Well, I was right…summer was hot! Still is.

Right now I am flying to Atlanta so that I can change planes and fly home to Myrtle Beach. It is so wonderful to be able to do this while I am in the air on a very long flight! Making time to do things when you can’t do much else!

I am returning from 10 days of travel. I was on cruise to Alaska. The group was a blast. Most of them are from NY and are on their way back to Irene and her little visit. I do hope that each of them finds all to be just as they left it. One group of quilters didn’t have luggage for the entire trip. To some this would have been the worst news and they would have made it bad for all. Instead these women laughed about it. They named themselves the “Make Do” quilters. We can all learn from them. I want to thank them and all the great students that I had while on the cruise.

Some of you might not know that I am working on a book with Debbie Caffrey. She and I are going to write about how we design our mystery quilts for our classes. There will be some quilts and patterns for doing them but also the way we work. You will be able to follow us through your own designing adventures using our easy methods. Although Debbie and I are very different in many ways, we are also very much alike. We find things that we agree on every day but there will always be differences. By us having two approaches to this you can use one or the other or a combo of the two to make your own quilts.

I am also working with Linda Poole on another book. This one is a combo of piece work and applique. For those of you who already piece this will be a good time to try a new applique technique. For those who are appliquers you will be introduced to simple piecing techniques. The combo of these two things will surprise you. It is also a good place to share your talents with someone else. One of you pieces and the other can applique.

There are lots of you that come to my classes in Houston and I see that classes are filling up fast for this year’s gathering there. Please consider going to Long Beach, CA if you don’t get the class you like in Houston. The show is smaller, classes are still great and the crowds are not as large but the fun level is still there! The weather in July can be so hot were I live. I LOVE going to Long Beach in July. The fresh food, weather and great show all add up to nothing but a great time.

While I have been gone there was an earthquake, a hurricane and the temps have been in the upper 90’s. Shake, Bake and Blow!

Charlotte

It isn’t really summer…yet, but the weather thinks that it is. It has been so very hot.
Right now I am in Va Beach, VA. I came up here to visit some of my good friends. There is a group of us that still get together. They get together every month, but since I am not living here anymore I can only get up here now and then. This was my month to do the block exchange so I drove up. It was a pleasure to get here…it was much cooler and it rained!
I am heading back home tomorrow, but I have had a very good time and got lots done as well. I have pieced some blocks for the quilt I need (for The Quilt Show in Aug) and I have laughed and enjoyed myself. Something that everyone should do once in a while if not all the time!

Stay out of the heat. I do fear this is going to be a hot summer. If it is this hot now what is to come?

Right now I am working on the first of two different kits for Long Beach Quilt Festival. The end of July this show comes around and I must say it is one of my favorite shows. The weather is wonderful. The location of the convention center is close to so many things and it is just beautiful there.

The two quilts that I will have this year are also pretty darn wonderful…I must say. I am loving this first one. It is a pattern that I have wanted to do for some time and it is not nearly as difficult to sew as I imagined. Since the kits are cut by John Flynn with a laser they are very accurate. Even I am hitting a point or two.

While all this designing and sewing is going on a few other things have been happening. My fridge needed to be repaired while I was away. It wasn’t cold enough. It is fixed but I am going to need a new one. While at the doctor’s office not too long ago for a cough I was treated for high blood pressure as well. Then my mini computer got cracked on the trip home from a job and my PC needed to be cleaned up. A hail storm came upon us pretty fast and my car got beat while sitting in the driveway. I was working on a project and noticed that my eyes weren’t focusing as well as I liked. Went to the eye doctor and found out that my glasses needed to be changed…in a huge way.

So, here I am at home minding my own business and all this dumps on me in one month. A month when I am not working! No money coming in but flying out the door pretty fast. Hopefully all is done. The computers are back, the blood pressure is down, I am used to the stronger glasses and the car is without dents. The fridge is plugging along and will last a few more months.

Now, I have two books to work on, a quilt to make for a challenge, blocks to come up with for a block exchange, a quilt to make for “The Quilt Show” that I will be doing with Debbie Caffrey in August AND the two wonderful class samples for the Long Beach Let Me Surprise You! class. Ah, lots to do, my friend, lots to do.

Here I am again and I want to write about the results of part of my experiment. One of my ‘rants’ here was about a student who had to tell me about how disappointed she was with me. She didn’t get the fabric that I offered in class because of a mess up on my part. I didn’t have enough for the entire class since that would not be a wise business move on my part. Then we over sold what we actually had by mistake. She was upset with me because of the mistake. I make mistakes.

I am now going to tell you what I have done about all this.

