Quilt, Read, Eat, Sleep.... What Else Is There? discussion

I am a relatively new member to this group and now find myself as a co-moderator with Becky and Judy Iliff. Becky's life is full of family and school, so I offered to help get some fun and activity into this group. I recruited Judy's help, so now it's time to introduce ourselves.

I've been reading ever since I was little. I fondly remember riding my bike to the library in the summer and coming home with my bike basket full of books. I know what I don't like in books almost more than what I do like. I know within just a few pages if my interest has been captured and I have no qualms about putting it down if I don't care for it. I've been quilting for almost 20 years. Every bed in our house has quilts for blankets and I have wall quilts that I change with the month and/or season. I live in the state of Washington where there are distinctly four seasons. My husband and I are both retired, and I have the wonderful opportunity of working two days a week at my local quilt shop. We have one daughter who is married and lives about 3 hours from here; and they have Leona, our precious granddaughter.

Becky, Judy and I are looking forward to making this a group full of fun, sharing of books, both reading and quilting, projects and maybe throw in a recipe or two. -Kathryn


As Kathryn told you, she and I are now co-moderators with Becky for this group. As such, we decided we should probably reintroduce ourselves. I have been a member of GoodReads and this group since June of 2009. I love the whole idea of GoodReads because it's easy for me to keep track of the books I've read. I also like seeing what others have read and reading the reviews. Often times I find "gems" I would never have round on my own.

I, like Kathryn, cannot remember when I didn't love to read. I loved it so much I became an English major. I had no idea being an English teacher meant grading essays for hours on end! I simply wanted to help instill the love of reading in others! I retired at the end of the 2007-2008 school year and have spent hours and hours reading. I tell people I never have to read another book for the inner-hidden-secret-deeper meaning ever again, so I read a lot of cozies as well books recommended by friends.

With retirement, I also started quilting more. I keep thinking I'm fairly new to quilting, but in fact I've been quilting for 15 years. Several members of this group have known me since I started and we all belonged to the same on-line quilt group. Since retirement, I think I've made more quilts than I made in the previous 12 years combined. That's probably not true, but it's close.

My other passion for the past 4 years has been remodeling various parts of the house. I think this year will be the end of it. There are only a few places left that need to be upgraded/repaired. I do think I'm ready for it to all be over, though, as the mess drives me nuts!

I live in northeast Wyoming. I've married for the first time 17 years ago. We have one daughter (I adopted my husband's daughter), and we have 2 grandsons whom we don't see very often. We have no pets. I do have a niece whom I've helped to learn to quilt who belongs to this group, too.

If you know others who love to read and quilt, as well as sleep and eat, why don't you ask them to join our group? I don't foresee us becoming swamped with messages, but continued discussion of what we're reading and what we're making would be nice. In the weeks ahead, we have (read that Kathryn has and I agree with her) some ideas for discussions that I think you'll enjoy. We also look forward to any suggestions you may have for the group. -Judy

Hello!

My name is Shannon. I'm married with four children. I work outside the home as a bookkeeper. I live in Colorado.

I'm not a very good Goodreads user. I plan on changing that! I came to the group because I loved its name and totally fit my philosophy of life.

My mom claims I started reading at age 4. I don't remember back that far, but I have other fond memories associated with reading growing up. No matter how tight money was, my parents always found money to get me a new book from the store or place an order through Scholastic. Books have been a comfort to me!

I've been a quilter for about 12 years. I picked up the craft because of my love of fabric. I'm a queen of UFOs, though. I have a large fabric stash. I might even consider myself a fabric hoarder.

One might say that I've hit a bit of a dryspell with reading and quilting. One of my goals for the year is to find the joy in both again.

One of my most thrilling quilting and book related moments was making a group quilt for Twilight author Stephenie Meyer. She received it and sent everyone in the group autographed copies of New Moon.

It would be nice for the group to be more active. I love to chat about books I've read and projects I'm working on.

-Shannon

Shannon wrote: "Hello!

My name is Shannon. I'm married with four children. I work outside the home as a bookkeeper. I live in Colorado.

I'm not a very good Goodreads user. I plan on changing that! I cam..."

