I use magnets to hold up my revolving door calendar to the sheet metal that we attached to my studio door. The magnets I use are just plain, ordinary, and ugly. I tried covering the magnets with scraps of fabric (first picture below). Cute, but a pain to fiddle with. I did three before I decided it wasn’t worth my time. So I waited until this idea popped in my mind today.

This project is so easy I hate to call it a tutorial.

1. Use heavy duty magnets. I got mine at Home Depot. The craft magnets I bought at another store were wimpy and didn’t hold well.
2. Choose some pretty buttons.
3. Glue buttons to magnets. I used E-6000.
4. Let dry for several hours and then enjoy!

I apologize because my camera battery died last night before I could get pictures of all the quilts and their labels. I didn’t even get a photo of my own quilt with its ribbon. I imagine the remaining winning quilts will be on the guild’s website very soon.

I entered “Embrace 1,” “Quilt Queen,” and “Sheer Whim“. They were all in the miniature category. Last night I found out that “Quilt Queen” won the viewers’ choice ribbon for miniature quilts!

I also had the opportunity to share “Surrender” for the first time with my own quilt guild. I got many very kind comments and lots of hugs. Thank you to everyone in my quilt guild for your support as well.

One very sweet lady in my quilt guild has been reading my blog, and gave us 19 more punch cups for DD#1′s wedding. You should have seen how delighted she was when I brought them home! Thank you so much!!!

On April 30, I did a review of the DVD “Why Quilts Matter.” I really did like the series, and I recommend you watch it if you have the chance. They are working on a new project – The Continuing the Conversation guide. The guide will be a companion to the series to help stimulate conversation about quilts. They have until June 1, 2012 to raise money for the project. Donations can be as small as $5 and each donation is tied to a reward, so you get something in return. If you are interested in supporting this project, go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/whyquiltsmatter/create-why-quilts-matter-conversation-guides?ref=live for more information.

• Four cream colored quilted placemats with no stains
• Two random medium-size lace curtains
• Five large, matching lace curtains
• One brand new lace curtain still in a sealed package
• Six yards of lace fabric
• One oval lace tablecloth
• One lace table runner
• Four oval lace doilies
• Six hand-stitched linen hankies
• One burgundy organza curtain
• One small, tabletop, wrought-iron easel

All for $5.41! Woohoo! DD#1 is planning a vintage-themed wedding. I’m thinking I could use these for tablecloths or backdrops or maybe some creative way I haven’t even thought of yet. They should help create a vintage ambiance.

She’s hoping we’ll find lots of lace doilies, too, but I don’t have many yet. I’ll just have to lie in wait, ready to pounce when a hoard of doiles falls in my lap. LOL! I am also keeping an eye out for white and cream buttons. I think they would be pretty in cut-glass dishes surrounding candles. DD#1 used to collect buttons when she was in grade school, so it seems appropriate. I did pick up a pint jar full of buttons at our quilt show this past weekend. If you have any lace curtains, doilies, or buttons that you are ready to throw out, let me know

We’re also going to display some vintage photos. Here are three that I have scanned so far:

I wrote to my 91 year-old aunt (my dad’s sister) earlier this month, and she was so excited that someone was interested in the family photos, she generously sent be a couple dozen pictures. I hope to scan those over the next few weeks, and I’ll show you some of the real treasures. Some have terrific historical clothing, which I love. DD#1′s future mother-in-law has some vintage photos, too. By the time we’re done collecting photos, we’re hoping all the families involved will be well-represented. And somewhere there’s a photo of our wedding with me wearing the dress that she’ll be wearing. I hope to find that this summer when we start going through some boxes that are stacked up in storage.

“Surrender” can be found at http://mariaelkins.com/index.php/quilts/surrender/.

“Quilt Queen” can be found at http://mariaelkins.com/index.php/quilts/quilt-queen/.

I wasn’t able to go until Saturday afternoon, a couple hours before it was ready to close. There was still a good size crowd enjoying the show. I had to wait quite a while to get good pictures without viewers standing in front of the quilts. There were also lots of friendly people to talk to. I managed to buy a couple of treasures, too.

Notice the two dalmatians in the photo above? Deanna Lasher made one of those in the “Making Faces” workshop which I taught to my guild. Then she went home and made the other one on her own. Nice, huh?

