Welcome to the Quilt Designers Blog Tour

I can't believe I decided to show my "studio" to the world.

Studio is a very loose term pertaining to my work space.

It is a long narrow room on the back of our home that has many functions.

At the moment my "studio"

is also my "office"

my "shipping department"

my "sewing space"

my "storage" area.

my "design wall"

and "ironing station".

I did volunteer for this tour because I have a new "Studio" in my immediate future.

The new area is an old guest house at the back of the driveway. It is about 20' X 24" with a kitchen and bath on the back. We are almost to the painting stage and the flooring will go down on April 29.

Please come back to visit this blog in May to see my "New Studio".

I really must add that for many years my studio was a corner of the den or the kitchen table.

I have come a long way even now.

The bluebonnets are up and blooming in Texas.

My teaching road trip will continue soon.

Next on the agenda was Savannah, GA.

After lunch in Leesburg, Florida we drove to St. Augustine, Fl.

St. Augustine is the oldest permanent European settlement in North America.

Follow the link above to read the interesting history of the city and the area.

There are beautiful buildings and lots of palm trees.

The photos below are of the Ponce De Leon Hotel and Flagler College.

I thought this carved area above the door was beautiful. 

This is the ceiling in the entry.

Just one of many carved columns.

Some eye candy in a window.

Another quaint church as the sun was setting. How do you like my new friend?  

There were churches everywhere. Even the dogs dressed for the day.

Late in the day we left St. Augustine and drove to Savannah.

I do hope to return some day to spend more time in St. Augustine.

On day three of our road trip we went to The Villages, Florida.

Located close to Orlando, The Villages is a community of mostly retired people with 65,000 residents.

They drive golf carts for most of their daily activities.

The community is surrounded by restaurants, shopping, and medical facilities.

You would not have to travel far for any of your needs.

I did a lecture trunk show for the Quilting Guild of the Villages that night.

The next day I taught a workshop for Sew Cherished Quilt Shop of Fruitland, Florida.

We had a great time working on the Shooting Stars pattern.

There were 18 lovely ladies sewing and eating lunch together.

Here are some of their projects in different stages.

That night we were treated to a fabulous dinner at the home of my hostess Christine Brant.

She prepared an Italian feast for nine.

We spent the night with Christine’s mother Klementyne who told us wonderful and

sad stories of growing up in Poland and being sent to Siberia then immigrating to the United States. 

She was a very sweet and interesting lady.

The next day I did a lecture trunk show for The Quilting Sisters Quilt Guild of Leesburg, Florida.

After a lunch in quaint downtown Leesburg, we left to go to St. Augustine, Florida.

      Don’t forget to tell your guild program people and shop owners to check out Ami Sims’ new website.

Find A Quilt Teacher .com

It is a great resource for finding teachers and lecturers for your meetings and classes.

The first thing I want to tell you is that Ami Simms has a new website called

Find A Quilt Teacher.

It is a great resource for guilds and shops to locate great teachers and lecturers.

Please visit the site and tell all the guild program chair people and shop owners about it.

You can find me listed there.

Now for the fun stuff.

I was booked to teach in Florida recently,

so my friend Barbara and I decided to make a road trip out of it.

We left Graham, Texas on Sunday morning and drove to Mobile Alabama.

We spent the night in Mobile and on Monday morning drove to Thomasville, Georgia.

Thomasville is a very quaint and beautiful town in southern Georgia just north of Tallahassee, Florida.

In Thomasville we wondered around the neat little antique and gift shops

and spent the night at a bed and breakfast called Dawson Street Inn.

This is Barbara in the living room.

Me in the dining room ready for our scrumptious breakfast.

And me pretending to play the piano.

We had a wonderful dinner at George and Louie’s.

The fried green tomatoes were to die for.

We took pictures of some of the homes and THE BIG OAK TREE.

This tree is enormous!!

We visited Pebble Hill Plantation. 

Don’t you love the moss in the trees?

The house and the grounds were a sight to see.

Then we drove into Florida and on to

The Villages, Florida.

Watch for the next installment of this road trip.

