Last night was the regularly scheduled meeting of my local quilt guild. We had a super speaker! Chris Kirsch is a local quilting celebrity, and evidently she started out in our guild! She spoke last night about the connections between garments and quilts.
Her web site is here if you'd like to check it out: http://www.chrisquilts.net/
and her work is stunning. I especially liked it that she spoke about her faith and how important it is to represent it in her quilting.
After the meeting we had some show and tell. That's always fun, don't you agree? We had just finished a sew-along so lots of ladies had used the same pattern. I was again amazed that people using the same pattern could come up with such a diverse group of finished items. There were many table runners and one full quilt among the SAL group, and they were awesome.
We always wish happy birthdays to those celebrating during the month. My friend Suzi had had a birthday the day before and I'd made her a tote bag from one of the Nancy's Notions templates. I'd made one for myself and she said she 'coveted that bag'. So last week I dug around in the resource center and came up with some quilted fabric I picked up, who knows how long ago, and made one for her. She showed it briefly last night. Wouldn't you know I forgot to snap a picture of it before I gave it to her -- although I DO have a pic of the original:
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| Here it is on my ironing board. |
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| Sideways with the bottom and straps showing. |
My piece happened to land near that green check in the 'someday' pile, and I went "Eureka!"... The center panels are checked, also upholstery weight fabric, as are the straps. The whole bag is lined with muslin because that's what I had that matched. The button came from one of my American Sewing Guild conference experiences.
The gift bag is a blue printed double-sided pre-quilted fabric that I think I got at Sewing Weekend one year. Suzi just happened to be wearing an outfit on Sunday that coordinated in an awesome bout of serendipity... as if they were meant to be together, she and that bag!
I had nothing to show. My projects at present are all UFOs. <sigh>
At the end of the meeting one of the ladies told us that another of the members was lucky to be there at all -- here's the story, short form. She got up in the middle of the night to use the facilities, and she had a pain in her back. She took some aspirin. She could not get comfortable and her arm started to hurt, but none of this was bad pain, about 4 on a scale of 10. Not being able to go back to sleep she decided to call her doctor's answering service. THEY recommended that she get to the ER. She called 911 rather than drive herself, although she said she had considered it.
Diagnosis: heart attack.
Heart attack symptoms in women are NOT like they are for men! Coincidentally, this week is Go Red for Women in our building... since one of our neighbors on this floor is the American Heart Association, here's a plug for them:
Having been through this with one of the aunties, I hope everyone gets themselves informed. According to AHA, one in three women die of heart disease or stroke every year. 33%!! The next time you're with two other women, or three women if you're a guy, ask yourself which one of them could you bear to lose this year? Yes, it's that big a deal.
Getting off the soapbox now... carry on!
