A Fresh look

Looking ahead into the new year is something that is exciting isn't it? I am not a big resolution maker but I do like to make a list (surprise, surprise) of things that I hope to accomplish in the new year. This picture reminds me of looking ahead and then I realized that there are some things that we would like to share with you. Things that you can look forward to in the new year!

1. We are going to start the "100 days of quilts" (I bet you are wondering what this is...you will have to wait a little longer)

2. Cape Cod fabrics and projects appearing in Fon's and Porter, American Patchwork & Quilting, and Quilts and more.

3. Completly kids fabric collection and Patterns

4. Our first Spring Retreat

5. Completely kids projects appearing in our favorite magazines!

6. A new look for our web site (probably closer to the end of '08)

7. Personal appearances at quilt shows & classes

8. Some cool give a ways on our blog (February & March, I will explain the significance of those
months next time)

9. New pattern releases

10. Continuation of our e-newsletter!

on that note...we recently sent out our December newsletter and we made a few exciting announcements that I wanted to share with our blog audience. We announced our Spring retreat sign up has started it is over half full ALREADY and limited space available, don't delay. If you are interested email info@bluemeadowdesigns.com and I can email you a package or you can wait until our webmaster gets in up on the web site http://www.bluemeadowdesigns.com/. The other exciting thing was the contest for our e-newletter members. We are making a draw on December 24th (for e-newsletter scribers ONLY!) for our complete pattern collection 14 patterns, totaling a value of $111.86!!!! It's worth signing up for :)

We haven't forgotten about our blog friends...we will have some goodies for you very soon.

Cori

It is the season

When you have young children as Myra and I do December is spent running around from Christmas concert to christmas concert, helping out a school with murals, making gingerbread houses and then there is the family gatherings as well as the decorating, shopping and baking. It is very easy to loose sight of why we celebrate this season. It was so cute when my son's kindergarten class put on a little play, re-telling the Christmas story from the inn keepers perspective. Don't the kids tell it best? And there was my daughters concert filled with music of all kinds.

I hope that you can spend the Christmas season with the people you love AND...I hope you have the chance to attend a christmas concert too!

celebrating our Saviors birth,

cori

Back to the Ocean

Did I find my way back to the ocean? Nope, I just worked my way back to the Ocean Waves project that is lurking in my studio. (In case you don't realize where we live - we are geographically as far away from any ocean as you can get)

But many of you have been asking about this project, and now that I have cleared up the 'technical difficulty' I can show you the progress.

I wasn't able to piece the Ocean Waves quilt with our Cape Cod fabric line, but it was a quilt that I really, really, really wanted to make. So I decided to make it using fabric from my stash, and donate the top to the MCC quilt room in Ephrata, Pa.

I dug through my gi-normous stash, and picked out 12 pink and green prints. And I decided that I wanted the background to be a mix of ivory and white prints. Here's the best part! In my stash, I had a collection of 12" strips of ivory and white that I had never used. My actual intent of those fabrics was to make a wedding quilt for myself. Why did that never happen? Because I had so many idea's that I could never decide on a final quilt layout! So these fabrics have been patiently sitting in my stash for 10 YEARS! But since they are good quality cotton, they look as good today, as they did a decade ago when I first bought them.

And have you ever noticed that when you use up a fabric out of your stash, it releases a little of your pent up guilt, and you are free to go out and buy more fabric? Anyway, on to the instructions.

I was a little leary of using the 'grid' method in constructing the blocks. When I first tried it years ago, I over gridded, and over sewed those grids, and the result was a handful of tiny-tiny half square triangles. I decided that I would never teach this method, because if you don't have both eyes on the project, you can make a mistake.



Here you can see how you layer a 12" piece of print and a 12" piece of background, with the right sides facing each other. You only need to mark the grid on the back of one of the fabrics.

(Yes mother, I do realize that I didn't press my fabric before marking my grid and sewing!)



You simply sew on each side of the diagonal lines. DO NOT sew on each side of the horizontal and vertical lines...trust me...this would be a mistake.

Once you have sewn on each side of the diagonal lines, you can cut the blocks apart, by cutting along all of the drawn lines, the horizontal, the vertical, and the diagonal lines.

This method is so quick and easy that in a very short time, you will have all of the half square triangles that you need.

I must admit, years ago I probably would have cut all of the 1152 triangles, and joined them up one at a time, but now that I have gotten over my fear of the grid method, I will never go back.

I hope to finish up the 48 blocks before the end of the year, and then decide what to do with the borders. I will post a picture of the finished quilt top before I send it away.