I had six of my quilts at the show. “Captivated” was a winner from the 2010 quilt show, so it was on display again with the other ribbon winners. I also had “Sapphire Star,” (the blue and white quilt in the second picture) which was made at a guild-sponsored workshop, and “Glorious Gold,” (the sun-like quilt in the third picture) which was made for the guild’s 2011 quilt challenge. In addition to those, I entered “Embrace 1,” “Quilt Queen,” and “Sheer Whim” (shown above). Here’s a secret tidbit: I found out one of those last three quilts won a viewer’s choice award in its category. It will be announced on Tuesday! Anyone want to guess which one? No fair guessing if you already know

Here are a few other quilts which I really enjoyed seeing.

They fed us a fabulous lunch afterwards. Delicious! Sweet hubby went back for seconds. I prepared his first plate because he was busy. Hahaha — I didn’t put enough special treats on it, so he had to correct the situation!

On Friday, I taught my “Making Faces” workshop to fifteen ladies, some eager, a few somewhat wary. I get excited every time I see that look of surprise and delight on their faces at the moment they recognize the person or pet whose portrait they are creating. What fun! Here are close ups of their portraits. Great job, ladies!!!

I just have to point out the fabulous pressed tin ceiling that was in the room where we met for the lecture and workshop. I so wish this was in our church, but then I might never hear DH’s sermon. I kept looking up, imagining it as a quilt. Somebody (not me!) really needs to applique this, or maybe it should be a wholecloth quilt or it could be stenciled with Paintstiks. Oh, the possibilities!

By the way, thank you to everyone who has asked how my sweet hubby is doing after the stroke he had on March 7. It has been two months now, and he has recovered completely! We have not noticed any side effects in his coordination, speech, thought process, or anything else. We did learn he has macular degeneration, but at this point it is not impairing his vision in any significant way. We are so thankful his quick recovery! Since he is feeling back to normal, I quickly put him back to work as my chauffeur, pack mule, and all around good-guy. I hope I never have to go to teach somewhere without him.

I’ve been deeply interested in traditional quilts ever since I was a teenager. I read everything I could get my hands on, trying to learn how to quilt, their history, basically anything at all having to do with quilts. I read about quilts for a good five years or more before I actually made a quilt. This documentary did a good job talking about many different aspects of the quilt industry including how they are bought and sold, how they are valued, who collects them, when is a quilt art, when is it craft. It also explained quite a bit about the Gee’s Bend quilts and the women who made them. It discussed how quilts became an avenue to express political views for women who had no other voice, and it showed how we can learn about the life these women led through the clues they left behind.

If you haven’t had a chance to watch this series, I hope you’ll make time to watch it. I think there will be things you might find interesting and informative, just like I did.

And now that I’ve watched all nine of the episodes, I’m hoping that means I will sleep all night long in my own bed tonight!

Our family has discussed possible titles for this quilt, which honors a situation so heartfelt and personal. For us, it’s a bittersweet blend of joyfulness and heartbreak. I know many families have experienced similar situations of losing a much-loved infant through miscarriage, stillbirth, or passing soon after birth for some reason. For now we’re thinking of entitling this quilt “Surrender.” I am so proud of the way our daughter and son-in-law have chosen to fully embrace their son for as long as they are able, knowing that it will end with them surrendering him into the loving hands of our Heavenly Father. We all look forward to enjoying little Amalya Nathaniel for as long as God allows.

This was the fourth month of SewCalGal’s 2012 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge. This month guest teacher was Don Linn. He introduced a method of tracing your design onto tulle or netting with a permanent marker, and then using the marked tulle to trace the design onto your quilt with a washable blue marker. Since I was working on a deadline for this project, I used it for my April challenge. I modified Don’s the method slightly, however. I traced my background design onto Sulky’s Solvy water soluble stabilizer, which is a translucent, mesh-like material. I pinned the Solvy to my quilt top and stitched my major motifs right through the stabilizer. Then I was able to gently tear away the Solvy, leaving my quilting lines behind. In this instance, I was able to remove all of the Solvy just by carefully tearing it away, but if I had areas I could not remove, I could have dissolved it with water to remove all remaining bits. In any case, I think the modified method which I used fulfills the main lesson that Don was trying to teach, which was “to use the [tracing] technique to create a stencil” and then to “use free-motion quilting to stitch along the marked lines.”

If you would like to see the finished quilt, you can see it on the April 26 entry.

Here is a close-up.

But now I’m stuck on that background again. I can’t figure out how I want to quilt it. I don’t want just a bunch of nondescript stippling. I tried out various feathers and other similar wispy elements. They’re pretty, but none of them seem right so far. They don’t relate to the central image. I’m trying to figure out what quilted motifs will support the telling of the story.

I can always hope that taking a short break to blog will give me new ideas