Travel Teaching

Are you anywhere between Georgia and New York? 

If so, would your quilt guild like a visit from me in October just prior to or following October 11-12, 2022? I'm planning a road trip to teach in Buffalo on those dates and would be happy to add your group with deeply discounted travel costs. We will be stopping along the way to visit family and friends, so we would love to add another teaching stop or two!

If you are looking for a great program for your guild I have several to choose from and a whole lot of workshops that guarantee a fun day with lots of tips and tricks and information to make your quilting experience more accurate and exciting!

Click HERE for all the details!

Please comment or contact me if you have any questions,

Diane

Fun with Barb!

If you don't follow Fun with Barb you need to! I was lucky enough to invite her to teach at my guild here in Georgia and I had the honor of hosting her in my home. Barb really is fun! 

She shared her wonderful trunk show and gorgeous quilts. I am so inspired by her workmanship and skill and her can-do attitude. She very openly admits that she learns by trying and doing things wrong the first time. What a great attitude!

She taught her workshop on 'liberated houses' that was inspired by Gwen Marston. It was lovely to spend time listening to her thoughts on the process, so many tips and tricks, and then watch her choose fabrics and build a house.We had a wonderful time building our own houses and I know I will be building many more in the future!

Thanks for being such a delightful house guest, and don't feel bad, but Rumi continues to check the guest room every day to see if you are there! He misses you!

If you are in a guild, please send this post to the program chair and make sure Barb gets an invitation to your guild, you will have so much FUN WITH BARB!

Diane

April 2022 Instagram Review

 April was all about the MosaicStorySAL with @duringquiettime on Instagram and my friends and I are having so much fun collecting and swapping sewing themed fabrics! There was also the usual dog antics and food photos along with some pretty spring blooms!

And there was the Bulloch Hall Quilt Guild challenge and fun sew day with Marcy who made a cute hat out of Daisy Talk!

There was a fun visit to the flea market and DaVinci donuts are always a treat!

Softball season and visit to see Mimi as well as a trip to TN and the Lost Sea! It was a great month filled with adventures and lots of time with family and friends. Perfect in my opinion!

XOXO

Diane

Longarm Quilting Update...

As most of you are aware, the prices of thread and batting have recently risen. The good news is that I was able to stock up on my inventory of both before prices increased. I will continue to offer the same pricing as long as my supplies last. (Probably through the summer.) But once I must purchase batting and thread at the new higher prices, I will calculate what I need to cover those costs and will adjust my pricing accordingly. I promise to keep prices minimal so that my increases cover cost of supplies only.

Postage for those of you who ship to me already reflects the increased costs of USPS priority mail.

I am so thankful to each of you who trust me to quilt for you and I truly enjoy spending time with your beautiful quilts. I want you to be happy with the results and feel as though you are getting a good value for the service provided. Please know that I am more than happy to collect quilts at my home, meet you locally (Thread Bear Fabrics) or ship quilts. 

Click HERE for the information and quilting form. I continue to offer 2 week or less turn around on all orders. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please comment below or email me. I look forward to quilting for you very soon!

Diane

Savannah 2022

 

Chris and I have been making travel plans almost since the day we met back in November 2021. We both love to go on adventures and we discovered that we really enjoy long road trips during our first two trips together for my teaching. He insists on driving and his truck is great for hauling fabric and books and quilts! He also makes quite the wonderful salesman and has picked up on the quilting 'lingo' really well. He has even offered to write some guest posts here on the blog if anyone would like to hear his perspective on this crazy quilting life! He really is an amazing support and willing to help with almost anything. And me makes me laugh every single day, gosh knows that's important!

We stayed at the Olde Harbour Inn on River Street in Savannah. We had perfect weather and wonderful meals along with lots of sightseeing and history exploring. Our favorite restaurants included: The Shrimp Factory, Vic's on the River, The Pirate House and Pier 16 on Tybee Island. 