And this is the project that I made up years ago from that handful of tiny-tiny half square triangles. I refused to admit that I had made an error in my execution of the grid method, so I simply created this small table center from that mess, and I named it 'I don't make mistakes'

-myra

So what did you do last night?


Me? Well my husband and I had the ultimate 'date-night'! We got a call offering us tickets for the 12th row - center stage for the Bonjovi concert. This concert was sold out in under 10 minutes, and tickets were rare, so when we got the chance to be there - we took it. It was completly unbelievable! How did we get tickets? Well that will always be my little secret. (only my aunt Esther could guess the source) So the whole night rocked - literally. I could rant about it for hours, but I will keep my insights brief and to the point.

The songs obviously took me back to my highschool days, when life was adventurous and carefree. We chose our own path, and didn't expect anyone to follow. For me, the concert physically represented what Cori and I have been talking about lately. We love design, and when we let ourselves go - we come up with amazing, and dynamic concepts that totally rock. The problem is, we have been told for the past decade that these designs don't work. We have been told that they can't be published in traditonal formats (and they really can't) and it has been gently suggested that it is not what quilters want. Cori and I have always listened, and taken this advice to heart. But now, we are really wanting to go in a new direction. I think this is an itch that we just need to scratch. So in the new year, you will be seeing some very different things from us. It means that we won't be doing a book, and we won't be doing as much magazine work, and that is a little scary, but right now I think we want to explore this new path.

So for me, I am going to go dust off my black leather jacket, and head down to the design board. Who know's where last night's inspiration will lead.

-myra

The farewell....

I am sorry that I have fallen a little behind in telling you about the last days at the Bernina retreat. Well, they say a picture is worth 1000 words. And for those of you who have been asking, I can now tell you everyone who was there. They hosted designers like Charlotte Warr Anderson, Elinor Peace Bailey, and her daughter-in-law Heather Bailey, Marian Fons, John Flynn, Kaye England (she's a riot), Linda Lee, and Yvonne Porcella. Of course there were many others, but those would be the most recognizable names.

It was a busy weekend, and traveling home through the stormy weather just made the trip feel very long. But now that we are safely tucked back home in our snow covered houses, we will have plenty of time to get back to what we love best. Drawing, designing, and creating.

Talk to ya soon.
-myra

"Follow your bliss"
What a wonderful quote. Myra and I were sent matching bookmarks from a friend/customer with a wonderful note. The quote on the bookmark is "follow your bliss". Thanks Marcy for the early christmas gift!

So what is your biss? Are you following it? I had to think about it abit, but I have followed my dream of being a business woman. I worked with my father in our family clothing business from the age of 15yrs until 26 yrs. I loved it! Being a buyer, display maker and putting outfits and wardrobes together for our customers. Who knew that it would lead me into the world of quilting though! Following your bliss is not always blissful though. Over the last 10ish years we have worked very hard pursuing our path in this industry. Our path has taken many turns and probably always will. But CHEERS to "following your bliss".

My other "bliss" is my family! I always wanted to be a wife and mother and now I have the priviledge of doing that "job" too.

Think about it today...your "bliss".

Be thankful.
~cori

Welcome to the Bernina Teachers Reunion - Chicago

Here is a glimpse into our weekend at Bernina. This group is made up of Mentors and Mentees - it was the criteria this year, in order for the Mentor's to attend the reunion they had to invite a person, active in the sewing/quilting industry and between the ages of 20-40 years of age. Myra and I were invited by Nancy and Sharon!

Myra showing off her goody bag. Not only do they feed you well, and take care of your every need - but they also leave you gift bags with really cool shwag.

Sharon & Cori working one of the days projects. And Sharon is hilarious! Even without all the wine! You might not know her name, but Sharon has invented a lot of cool products that you probably use. She has produced all of the EZ rules, and other notions for Wrights. She has also invented a great circle cutting gadget that she has promised to send me to use for an upcoming project.

One more day to go! We will let you know how tomorrow goes.

C & M

A note from Grand Forks International Airport

Hello everyone and happy winter. It is beginning to storm here in Grand forks. Myra and I are sitting in the airport waiting on our flight to arrive from MN. It is only delayed 30 min. which is amazing, since it is very WHITE here right now! Our trip in was good and accident free, lets home the rest of the trip goes smoothly too :)

There is a Colorado low coming in this weekend and I hope by the time we come back the roads are in good shape.

Now let me give you a glimpse into GFK. Not the largest airport (hahahahha) There are four employees at the check in counter and about three in securit oh AND not one outlet on the parking lot to plug in your car. I CAN'T believe that in North Dakota, "cold and snow capital" and there is no plug in on the parking lot. Let's hope the car starts!!

