Key West Here We Come

On Dec 9th, I finished the manuscript for my first quilting book. I wish I could tell you what it's about, but I cannot. Not yet. Let me just say that it's a surreal experience that there will be a book with my name on it!

I am not a detail-oriented person. It then took me 2 days to put everything together that needed to be shipped to my publisher (yes I said my publisher!) including all of the quilts. As I was thinking about packing for our now to be annual sojourn to Key West, I realized that it was a little over a year ago that I had this idea. Last year, I spent a month before our Florida vacation getting my projects together. I submitted my book proposal at the end of January. What a year it has been. It is rewarding to me that I was able to stick with it. I know it is not over yet. I'm not sure what the editing process is going to be like.

So after packing up the book, I had to clean the house and pack up our things and some quilting projects for our trip. I did have a lecture in the midst of all that at Undercover Quilt Guild. What a nice group of people. Seeing one of their tables with used magazines at 6/$1, I got out my money (big spender that I am ) and splurged for my road trip. Mark Lipinski, editor and I would say author of most of the articles, of Quilter's Home kept my husband and me entertained through the state of NC.

We spent the first night in Florence, SC. Since we have my cute little Bailey with us, we had to stay at a pet friendly hotel/motel. I know I have become a little more fussy as the years have passed, but .... I slept in my clothes on top of one of my quilts. Bailey barked through a good portion of the night, protecting us from the truckers standing around outside smoking!

It was quite a relief spending the second night at my sister-in-law's house in Plant City, FL. She's a great cook and the bed was clean. But my dog had to find something else to bark at:
Is this Christmas in Florida?

On Thursday, December 17th, we arrived in The Keys. There is nothing like driving down Rte 1 where you can practically touch the Gulf of Mexico on one side of you and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. A beautiful sight. 6 weeks in paradise with a lot of pent up creativity and 2 bins filled with fabric.

I hear it's going to snow in PA.

Low Cal Cupcakes

I had a crazy idea. What if I made a crocheted cupcake, inspired by the crocheted tablescape at The Wayne Arts Center for holiday presents? Could I do it and did I have the time?

First I found a pattern that I thought was very cute. It was created by Teresa Richardson. There's also a video with it. A no-brainer? Not for this brain. I haven't crocheted since I was a child. And there were some unusual steps. I watched the video. Huh??? It was just too advanced for me. But I was driven. I had to make those cupcakes - 10 to be exact!

What's a girl to do? I called my friend Nancy. She is up for any challenge. She loves to knit, but hadn't crocheted for a while. But indeed she decided to give it a try. And success! I went to see her, armed with a crochet hook and some yarn, ready for my first lesson. The cupcake Nancy made was just adorable.

Here is the result of my crochet lesson (and many hours of crocheting and uncrocheting) and the drive to make my friends giggle! (I know, it does seem like I have too much time on my hands.) I loved making the cherries.

And now Nancy is hooked! She made me a doughnut. I love it. I'm tempted. Should I try another low cal baked good? I think my baking days are over.

New Fabric

I love this fabric, especially the green with the blue polka dots. It makes my heart sing. (I think I will use it for my border.) Blue and green is one of my favorite combinations. It's a Henry Glass fabric, designed by Barbara Jones of Quilt Soup. It's a mixture of her Bubblegum Basics line and the brand new Simply Sweet . It's for a project for my upcoming book. They were thrilled that I am using their fabric and so am I.

Our Family Expands

Sorry for the lack of posts. Not much sewing going on, but lots of other stuff. Life is good!

On November 21st, there was a wedding in our family. My son married his long time girlfriend. They had been dating for 7 1/2 years and were planning on getting married in May 2010 in Philly at a beautiful venue. We, as the groom's parents were planning the rehearsal dinner for all of the out of town guests in town, as a "Taste of Philly". We all were willing to limit our guests to live within their budget. 100 invitees. So, what happened?

In October, the couple invited us out to dinner to "discuss some wedding issues". We knew something was up, because when I was talking about the rehearsal dinner with my son, he asked me if the deposit was refundable. Refundable????

So at dinner, the news was broken. They were getting married by the end of the year. Cancel all the Philly plans. The wedding hooplah and everything so "over the top" had gotten to them. They "just wanted to be married". Immediate family only, 15 guests. At our place on a small lake in the Pocono Mtns - in Pennsylvania, down by the lake where my sons had spent their childhood summers.

I have a daughter!!!! Welcome to the family, the new Mrs. Lynch.

Published in Hebrew!