Several Friends and I went on a road trip to the Dallas Quilt Show.

We left Graham around 8:00, stopped in South Lake to pick up another friend

and arrived at the show around 11:30.

Just in time to eat lunch!

We always put the most important things first.

We beat the crowd and then started to shop and look at the quilts.

There were lots of beautiful quilts to see this year.

These are just a few of the quilts:

Bail Out

Liz Joe maker and quilter

Butterflies and Bloomers

Dee Ann Hodges maker Meri Pinner quilter

Corazones, Corazones y Mas Corazones

Sherry Evans maker Liz Coker quilter

Corks

Carol Morrissey maker and quilter

Dancing for Savannah

Nancy Howse maker and quilter

Deep in the Heart of Texas Childhood Home in Grapevine

Glenda Jones maker

Suzanne Louth quilter

Cranes in Stars

(made using my Chick ‘N Stars pattern)

Jolene Mershon maker

Susan Corbett quilter

This quilt is made from jeans. I am sorry I did not get the maker’s name.

This is my friend Gail

Glowing 9 Patch

Theri Dufour maker

Karen Nelson quilter

Glowing 9 Patch close-up

Jacobean Dream

Janice Bentley maker

La Vie en Rose

Eliane Bailey maker

Richard Larson quilter

Spring

Paula Baxley maker

Dana Goyer quilter

Urban Reflections

Lu Peters & Connie Akers makers and quilters

Vertigo

Kathy York maker and quilter

That is my friend Becky looking at the quilt.

Victory Garden

Sherry Evans maker

Lisa Coker quilter

Whose Woods are these

Jane Kennedy maker

The Diva and The Musician quilt made with my

Carpenter’s Star pattern for the center.

Kathryn Taylor maker and quilter.

This is made with Betty Boop fabric.

Betty Boop is quilted on it.

A Quarks Tale

Best of Show

Kelly Monroe maker and quilter

Broken Star quilt from my Simple Stars Beautiful Quilts book

hanging in the Prodigy Quilter booth

Evening Star quilt on a table in the booth of

Heirloom Quilt Shop from Fort Smith, Arkansas

Evening Star quilt in another booth.

Modern Art With Fabric

covering a table in the booth of

Houston St. Mercantile Granbury TX

Modern Art With Fabric

hanging in the booth of

Poppy Quilt and Sew from Georgetown, TX

Shooting Stars quilt

hanging in the booth of

Quilts With A Heart from Priddy, Texas

We had a great time at the show and stopped to eat at

P. F. Chang on our way home.

I recently taught at a retreat held at

"The Ranch at Possum Kingdom Lake".

There were eight ladies from the McKinney area and we had a great day.

They were a lot of fun to be with and I enjoyed teaching in such a beautiful venue.

The Ranch is a gated community on the Brazos river with gorgeous views of the river and ranch land.

 This is the entrance gate. 

 The home where the retreat was held was a stone structure decorated with a Texas theme.

This is the the living room

and the staircase to the bedrooms.

The upstairs bedrooms were all decorated around a theme.

The bluebonnet room was blue and white. 

Notice the headboard made out of a door and crown molding.

The blue and white quilt was perfect.

The fish room had a fish over the bed and a great bookcase made out of a canoe. 

The cowboy room had rustic bunk beds.

The western room had an Indian to guard everything.

The master bedroom had a rock fireplace with boots and a great rabbit on the mantel.

Take a look at this bath tub!

This ironing station was one of a kind.

The ladies worked hard and made great progress on their

Evening Star or Shining Star quilt tops.

 I love looking at the different fabric choices everyone makes.

The fellowship with such wonderful people is what really makes my job fun.

I also want to announce the winners of two contests.

The contest on my blog as a guest blogger for The Quilting Gallery was won by Sandra Keesee.

  The winner of the contest on dellaQ Textiles was Christi Scheffel.

Congratulations to both of you.  

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's day.

I received a beautiful card and we had a quiet dinner at home.

I am going to Florida in March to lecture for two guilds and teach at one shop.

The first lecture is on Tuesday March 3 at The Quilting Guild of The Villages.

