The Polka Dot Debutante

Last weekend I went out to LaGrande, OR to teach the Round Division class to the Quilt Questers guild. Vivienne and I drove out Friday afternoon and spent the night with Mike and Earlene Lamb. They live in this wonderful house that is shaped like an octagon and has a gorgeous view of the valley.

We had a wonderful dinner with Mike, Earlene, Regina and Jeri. Good food, conversation and laughter.
The next day was the class. There were 19 students and everyone brought very different fabrics. We spent lots of time in the morning going through everyone's pile and refining their two complementary fabric groups. By the end of the day, some great blocks were up on the wall. Here are a few samples.

And finally, many thanks to Earlene for hosting Vivienne and I. We both had a wonderful time with you and the guild and hope to come back next year. Happy Sewing!

Finally we are having some beautiful weather. I was about to become a mushroom. So it's time to hit the trail once again. Even with my health issues, Vivienne and I are still planning to hike more of the Appalachian Trail in the fall. So we took our first training hike yesterday and it was GREAT to be back in the woods. It just makes my heart happy. We hiked part of the loop at Silver Falls State Park. It's beautiful plus there are decent elevation gains. We started with this same hike last year so I guess it's a tradition now. Here are some pictures.

I don't know if I've written about Cover to Cover here yet and so for the uninformed: Cover to Cover is a group of quilters who all read the same book and then each member makes a quilt in response to the book. There are 12 members in our group and it's fun and challenging. The quilts are always very different with each member finding inspiration from different aspects of the book. We read three books a year and complete between one to three quilts.

Every year in the spring, the United Methodist Women from the First United Methodist Church holds a fundraiser with Cover to Cover as the featured artists. We hang all the quilts that are made in response to one of the books we've read.

Here we are hanging the quilts.

The United Methodist Women's group reads the book themselves and puts on a wonderful luncheon which they sell tickets for. This year about 200 people bought tickets. All the money they raise goes to their women and children's mission. At the luncheon, they coordinate the decorations and the food with the theme of the book. This year we hung the quilts made in response to "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd.

Here's what they did with the tables.

Usually several of us Cover to Cover gals attend the luncheon. After everyone finishes eating, we speak to the group about what inspired us in designing our quilts and how we actually constructed them. Here's our group from this year.

Now here's what you really want to see: The quilts!

by Jennifer Lawton

By Susan Bucharest

by Elaine Millar

by Carole Monahan

by Vivienne Moore

by Jeanne Thomas

by Lynda Caitlin

by Me

by Heather Pool

Seeing all the Cover to Cover quilts from one book hanging together at the luncheon really inspired me to get back to work on my Cover to Cover quilts. I've had an idea for 'Broken For You' percolating in my mind and had even drawn a couple of preliminary sketches. So I decided to focus on that idea. Well now that I've started, I don't want to do anything else, even though I've got several things that really must get done. Turns out I can procrastinate with the best.

I've got instructions to write before Sisters, instructions to print out before teaching up in Washington next week, and my daughters' 20th birthday present to work on. And all of this must happen before my surgery on the 29th. Yeehaw!

But here is what I've been doing instead. I'm constructing a fabric mosaic with a theme of growth, rebirth, becoming whole again.

This is the mosaic so far. All the blank areas will be filled in, leaving a space as if it were grout. When the mosaic is finished, I will cut it up and piece in the oval blocks. I also want to add some other textures like ribbon, yarn, netting, etc. And once it's quilted, I will embellish it as well.

These are the oval blocks in progress.

The fabric that the oval blocks are laying on was my inspiration, both for color and theme. It will not be in the body of the quilt but I might use it in the border.

And now I really should get back to work!

I got an amazing surprise yesterday and I'm still in awe of the amazing, awesome, incredible, sly, conniving, wonderful friends that I have. I went over to Fibers In Motion yesterday afternoon to supposedly have coffee with Vivienne and Susan. I walk back into the classroom and suddenly all these other people come jumping out. I was totally overwhelmed just thinking they were there to wish me well on Monday but there was more to come.

Then LuAnn presented me with the most amazing quilt that everyone had made.

Isn't it adorable????? 25 dresses from 25 different women. I am just so blessed. Instead of the usual label on the back, there is this cute pocket with a little book inside listing all the women who made a block along with a personal message from each of them.

I have already hung the quilt up in my bedroom so that I can look at it everyday as I recover from my surgery. Just looking at it lifts me up and makes me strong. There are not enough words to express my gratitude and joy from this incredible gift. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Our beloved cat Red Sox died on Saturday after giving us 14 wonderful years. She was a great cat who loved nothing more than sitting in your lap and purring her head off.

Of course she could also be incredibly haughty and look at you with utter disdain.

She had her eccentricities. She loved sitting in the sink and licking the water in the shower after you got out. She got quite mad if you didn't let her in the bathroom.

She also was a huge fan of boxes. All kinds and sizes, any box will do.

She absolutely LIVED to get her scoop of canned food every night for dinner and usually started her vigil at the bowl around 4pm just waiting for six o'clock.

She was very good when Liza was a little girl and would let Liza dress her up and cart her around.

She also used to sleep with Liza. Sometimes you would go in at night to check on Liza and there they were, side by side under the covers.

She will be very missed by all of us. We loved her tons.

On another note, I will be taking a break for a week or two. My surgery is tomorrow, so send good thoughts my way. See you on the flip side.

Funny how small your world gets when you are recovering from surgery. I've been living in my bedroom which, thankfully, I love. It's like a nest up there. Very comforting. Lying in the bed, this is what I see. My spectacular quilt is on the wall to the left, just outside of the picture.

Seen up close, here are the two sets of pictures that you can see.

The little quilt on the top is made by Betty Daggett from here in the Portland area. The collage next to it was made by Sarah Urquhart from Swannanoa, NC. And the collage under the little quilt was made by Virginia Cole from Moses Lake, WA.

In this group, the drawing on the top right was drawn by an old boyfriend from college. The picture on the top left is a regional artist named Terry McIlrath that Rick and I really like and the photo on the bottom is from a street artist in New York City.

But what really gets me through all this forced inactivity is books, DVD's and my lovely laptop. How did we ever survive without all this media to distract us?

I have managed to get some paperwork done but not much handwork thus far. I thought I'd be knitting or appliqueing, just haven't felt up to it yet. But when the urge hits, I'm ready!

I got the July/August issue of Quilters Newsletter Magazine in the mail yesterday and was so pleased to see the great spread about our Harry Potter quilts. QNM contacted Cover to Cover almost a year ago to see if they could feature our Harry Potter quilts in the magazine and finally, here they are. I think the spread looks great. My only wish is that it could have been bigger and thus include the three quilts that got left out. They were wonderful as well.

I know these pictures are hard to see but mine is the quilt on the lower left corner of the second photo. And three of the other quilts were quilted by me as well. Oh, it's always fun to see your stuff in a magazine. Yeehaw.