Oh well..just thought we would say HELLO as we are on our travels.

Stay warm,

C & M

p.s and on our drive to Grand Forks, we had a great idea for our blog in the new year...

Technical Difficulty

I am sorry for the delay in blogging..but I am having some technical difficulty with my computer. I think it is time that it went to the doctors. I will have to deal with that next week. And I am disappointed at all the things that I wanted to share - but I can't, because I am unable to download all of my pictures. I have been carefully documenting my progress on the Ocean Waves quilt, and I wanted to share it all with you. But, I guess you will have to wait just a little longer.

Now, to all of you who are concerned that I am starting a career in the meat packing industry, you don't need to worry. As it turns out, all of the volunteer possitions were filled last week, and I wasn't needed after all. I am sorry that I couldn't help, but I am very touched, becasue it ment that so many others were willing to help. So for all of you who have e-mailed me, I will clarify what the 'canning' truck was all about. Yes-it is a portable meat canning truck that goes to various communittes, and cans meat. It is highly inspected by both Canadian and American agencies, and after the cans have been in a 'quarentine' for 3 months, they will be shipped overseas. How do I help? Trust me, the only part that I am qualified to help with is rinsing the packed cans, and applying lables! But I do like to help. And I would encourage everyone - that at this time of year when we freely give donations to worthy charities, why not give some of your time instead? It is just as important.

So I wanted to say THANK YOU to all the volunteers who helped us this year. 11,000 can of pork meat will be sent to orphanages in North Korea, and the rest will be sent to Haiti.

So what is up with this picture?

It's my daughter, and everytime I pull out my suitcase, she know's I am going somewhere again...and she always tries to sneek along. By now it is a little joke between us. So where am I going? Well, this weekend Cori and I have been invited to the 'uber-exclusive' Bernina retreat in Chicago. There are two different sessions, and a very small group of deligates are invited to the event. We got the invite through a friend who is 'on the list'. It is hard not telling you who will all be there, because these are THE TOP designers in the industry. I don't want to breach anyone's privicy by revealing that they will be here. However....you might want to check back after the week when I could share who was there. We will be back in the middle of next week, so make sure you check back.

-myra

International Weekend

Today is one of those days when I am over tired, but very inspired. Yesterday (Sunday) turned out to be a day full of new friends, old friends, and pizza. I knew it was a great day, when I ran out of hangers for coats in my guest closet.

It started with meeting the 'canners' who are in town. We had lunch with these three young guys who are staying at my parents house this week while they are here with the MCC meat canning truck. They came down to our place for the afternoon...partly so they could all get onto the internet with their own computers. So, Eric is from Pennsylvania (10 miles from where I use to live!) and Josh is from Kansas, and Viktor is from Germany. It was cool watching him and his family speak back and forth through their web cams. A short time later, other friends came down, with the young man who is living with them this year. His name is Mark, and he is from Paraguay. And later that night, Katherine made it down to our house, and she is from Switzerland. So we had a house full of international friends, and I didn't take a picture of any of them! It shows you how involved I was, because I never remember to stop and take a picture when I am having a great time.

As it turned out, everyone who was here had a connection to MCC. What is MCC you ask? It stands for Mennonite Central Committee, and it is a world wide relief organization. My family has been involved in some manor with MCC since I was born. It is a long story, but it is because of MCC that quilting came into my family, and that has lead me this profession.

So, the meat canning truck comes into Winkler once a year, and will process and can about 22,000 cans of pork. The volunteer crew is lead by these three guys, and together we will all work around the clock from Wednesday to Saturday to finish the canning. This is not an environment that is familiar to me, but I am looking forward to working a shift later on this week. Chances are good that I will end up on the night shift again. I hope that I will remember to bring my camera with me this time, and document my time working in a packing plant.

I am also working on a quit top that I hope to finish this week, which will be donated to the MCC quilting room. I will definatly have pictures of that to share with you soon. I decided to make an Ocean Waves quilt this year, and it has turned out to be a really, really fun project.

So, I will talk to you all again soon!
-myra

Our day trip

Welcome to Oma's quilt shop, a sweet little quilt shop in the country. Myra and I took a little trip today and it was so worth it. Adiena (the shop)owner is full of energy and great ideas and Velma came out to join us as well. Myra and I haven't taken a "just for fun" trip in a long time and you would think being in the quilting industry, we would visit quilt shops regularly, but we don't :(. We are often so busy just doing our thing that we loose touch. We bought some cool fabrics that I can hardly wait to use. This week I have been on a roll, experimenting with fabric and designs and yes, as Myra would put it...my new "obsession" with bias. And yes, I will share photo's really soon.