Welcome, welcome, welcome Shannon! I am so tickled you picked this time to join us. There are three moderators, two of us, Judy and I who just started. We hope you will find this just the place to share not only what you are reading, but what you are working on.

How utterly exciting to make a group quilt for Stephenie Meyer! Wow! I have nothing to top that! I look forward to hearing more from you!

I am Cathy and was introduced to this list by Judy I , with whom I met on another list.
Several years ago I was wanting to share book with a friend that I had read. The trouble was, I couldn't remember the title or the author. I spent months and months trying to remember. I'd gotten it from the library it see if they kept records of the books I checked out. The librarian said, no, once we return them it's off our record. grrrr. I decided then to start making note of each book I did. I'd been doing that for a year when I stumbled on goodreads. Yay!
I can't remember not being a reader. I made my first quilt in 1985, but had yearned to since I was a child and saw the quilts my grandmother turned out.
Sometime back, this website was suggested to me:
http://infohost.nmt.edu/~breynold/qui... and I decided to read as many of these books as I can. Of course more are added regularly so I've not accomplished my goal yet, lol. I also find a lot of quilts books before they are added to that list. It helped me find some very good books. Once I read one, I'd search out that author's other books and find I enjoy them as much as their quilting fiction.
I belong to several quilt related email lists. I frequently check various author's blogs.
Besides reading quilting books, I read books about dogs, books set in the WWII era, and mysteries. I'm also quick to read books suggested by friends.
I live in Ohio. Single with no children, but a few loved nieces and nephews. I am a foster mom for my favorite breed of dog - boxers. I have always loved gardening, but do very little now due to health problems. I do enjoy cooking.

I'm dittoing what Kathryn said about the quilt for Stephanie Meyer, Shannon! How totally cool is that! I'm not a big Meyer fan, it's just not my genre - I don't do scary! - but when I was teaching, my girl students loved her books.

Maybe one of the things we should do is share pictures of our stashes. I seem to be a fabric hoarder, too! I particularly like batiks.

I too have been on a dry spell with quilting but not with reading. I have a quilt started but I got bored with it, so it's just sitting there.

Hey, Cathy! Good to see you post here again. I had bookmarked your link to the quilt books but I keep forgetting to go back to it. Now I've looked again. I wonder how much trouble I can get myself into by checking the list against what's available for the Kindle! LOL!

Cathy, BTW, not only is a foster mom to boxers, but she does make beautiful quilts. I've seen pictures! :-)

Thank you, Judy. Trust me all, Judy's are wonderful too!

You're very kind, Cathy! Geez! It's sounds like we have a mutual admiration society going here! LOL!

Judy, I would be too embarrassed to take a picture of my stash. Talk about hoarders!

Hello Cathy! I'm definitely going to check out that website. I'll setup a folder for us to share book websites/newsletters we get and the same for quilting...I get several as well. The quilt shop where I work,, the owner and her husband have a boxer, Beau, that gets to come to the shop. He is such a gentle soul. He loves apples. I have Shelties, so the size of a boxer is not something I am used to. Beau puts his head in my lap while I eat lunch. I am so glad your part of this group!

Okay someone tell me how to make an html work so you can just click on it...I thought I was reading the instructions and you put <> around it, but obviously that didn't work on my last message.

If you want just the link, in other words you're not making a specific word a link, just type it in without the <>. At least, that's what I did on the other thread, and when it posted, it was clickable.

Hello! It's Becky - waving from behind the stack of schoolbooks! I want to THANK Kathryn and Judy for offering to co-moderate the group for me - I'm just tickled to death that they are :-D. I know they will do a superlative job leading us :-)

Hello to all the new members!!

A quick reading a quilting update from me - I'm mainly reading school books - this quarter is Theories of Personality and Understanding and Managing Diversity. However, I DO have the latest Stephen King started and catch a few paragraphs here and there.

Quilting-wise, I just finished a huge project that you can see at my quilt blog http://beckyssanityquilts.blogspot.com/
and I've been asked by the same lady to make a baby quilt for a great grandbaby who is on the way. So, I have quilting to do too.

Have fun everyone and I'll poke my head in ever so often :-)

Becky

Your black and white quilt is wonderful, Becky!

