Today I have a picture for you that I took from our garden this morning after we got home from church. This is my time to write to you and I was wondering what to say. I had been thinking of color in fabrics and nature and took a step outside to our little cottage garden. Here is an example of what I was thinking of!

In this little patch there are five shades of green in the leaves plus all the shapes the leaves make too. I find the Lord God so amazing. He is our master Creator and it’s awesome how He planned and made living, breathing works of art in nature!

I also find it thought provoking that He can jumble up bright light green, reddish, clear greens and blue greens and have it look perfect. In the color schemes I make and in helping quilters pick out colors at the quilt store we often use only one shade or tone of green. The exception to that is a scrappy quilt, of course.

Here’s another picture I want to share with you! It’s a shot of Ginger, our cat. On that day I was packing patterns of the Calla Lily Day Dream to send to my wholesale distributor, Pattern Peddlers. She loves boxes and curled up to take a nap!

She didn’t stay very long because I made her move to a better place to take her nap.

Rochelle

It’s such a beautiful day today that I decided to show you some scenes from the rail trail a short distance from our home. My husband and I took a bike ride this afternoon on some of the trails that have been cleared and paved from old railroad beds. The section of the trail we took leads up to the state park in Bay City which is at the bottom of the Saginaw Bay in Lake Huron which is the east side of Michigan.

This is one of the sections I like best and on the way back a small fawn daintly stepped across the trail and disappeared into the brush.

Here we have arrived at the Bay City State Park. This is a pond which is connected to a marsh and empties out in the bay. There is a white swan family off in the distance. The swans are not native to our area and the naturalists say that they distroy some of the natural habitat. There is a nice board walk which extends a bit into the pond and families like to fish from there. Behind the line of trees is the Saginaw Bay.

Here is the shore at the park. When I was a child and into my early 20’s there was no growth on the beach. A section has been cleared for swimmers. The environmentalists have been fighting with the people and beach front owners over cleaning up the beach or letting the foliage stay. We have fertilizer run off into the bay so that has caused the weeds to grow. Our state park has beautiful trails to hike or ride bikes and there is alot of boating in the bay. We have a wonderful museum, play center and a place for rv’s and trailers to park at the state park camping area.

On our ride back we stopped at a drive-in called Mussel Beach and each had a waffle ice cream cone. The drive-in is on the edge of the state park and beside the rail trail which is a perfect location to sit and rest! We had a very nice ride-the first one for me this year.

Rochelle

 Happy Father’s Day! Weather-wise, here in Michigan, it’s a great day to spend with Dads and families. We are planning on spending time out doors ripping out over-sized bushes! Two bushes are really bugging my husband and he has declared today is the day to do something about it!

Our hearts go out to those of you in Iowa and the states hit hard by tornadoes. Our prayers are with you as you rebuild your homes, churches, schools and businesses.

Have you clicked our new button yet on the home page? It’s a link to our free pattern page. It’s a bright tablerunner that has half square triangles in two sizes. Add a few fusible appliquéd daisies and you have a cute table topper! There is also a link on the page that takes you to a site that has thousands of free patterns.

Are you taking part in the AniLee Mystery Quilt Treasure Hunt? We’ve had a great response so far and it’s only the middle of the month. Jump in with the others and see what clues you can find and prizes you will win. In July there will be a FabShop Bunny Hop here. Each shop gives out $10 gift certificates for prizes.

Have a great week-Rochelle

This week I have an inteview with Patti Oakley to share with you. She owns the online shop, Batiks by Design. I’ve known Patti for over a year. She has some of my patterns in her shop which I have made in her beautiful fabrics. I have a favorite blue and white quilted jacket that I made from her batiks and wore when she had me help her at the International Quilt Festival in Houston last November.

I thought you might like to look behind the scenes and see how her shop got started and what she has!  You can find it on the web at: http://www.batiksbydesign.com/

1. How did you discover the traditional batik fabric which looks so different from what the other fabric companies offer?

Patti: I lived in Jakarta, Indonesia for almost 2 years from 1996-98 when my husband took a job over there.  During that time I really got into quilting and started shopping at the fabric markets.  The designs and colors really intrigued me.  In 2006 I took a class at The AQS Quilt Show in Paducah with Kimberly Einmo and used some of the fabrics.  Everyone oohed and ahhhed over the fabric and asked if they could purchase it here.  I didn’t know.  I started thinking about it and searched the Internet for shops carrying the fabric.  I could only find 1 in the USA and it carried only 4 designs at
that time.  I was going to Jakarta for 2 months that summer since my husband was back there working again, so decided to buy some and put up a site and see what happened.  The rest is history, as they say!

2. What has been the response from your customers at the shows you vendor your fabrics?

Patti: Absolutely wonderful!  Quilters were a little hesitant, but once they could touch the fabrics and see them in person at shows, they sold very well.  A lot of quilters are looking for something different, and traditional batiks are just that.

3. What do you love the most about your job? 

Patti: Both the fabric and the customers.  I haven’t met one that I didn’t like!

I know from personal experience that Patti has a passion for the batiks she imports.  Her buyer in Indonesia does a fabulous job and Patti’s emails to me include her excitement about the next shipment coming in! So if you are looking for a new fabric to try, check out her collection and the Hoffman and Timeless Treasure batiks that she includes in her shop too.

The new pattern, Cottage Flowers, is ready for you! It uses 5″ squares which could be from your stash, charm squares or your fat quarters. This is the quilt that I dipped into my scrap collection to find the fabrics and I am very happy with it.

