I’ve joined up with Melissa Warren and Susan Peterman and the 3 of us are combining forces to bring you the best e-pattern site. Now, we’ve just been open a week, so we are still adding designers and their patterns. We are gearing up for 2 sales -

• Cyber Monday! 20% select designers patterns. You’ll be shopping anyway, drop by!
• Countdown to Christmas - starting Dec 1, we’ll have a different pattern on sale everyday till the 24th. 20% off the ‘Pattern of the Day’ as we Countdown to Christmas! More on that later!

The quilt is beautiful, made up in gorgeous fall colors. And it’s very easy to do, there is a CD included with the book, so you can print out your templates. What I really love is reading the letters.

In 1922 The Farmers Wife magazine asked their readers, “If you had a daughter of marriageable age, would you, in the light of your own experience, want her to marry a farmer?”

It seems city people had a perception of farmers wives as being work horses, dowdy, downtrodden, desperately seeking escape from her dungeon of a life! The response proved nothing was farther from the truth! Over 7000 of the magazine’s readers responded to the question, from their 750,000 subscribers and the tally said 94% of the women would indeed… want their daughter to marry a farmer!

In reading the letters, the farmers wives pitied the city women! Cooped up in hot/cold city apartment, no money of her own except what her husband gave her, no fresh air, and lots of entertainment, but few ‘real’ things to do.

The farmers wives had the chicken and egg money, it was their own to keep. They did the work of taking care of the chickens and selling the eggs, that belonged to them. They spent their days doing ‘real’ things that directly impacted their family - cooking, gardening, planting, sewing, canning, preserving, and they worked hard. At the end of the day they were tired, but it was a good tired.

(I’m not saying anything against city women, I’m just reporting the point of view in the book)

Every letter is filled with joy and pride in her work and life. She worked alongside her husband, together they ran the farm, their business. The letters are full of pride in their children and how they are growing up. She wholeheartedly wished her daughter the same kind of life.

Add to that, the templates and directions for 111 quilt blocks…it’s a fascinating book. I hope you have the opportunity to get the book and that you enjoy it as much as I did.

It’s got a really fancy cover doesn’t it? This book is all business. 28 pages of information straight up, no filler. I get to the point at the beginning and take it to very end. If you’re a quilt designer, you have precious little time to be reading fluff, so I made sure I didn’t waste your time! I hope, if you purchase it ($15) that it will be a big help to you in many ways.

Margaret was an invaluable help to me, and you should see the patterns she designs!!!! Visit her site AND blog - both are fabulous!

I know I’ve been a neglectful blogger lately, so I’m sending some of my flower pictures from St. Louis. I’ll be better, I promise

If we looked straight ahead…there is the Arch! What a view!!!

and I did miss Stitch and Pitch Day by 3 days! but I still Stitched….

All four of us had our Cardinals shirts on - no doubt what we were in St. Louis for

I also visited 2 needlework shops, and took pictures of lots of flowers and pretty green growing things, which I’ll share on the Needlework Blog…come over and visit! (just give me some time to put them up)

Kind of weird for the publisher/editor to say that, after all, wasn’t it my fingers working in Illustrator and InDesign? Yes, it was  - but all you creative, designing types know that a project takes on it’s own personality and it’s best to just go with the flow. If you fight it, it turns out baaaad.

Now…the REALLY BIG NEWS!!!!!!!!!!! The Cotton Spice website will NOT close!!!!! Oh no… I have big plans for that site. In the next week or so, we’ll be renovating the Quilt Shop to carry downloadable patterns for many crafts - quilting, knitting, crocheting, embroidery, cross stitch…whatever we can get our hands on! The One-Stop Pattern Shop!!!!  So stay tuned and I’ll keep you posted.

Downloadable patterns are really the way to go. I find myself ONLY buying patterns that I can download. I don’t want to wait for the US Mail!!! Takes way too long. When I want to make something, I want to make it NOW!!

Talk to you soon!

It had some pearle cotton from long ago, which I thought was pretty neat in itself! But I never looked ‘under’ the pearle cotton. Today I DID! Oh My Goodness!!!!! Look at this -

Yeah… the pearle cotton…but can you read the first label, where you see ‘20′? Ok, here’s a closeup….

And there are 3 full skeins, 3 partial but not by much and 1 little bit left.

I’m thrilled with my find.

Well, I’m doing it again! You saw my biscornu, you’ve heard about the Stitchery BOM I’m doing in Ruby - well, now let’s look at some of the other things I’m doing.

This a practice piece I’m doing. the satin stitch outline. It starts with a running stitch, then you go over that with a split stitch, and then go back over that with a loose piece of thread, and satin stitch over the entire thing. It forms a raised line, that should be smooth That’s why it’s called ‘practice’ :))

This is a cross stitch piece I’m doing for a Christmas gift, so I can’t show too much of it

And this is the beginnings of a Christmas angel. A free pattern I downloaded HERE This is a small design, so it shouldn’t take too long, but it is very detailed, as are the majority of TIAG designs - that’s what makes them so beautiful!