1st National Boutis Salon 11,12,13 May 2012 at Caissargues

I am so thrilled to be able to take part in the 1st National boutis day organized by France Boutis !  I am going to be in Europe and amazingly, I am able to go to France this particular weekend.   I have signed up to take a class with renowned French contemporary boutis designer and architect, M. Hubert Valeri - so I will be spending all day Saturday enjoying that class, visiting with friends old and new, as well as just enjoying being in the middle of some fabulous boutis pieces.

There will be lots of photos afterwards to enjoy (I bought a new camera especially for this trip), but bear in mind it is not always allowed to photograph things in France, so I will only be able to show those where permission is given.  I will be staying with Lou and we have a wonderful weekend of friendship and stitching planned.  I have one suitcase - and it already has plenty of sewing supplies in it to go to France !

Here are the official flyers for the exhibition - go if you can, be sure to check the France Boutis blog for more information and links to other articles about fabulous first "Salon".

Hubert Valeri go here to see his wonderful designs

PQ Mystery 2012

Yesterday was the annual mystery quilt day for our Guild, the PQs.  The team planning this did a great job and picked a very good pattern.  When you are choosing your fabrics for a mystery, it's harder than usual because you really don't know what the quilt will look like, and in this case there was no cutting ahead of time, so we didn't even know how small the fabric pieces were going to be !

I chose some FQs in blues and browns from my reproduction fabrics, and I am very pleased how this is coming out.  Anyway, here are a few pics of the day.  I have to say the red and white was absolutely stunning, and my favorite, because I love two color quilts.  Thanks go to Cathy, Lynda, Lynn and Pauline, who organized the day and finished all their fabulous quilts to show us !
Sorry about picture quality, think it's time for a new camera :-)

Country Quilts and Bears - New Blog !

The ladies at Country Quilts and Bears in Clearwater, FL have launched a blog ! Go visit them at
Country Quilts and leave a nice comment, they will be thrilled !
I am very partial to this shop. It is the first quilt shop I ever visited, and I learned to quilt here from Becky. Actually, Becky has "infected" many, many people with the quilt virus, and you couldn't expect to find a kinder and more patient teacher. Over the years, I have participated in the Christmas Mysteries - from the very first one - and you would have seen my posts about those - if not, check out the December posts from previous years. Most of those quilts are even finished (gasp !), and some of them are my favorite quilts ever. Not just that, our quilt Guild, the PQs - Procrastinating Quilters, meets at the shop each month on the third Thursday evening.  So you can see, this shop has shaped my quilting life a lot.  Currently, I am working on the House quilt with Roni (also a fabulous teacher and one of the Christmas mystery initiators !), and our little group has really enjoyed the class. There are other fabulous teachers - Pam who does amazing piecing and whose quilts are very original, Diane who teaches handquilting, Francy and her cute bears, and Susan, who actually got me to finish a top in the class - those who know me will realize what a feat that was !
Go visit, and tell them I sent you !

Small Finishes

Hope everyone had a happy Easter !  It is not a holiday here in the US, so I am very envious of the long weekend my friends in Europe have had. 
I had a lot of fun making the knotted basket by Dame Valiste.  It is a wonderful tutorial and I can't wait to make a lot more of these as gifts.  There is another version with a buttoned top, I am going to make that with a small pincushion instead of a button to use as a sewing basket.  There is a surprising amount of room in the basket, just right for a small project.
The small red quilt is quilted, bound and hanging on its wire hanger.  Very simple, but a quick and fun project.  It will hang in the stairway of my new (old) house in Germany.

Small Quilt

Here is a simple, red and cream reproduction fabrics quilt top I made this week.  It's about 23 x 35".
I have a wire hanger I would like to hang it on when quilting is finished, and it will go in our house in Birkenhoerdt to hang in the stairway.  We don't have any pictures for the house yet, so I am planning to make a few quilts to hang up until we do.