Wishing everyone who celebrates Christmas a merry one. I'm sharing a picture of my Angel Quilt which has never been posted online. It is about 20 years old and is the result of a block swap on AOL (remember those?). As you can see, we didn't specify block size (which I actually prefer) and I was able to build around my blocks using some simple half-square triangles. Angel Quilt I had just gotten this back from the longarm quilter and it was draped over my cutting table in my sewing/laundry room. My middle daughter was about 12 at the time and she came running upstairs yelling that the washing machine was overflowing and she was able to grab the quilt away from the water all over the floor, but unfortunately it was too late for one part of it. Can you see the angel with the blue dress on (NOT the devil with the blue dress; that's a song)? Well, the red from the red angel below her bled all over her blue dress and onto the white background! Renegade dyes! (And no. I d...

Christmas Eve and the first day of Hanukkah converge on the same day. We can all celebrate the Festival of Lights as we climb past the shortest day of the year (Winter Solstice). To all my Jewish friends and blog followers, I wish you many blessed days in the year to come. This is a gift bag I made to appear in the 2015 Quilting Arts magazine. It uses my own paper pieced dreidel block: Hanukkah gift bag This is how my two bags were photographed in the magazine: Gift bags for Hanukkah I had also made a few gift tags and a book mark about 10 years ago: Gift tag and book mark I gave these items to my oldest daughter as gifts for my 3 year old granddaughter's preschool teachers. Eva goes to a Jewish preschool and I'm so glad these can make special gifts. I had 2 copies of the magazine and they were included, too! This is what the 6" paper pieced dreidel looks like before it's put into the bag: 6" paper pieced Dreidel I will make this a patte...

This is a repost from last year at Winter Solstice because it came again this year. Really, it did! And I added a few other things from this Fabricadabra Collection. I pay attention to the amount of sunlight we get each day. Or the lack thereof. Yes, I don't live in Alaska or Scandinavia. Still, November and December are too dark for me. I look forward to the shortest day of the year because that means that the days will be getting longer after that! How better to celebrate the Winter Solstice than to make a quilt block. Forget the pagan stuff swirling around this - I like the sun for the sunshine! I began with one idea and it morphed into another, mainly because of my available fabrics. I was looking for a bright orange and found it in the  Benartex Fabricadabra Collection  by Paula Nadelstern. And then I saw that I had the companion panels and my creative juices began to flow. Fabracadabra  panel, one motif of three in a 42" cut Have you seen Paula's new boo...