Honorable Mention

It's been a while since I said it but THANKS once again to all of you kind folks who leave such sweet and inspiring comments for me. I am always touched that you lend me your attention.

Along those lines, I can't tell you how excited I was when I recently visited Paula Prass's blog Show & Tell to find I was featured there - it totally took my breath away!
Paula is a fabric designer for Michael Miller Fabrics and creator of the beautiful Flights of Fancy collection. Of all the lovely things being made with her fabrics, I am incredibly honored that she chose to include my magazine sized totes ("mag bags") on her blog. This was several days ago and I'm still reeling! To have a fabulous designer such as Paula recognize my humble work makes me feel as if I've been sprinkled with stardust.
Thank you Paula, what an honor!

Here are the featured bags.

And another, later creation from the same line.

Switching channels now, I got another little thrill this morning when I got see my quilt block stitched into place on one of the Project Improv quilt tops over at Jacquie's Tallgrass Prairie Studio. Jacquie and her helpers are working to transform these donated blocks into lovely work-of-art quilts for charity. I am so grateful for their hard work and proud to be a part of such a meaningful project. What a nice start to my day. :)
Can you find it? Center row, far right.

Project Improv . . . and more

Some of my blog friends are familiar with Project Improv, the brainstorm of Jacquie over at Tallgrass Prairie Studio. Jacquie creates the most incredible quilts. They are not typical traditional quilts meticulously pieced from classic patterns, but instead they are "break free" quilts where blocks take on a modern, freeform style. I've admired her quilts for some time now and when she unveiled Project Improv, which calls for participants to make an improvisational quilt block and donate it for a quilt for charity, I took the plunge and joined. I've made quilts but not like this. Making this improv block was an experience. My only guideline was the color family I chose - blue & green. This took me longer than I thought it should have - I was thinking, moving colors and pieces. But I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Most importantly, now I know I can do it and I'm seeing an improv quilt in my future! Thanks Jacquie for prompting me to discover something new. I'm excited.

. . . about a few things. I've shared this with people in my life but hadn't yet made the announcement here. Last fall my husband and I spent a week of vacation at Hillman Ferry Campground in the Land Between the Lakes. There, hours from home at a campground in Kentucky, we met Jerry and Kathy, a charming and fun couple also from Illinois with ties to our hometowns. Jerry and Kathy are seasonal workers at the campground. We had fun talking with them and by the end of the week they were sharing with us details of their seasonal work and . . . well, to make a long story short, Randy & I will be heading to Kentucky in the next few weeks to work at Hillman Ferry.

Which means I won't have many sewing projects to show you over the summer months but maybe I'll find something to blog about nevertheless. I hope you won't be too disappointed. It's an exciting time for us and we are anxious to begin our new adventure.

I'll leave you with a recalled picture from our trip last fall. Doesn't this make you want to go along?