After having previewed over 150 cat quits The folks at Quilt Inspiration chose their 15 favorites and my KITTY CORNER CATS pattern was among them! You can see the quilts and the article here. Be sure to click on ‘older post’ to see the cats in the first two installments, or use the link below for the whole site.

I knew cats were popular with quilters, but who knew there were so many patterns available?! Quilt Inspirations is a cool place where I could spend way too much time!

I have been super busy the last few weeks producing four 12 x 12 pieces for my Artist of the Month show in September at The Topeka Art Guild Gallery. I wanted to do six, but I waited just too long! They are all finished except for the hand sewing on the back. Well, this one is all finished.

Inspired by the wren baby photo that I took earlier this summer, combined with one of the feeding parent.

During this time period I got word that the photo deadline for new pattern Market ads was Aug 27, so over the weekend I whipped out a larger version that will become a new picture piecing patten for fall. This will finish at about 24″square like the others in the series.

Yesterday I layered and basted it and got started on the quilting, there’s no time to waste!

I’ve been quilting off and on all week and have the piece less than half finished. As usual I am putting an insane amount of quilting on it.

It is still in the machine so I had to get close to snap this photo which seemed a little washed out so I adjusted the intensity and don’t know how accurate it will look on other monitors.

The dishwasher decided to die and the repair man said it would be cheaper to buy a new one than to repair it so that entailed a couple of trips to town. My appliances are Bisque – decisions, decisions – upgrade to Stainless? Our kitchen is small and dark so we decided to stay with Bisque. The salesman said some companies are phasing out Bisque, so we decided to go ahead and get a new refrigerator too while we still could. Probably should replace the stove soon as well! Then we should be good to go for another 10 years which unfortunately seems to be the predicted life span of new appliances these days.

I’m running out of Coneflowers patterns, so had to take the time to update that and get it to the printer – that’s a couple of hours trip – and today we have to go and pick them up. So it’s been a crazy week and again today I will not get to quilt very much.

Mon Grand Pere is showing at Denver National and won second place in the wall hangings! The two quilts arrived home yesterday in good shape from AQS along with the ribbon from Lancaster. No judge’s comments, which may come separately.

I’ve been busily packaging the new Bluebird pattern and it’s ready to go! Third in the series of Picture Piecing patterns, these have proven to be very popular! Straight seam piecing with color and numerical sewing order listed makes it easy for anyone to create a lovely wall hanging.

I first offered “Bluebird” for sale in Oklahoma and it went well – I’m so glad people are finding them fun to do! Check out the Pattern section of the website to see all of the patterns available!

What’s been happening? Well, on the quilting front, I finished the pattern for “BLUEBIRD”, sent the cover copy off to Ohio to the printer and took the pattern to the local printer. I hope to have that ready to sell soon.

Two quilts have returned home, “Just Dandy” with a nice First Place check from AQS and “Nasturtiums” from IQA where it has toured for the past year with “In Full Bloom”. It was nice to see it again – it’s bigger than I remembered!

The acceptance letters for “Packrat Palace” to go to the PA National Mancuso Show, and for “Watermelon Wine” and “A Promise Of Springtime” to go to the SAQA Tactile Fluency exhibit in St Louis this fall have arrived.

The Topeka Art Guild Gallery’s new show includes two of my pieces. “Lady Godiva” and “Myth In The Mist”. I spent all day Thursday there fulfilling my obligation to give them 6 hours a month manning the Gallery. During the non busy times I worked on my book keeping and then finished up at home so I would be caught up before my upcoming trips. So much to do, so little time!

I’m in the process of sorting and packing for my trip later this week to Wichita for two lectures and a “Coneflowers” workshop. Pulling fabrics to demonstrate yet one more Coneflowers piece is always fun. There are SO many options!

The Bluebird piece is underway! I want to enter this in the Aullwood Audubon Center’s exhibit with a May 15 deadline.

Thursday I had to do some shipping so while I was in town, I visited the exhibits at the Topeka Art Guild Gallery and at the Warehouse 414 which both had art quilts on display. the pieces at the warehouse, by Leslie Jenison of Texas were very nice and I enjoyed seeing them in the setting of Mid Century Modern furniture, architectural salvage and antiques. One of my pieces at the TAG, Bathsheba, received a first place ribbon!

Yesterday we drove out to collect a printing of 2000 more Third Weekend In October patterns – that was sure a good decision to go ahead and write a pattern for that quilt! It is my best seller with nearly 30,000 copies sold!

It was nice to see that the redbud trees are starting to bloom and recent rains have really greened things up – time to look for morels!

But today I sew!

Another week passed–where did it go? IQF Spring Festival is going on without me this year. I guess I am glad not to be in the mess that is air travel right now!

“Just Dandy” was not deemed dandy enough to be amongst the winners this year. If you want to see what DID win, go here . Congratulations to the winners!
Most of the week was spent trying to get the taxes done; for many years now, I have done them myself with the help of TurboTax, but it gets harder every year! This year it was impossible to download the updates and state forms and of course the fact that I am running late didn’t help! I had panicked Wed when the recorded voice said it would take two weeks to get the CDs and I was unable to talk to a “real person”. An email to HELP resulted in an offer to send them overnight but by the time I got that, I had already made arrangements for a tax professional to do them. A good thing, too, because when the CDs finally did come I was apparently unable to load them correctly and everything I had done prior was lost. It has been a trying week to say the least, but one good thing has come from it. From now on the taxes will be done by the professional and I feel like a very heavy weight has been lifted from my shoulders!!

The new pattern quilt is still on the design wall and I am making slow progress on it between other things. It’s scrappy and I had not bought any new fabric for it, but yesterday I realized that none of my white with black prints were large enough so I did have to go out and shop for more fabric. That’s always fun!