Excellence and Quality!     A Simply Beautiful Book!

These are just a few of the well-deserved superlatives which come to mind when looking at, and reading, Linda's book. The pictures and diagrams are crisp and crystal clear. The pages are glossy and the settings are attractive, making every page a real pleasure to view. Linda has put the book together perfectly. This is a quilt book to plan and dream on. It includes:

- 101 new, beautiful, full-sized diamond patterns.
- an actual size pattern per page.
- colour photos of the front and back views of each diamond.
- each diamond, sewn by Linda, in three different fabric and colour combinations.
- setting ideas for each diamond.
- comments or tips on the bottom of every page.
- complete, detailed instructions for hand piecing with freezer paper templates.
- step-by-step, detailed photographs on every instruction page.
- tips for using the diamonds in clothing and on tote bags.
- a lagniappe!

Lagniappe is a chiefly southern Louisiana and Mississippi term, which denotes a little bonus that a friendly shopkeeper might add to a purchase, or an extra or unexpected gift. The lagniappe that Linda gives with this book is a 2-hour DVD!

With this DVD, you meet Linda who becomes your own, personal, private teacher. She explains and demonstrates the basic sewing skills and details of hand piecing step by step, and shows us the tools needed along with useful extras. These lessons match those in the book, so you can refer to it as you follow along. The DVD's menu allows you to skip segments, or watch one repeatedly, or choose the demonstrations you most want to see.

Linda is such an excellent teacher that you can hardly wait to start hand piecing, a skill which opens up wonderful, new, exciting, quilting possibilities. Learn how chocolate is a delightfully surprising part of it all!

Linda also offers the option of purchasing a CD to go with her book. It includes all 101 diamond patterns. Electric Quilt Software (EQ 4 or EQ 5) is required to use the CD. If you have the software, you can design more diamonds, change or colour the ones included, and print them. If you absolutely insist on machine piecing, the patterns can be enlarged.

As Jane Austen wrote in her book Emma, “Why not seize the pleasure at once?”

This is the seventh book in Jennifer's wonderful Elm Creek series. The story's setting is Pennsylvania just before the Civil War.

Young Dorothea is a teacher and an accomplished quilter. She is confused by her uncle's request that she make him a quilt according to his own specifications. She wonders about the four unusual patterns he insists upon her using.

After his death, Dorothea discovers hidden clues in the quilt. Deciphering them leads her into danger. She must reach deep into herself for courage, strength, and wisdom.

Jennifer is a skilled writer and draws readers into her stories immediately. Her books are difficult to put down. The Sugar Camp Quilt is a good mystery on its own. The addition of quilts and quilt history make it an absolutely irresistible read for all quilters and quilt lovers.

Visit Jennifer's site to learn more about her books. If you are new to them, be sure to read the preceding six. You will thoroughly enjoy each and every one!

This book belongs in every quilters library! It introduces new and exciting possibilities!

Quilters without embroidery machines will be pleased to learn that they, too, can stitch alphabets in the sizes and styles of their choice!

Quilters with embroidery machines will be happy to know that they are no longer restricted to the sizes and styles that come with their machines!

By following the directions in Nancy's book, we learn how to use our own writing, reproduce someone else's, or use computer fonts, to write anything we desire on our quilts.

Nancy teaches us lovely ways to personalize our patterns with writing. Her book
includes four pages of sample projects in colour, plus complete, step by step
instructions for calligraphy with thread. Her instructions are well written and easy
to understand and follow.

Just imagine how thrilled our children and grandchildren will be to find their names and special messages on the quilts you make them - messages written in mom's, or grandma's, or dad's (for example) handwriting!

Quilt Tools

Omnigrip™ Rulers

Most quilters are familiar with Omnigrid® Rulers, but may not yet have heard of the newer, Omnigrip™ Rulers. Both are made by Prym-Dritz.

The two are very similar, with a few notable exceptions.

The Omnigrip™ have clear, green and black markings instead of the familiar yellow and black of the Omnigrid®.

Although they are not apparent in this photo of my ruler, the solid fraction lines have black dots at the half and quarter inch marks, making accuracy even quicker and easier to obtain.

