1,000th Post Celebration

This post is number 1,000 for Fleur de Lis Quilts!  I can barely believe it!  Not quite five years ago I began blogging with one intent: to write about my quilting and have a way of documenting my growth as a quilter, teacher and human.  At 50 it became important to me to look back on my life and see what kind of difference I was making in the world.  

At first I was uncomfortable with telling the world about myself. I'm not a shy person, but it took a bit of humility to convince myself that my truth could be shared.  I read many, many other blogs and just jumped in.  Eventually, I became comfortable with more than just blogging about my quilting, teaching, and life.  I've even begun writing about my family.  I've sense taken on another purpose: that of sharing our beautiful state and our traditions.  

Just as I've grown into blogging, I've grown in quilting.  As a writer I've had several tutorials posted on Totally Tutorials and a couple of quilt patterns published in The Quilt Pattern Magazine. 

As a quilter I've seen "Reflections in Grey" juried into QuiltCon 2014, several of my small quilts were sold to raise money for Alzheimer's through AAQI.  (It is now over, but you can read an article about AAQI here.)  Finally, I received a request from American Made Brand to create the Louisiana license plate block for their quilt representing all 50 states.  The finished quilt was shown in Houston in 2014.  In these almost five years, I have grown as a quilter, a teacher, and a writer/blogger.  But there are others to thank for this, my husband Richard, especially. Knowing that he is the butt of oh, so many remarks, he takes it all in stride and turns much of it around on me.  I sometimes even deserve it.

Richard and I cannot take any credit, though.  Since I occasionally write about my Catholic beliefs, you have likely already figured that I give God credit for all that's been accomplished. Preaching to come later, however.  

Tonight is about celebrating all that He has allowed and given: growth, learning, and YOU!  My readers are a great inspiration. Your views and comments encourage, inspire, and reassure.  So a huge part of this celebration is saying thank you.  Thank you for coming back again and again.  Thank you for reading my silliness and not calling me goofy on a daily basis. Thank you for everything you offer in suggestions, comments, and questions.  Thank you for including me at guild meetings, in blog hops, in online quilt bees and so much more. Thank you for writing your own blogs, for having blog parties, for the giveaways, for everything you do as a quilter and blogger. 

Giveaway for Clothworks' AMB Farm to Fabric Challenge!

Clothworks Presents

Farm to Fabric Challenge

This post is a challenge and a giveaway! American Made Brand has a great challenge going on and some lucky designers will have their quilts in the Houston Quilt Show!  Now this is a challenge worth taking.  Plus, it's for everybody who creates quilts from their own designs!

AMB wants to get the word out about its challenge, so they've asked several bloggers to spread the word and are offering this great tote as a giveaway prize .

You can help spread the word and have a chance to win this useful tote (without the veggies, of course).  Because time is running short, I'm going to ask you to blitz the internet: use whatever social media you have--Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, your blog, Flickr, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, 3rdRevolution, etc. You have three days, so hurry!  Entries close on July 30 at 5 p.m. Wednesday evening  I'll choose a winner.

Get out there and blitz, buzz, and bark! Now I need to know what you do, so come back to this post and leave a note. Every, yes every, time you write about this challenge you can come back and enter!  So if you share on Twitter, FB, and Flickr, you have three opportunities!  It's that easy.

Info from the Clothworks website.

The Particulars [or the rules]

• Any techniques may be used – piecing, applique’, embroidery, photo transfer, whole cloth or manipulated fabric, etc.
• You may submit at most two quilts for our consideration.  Quilts must be a minimum of 25” x 25” and must have hanging sleeves attached.
• Quilts must be made specifically for the challenge and must not have been published in books, calendars, magazines, newsletters, websites, blogs or any other form of publication prior to November 2014.
• Completed submissions with visuals must be received no later than Friday, August 15, 2014. 
• You will be notified no later than Friday, September 5, 2014, regarding quilts chosen to be included in this exhibit along with shipping instructions. 
• If selected, quilts will need to arrive in Houston no later than Wednesday, October 1, 2014.
• Quilts will be returned by the end of December 2014 if quilt does not travel, or arrangements made to have a quilt picked up at the conclusion of the show.
• If you agree to allow your quilt to travel, your quilt will be returned by the end of August 2015.
• Open to US residents.

