More books for you to enjoy...............

Well, I've finished listening to a couple more books that I think you might enjoy. The first is The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, which was recommended to me by a blog reader. I have never been much into history, but the last several books I have read are piqueing my interest. This book takes place in Seattle in 1986 with flashbacks back to the 1940's. It is about a Chinese-American boy named Henry and his friendship with a Japanese-American girl named Keiko. Keiko's family is interned into a camp during WWII. It is a somewhat bittersweet story but I really enjoyed it. Today I finished listening to Breaking Dawn--the final book in the Twilight Saga. I enjoyed the series, but found that I was more than ready for it to be over. I am looking forward to seeing the new movie Eclipse based on the third book.

My next audio book listen is also from a series. I'll start listening to it on my trip to the store and back for inventory, tonight. Fun, fun! It is the third book in a trilogy--The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson. He is a Swedish author and I enjoyed knowing a little about Sweden, having been there on two vacations. His books are full of intrigue and his first book, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo will be out as a movie, soon.

I am also actually reading Shift by Peter Arnell. I saw him interviewed on the Today show a few days ago and found him fascinating. The subtitle for his book is "How to reinvent your business, your career, and your personal brand". He has worked with many of the top companies in the world with his branding and design expertise and he himself lost over 256 pounds. It's a very fascinating story!

Please send me your favorite books and I will check them out and possibly put them on my "wish list".

Happy listening or reading,

Lynda

Have you ever....?

Have you ever been cleaning out your stash and come across something that has you saying to yourself "What was I thinking?" This is what made me say it--a pattern for troll doll clothes--what WAS I thinking? And yet, it's so funny that I can't bear to part with it. Leave a comment to let me know about one of your "What was I thinking?" moments. : )


Still sorting and cleaning,
Lynda

Kathie Savickas' Christmas Quilt

We were treated on Monday to a special visit by Kathie Savickas, who lives in California. Her daughter lives in the Denver area, so she visits the store whenever she's in Denver. Awhile back, she decided she wanted to make a Christmas quilt. One of our ladies led her to our Seasonal Delights book that has a Christmas Sampler with a Santa Claus. The book also contains two other samplers--one with Uncle Sam, and one with a witch. Kathie creatively decided that the witch could turn into Mrs. Santa and enlarged the quilt to include her, also.

Here is her finished quilt. She repeated some blocks and created new ones, too. We think you will agree that Mrs. Santa is very charming. To see the original witch before she was transformed and other projects in Seasonal Delights, click here.

What inspiration you gave us, Kathie! Thank you for sharing your quilt and it's bittersweet story with all of us and some other lucky customers who happened to be in the store at the same time.

Keep inspiring others with your wonderful projects!

Happy stitching,
Lynda and Nancy

Dino Buddies--and more new stuff to come!

This is one of the three new patterns we debuted at Quilt Market last month in Minneapolis. Writing the directions is my homework for today and tomorrow. These friendly dinosaurs (Tyrone and Bruno) are appliqued to a pieced background and are just perfect for a child's bedroom or playroom. The banners are 12 x 29" and the patterns will be ready to ship soon--if I get my act together and start working on them.


I'll have a couple more things to show you in the coming days, including the beautiful Pineapple Garden quilt that we made for the July/August 2010, McCall's Quilting magazine. For a preview, click here. This pattern uses our Pineapple Rule and we will have kits ready soon.

We also have a beautiful fabric line coming this month from Quilting Treasures. The line is called Autumn Harvest. Click here for a preview of the rest of the line, click here.


See you soon with more new patterns.
Until then,
Happy Stitching,
Lynda