Best of all, the special coating on the back makes the rulers non-slip! There is no need to purchase grips, attach sandpaper, or use any any other method to keep these rulers from slipping. Very handy indeed!

To see the many sizes available, visit the Prym-Dritz site.

To purchase these rulers, visit Quilters' Fancy.

Questions and Answers

Questions are answered by our quilting team of Edna, Elaine, Hancey, and Maria. We sometimes call on other well-known experts.

Q: How do you decide which quilting tools and books to feature? - Marlene S.

A: Most of the quilting tools I have chosen are the ones I use myself. Some have been recommended to me by other quilters. Some have been sent to me to try out for the express purpose of reviewing them here.

The same applies to the books. Some are books in my own collection, others come from my local library, and still others are sent to me by quilt book authors to review.

Q: It is very hard for me to choose fabric colours when I am making quilts, especially when I can't find the fabrics used in the pattern. What can I do? - Naomi W.

A: When you purchase a print fabric, there are usually, colour markings repeated along the selvedges. These are the colours used in that particular fabric. You can use them as a guide to choosing other colours which will work well together in your quilt.

Not Mushroom

April's winner is: LOBO@.....................

May's winner is: rejenneke@.................

June's winner is : dpalumbo@.....................

Congratulations! You have each won our Not Mushroom pattern PDF format.

Please email me to verify your email address and claim your free pattern. Patterns can be claimed up to the time the next issue is published.

*Please note: Winners will need the free download of Adobe Acrobat Reader - version 5 or higher - to print their patterns.

Humour

"This time I mean it," she said. Joan, my darling wife, was standing at the foot of the stairs, looking up toward the doorway that led into her sewing room, her quilting room. She had been standing there several moments, quiet, breathing softly, but her breath changed and became hard as she spoke out.

"You always mean it," I said. I was not yet aware of what she was saying, but as she is the woman I cherish, and because of her tone of voice, I accepted what she said. If she meant it, she meant it, whatever it was.

"I never was sure before," she said.

"Sure about what?" I asked. She was always sure, I was sure.

"I'm going to quit quilting," she said, and before I could say something in my surprise, she went on. "Yes, yes, I know I said it before, but my decision is made and it's final this time."

I wanted to say, "Ho, ho, ho," but for the last few days she had been walking around in a mope, her face drawn, her eyes downcast, a look of permanent sorrow on the edge of showing up. "It was only bad directions," I said, "or maybe the fact that you ran out of the fabric you needed," I added, "or maybe you just need a few days off."

"I need a lot of days off. I need forever off," she said.

"Well, if you're sure?"

"I quit," she said.

"What about all your unfinished quilts, all the fabric, all the thread?" I asked.

"What about them?"

"You're going to leave a lot of unfinished business if you quit quilting," I said.

"Are you trying to talk me out of quitting quilting?" she asked. She stood by the kitchen table, one hand on the back of her chair.

"Could I talk you out of anything?" I asked in return.

She sat and pulled the chair in under her. I tried to tell from her look, her countenance, her lips and eyes and skin what she was thinking, what she was feeling, but her face kept changing, her features bright then dim then blank then animated. "I'm ready for lunch," she said.

"Why are you quitting this time?"

"I've quilted enough," she said.

"You tried quitting before, going cold turkey, but it never worked," I said. I had said that before. I had listened to her complain before, too, about too much quilting, not enough time, not enough fabric, not enough room in the house. "So, how do you intend to break your habit, kick your addiction?"

"I just quit," she said.

"Just? Like just now?"

"Oh, yes, indeed," she said.

"Hah," I said.

We went for a walk then. We went shopping after that. Then we worked for a while in the yard. Four hours went by. In mid-afternoon, she turned to me as we began to clean out a shed in the yard.

"See," she said.

"See what?" The shed was a mess. I could see that.

"See, I haven't quilted in four hours."

"That's not a long time," I said.

"For a quilter it's a lifetime," she said.

"Hah," I said.

We finished cleaning the shed.

We had dinner and then went for another walk.

We watched television before going to bed.

"Eight hours," she said.

"Is that a new television show?" I asked.

"I haven't quilted for eight hours, and I don't miss it one bit. I don't miss cutting and sewing and ironing and sewing and cutting and quilting at all."