Kathryn said:

How utterly exciting to make a group quilt for Stephenie Meyer! Wow! I have nothing to top that! I look forward to hearing more from you!

I'm probably in the minority, but it was a natural thing for me to do. I can't tell you how many times I'm reading a book and think to myself about how I would depict it in a quilt.

I'm not with the group anymore. I still quilt Twilight projects, am working on a commissioned quilt for a friend, and am obsessed enough that I have a blog featuring those projects.

Thank you!

I visited Becky's blog mentioned above and decided to start one of my own to showcase some of my quilts. This is what I have started with. http://sheilasquiltsandfabrichoarding... This is a test run.

Well, goodness sake, I'd never thought about setting up a blog to showcase my quilts. What a terrific idea. I do put pictures on facebook. Judy and I visit there, is only else on facebook? Becky, the black and white quilt is wonderful and I love the piano keys? Did she pay you to make the quilt? I think the hardest part of having someone pay me to make a quilt is how much to charge them....

So, Sheila, does this mean you're going to take pictures of your stash?!!!

Here's a link to some of my quilts. Someday I'll figure out how to get back into that site so I can post the ones I've made the past 2 years. (My computer died twice and they had to replace the motherboard which means it has a new "number" that the web site doesn't recognize! Dang!)

Well, Judy I am actually working on organizing the stash. I've determined that by color is the way to go for me and yes eventually I will take pictures of it and of my quilts as well. Bummer about the new motherboard. I've had a couple of computer deaths that messed me up as well so I know what a pain that is, plus you "toss your cookies" so your favorite websites don't rememeber you anymore.

I'm very much enjoying this new group (to me) BTW. Thanks.

Judy:

Here's a link to some of my quilts.

We need to talk. I saw your picture of the Double Wedding Ring blocks on your design wall. Did you finish? I have a need to make one and I'm torn about which way to go. I love paper piecing and am leaning toward using a Judy Niemeyer pattern.

-Shannon

Shannon wrote: "I saw your picture of the Double Wedding Ring blocks on your design wall. Did you finish? "

I only made 4 blocks. The method I used was John Flynn's. If anyone was going to make a DWR, I would recommend his way. As for finishing it, I never did. I couldn't get the binding on the way I wanted.

At one time I thought I would like to make a DWR -- I'm over it.

If and when I were to do a double wedding ring, I'd do it the Quilt Smart way....

Judy, you got it all done and the binding didn't go on right? Are you nuts? Send it to me and I'll put the binding on for you! That's a ton of work...

I'm so bad about continuing a topic on the wrong place.... I'll start a DWR thread out of Introduction and continue the discussion if that's okay? -Shannon

I hadn't even noticed and I'm a moderator...but now that you mention it, we can discuss the double wedding ring thoroughly in the sewing folder....

Hello Everybody!

My name is Jaci (Jackie) Worth and I'm Judy's niece! Sorry, I'm just catching up on all the going's on here.

I was born & raised in Sturgis, South Dakota, lived in Denver for about 9 years, Casper WY for 4 and am now back here in Rapid City SD for the last 3 years. I found my joy of reading through my Aunt who gave me a ton a books growing up (and still does :-)) since we have the same tastes in books.

I was taught to quilt when I was in High School, but, at the time, I wasn't that interested in it. Upon moving back to SD, I've taken it up again and have completed about 10 quilts since then. I'm currently working on a new quilt, I can't remember the name of it and I don't want to walk downstairs!

Anyway, I have worked at a major financial institution for the last 14 years. I love to travel (going to Hawaii again in February) and love hanging out with my cousin and his family who live close by. When I get the chance, I also love to visit with my aunt...especially when she cleans our her stash! ;-)

Can't wait to visit with you all!

Jaci

Hi Jackie! How fun that you and your aunt are here. My sister quilts, but that's all of the quilters in the family. Neither her daughter or mine quilt...oh well, they to love receive quilts. Join in the discussions, it will be fun to get to know you!

The more the merrier and chattier we will be....

I'm the only quilter in my family. I'm working on my daughters. My oldest isn't interested. My 9-year old has shown interest, but is easily frustrated and bored.