Velma brought show and tell. She sewed up Rumba this past weekend and was excited to show us and we love seeing our friends and customers using our "stuff". (she also brought fresh pumpkin muffins...mmm good!) This trip to the country brought new inspirations and great times with friends. Thanks ladies for your hospitality and inspiration we had a great time. Oh and I encourage those of you close to Grunthal...it's worth the trip to look up Oma's Quilt shop!
If you don't know were Grunthal is...it's about 15 min. from Steinbach MB!

~cori

as promised by Myra

As Myra stated in the last post, Cori (that's me) would post the cover of Quilts and more, winter 2007 issue. This issue is full of little weekend projects and Save the date is one of those super fun projects - make sure you check it out, oh and give it a try. Make your calendar this weekend! :)

~cori

I forgot to remember.



I came home on the weekend to find another little parcel on my doorstep. I honestly couldn't rember if I had orderd anything. So what could possibly be inside? I ran inside, ripped open the box, and smiled. I had totally forgotten about this project. That's probably because I didn't make it - Cori did. Cori made a few of these as gifts last year for some editors, and other friends. Well, one thing lead to another, and we were asked to make another one for the December issue of Quilts & More. So, if you check your magazine stands, this is now out there! I will see if Cori can scan in the cover, so you know which magazine to look for. I would scan it in for you....but my copy hasn't shown up yet....

-myra

if you liked the baby quilt...how about this one?

This is the kids version of the little lady baby. These patterns are available on our website, http://www.bluemeadowdesigns.com/. I am glad you all enjoy these patterns.

~C

and the WINNERS are..

Thanks ladies for leaving a comment on the blog. I hope you enjoy making your own little lady quilt! For those of you that were too shy or too lazy...there will be more chances to win, very soon. I guess you could say we are feeling generous! Stay tuned and we love to hear from YOU!

~Cori

little lady baby

This quilt was made by Jackie from Ignace ON. She is one of our regular "retreater's". At this years retreat a bunch of the ladies worked on various projects as well as our retreat quilt project. I think that jackie basicly got this quilt done at retreat - and just recently finished machine quilting it. She quilted the lady bug outline over the whole quilt, every which direction, in purple verigated thread- so cute. The picture below is of the back of the quilt, where she added a pop of orange! LOVE IT! Thanks for sharing these pics with all of us.
Great inspiration.

The first 3 people to leave a comment along with a email address will recieve a free little lady pattern! I know your out there...be sure to leave an email, so that I can contact you for your mailing address.

~cori

Finding my way to grandma's house

What have Cori and I been up to since the retreat? Not a whole lot - and for us, that's shocking! We had decided that for the first time in 10 years of working together, we were going to take a few weeks off. This is just a little of our own time, to rest, and play, and hang out with all of the really great neighbours who I don't have time to talk too. But don't worry, you will be seeing A LOT of projects and half finished projects in the next little while. I have a huge mound of unfinished projects that I am just waiting to dig into. These are the one's that I really love, but were pushed aside for work deadlines, and other commitments. Well, it's time I dusted them off. So keep watching....

One thing that I had at the top of my list, was to make new Christmas stockings for my children. Why haven't I started this yet? Because the weather out here is phenominal! It is the end of October, and southern Manitoba is starting to have spring all over again. Our grass is green, the neighbours flowers are bright and yellow, and we are wearing T-shirts. The rumor is that the snow is just around the corner, but I'm not going to believe that one.

So instead of making stockings (it will take snow to put me in the right frame of mind to start that project) I grabbed my camera, and started on another item on my list. My goal is to photograph, and document the quilts in our collection. We have over 100 that we need to formally organize. I have started on a lot of the bording data, but today, I wanted to try getting some good pictures. The following picture is NOT one of the good shots, but I chose it for a reason.

I took a handful of quilts, and headed down to our little Thresherman's Museum. I spent the afternoon throwing quilts over different buildings and fences, and when I was there, I suddenly remembered that I have some connection to one of the buildings. When I got home, I called my mom, and sure enough, this house is the one where my Grandma Jessie was born, and lived. There was a total of 16 children born into her family. Can you imagine! Not all of them survived, but it still must have been cramped in their little home.

My Grandma Jessie is a really cool grandma. I hope to get down to her place in the next week to spend an afternoon embroidering with her. She has the most beautiful embroidery stitches. I have very long fingers, and I think I inherited them from her, but I can't stitch as well as she can. Maybe with a lot more practice.