Wormsloe Plantation was an amazing place to walk the trails and see the ruins of the original home. The location is stunning and history is fascinating. I would highly recommend a visit to this gorgeous place. It was here that Chris got the brilliant idea to buy a t-shirt at our favorite places to make a memory quilt from our travels! I had never thought of buying t-shirts for the purpose of cutting them up just for a quilt (with no intention of ever wearing them) but it's brilliant! I don't really wear t-shirts but I love making quilts from them. We came home with 5 shirts to start and I'm so excited.

We did the walking tour of Bonaventure Cemetery and loved the 2.5 hours of history that we learned along the way. If you are a history nut (like us) contact Bonaventure Don. If you just want the fun stories or ghost tales, there are plenty of golf cart tours available as well.

Ft. Pulaski is a wonderfully preserved original fort built to protect the river from the Spanish in Florida and as a buffer for Charleston. The engineering and architecture is fascinating and the stories of life there were truly inspiring. We had a wonderful time not only exploring the fort but the walking trails around it along the river.

We also drove out to Tybee Island and visited the lighthouse. We climbed all 178 steps and enjoyed the view from the top. It was super windy and I loved walking the outside walkway at the top but Chris chose to stay inside. The lightkeepers home was also open to explore and we picked up a t-shirt here for our quilt as well.

We then drove around the island and walked out on the pier but it was super windy with misting rain at some points so no great photos.

The haunted walking tour was a beautiful way to enjoy the city at night. It was not very scary but it was super interesting and fun to learn where the stories originated how much truth there may or may not be in them. I especially liked seeing the squares lit at night. On another night we did a haunted pub crawl that was also fun. Since Savannah is the most haunted city in the world supposedly, there was no shortage of stories and no lack of imagination!

We also enjoyed a beautiful sunset river cruise one night and sipped drinks and even did a little dancing on the top deck. I'm pretty sure I could not have had a better time or a better travel companion for the week of exploring and experiencing such an amazing place. 

And yes, we are already planning our next two trips. Stay tuned...

Happy travels,

Diane

March 2022 Instagram Review

 

Celebrating Chris's Birthday, his daughter's wedding, and wedding joy!

Noah's baseball game, a finished customer quilt, and a family dinner

goofy Rumi, walking in DeSoto Nat. Monument, Sarasota

Dinner on the gulf, another teaching trip to FL, lunch with friends

Savannah breakfast in bed, Riverboat cruise, our hotel

Tybee Island lighthouse, Ft. Pulaski, cocktails at Vic's

walking Savannah with Chris, Wormsloe, haunted tour

so much Spanish moss, new fabric closet set up!

March was a busy month filled with lots of good things! We started the month with another teaching trip to Florida and Chris perfected his charming quilt sherpa skills. He's quite the salesman and an excellent travel companion. 

At home again we enjoyed some family dinners with the kids (and cried a little bit when Danny and Grey moved back to Virginia...but knowing they are happy and doing well is all that matters!) 

Noah started men's softball season and we love watching the games! 

And there were quite a few customer quilts to finish and the final touches have been put on the new quilt room. More info on that to come soon! Anyone interested in a new sewing room video tour?

Rumi has grown by leaps and bounds and still loves to amuse us with his crazy puppy antics.

Chris's beautiful daughter Stephanie got married in a beautiful spot in Tennessee. We enjoyed meeting lots of new family and dinner and dancing and loving on baby Ivy (Chris's granddaughter.)

Then we took a vacation just for fun! No work or weddings, just Chris and I. I'll be sharing a whole post with tons of photos on that soon. 

I hope your month was filled with special moments as well.

XOXO

Diane

Sunflowers for Ukraine

Free pattern HERE

Eight years ago I shared an online sew along that was a mystery quilt. It turned out to be sunflowers or a flower block that could be changed to any color. Recently, as many folks are looking for blocks to make  related to the crisis in the Ukraine, I've been getting dozens of requests each day. So here is a link to the instructions. It is written in 2 size options and is presented as a mystery, so it's not your 'typical' pattern. 

I do hope you enjoy it and as always, I love to see photos of blocks and quilts in progress or finished. Tag me on social media #butterflythreadsquilting so I can be sure to find it!

Diane