This month I am teaching in 4 different venues. In each of them I will be offering, to sold out classes, my Let Me Surprise You kits. This is the same class (different kits) that had the “add on” problem with the student I mentioned above. This month I am not offering any extras. I am going to show students different things that they can do to finish off the quilt but there will not be any extra fabric. They are going to have to find some. Go on a search, shopping the shelves of real stores as well as online. Finding what they want to do with the blocks that come in the kits. This is simply because the student who didn’t get her ‘add on’ told me she couldn’t finish the quilt. I know that she can. Just because she didn’t get the extras she still has the main part…the blocks.
I have a feeling that this won’t be very popular to those who, in the past, had enjoyed getting the extras. The ‘add on’ part is not for everyone, but when one person gets upset enough to make me stop and think about it I wanted to make a point or two.

1. One person can make others miserable. They can change the whole ball of wax. Watch what you say to people. Your words are hurtful. Try to be kind whenever possible.

2. Be creative. Even though you have never been a creative soul, you have it in you to be one. This will be the time to try it. Go out and make this a creative challenge.

3. Think of this as an opportunity to stretch. You have been within the lines too long and now you get to color beyond those lines. If the quilt is all lights, try to add a medium or dark value to the piece for contrast. Piece a border if you have never tried it. Come up with something that makes this kit your quilt.

After this month all will go back to normal and I will offer the ‘add on’ feature. If you want it, great, if you don’t, great. Being creative might be how I loose alot of students buying extras from me. I can handle that if the benefit is seeing a student grow creatively.
All that I want is that you make more quilts that reflect your personality, that make you happy and that you can be proud of in the end.

And to all a good quilt!

PS I just got an order in the mail from an online shop. They have the fabric that I ran out of and was cut to the core for doing so. It is out there. If you need any let me know and I will share a source.

Whether you are having fun or not. So, you might as well have some fun!

I do think that quilting is just about as much fun as one can have. It is also good for teaching one to drive a car.

This has been something of a big observation of mine. If everyone learning to drive a car would take a simple machine quilting class the world would have better drivers and just think about all the fun!

When machine quilting you have to look where you are going…not so much where you have been. You have to look out for pins and fingers. You don’t race up to the pin and then try to swerve to miss it. You would rather see the pin and make the adjustment with room to spare. This means that the person who almost rammed my back end should take a quilting class…pronto!

I am teaching machine quilting at MQX in Rhode Island next month. Brush up on your driving skills and join me there.

Just think of the fun…time is flying by…make the most of it!

Well, it has been ages since I have thought to sit down and write. So, let me see, where do I begin?

My job is a very good fit for me. I don’t mind travel, love to quilt and teach, sharing ideas is fun to me…so this is a good fit. I like people, too. Most of the time I meet wonderful people. I will say that the majority of people in my classes are female. These women are intelligent, have opinions and a voice. I like that, too. I feel I am like that myself. Often the conversations in class will be lively and there are lots of laughs. I love that part. Designing the quilts, buying the fabric and all that goes into making of the kits is sometimes a challenge but a part of my job that makes it what it is. All in all, I really enjoy my job.

There are times though when someone comes into a class and has no idea what it took for me to get there. I am there for her pleasure and her alone. All things good should come to her and nothing should ever go wrong. Lucky for me this happens a great deal. (Luck being the prime word) Things go wrong. I make mistakes. Kits cannot arrive, I get ill, someone I depend on has a problem and any number of other domino effect obstacles can pop up. When these things happen I try my best to make them right, fix what I can and make do with others. On occasions things fall thru the cracks and I lose a sales slip, forget to ship something, run out of a product before the orders are all filled…I have problems.

Now, when these problems happen it isn’t like I am doing them on purpose. Trust me, I want to have millions of sales. I want to please each and every customer. Doesn’t always happen. Doesn’t mean I want trouble…it just happens.

Then along comes that student who has no sense of what happened before her arrival. I know she drove miles, flew miles, walked miles to get there. She most likely carried, towed or pushed lots of things up a hill to find me. When the bad thing (whatever it is) happens between us, my advice is duck. She will not be nice. She will most likely say or do something that is really mean and it will be directed towards me. Sometimes I am guilty of a crime against quilts in some way and she is letting it be known. I want to go on record…I am sorry. I am sorry that something happened to you before you got to class that made you think I made your quilt not right, bad, not like the sample, not what you wanted, the wrong color, size or whatever. I am sorry that you feel I did it to you. I am on record, in writing that I am sorry.

This goes for the woman who lost one triangle, the person who is still screaming because I didn’t have enough fabric for her to buy for a border, the sewing machine tech who tried to teach my class because ‘she knew a better way’ or the woman who just wrote me a letter to tell me she was very ‘disappointed in my professionalism’ and the list goes on and on.

And while I am at it….Thank you. Thank you for keeping me on my toes, reminding me that as much fun as this is it is still a job. Thank you for the students who want to take a kit class and then goes on to enter it in a show and sends me the picture of her and the ribbon. (I love that!) Thank you for the kind, wonderful, sweet students who send me letters about the way I changed them, their quilts, their color choices and that they consider me a friend. I can’t thank you enough for all that. Keep it coming! Bring it on!

