Best Wishes – Page 2 – Artquiltmaker Blog

Happy 4th of July

For those of you who celebrate, Happy Independence Day! For those of you who do not celebrate, have a great day.

My wish, again, for this 4th (although it is not a gift giving holiday) is that we return to kindness, civility and working together to make a better future for our children. I have wished this before for various reasons. Post pandemic, I hope it will be easier to incorporate some of these traits into our lives as a society.

Birthday Extravaganza

My birthday was last week and I received A LOT of gifts. It was so nice of everyone to think of me again.

Modern Handmade Purchases - January 2021 — Modern Handmade Purchases – January 2021

I also got to go and use a gift card I received in December at Modern Handmade. I haven’t been to a quilt shop in ages and that one is definitely a favorite.

Friend Julie met me there. While we were waiting for the shop to open, Julie gave me a large bag of gifts, which included a Mini Oliso iron and Mini Maker Case!!

She always knows what to get for me. I love the Mini Maker Case, but I am also really excited about the The Elements of Color** book. Johannes Itten is a master of color. I use his color wheel, called the Color Star**, all the time

In the evening, my mom came over and brought a cake (made from the wonderful Alternative Baker** cookbook) along with some of my favorite Jamoca Almond Fudge ice cream. It was great to see her and my stepdad. I don’t get to see them enough with this COVID thing going on. It was great to be able to have a little visit.

UPDATED 2/8/2021:

I got two other gifts after I wrote this post. I want all the gifts to be in one post. I received the 10 inch Clammy**, which means I have a full set. I still have to try them out. After reading the directions, I am pretty excited about trying it. I have long wanted to piece circles into a background. I took a class a long time ago, but I think the Clammy method might be less fiddly. What I also need for my birthday is a quilt patron: someone who will pay me a salary and I can just sew to my heart’s content. A girl can dream, right?

I have a rotating cutting mat, but I don’t really like it because it is square. I frequently get hit in the stomach by one of the corners. It’s not like I get injured or anything, but it is annoying. This new rotating mat**, from my darling YM, is round. I don’t get hit in the stomach, which I like, and I have been trying it out with some of the shapes I am teaching my students lately.

**I use affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this blog.

Happy New Year!

I thought I would pull out my photo of my beloved Pooh in his Happy New Year gear. Last year my wish was to have another year of exchanging quiltmaking and sewing information. I hope we achieved that. I made my best effort with all of my posting and sewing.

Let’s hope 2021 isn’t quite as crazy as 2020, but that we can still exchange quiltmaking and sewing. I plan to sew a lot.

Merry Christmas

Best wishes for a great Christmas!

If you don’t celebrate, I hope you have a great day.

Happy Thanksgiving

I’ll be fortunate to get any sewing in today even though we are only having 4 guests. I’ll let you know tomorrow or this weekend how it all went.

Have a GREAT Thanksgiving!

Happy Independence Day

For those of you who celebrate, Happy Independence Day! For those of you who do not celebrate, have a great day.

My wish, again, for this 4th is that we practice kindness, civility and work together to make a better future for our children. I think, especially, in this pandemic time that we help others in the ways that we can.

**Yes, I used this same image last year and think it is even more appropriate this year.

15 Years of Artquiltmaker Blog

Today is my 15 year Blogiversary. 15 YEARS!!!I’d love to have a party, but since we are sheltering in place, it will have to be virtual.

5 years ago I wrote my 10 year anniversary post and can’t believe another 5 years have elapsed. I guess I blinked.

Have you been with me the whole time?

I started Artquiltmaker Blog because I had hit a big milestone and I wanted to start something new and send my life in a new direction and practice writing. My first post was not stellar. I remember being distinctly uncomfortable and not knowing what to write. I got better though and even later in May 2005, I was posting real content. Short, not every day, but real content. Now I just blather on at ease and start to get twitchy if I don’t write regularly.

At the end of 2008 I moved the blog over to WordPress.

In 2008 and 2009, I started trying to post every day. It took some time to work up to that schedule. I still try to post every day and mostly succeed, though sometimes I forget, get busy or have nothing to talk about.

This forum has really helped me to move forward in my work. Writing this blog has forced me to make lists of projects and stick to working on those projects. I have enjoyed seeing comments from people, getting to see the work of different quiltmakers via Instagram and Twitter and even meeting a few in person.

I really enjoyed looking through the photos to pick the ones I wanted to add to the gallery when I wrote my 10 year post. I decided to look through the last 5 years worth of photos and pick some of that work for you to review.