Being Real

Last week I talked by phone with my friend Stephanie who asked me to do an episode of her popular Modern Sewciety podcast about what brought me to the decision to retire from professional sewing. As someone who had struggled with these issues herself, she felt that it was an important conversation to have, and I'm so glad she did. We spent over an hour sharing our hearts about the joys and challenges of this work. Being real . . . it seems to be the theme that's guiding this new season. Real conversations about real things with real people in real life. It's messy and difficult sometimes, but it's what we've got. It's who we are. And it's so much better to look at that reality than to try to be something we're not. So pour yourself a cup of tea, pick up your favorite slow sewing project, and settle in with the link right here for some good, honest conversation with friends.

On another note, it's been almost a year since I started working on my scrappy linen log cabin quilt (Sunny Day Supply is actually getting ready to host another round of their annual log cabin sew along that got me started on this one!), but I finally finished it last week just in time to gift it to my niece for her first birthday today. I absolutely love this quilt, and as hard as it is to let it go, I'm so happy that it's going to her.

For months, I was stumped on the quilting. I tried both machine and hand quilting several times, but I always wound up pulling the stitches out when they didn't look quite right. After getting so much wonderful encouragement from friends on Instagram to finish it up, I decided to do the simplest quilting possible on my machine, and it finally worked. The linen had to be handled carefully at times, as it does like to stretch a bit, but it came together in the end.

The back of the quilt is a Melody Miller print, back from her solo Ruby Star days, which I've always loved. I added a tag on the back with my niece's name and mine, which I embroidered by hand. It takes a little extra time, but for something special and personal like this, it's so worth it. The quilt is bound in a rainbow striped canvas print from IKEA that I've been saving for years. I like the touch of whimsy that it adds to the border, and it makes a wonderful frame for the whole project.

This quilt is absolutely packed full of favorite prints that I've been collecting since my very first year of sewing. It almost feels like a time capsule of the past eight years. I love it so much. I hope that every time my niece wraps herself up in it, she'll remember -- as I've always told my girls since they were little -- that she's all wrapped up in our love too.

Saturday

I'm propped up in bed with a quilt and my favorite patchwork pillow today, enjoying the warm sunshine that's streaming through the windows. My youngest and I were hit hard by a flu bug yesterday, and while she's young enough that her energy is already coming back in droves this morning, I'm feeling weak and wobbly and perfectly content to curl up in bed with my laptop and books when I'm not sleeping. My favorite mix of jazz/swing/blues/big band music is playing beside me on my phone. Click here if you'd like to listen to my playlist too on Google Play Music -- I'm happy to share it with you. While I'm too tired to dance, it's awfully hard to keep still when Ray Charles is singing "Hallelujah, I Love Her So." There are so many memories on this playlist. I used to listen to "Moonlight Serenade" on my favorite Glenn Miller album while working in the office at my part time children's director job at my church during college, and I remember singing along with Frank Sinatra's "Sweet Lorraine" in the mornings on the way to my fifth grade classroom when I got my first teaching job. James and I took swing dancing lessons just for fun back when we were engaged, where we usually found ourselves dancing to "More" by Bobby Darin, which seemed to be a favorite tune for the instructors. And "At Last" by Etta James has always been our special song. So there's a lot more in this music than just melodies for me.

I'm finally making some progress on one of my longstanding reading goals: to make it all the way through the 3-volume The Civil War: a Narrative by Shelby Foote. That's almost 3,000 pages worth of history, and I'm only on page 323, but for a girl like me who loves American history, it's fascinating. Foote has a remarkable way of including little details that really make these people and events come alive, and it's nice to spend an afternoon getting lost in the past for a while.

Last October at Quilt Market, my friend Joanna Burgarino, the editor of Quilts & More magazine, interviewed me for the American Patchwork & Quilting podcast. Joanna was the technical editor on my first book, and she's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. It was so much fun to get to spend this time with her, and I hope you'll enjoy it. You can listen to Episode #459 right here (our chat begins around 22:31) online.

The photo above is a project I started earlier this week, a cheater panel that I purchased from my favorite shop, Sunny Day Supply, which I'm quilting by hand. It's just the sort of slow, simple project I've been wanting to work on for so long, and I love picking it up whenever I get the urge.

Well, I think another nap may be calling my name, so I'd better close up the laptop for now. Hope you're all having a beautiful weekend, friends!

I'm a Guest on Pat Sloan's American Patchwork & Quilting Podcast Today!

Just a quick note to let you know that I'll be Pat Sloan's first guest on her American Patchwork & Quilting Talk Show Podcast this afternoon at 3pm CST. You can listen in live here or catch the show later this evening on Pat's website here. It will also be available later in the week on the APQ website here. We're going to chat about my new book, Patchwork USA, and some of my other recent projects. I'm so looking forward to chatting with Pat again, and I hope you'll join us!

Wiltshire Daisy & Tomorrow's Podcast

February 2015 will always be remembered as the Month of Real Estate in our family. Everyone in my husband's and my immediate family is in the process of purchasing a home even as I type this sentence. I guess we all got the urge to put down roots at the same time. If only we weren't spread out across the country from East to West...

My sister is planning to move into a beautiful house here in Southern California before we drive off for Texas in June, and I wanted to make something pretty for her new home. When my friends at Riley Blake Fabrics were kind enough to send me a package full of the lovely Wiltshire Daisy collection by Carina Gardner, I knew I had the right fabric for the job. These prints are shabby chic perfection, just the sort of thing my sister loves. Her new kitchen has an adorable window seat along one wall, and these pillows will make a cuddly spot for someone to curl up with a good book.

I'm so honored to be appearing on the American Patchwork and Quilting Podcast tomorrow with Pat Sloan, where we'll be chatting about my new book and all things quilty. You can tune in right here tomorrow at 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern time. Drop by and check it out!