New Quilts Patterns

Fall quilt market has come and gone and I'm just now getting a chance to post a few of my new patterns. Quilters are such wonderful, friendly people and I'm so priviledged to be a part of this fantastic industry. My first new pattern is called Berry Basket Welcome and I chose beautiful brown, red and tan prints from French General's new line for Moda called Maison de Garance. This is a fat quarter friendly pattern and can be easily made in a weekend. It has big, bold prints and It goes together with ease, and would be a great choice for even the beginning quilter. I chose fabrics from the Definitions line by Faye Burgos for Marcus Fabrics.

Last, but certainly not least, is my newest block of the month pattern designed for use with Strip It, designs that was inspired from a wonderful children website and more precisely the mandalas coloring page. This is a 6 month bom with a few twists. Each month, blocks or a border is made and added to the previous month, so that at the end of the sixth month, your quilt is completely finished! By using Strip It for many of the blocks and rail fence border, your piecing time is cut in half. The name of this pattern is Chestnut and Vine, which is also the name of the fabric line by Faye Burgos made for Marcus Fabrics.

More about Versatile Blogger

A required part of accepting the Versatile Blogger Award is to reveal some interesting tidbits about myself that you don’t already know. So here goes, but remember, interesting is relative:

1. Many years ago, I seemed to have been on a lucky streak when it came to found cash. It wasn’t unusual for me to come upon a stray $20 in a store parking lot every week or so, for example, and since it was cash, there was no way I was going to find the rightful owner. One time was particularly fruitful: when I went outside my courtyard door in Savannah one early morning, I found $350 in small bills, rolled up loosely, lying beside a tree. There was no one on the street, so I scooped it up and called a policeman friend of mine to ask him what to do. He told me to keep it and spend it wisely as it was most likely the dropped cash from a druggie. At the time, we lived in downtown Savannah where druggies hung out regularly. I shared it with my kids. These days, one is lucky to find a stray penny lying around, unclaimed.

2. When I was a preteen, I had a very full bottom lip which I thought to be abnormal, never having heard of Angelina Jole. Since I was just getting interested in boys, and I thought part of my face was unbearable to others, I started pulling up my lower lip with my teeth so that, at a distance, I would look “normal.” One weekend, my very beautiful 16 year old cousin and I were strolling down the street while she scanned the neighborhood boys her own age. I began biting my lip and, answering her question of “why”, she told me that my lip was very sexy to boys and don’t ever do that again. God, was I glad to know that what I thought of as an abnormal condition was actually an asset!

3. I’ve never ridden on a train even though my dad worked for Seaboard Railroad for several years and rides along the eastern seaboard would have been free. I thought I was to take my first train ride on The Orient Express when I lived in Cairo, but somehow, it never got scheduled. I’ll always regret that because that, my friend, would have been a huge first!

4. Just weeks after being hired as the Executive Director of the Georgia Lung Association, SE Branch, I discovered I was pregnant. Since this was my first job in management, I agonized over telling my Board of Directors for weeks before finally making my announcement at a board meeting. At first there was silence… then my president said: “Well Jane, since you’re the youngest Director we’ve ever had, this comes as a little bit of a shock… but a very pleasant one. We’ll be getting two for the price of one!” Boy, what a sigh of relief that brought… and I stayed with them for almost 9 years.

5. Speaking of the Georgia Lung Association, I won the National Public Relations award from the National Lung Association in the late 70s. This was for a project I spearheaded in preventing the Savannah Electric Company from firing up coal burners without first installing precipitators. You can’t imagine how proud I was when accepting that award in New York as I had competed with every GLA branch, no matter the size of the city they were located in, including New York City’s branch. As a result, I also won a similar award that same year from the Sierra Club for the project.

Versatile Blogger

The adorable Eddie Bluelights at Silvery Linings has graciously presented me and 9 others with The Versatile Blogger Award, for which I’m very grateful and proud that Eddie thinks of me as versatile enough to include me among those he favors. Here are some things about me:

1. I’ve never broken a bone in my life (knock on wood!) and when I had a bone density test done several years ago when I was in my mid-50s, I was told I had the bones of a 25 year old. Accounting for time having passed and my rapidly approaching my 69th birthday in December, let’s assume that I now have the bones of a 35 year old. Why the hell then do these 35 year old bones ache all the time, is what I’d like to know.

2. Up until the time I was a senior in high school, I had never skipped school. About halfway through my senior year, I skipped one day for what I thought to be a very good reason… and my mother turned me in. I had to spend afternoons after school for an entire week in detention hall. Believe me, it was nothing like The Breakfast Club. Those people were truly scary!

3. When I was in junior high school, I won a literary contest at our school. My principal then selected me to represent our school at the state competition and… I came in second. I can’t remember the subject we had to write about, but I do remember being so nervous I was trembling the entire time I was writing my essay. I’m glad I didn’t let our school down and at least walked away with second place.

4. I have this odd ability of being able to identify movie stars just from hearing their voice without seeing their face… which I’m sure comes from being a huge movie buff. I’m sure I’ll find a use for this skill some day.

5. I discovered I was claustrophobic when I tried to go into the Pyramid of Cheops at the Pyramids of Giza when I first moved to Cairo. Unfortunately, it was while I was on the extremely narrow, one-way staircase leading up to the inner chamber with about 100 tourists behind me. This was no time to be polite so I just plowed my way through sweating bodies loaded down with cameras and carryalls, determined to block my escape. Once I saw daylight, the nausea and panic attack subsided but I never went into such a small, enclosed, dark space again.