"Hah," I said.

In the morning, she said, "Sixteen hours. Maybe more. I'm wondering I should give my fabric away?"

"Why would you do that. You know whatever you give away will be the exact fabric you need for your next quilt."

"There won't be a next quilt. I've quit and I feel fine. No twinges of remorse, no regrets, no sorrows. Maybe now my fingers will stop hurting and my back will straighten out once in a while and my eyes won't hurt from the strain of threading a needle which I won't stick in my thumb."

"So you're getting serious about quitting for real?"

"What have I been saying?"

"You've been telling me that you've been a little under the quilting weather, that you haven't been inspired lately, that you need some breathing space."

"I feel fine. My head is clear. I have no fever. I am not trembling. No withdrawal symptoms."

"Sounds good to me," I said. Actually, it didn't. I couldn't tell what was going on yet, but something was going on. Perhaps symptoms would manifest themselves in time. I needed to think of how to deal with them, with her, when that time came. That time wasn't yet.

It was during our afternoon walk, during another stretch of time that day that she wasn't quilting, that we stopped in a friend's coin shop. His wife was pregnant, had been for several months. For the fourth or fifth time we asked whether it was a boy or a girl. Previously, he had answered with a shrug and a "We don't know yet. It's still a baby."

This time we didn't ask him. "Aren't you going to ask?" he asked.

"About what?" I said.

"The baby," he said.

"How is the boy?" my darling asked.

"Who told you?"

"So it's a boy? Congratulations!" I said. We both smiled at him and he smiled back. He and his wife had wanted a boy or a girl. It was a fifty-fifty guess.

"October," he said.

"A boy," my Darling Wife said, the two words a song coming from between her lips. There was a glint in her eyes.

We continued our walk, went shopping again for home necessities, and finally arrived home. As I opened the trunk of the car to remove some groceries and paper goods, she disappeared into the house. Well, maybe she was making tea. It was tea time. But when I went into the kitchen, she wasn't there. I put the groceries in the kitchen, went back to the car and took the 18-roll package of toilet paper we had bought and carefully climbed the stairs. I saw her in her sewing room. I dropped the toilet paper in the hall and went to her.

She stood by her sewing machine. She just stood there looking down at the machine. I turned my look away from her head and looked down along her body, down her arms. In one hand she held a piece of blue fabric.

"It's going to be a boy," she said to the fabric. I doubt if she noticed me.

"What is?" I asked.

"The baby," she said, still without looking at me.

"And?" I had to ask the question. What was she doing with fabric in her hand and a dazed gaze staring at the sewing machine. "Whose baby?"

"Danny and Tina's baby. Who do you think?"

"I don't know. Barbara, Mary, Gretta. Andrea. Lois? A million women have babies every day."

"We don't know them. And Danny and Tina's baby will need a quilt," she said.

"He will? Already?" October was still months away and summer was only a few days off. The baby would probably stay warm where it was for awhile.

"A boy baby quilt," she said.

"Who's going to make the quilt?" I asked. I just had to ask.

For the first time since I had come into the room she looked away from the sewing machine toward me. "I am, of course," she said, and she gave me a very strange look, strange even for a quilter. "I have to get started."

"So, no quitting quilting?" I asked.

"How can I quit now?" she said as she turned her gaze back to the sewing machine. She was done with me, but she wasn't done with quilting.

"Hah," I said.

Copyright 2005 by A.B. Silver
Used with Popser's permission.

For more of Popser's wonderful humour and quilt stories, visit Popser's Playground.
For perfect gifts for quilters, purchase either or both of his two books:

A Year in the Life......52 Weeks of Quilting Stories by Popser.
A Year in the Life.......12 Months of Sewing Stories by Popser.

Thoughts

Happiness is an inside job.

- William Arthur Ward

A grandfather was talking to his grandson, telling him, "I have two wolves barking inside of me. The first wolf is filled with anger, hatred, bitterness, and mostly revenge. The second wolf inside me is filled with love, kindness, compassion, and mostly forgiveness.

"Which wolf do you think will win?" the young boy inquired.

The grandfather responded, "Whichever one I feed."

- from The Power of Intention by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Newsletter Archives
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