This year looks like it is going to be a banner year. Join me. Check out my schedule, hire me to come to your group, guild, show…Please. I love my job and all the problems that it brings. See you on the road!

To say I have been busy just doesn’t cover it. BUT, tonight something funny happened and I am making time for this one short story.

Went to my sisters house tonight for a birthday cookout. My niece, Ashley, turned 12. My mother, sister, brother in law and three nieces were there to celebrate. It was a wonderful family time. After we had dinner my sister, Jennifer, her husband Roger and I were talking in the kitchen. The subject of those Walmart customer pictures came up. You know the ones I am talking about…people wearing little or very little, men dressed like women and sometimes people who are just crazy looking, all show up on the site. Jennifer asked, “Have you ever seen anyone going around taking those pictures?” and my reply was, “Heaven help me if I do! Now I think I might have to go with a wooden spoon or some other type of defense weapon in case I do see someone taking my picture.”

Can you imagine? Seeing your picture on that site! OH MY GOD! Now that would be awful. SO, no matter how bad your day is going at least you aren’t being chased by some camera person in Walmart!

Laugh Out Loud For Sure at that one.

Charlotte

I love my new car! The cell phone is in sync with the radio so I have hands free calling. Never thought I would like it since it makes me look like a crazy person talking to myself in the car, but I have gotten to an age where that really doesn’t bother me too much anymore. I am a bit crazy and others need to be aware of that. I do have to stop using my hands so much since I am driving.

I found this great striped table cloth. Table clothes, dishes, glassware are just like fabric buying for me. I love them. This table cloth has yellow, orange, blue, pink and wonderful colors all over it. First thing I do when I get a new cloth is wash it. That way I can spread it on the table and admire it. I had it in the washer and then threw in a few of my whites and light colored clothes. I now have a great deal of yellow underwear and not no white clothes. There is a thing called a color catcher, that I use when washing quilts. Rarely do I use them for my clothes because I seperate everything into little piles of color. Wearing so much black and white really makes this chore an easy one, so I didn’t really thing about the color of the cloth and it being new as a problem. Hum. Note to self, don’t be doing that again. And buy some more color catchers at the grocery store. (detergent isle)

Last week I drove to Greenville, SC for a lecture and class. Nice group. We had some good laughs. When I got home I was in the middle of listening to a great book on CD. It is ROUGH COUNTRY by John Sanford. There is a quilter in the plot. A quilt shop owner, believe it or not. This isn’t the first time he has mentioned quilts in his books either. Not big mentions, but I do believe he knows a quilter or two. For that reason and that I enjoy his mystery/murder type writing I am telling you to try one of his books. We want him to keep mentioning quilters, shop owners and quilts. I love it when something I know about gets mentioned without being the whole story line…just enough to know it could really happen adds to a great plot.

So, I went to the ice cream joint up the road and ordered a small vanillia soft serve cone ($1.59) in the drive thru, Then parked in my driveway eating the last few bites and listened to the book a few more minutes. My neighbors thought me talking in the car was odd, now they have me just sitting in it eating to help that thought along. Wonder what I can do next?

This made me smile.. Enjoy the Pipecleaner Dance

Pipecleaner Dance III « davidbessler.com

When we last chatted I was on my way to Morehead City, NC in a rental car. I found out that I really like my car and not so much the rental. When I returned home I got the windshield fixed on my car and was driving it with a big dent in the hood. Kinda looked like a baseball bat had a field day on the hood.

Nice group of wonderful women in Morehead City. The day flew by very quickly and I drove back home. It was about that time that my Superman brother in law, Roger, told me that he was going to help with the studio. Translated that means he is going to take over and do it. He said even he couldn’t look at it anymore. That tells you how bad this was. And how nice he is.

He magically moved things around, built shelves and somehow got that room looking like there could be a real studio under all those boxes. It is amazing. He and my niece, Haley, will be back again tomorrow to get some more done. Haley is three and is way smarter than any three year old should be. I think she will have memories of me being the aunt with the Tootsie roll pops. She comes in with her little lunch box and asks for a candy first thing. “Charlotte has candy everywhere!”.

This weekend I had my good friend, Kaye England, visiting. It is really nice to have a friend who can come in for a couple of nights and when she leaves you feel you have spent really good time with her. We talked about all kinds of things and the best part was…we laughed a great deal.

Today was a banner day. I bought a new car. Yep. I figured that the other one was telling me something. So, as much as I liked that other car I now have a red one with more bells and whistles and 1.9% interest. Yes! Now that is sweet!

Hope you get to spend some time with your friend soon. A glass of wine, a good friend and a laugh…now that is a good time.