Timeline Overview

Announcement and preview – March 2014
Registration open – June 15 to August 15, 2014
Notification by – September 5, 2014
Accepted quilts arrive in Houston by – October 1, 2014
Quilts returned to owner – December 2014, or August 2015 if traveling.

How to Enter

Registration is now open. The last day to register is August 15, 2014 until midnight CDT.

To preview the registration forms, click here.

Please use a standard browser (i.e., Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox) for optimum performance. We recommend Firefox and Safari as the most reliable browsers. This site does not support IE 10.

To submit your entry on-line, click this button to start: 

When you have completed your registration, be sure to print a copy of the confirmation page for your records.

AMB Blog Quilt

This isn't really a quilt, it's a collage of all the blocks that were created for the blog tour.  

Michele of QuiltsFromMyCrayonBox did an awesome job of creating these two collages so that we could get a sense of how nice the quilt will be when it is complete.  

The real quilt will be at the Houston International Quilt show, and I am very anxious to see the final version.  Until then, however, this will have to do.  But it's it stunning?

June guild meeting

I realized today that I never told you about our June guild meeting. I don't know why that would be.  I guess it just slipped my mind. Shame, that.  I was the presenter and I had such a blast.  

I was tasked with explaining how I create my art quilts.  Not an easy task since I don't record my process in any way.  I pretty much fly by the seat of my pants, in a creative sort of way.  I did manage to think about my process and figure out the order of things.  I even took time to make a teaching quilt so that I could show members the steps I use.
 












Apparently we've had some confusion as to who was supposed to serve as hostesses, which means that we had food for days!  That was not a problem, but one of the members came up with a good idea--a sign up form so that each person could put her name on the month she wants to bring food and dessert.

Of course, we had show and tell.  I showed both my license plate block, explaining to the group that it will appear at the Houston Quilt Show.  I also showed my Dresden plate quilt.  

The other quilts that were shown were gorgeous.  I really like the unusual block in this brown and blue quilt.  Check out the block in the second row.

My sweet friend Pam took some time to explain how the blocks are made in her quilt, then showed it to us.  I got a pretty good picture of Pam, but missed the quilt.

Have you noticed that every picture has a little white head?  It's impossible to snap a picture without one.  And I spend so much time trying to get above the heads that I often miss the shot all together.

This final quilt is made with fabrics from the Stonehenge Collection.  Is that not perfect?  She did a fabulous job with the bias strips.  

And finally someone has begun growing orchids and showed her beautiful pinks that are blooming for the first time.  She is quite proud and who can blame her? They really are beautiful.

My apologies for forgetting to post this.  I'll have another guild post in just a week.  Hopefully I'll do a better job of taking photos!

Pin It Weekly #70 Quilt Displays

There are some beautiful quilts in Pinterest.  I discovered that there are also many beautiful ways to display some of those quilts.  I show some of those display ideas on my "stacked, quilts" board.

A small goat cart makes a darling display... 

As does a reconfigured baby bed...

Of course, old chairs are especially easy display shelves since they can be plopped just about anywhere.  Just be sure that no one moves the quilts and plops themselves on the chair if it is too old to hold them.

Here's a different use for vintage farm implements...

Or if you can use a ladder this way...

Or that way...

How about an empty basket or box...

And if you happen to have an empty cabinet...

And of course, there's always a rack made especially for quilts...

AMB's Blog Tour is almost finished.  Today we visit Fireball Quilts (Utah) and Hollyhock Quilts (Oklahoma) today.  If you haven't been by yet, you should definitely get going.  There are some surprises waiting and, as always, a chance to win some lovely AMB fabrics.

