Quilt As You Go, Simply Done

Simply Done

Crazy Shortcut Quilts Book

Mystery Donor

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You angel! Thank you for your donation to Charity:water!

I am working on 3 projects that I want to use to both provide new products to quilters AND to generate revenue to causes that I believe in: water and micro-loans.

I have been investigating Kiva.org and I love what they are doing, however I would also like to participate in either a women-only micro-loan program or a United States based micro-loan program.  I intend to tie my future quilting endeavors to those programs, but I want to chose several projects to invest in.

Do you have suggestions on which ones you prefer or recommend? I would love to learn more and value anything anyone has to say!

Diannia made her first Crazy Shortcut Quilt!

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It’s queen size (do you believe that – she’s new to quilting!) for her son Brad.

She and I have been emailing and chatting, sharing stories and ideas, and I think I am going to try and talk her into blogging…. (I am SO bad – I do that to *so many* quilters – -but when they blog I can keep up with them and their projects and their lives and I LOVE it!!!)

So, Diannia (prounounced Diana) lives in California, works for a University, has a son named Brad and she’s learning to love quilting. Now, don’t you want to know more? I do!

UPDATE!! – Diannia has a blog http://dianniashouse.blogspot.com/ Let’s go check it out!

Funky Fuzzy Shortcut Quilt is DONE !

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I just love that word – DONE! Whoooo Hoooo! This will be another donation quilt, even though I love it with all my heart, the thought that it might make a person happy and benefit a child is also one of the reasons I love it.

BUT, until the CASA auction it is going to hang in Seams Like Home Quilt Shoppe in Anchorage! Yay!!

I can’t wait to make another one! LOL 🙂

BTW, I had a really cool webcam chat with Linda last night. She was working on her binding and we chatted a bit about technique. Tonight, as I was working on one of the corners of this quilt’s binding, I took a short video on how I like to make the corners. It is uploading to YouTube now. It says it’s for Linda but you can peek too if you want 🙂

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93EhTJvaBM4&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0]

Quilt as you go with Amy, Pat and Suzzett!

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Amy, (here’s her blog post), Pat (link to Pat’s blog) and Suzzett’s daughter Lindsey (here is Suzzett’s blog) all posted about their Crazy Shortcut Quilts – -with photos!! I am so happy to see them all 🙂

Thank you for showing us your quilts and if I missed someone, please let me know at marguerita.mcmanus[@]gmail.com

New Fabric!

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Oh what a great trip to Anchorage! To visit my favorite quilt shop (Seams Like Home Quilt Shoppe) and see the familiar faces and the new, gorgeous fabrics. Heaven!! Then Sarah arrived with granddaughter Audrey and the *real* fun began 🙂

Confession: I do not shop for fabric. I have asked (that being the polite way of saying ‘forced’) Sarah to pick my fabrics for me for years. Last time I went to Quilt Market I just gave her the cash and said “buy what you wanted but didn’t get”. She always picks the best stuff 🙂

When I buy fabrics and show my choices to people, they politely force a tight smile and whisper “oh, how nice ..” and turn away quickly. It’s true. Honest. I am a total loser at picking fabrics. That’s why I buy the fat quarter bundles or have someone do it for me. I relied upon Doris, my all time best quilt shop friend, and now Sarah. Hopefully Audrey will take after her mom and have a good eye for color too 🙂

So anyway, Audrey and I played with the shop toys while Sarah selected my sashing fabrics for the two projects I have in the works now.

The quilt shop owner, Maret, found a minute between class sessions to say “Hi” (she is a total sweetheart) and take a look at my projects and THEN I spied, hidden at the bottom of a rack, my most favorite thing of all – -scrap bags!! Yay! I *love* buying scrap bags! At the counter Sarah spied a bit of left over ribbon with bunnies on it so of course we had to have it. What a wonderful day!

Updated demo video

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I updated the video that shows the Crazy Shortcut Quilts demo. I finally got Sarah to film some footage (talk about pulling teeth!) and so I re-did the whole thing.

Originally, all the videos were supposed to be “just for fun” and I had planned on taking a few comments and then re-doing them. Well, 5,000 views later (on some of them!!) I am just getting there. I had no idea that YouTube was so popular!

So, if you want to see Sarah in action, go take a look at the newly uploaded demo and if you look carefully, you can see that I also uploaded an “out takes” video too. We do have some laughs while we are making the vids.

Do you have vids? Or favorites on YouTube? I’d love to see them! Post a comment and share ….

Quilting for a Very Good Cause

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My daughter Sarah and I love to donate quilts to the CASA program for their Quilt Auction each November. We also use the auction to see and visit with quilters that we only see once a year – -at the auction! I look forward to seeing my pals Kathy Harte and Judy Wedemeyer and Ruth (who bought one of my quilts last year – -thanks Ruth!!).

This year my offerings are meager compared to last year, and I am not too happy about that. I am donating the quilt you see here, made with RJR Fabrics (donated by them and Thank You Very Much RJR!), featured in our book Crazy Shortcut Quilts, called Sweet Sixteen. It is 60″ x 60″ and very pretty, with bright colors.

I’ll also be donating a book called Fat Quarter Quilting and package of RJR Thimbleberries fat quarters and some batting too – -(almost) everything you need to make a quilt!

The Quilt Auction is on November 22 from 11am-2pm in downtown Anchorage at the Phillips/Arco building at 7th & G. I would love to see you there and I can’t wait to watch the bidding on all of the gorgeous quilts 🙂