So this humble building was the home to a very sweet little girl, who grew up to be a very kind grandma. And you will be hearing more about my Grandma Jessie soon. Last year someone in the extended family gave her a shoebox of old drawings...and to some of us, it is the family treasure chest. I will see if I can sneak the box away from my mother, and show you what is inside.

So I will talk to you again soon....

-myra

The Weekend Review....

My mind is still processing this past weekend, and trying to remember everything that was said and done. Every few minutes I remember another thing that happened, and it just makes me smile. So here is my top 10 list of what I remember so far....(sorry, but if you wern't there, they may not make sense to you.)

* '50' comes in a great looking package

* I never made it to the party in room #203

*You should always bring your own corkscrew to a quilting retreat

* 'Marekans' are 'keaners' they just don't know it

*Smart mothers bring their daughters as their personal assistants

*Mather is a town in Manitoba, and not someone's last name

*Not all houses are created equal

*The Clarion Hotel staff are now familiar with what a quilting reteat entails

*Saskatchewaners don't follow directions...and that's OK

*Autographs arn't just for famous people

And we will post the rest of the commentary along side the pictures. Enjoy the show.

And to all the fellow 'retreaters' don't forget to leave a note about what you remember from the weekend.

Show & Tell

We had an AMAZING show and tell on friday night at the retreat - It really looked like

we were going to have a quilt show. These are just a few photo's featuring projects from past years' retreats.

This was the quilt that Marcy did last year at our 3rd Hometown Retreat - Bohemian Rhapsody.

This was the quilt design from our 2nd Hometown Retreat - Love Joy Peace made by Alice.

Carol attended our Winter Retreat in Fort Frances ON.

I love how she customized the black and turquoise kit with a splash of yellow!

Marlene did the applique option and it turned out beautifully!

The above photos were some of the many quilts that our retreat students brought to the friday night 'Show &Tell'. The interesting thing about these quilts, is that they are all from our past retreats. It was encouraging to see that they all finished their projects, and it was inspiring to see how they changed their projects, to make them reflect their personal style.

Open House Winnipeg MB, October 15th

The above photo is a picture I took, before our guest's arrived, the Alberta room had beautiful sunlight.

We had two fabulous "gift pails" to give away.

We featured our NEW Cape Cod collections, patterns and the quilts

We thank all of quilter's and sewers that met the strickt deadlines!

We also had samples of our Out of the Blue Kids and Baby & kids, Little Lady Baby & Kids,

Autumn Signs, Lemon slice, Exclamtion, Daisy Baby and Calypso.

Ocean waves is pictured above and Nantucket Rose below.

These are the quilt patterns that accompany our fabrics.

~cori

4th Annual Hometown Retreat - Cape Cod

Due to circumstances we had to take the Hometown Retreat on the Road!

This was a little scary, but the Clarion Hotel treated us very well. The food, the amenities, all wonderful. We had the largest group ever this year and the energy and comraderywas incredible. Below is the group picture we took on Friday night after show and tell. We had women from Winnipeg, Portage La Prairie, Washington, Minneapolis, Ignace, Dryden, Fort Frances, Emo, Regina just to name a few. Thanks Ladies for a great week-end, your support and encouragement - you don't know how much it all means to us!

after the show and tell we laid all of the items out and WOW, it looked like a quilt show - which by the way is one of my dreams. To have a quilt show with all of the projects not only that Myra and I have designed and made over the years, but to have our customers display the projects that they have made with our designs. ( I hope that made sense!) Long story short I was amazed and wowed by the talent we had in that room. Projects big and small all wonderful. Then there was Marlys' story about using our Love Joy Peace "word" fabrics in an MCC quilt and ALL the money those quilts raised...brought tears to my eyes. Sometimes Myra and I just work so hard that we loose sight of what this really means to us and Marlys...you reminded me of why we do this!

What fun watching all the ladies sew, be creative and sharing "sewing secrets".

One more sleep!

Tomorrow is the big day...look out Clarion Hotel Winnipeg, we are MOVING in for the week-end!!!! For those of you who can not join us for the Retreat, we will post pictures and fill you in next week on ALL the fun we will had.

The other BIG news, if you live near Winnipeg you won't want to miss our open house on Monday from 4-9:00pm. Go to http://www.bluemeadowdesigns.com to see all of the details. We are unvieling our newest collection ,Cape Cod.

Be sure to visit again next week, when we will have some photo's up about what has all happened this week-end.

~Cori