This is just amazing. Ami Simms, curator of The Alzheimers:Forgetting Piece By Piece exhibit (among other things) sent me a copy of this publication. It's in Hebrew! From Israel! From their Alzheimer's Association. The page on the right, with a quilt by Kate Laucomer, is the cover. My quilt, "Leaving Us" is pictured inside. I told Ami if she is heading to Israel, I would be happy to carry her bags! (She's not.)

















Ami has many irons in the fire. Check out the website: http://www.alzquilts.org/ . There are lots of small quilts for sale. There is merchandise for sale with the logo on it and the most exciting thing is a quilt smack down! Quilts by noted quilters, Hollis Chatelaine, Sue Nickels, John Flynn and Becky Goldsmith are for auction and the competition is heating up. Check it out and see all the wonderful work Ami et al has done to raise awareness and money for Alzheimer's.

The Joy of Teaching

I received an e-mail last week from one of my students from a workshop I gave at the
Loose Threads Quilt Guild in Spring City, PA. Linda Hamel sent me a photo of her finished project. Woo hoo Linda, you did a great job. There were a lot of people that attended the workshop and it was a lot of fun for me to share my knowledge, teaching them many tricks that they didn't know their computer could do.

It has been a little frustrating for me this Fall, because of a wonderful opportunity that I have. The bad news is that I have not been able to share a lot of what I have been working on recently. And I have been working on a lot. The good news is that I am working on a book to be published by Martingale. It is slated to be released in January of 2011. I do really love to share what I know about quilting with others, especially the design and inspiration part. The computer is an integral part of my process and I want everyone to be able to get more out of it.

This year, I made a concerted effort to get my name out there and actually started getting booked for guild lectures and workshops. I am pretty eclectic and have several topics that I talk about. You can check them out on my website under lectures. I have been thrilled with the response.

When I do teach, I feel that anything that is in my head is yours for the asking. I know that not every teacher feels that way, but I feel that if you go to the trouble and expense to bring me to your guild: if I know it, I'll share it. One of the best parts of teaching is when you see your student's work, like Linda's.

Here are samples of what people can make in my Personalize It workshop. Learning to use the computer to manipulate photos, make fusible alphabet appliques, print on fabric and do embellishing are all part of a chock full day.

I would love to come and speak to your group. Quilters are the most warm and wonderful people. It would be fun to meet you and share what I know. Drop me an e-mail.

It Was A Martha Week

Martha Stewart, that is. And I am not afraid to say that I admire her. She has elevated cooking, crafting and cleaning from a housewifey thing to something to be admired and taken seriously. Her self-promotion gets on my nerves sometimes, but you have to take the little bit of bad with the good.
On Monday, Martha was doing a book signing for her new book, "Martha Stewart's Dinner At Home". It was at a Williams Sonoma Store at the King of Prussia Mall - once the largest mall in the US. You had to purchase the book from Williams Sonoma to have the privilege of getting a ticket to stand in line to see Martha. Free mini cupcakes, baked from a recipe in her book, were available to help pass the time waiting on line. The line snaked through the mall. It was so exciting and the time passed pretty quickly. As I was debating about who to have her inscribe the book to - do I give it as a gift or do I keep it for myself? - we were told that Martha was not personalizing the book. Decision made! That was easy.
As we got closer and closer, it became more and more structured. Have the leaf flap of your book here, no photographs here, only photographs there, etc.... Considering how many people were there and that we were close to the end of the line, she was delightful.
That's me in the blue. Can you see one of her bodyguards in the background?

So if that wasn't enough Martha, Wednesday a gang of us had tickets to go to the Martha Stewart show in NYC. I had to leave my house, in suburban Philadelphia at 4:30 AM. Our fearless leader, who obtained the tickets, got us to Manhattan in record time. We grabbed some breakfast and got on line at about 8 AM. Once we were allowed inside, we signed in, had our purses searched and then waited.

If you watch the show, you're familiar with Joey - a kind of goofy sometimes sidekick. Well, he was our warm-up guy. He instructed us on the finer art of hand clapping and sound effects like Mmmmmmmmm!During our wait, we could purchase items from the Martha wall. Who couldn't use a Martha hoodie? (It's a good thing.)


Then we filed into the studio.
It was huge and was laid out in a horizontal orientation. The audience was much larger than I expected. I think it was about 165 people. There was seating on the floor right in front of Martha. We found out that you had to "know somebody" to be seated there. (That's our fearless leaders next goal.)
Emeril was a guest, cooking from his new book - 20, 40 60. And YES! we got a copy of his book as a freebie. The show is live in NY, but not in Philly. The hour flew by. It was so much fun . We're all ready to go again. It IS a good thing.