Making Lemonade in The Quilter Magazine

It is very touching to have someone tell your story...this month's The Quilter Magazine tells mine through the words of a very talented writer, Lucy Fazely. Lucy and I had a great time talking on the phone, as she is in the midwest and I am in Florida, in the dead of winter while I was very comfortable in Florida's mild winter and she was freezin' her toes off up north! But retelling how Lollipops got started warmed us both and sharing our common humanity of family life and new hope quickly crept into our conversation - we are both old souls.

That Eric is now in the last days of his third tour of duty in Iraq, his last time there I hope, is also very heart warming. That we are at war and our soldiers continue to die is distressing and hurts my heart...I remind all of you that these are all our future, these young men and women who serve and who slip through our fingers...through the power of the cloth - now I mean fat quarters here, people! - and the joy of creating quilts that will warm and give love to those who need that comfort, we must continue to make LEMONADE! Please read the article - buy the magazine - it's inspiring even if I say so my little self! (well I am not so LITTLE but you catch my drift...)

How Do They Do It?

Ok. I am amazed. How do certain famous quilters do all the things that they do and still manage to FB, TWIT and BLOG??? Take Pat Sloan, for example...I recently joined Facebook with the hopes of keeping in touch with all of you while I was 'Down Under'...to tell you about my trip and show you all the wonderful things I was seeing...people, quilts, quilt stores, fabrics, oh and yeah - the GBR - which is the Aussie way of saying the Great Barrier Reef...

But did I blog you ONCE???? or Facebook you with any pix of my trip???? or even say 'BOO!'? Heck no. First of all, unlike the good ol' US of A, to connect up to the internet at a hotel is not FREE...they charge you BY THE MINUTE...and if that's not bad enough, there is a minimum number of minutes that you HAVE to pay for regardless of how long you stay connected - so in one place, I really learned my lesson - it was like $29 AUS for two minutes!!! OMG...so that was the end of the bloggin' idea...and keepin' in touch with you and btw, - I was so darn BUSY - who had time to BLOG?

So, back to my original thought - since joining FB, (FB= Facebook for all your girls out there in Paducah!) I see Pat Sloan and Alex Anderson and oh WAIT a minute -

[irritating interruption from the husband on Honey Do mission of hanging pictures in our bedroom after I've looked at them leaning up against the wall for 2 years...finally gettin' to it before football season - whew!]

Ok I am back...yeah so you know these women BLOG, they FB, they TWITTER (now that is seriously crazy) and they still find time to post the status of their most recent projects for us all to drool over...when on EARTH do they have time to SEW and CREATE when they are on FB, TWIT and BG 24/7?????...

Maybe because they are so IMPORTANTE they have magical quilting powers - like for 1) they get fabrics from MODA for FREE as well as in advance of the rest of us because Moda LIKES them...well we do, too but STILL and 2)they MUST have personal assistants that KEEP THEIR STUDIOS NEAT AND TIDY SO THEY CAN FIND THE FABRIC THAT MODA GIVES THEM...yikes...or 3)they know SABRINA who twitches (not twitters) her nose and POOF! magic quilt! or 4)they are just, sadly, organized women who can get 4x as many things done in a day than me...rats, I hate the thought of that -

[Oh God...there he goes again...another husbandus blogus interruptus to approve said picture placement of giganto mirror over bed - not on ceiling ladies....PLEASE!]

[Back, again. Well no wonder I don't Tweet, rarely BLOG and occassionaly FB...it's like having a baby in the house...ok, ok that was mean - and afterall, it looks GREAT except now the sheets, which I just washed on Friday, have to be re-washed because, you guessed it, he used the bed to stand on and uh 'forgot to take off his sandals'...ugh! 'honey, it's only messed up on MY side of the bed...']

Are these other women married? or maybe their husbands are less OCD/ADHD/IDHD (only know the first one, sorry, the rest just sound official)...I am truly amazed at their ability to keep it altogether and still SLEEP...now wait a minute, maybe I am on to something there - they never tell us that they SLEEP...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I feel better!