October. But today it was all dressed up for company.

When we saw their quilt we knew this was the setting we wanted for ours,

except we will put the heart in the center. 

All the shops had a drawing for their basket and we entered them all.

The basked is huge and full of good sewing and quilting supplies.

With not much time to think about food, we were so excited to see this.

That bowl of ice was full of the best fruit cups with a cute little umbrella. We literally slurped them down. And cookies too.....what can I say? A girl cannot live on cherries alone.

Even though, we have a ways to go, this next pictures sums it up.

We left Clovis and headed to Cottage Quilts in Fresno.

It was a pleasant surprise. Cottage described it perfectly from the front door and throughout the store.

I loved this bench.

And this one too. What a great way to show off  fabric collections.

Theirs was a really whimsical quilt setting.

On the road again to Visalia. By now it is close to 7:00 so we called Thimble Town to ask directions and if they would still be open. Yes, they  were still open, but it was closing time.

They were out of blocks, but we got the pattern and took a picture of the quilt.

We were so disappointed we didn't get to the last store in Hanford, but felt a lot better after we found a place to have dinner and then headed home.

I had to babysit on Sunday, but my sweet friend went to Hanford the next day by herself and got the last block and the last stamp on our passport.

She took pictures, for my story here.

Here's the shop in Hanford.

and their quilt.

We have all of our blocks and tomorrow we go to Strawberry Patches to a Sit and Stitch class and start our quilt. I will show our progress. We are both commited to finishing our patriotic quilt.  Linda's grandsons have served in the armed forces and have been to Irac and Afghanistan. Her's will be a tribute to them. Here are the blocks we collected,

and all our goodie bags that contained lots of candy, fat quarters, kits, pen, bumper sticker, fan, ruler, hand sanitizer, and nail file. Even with all the goodies, the prizes, the blocks, the food, getting to see all those quilt stores, lots of California countryside, and so many sweet quilt store ladies, the best part of the whole experience  was time spent with a good friend.

Linda, I love you and treasure our friendship more than I can say.

Now we have to get busy and quilt.

                      

The Longest Day (part 1)

Last Saturday, my friend Linda and I started out at 6:00am fully commited to visiting the other nine Quilt Shops on the Hop. We drove straight through to Ceres, Ca. with only one quick stop (those of you of a certain age will understand what that stop was for). We arrived at Fields of Fabric just after they opened at 9:00am and there was already a line out the door. It was a cute little house with small rooms and due to the number of shopping ladies and the lack of good light, I only got these pictures.

Here's Linda in front of the shop

This is their version of the quilt.

As we were waiting in line to pay for our blocks,  I spotted this fabric and even though I knew I couldn't buy somthing at each shop except the block, I couldn't resist this cute fabric with baby sayings on it.

Soon, you will see it as cute little baby bibs and burp cloths for my baby Emmy. (No Jane, I didn't get anything made from this yet, but notice I said "soon" LOL)

You can click on the picture to enlarge so you can read all the cute little baby words.

We had decided to start at the fartherest site north and work our way back down the state.

Turlock wasn't far away.

They had a great front window display area and took advantage of it with quilts and antiques. Even though it is really difficult to get a good picture through a glass window, you get the idea.

Their Quilt

Thought I would explain about the quilt. Each store did a block for each of the 13 store's quilts, so each store has a finished quilt with one each of the store's blocks. Each store chose how best to put it together and sold the pattern for setting the quilt.

I will show you tomorrow which quilt Linda and I chose for our setting method. We have the 13 block patterns and fabric and will start on Friday at Strawberry Patches during a Sit and Stitch class.

This is the owner of Cloth and Quilts. She was really sweet and I wish I had written down her name.

She had her cute daughters helping with giving out the goodie bags and signing people up for the prize basket they had at each store. (There was more than one reason to try to make each store....you should have seen these more than generous baskets.)

Keeping with our commitment to visit all the stores in one day, we headed out of Turlock towards Hilmar, when our car just pulled over and stopped as we saw

this

and this

they were setting up tables like

this

It says Boutique Crawl. There was a stretch limo and carloads of ladies just like we were experiencing on the Shop Hop. How cute, an organized tour for Antique hunting.  We know about antique hunting.  We just took that wonderful weekend trip to the coast a few weeks ago. So I am afraid we slipped and fell off the "Shop Hop" wagon and spent some of our precious time browsing these stores.

Okay sheepishly, we looked at each other and agreed we needed to get on with the Quilt Shop Hop and leave the cute Antique stores for another day.

After getting directions to Hilmar (wherever the heck that is) we were off  and running again.  On the way out of Turlock I saw a couple of quaint churches before I thought about my camera. (Kinda have a church theme going here ) Here's one I caught out the window as we were turning a corner.

 

Sew Central Quiltworks in Hilmar.

These are petunias and they were huge and so pretty.

This store is a Gammill quiliting machine dealer and their emphasis was largely on machines.

This is their quilt. The center of the quilt was machine quilted, but you had to be up close to see that.

Leaving Hilmar and heading to Oakhurst, we could tell by the map, it was quite a ways and we  were feeling a little "faint" from all this shopping.  This sign caused our car to pull over and stop again.

Here I am.

We asked prices and each bought a small container to eat  in the car and as Linda collects Cherries to display and decorate with, we asked the price of a box (empty).  It was really a cute box. The lady at the stand kept saying $30.00.

We kept asking the price of an empty one (do you think she thought we were a  little strange?) She finally "got" it and said $2.00. Linda was pleased with that. Can you tell?

So off to Oakhurst with cherries to sustain us.  We thought we would never get there, but we did and tomorrow night I will post the other half of our "Longest Day".  I know these posts are long, but I just didn't want to leave anything out.  I have a cute story to tell about Oakhurst.