Then on Wednesday March 4, I will teach my

Shooting Stars pattern 

at Sew Cherished Quilt Shop in Fruitland Park.

On Thursday March 5, I will give a lecture for the

Quilting Sisters Quilt Guild in Leesburg, Florida.

I am going to drive and a friend is going with me.

After my work is over we plan to go to St. Augustine, Florida and

Savannah, Georgia. We will then head for home.

My mission for you is to tell me about your

favorite quilt shops and great places to eat in these areas

or on the road there or back from Texas.

We will be going through Vicksburg, Jackson, and Hattiesburg, Mississippi to get to Florida. 

On our way home we will be going through more of Georgia and Alabama. 

Leave me a comment about any spots on the route or even off the beaten path. 

Also, dont forget the contest to win six fat quarter bundles which equals 9 yards of silk.

All you have to do is go to dellaQ.com and sign up for her newsletter.

She will draw for the lucky winner on March 1, 2009.

Infatuation 

I know you fondle it when you wander through your favorite quilt or fabric store. 

You run your hands over pillowcases in the department store.

What fabric can make you consider giving up chocolate or wine? 

For me, it’s silk.  How about you?  

Admit it, you want to wrap yourself in it!

Hello there!  I’m Della Quimby, owner of della Q. 

That’s my boyfriend’s dog, Lucky.  She is as sweet as she looks. 

I’m basically her butler; I open the door to let her in and out all day long.

Are you participating in Debbie’s latest contest? 

Be sure you join in to win a bundle of della Q’s taffeta silk.

All you have to do is go to my website della Q and sign up to receive my newsletter. 

Our fabric is made in Vietnam. 

We have been using our fabric in the manufacture of our

knitting needle cases and bags. 

Have you seen them? 

This is our most popular needle case, The Que™ for circular needles.

Many of my customers were starting to ask about just buying my silk. 

At first, I said, “I don’t sell just the silk”. 

Stupid!  I quickly realized that if I spend time in Vietnam

selecting fabric and designing our pieces,

why couldn’t I just have the fabric manufactured for quilters and sewers? 

TaDa! della Q Textiles!  Ok, it wasn’t that easy, but let’s pretend it was. 

Check out our silk collection, including kits with Debbie’s patterns.

I spend about three to four weeks a year in Vietnam

working with our production process. 

Have you been?  You should go. 

The food is great, the people are amazing and the textiles are luscious. 

The currency is the “Dong”; my boyfriend thinks that is really funny. 

I know, immature.  Check out all the vibrant colors.

Blah, blah, blah.  Enough about me, let’s talk silk. 

What’s the secret to working with it?  Fusible interfacing.  That’s it. 

Fuse it before you cut it with an ultra lightweight interfacing

so you don’t change the hand. 

I’ll share another secret with you about della Q silk. 

It’s washable. 

It does take on a bit of a vintage look, but frankly, I quite like it. 

The piece below was washed in a front loader with a mild detergent and then air-dried. 

It also tends to come out a bit brighter. 

Thursday January 8, 2009

I met a new quilting friend Reygan and her grandmother Kim for dinner recently.

We met at the Macaroni Grill and had so much fun.

She is definitely a quilter.

This is a picture of her latest quilt made with my Sassy Lap Quilt Pattern.

Christmas at home

We had Christmas early because Jason and his girlfriend Emily are both chefs at hotel restaurants and they both had to work on Christmas day. Jason is the Chef de Cuisine at The Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas. Emily is the Executive Sous Chef at the Stoneleigh Hotel in Dallas. Trevor is an architect caught in the lay offs of the recession. He is looking and we are confident he will find the perfect position very soon. This is them in the kitchen that we are almost finished renovating.

Trevor has the beard, Jason is deboning the turkey so it will cook faster and Emily is helping.

 We are having some cheese, mussels and breads.  

We are also enjoying champagne with pomegranate juice.

Kitty is going to help with the onions.

My table was set with festive colors for the season.

I used caper bottles as vases for the Gerber Daisies along with lemons and limes for the center piece.