Tomorrow jog on over to Dora Quilts (New Mexico) and So Many Quilts, So Little Time (Arizona).  Then on Friday (our last day of the tour) hop over to Quilt As You Go (Alaska) Barbara Bieraugel Designs (Hawaii).  

I have thoroughly enjoyed following the blog tour and hope you have also.  It's going to be odd not checking in with the tour.  I'm also going to miss reading about the states and the talented quilters who created the license plates.  

Return to AMB Blog Tour

Let's catch up with the AMB Blog Tour. We were to go to Montana and Washington to visit Why Knot Kwilt and Bloomin' Workshop.  If you think that we've reached the pinnacle of the license plate blocks, you're wrong.  I've been very impressed with the talent and it just keeps on coming!  

Today we go to Studio 78 Notes (New Jersey) and also Excessive Compulsive Sewing (Wyoming).  Again, there's some fancy sewing happening on those license plates.  You'll like the tomatoes and the mountains, please do go see them and, while you're there, enter to win the fabric giveaways.  You just might win!

Arizona Memories

With so much of my energy focused on the AMB Blog Tour, I have really been enjoying seeing photos of the states that bloggers have been posting.  We'll pick it up again tomorrow with Cali Quilter (California) and The Curious Quilter (Minnesota).  I am excited to see what they have to offer in their license plates and learn a bit about their states.  Do be sure to visit them.

My interest in visiting all 50 of the states began years ago when an uncle mentioned that he had done so.  Then my own parents retired and began their travels throughout the U.S.  Although my dad had been to Hawaii, it was the one state that momma did not get to visit. As a result, visiting every state became a mainstay on the family bucket-list.  On occasion we compare each other's list of visited states.  I'm pretty far behind most of my sisters, but I'll retire soon and, hopefully, catch up to them.  


Tonight, though, I thought I'd figure out which ones I have visited.  


I have to start with Louisiana, of course!  But I also have Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Minnesota, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Nineteen in all.  

A few of those are thanks to layovers in airports on the way to someplace else, a few were the "go to" place, and a few were pass-through states. 

My young boys called our vacation destinations our "go to" place. They would ask are we almost at the "go to" place yet?  

This photo (left) of Dead Horse Ranch State Park just south of Sedona, AZ, is both a reminder of the place and a bit of a joke for me.  We spent two weeks traipsing around Arizona, from Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon to the Black Hills with their saguaro cacti.  


It was August.  It was hot.  It was dry.  No, it was really dry. Brown dry.  Crunchy grass dry.  Bleeding noses dry.  We lived out of the truck camper and a tent.  Every morning we'd break camp and pack into the truck, off on a new adventure.  Traveling south by southeast and looking for adventure.  Mostly I was looking for a shower.  It was glorious.  

The boys loved every minute of tent life and by day three we had figured out how to set up camp so that it became a game.  Us against our best time.  Everyone had a job: mom directed.  We got so good at setting up camp that other campers were amazed.  

I learned to appreciate the beauty of the cacti more than the sand and grit and heat.  But there's always something to appreciate. The colors, the adaptations, the beautiful blooms.  I wanted to take home some of every type.  I didn't actually do that, but I wanted to.  

Until I accidentally brushed against one particularly prickly one. Ah, that was pain!  Searing, sharp, burning pain.  And the desire to relocate the cacti decreased with each sticker that I had to carefully remove.  There was no help from the wild ones....they were too busy adding to the sand collection in their pockets.

If you are planning a visit to Arizona, let me suggest that you go in the spring or perhaps in fall.  The Sonora Desert may not be as beautiful or as colorful, but you will likely not fight the heat as much as I did.  Of course, staying in an air conditioned hotel may alleviate some of the heat issues.

I've had many friends ask me whether I'd go back and my answer is always a resounding "YES!"  I am now too old to consider roughing it with a crew of teenage boys as ranch hands, but I thoroughly enjoyed the cities and the parks.  I'd just enjoy them with a cool shower and hotel bed waiting for my return from wild.