This quilt was quilted with wool batting which was a new experience for me. I found that it didn’t stick to the fabric like cotton batting does. But the good thing was it puffed up inside the quilted motifs and looks so cozy! The quilt also is lightweight compared to quilts using cotton batts. I used wool batting from Harriet Hargrove because this quilt is going to be donated to an Indian tribe in western US. Karen Gass from Cotton Spice quilting magazine has a challenge going to make quilts and donate them to the Macuwita sni Tribe in South Dakota. You can join her challenge by going to the blog at http://cottonspice.com/CSblog/?page_id=565

I used a quilting motif in the piano key border and in the sashing that is included in the pattern. Here’s a photo of it.

The flowers are made with half square triangles. The light square has a yellow center fused and the edges machine finished before the light and medium prints are paired and made into the half square triangle unit. The leaf caps are fusible too. The pattern retails for $8.00. It should be up on this site soon. It is on the mini mall site now at http://oldecountrypeddler.com/Vendors/sites/CottageQuiltDesigns/

I will be blogging again tomorrow. I have a great inteview from Patti Oakley from Batiks by Design online fabric shop to share with you. Come back to learn more about Patti and her special fabrics!

This month a new shopping mall has opened called The Olde Country Peddler. It has 18 mini shops in it so far and Cottage Quilt Designs has a mini shop there too! Click on this link to visit and look around  http://www.oldecountrypeddler.com/ 

You can find quilt patterns for all kinds of projects, punch needle patterns, specialty yarns and fibers, doll patterns, counted cross stitch patterns, wood items and more!

I’ve made progress in my scrappy quilt! It is called Cottage Flowers and can be made using 5″ charm squares, your stash or fat quarters. It can be made with beginner skills and will make a dent in your stash or scrap collection. I hope to have a picture up later this week on the blog.

Are you taking part of the Anilee Mystery Tour this month? It’s alot of fun collecting the clues in each shop. Try it this month if you haven’t yet!

quote from Norman Vincent Peal:

Happy Memorial Weekend! Do you have time planned with family today or tomorrow? We will be visiting with family in southern Michigan. I was thinking of taking along some appliqué to do on the 2 hour drive but this time it will good to just relax and enjoy the view. We will be traveling to a part of Michigan we have never been to.

How big of a stash do you have? Do you like to collect yard pieces or wait to buy specifially for the next quilt you are making? My stash is growing and I have started developing designs that will use them. It’s a question of whether I want to shut my closet door or let the fabric spill out on a daily basis! Because I design for magazines and books and the fabric store I work on a part time basis my pile (thankfully free!) needs some attention.

I love scrappy quilts! I think they embody the warmth and comfort we all associate with quilts.

Thank you to each one of you that submitted a name for the calla lily quilt contest! I have contacted each of you about the end of the contest.

Cala, our daughter-in-law, picked out the name she liked best for the quilt. The name she picked is Calla Lily Day Dream.

 Hopefully all our ducks will be in a row and it will be on the home page of the web site soon with the first block available to you as it is set up as a block of the month quilt. There are nine blocks with the nineth one being the appliquéd border and finishing instructions. The first block includes quilt information and yardage. Each block pattern includes information, the full sized design sheet, reversed templates and yardage. The blocks retail for $5 each. You can also buy the complete set for $45 now too if you have to have it all now and want to save postage! You can use fusible web or hand appliqué techniques.

I am very happy with how it has turned out and Tristan, our son, and Cala love it too. If you choose to make this quilt as a treat for yourself or a gift for someone else, I hope you enjoy making it as much as I did!

My husband had the previous week off for vacation. We didn’t plan a big trip but stayed home for projects. We took one morning off to go up to some state reserve land north of our home for bird watching. The warblers and other birds are migrating through here for upper Michigan or Canada. We saw some yellow warbers, yellow throated warblers, a rose breasted grosbeak (he stays here), a great blue knat catcher, and Baltimore orioles (they stay here too). We also saw an amazing thing: a huge Canada goose flew up into a tree! The tree was open and had a huge bent limb that he sat on. He made alot of noise honking and flapping his wings to get up there!

Our daughter and son-in-law ordered saplings from Arbor Day foundation for their acreage around their old farmhouse. They arrived last week too and we helped dig holes, water and fertilize 14 trees another afternoon. I felt like a pioneer helping to improve their land! I grew up in the country so it felt good to see miles of farmland and the big blue sky.

What have you planned for vacation this year? Do you take one big vacation or a week here and there? Maybe the gas prices will keep you home or closer to home then you usually travel.

Talk to you next week! I’m in between quilt projects so I don’t have a photo for you this time.

Congratulations on your special day if you are a mother or about to be one! We will be spending the day with family for Mother’s Day and my husband’s birthday. I saw my mother yesterday at my brother’s home. He is back from Iraq for a few weeks. He’s working in construction over there and has leave. He told us how different things are in that country. In the mornings now it’s 108 degrees!

My quilt came back with a copy of the book, Quilting for Busy Boomers, published by House of White Birches. It retails for $19.95 and has excellent quilt designs. We designers were asked about a year ago to come up with designs that are quick and easy to do. My design, Happy Days, was accepted! It’s a twin sized quilt made long enough for college bunks and has fabric that is bright blue, green and pink. And I was so surprised to see that the quilt was featured on the back cover and inside on the front page. I feel so blessed. I showed the book to my mother and family yesterday and also today when we spend it with Randy’s folks and our children. Here’s the inside page that shows a beautiful picture they took of the quilt.

Have a great year with your family!