You might be wondering what I’ve been up to – a combination of real world job overtime, as a result the ridiculous hours, a touch of bronchitis (I think, too stubborn to go to the Doctor) and two quilt shows. The Ugly news – due to a corporate buy out, there’s been a

management change at my real world job = lots of extra hours.  The Bad News – yup, been sick for about 3 weeks and still coughing too much.

And quickly on to the Good News – my Mom and I vended at the Eastern Long Island Quilt Show (ELIQS) for the second year.  Lots of friendly quilters to chat with, did a couple demo’s so I have a scarf almost complete, went to dinner with Oh So Sally and friends which was great!!

Two weeks later, and still sick it was off to Vermont Quilt Festival (VQF) with my Mom and my Aunt to see the show and have a mini-quilt retreat. We stopped at an antique shop on the way up and , since I seem to be addicted to the history of textiles (from chintz manufacturing, to whole cloths and crazy quilts, and beyond) I was excited to find a book on 500 years of Samplers.

Did you know the Samplers were more intricate in the 1600’s & 1700’s because sewing skills were considered more important than writing or math in the classroom for women? Society actually thought women would die young from the stress on their brains of learning what we take for granted now.  So, successful shopping at the antique shop and at the show where I purchased an antique tape measure I’ll write about another time.

As for the quilt retreat – I’m working on a “contained” crazy quilt for my lecture and got 15 blocks done – YEEAAAHHH!!! We finalized the sashing, which – thank you Aunt Wendy – became three pieces of sashing instead of one (but  it does look better).  I bought the revised sashing fabric at the quilt show, however I am on the hunt for another yard of the additional fabric for binding.

For those of you who ordered clothes, sorry I’m behind I’ll be finishing the dyeing up this weekend and will send pictures shortly. More project pictures to come, back to my three – four seams each morning –  it takes me a while but this way it gets done.