Learning alot this week!

Wow, what a week. First I learned I was nominated for Teacher of the Year...by the end of the week I learned I was not chosen, but I am an excellent teacher. I have been learning and will continue to learn about Twitter, and included in that I have learned about an App called Flipboard, MC Hammer talked about it on Oprah and it is amazing. I am learning how to follw people on Twitter and who is good to follow. I have actually sent 17 tweets! I am learning how to add Blog sites to this blog. The more links that go together the better for all of us.

I found another guy who quilts and his blog is : http://www.ryanwalshquilts.com/
I find this wonderful, because I teach males how to sew and I love to see their creations. I also have been very strong in my belief that many men that I know who are musical should also be designing quilts. I have even gone so far as offering to teach them to sew, so they can make their quilts.

Off to work on a few projects.

Watching the wheels go round and round

The wheels on my computer that is to say. I must have the slowest computer of all right now. I try to get things done but all I seem to watch is the little wheel on my mouse as it goes round and round and then I get the message that the program is no longer responding. Even though I work on this dinosaur of a machine, I have been able to change a few things on this blog. I worked on the Etsy site for awhile and I have made the decision to take almost everything off of the Ebay store. I cannot justify keeping it at this time.

I am also doing research for hosting site and set up a regular store site there. I already have the domain... all I have to do is get it online.

Last night I had a dinner with faculty friends and we started to discuss the upcoming quilts adventure for this year's retirees. I love making those quilts. I wish I could share this with everyone. It is such a nice gift to get.

Pictures of quilts 2010

This man was a bus driver for our district. He is retiring but will still be on call as a substitute. He loved his quilt. He is also retired from the Air Force, he loves his family. He does crossword puzzles, and his favorite restaurant is Red Lobster. He collects baseball hats and buses. He is also very patriotic.

A look from behind

Same person, but a view of the back of quilt.

Pictures of quilts 2010

Last year I made personalized retirement quilts for all the teachers who retired from my school district. Needless to say I was a hit. I made 13 quilts last year and I thought that was a lot. This year started out with 14 and ended up with 24 teachers, etc. retiring from our district. I did get some help with the quilts and two teachers will get theirs in the fall. I ended up making 17 quilts and I had planned on putting most of them up here or on my facebook page, but my camera is missing with all the pics on it. I will put up a couple of what I have from a different camera.
This quilt was made for the head of buildings and grounds. He wants to go deep-sea fishing for swordfish, he loves the outer banks, he loves everything outdoors. I found fabric that looks like grass, trees and buildings. it was perfect. The man's peers signed the back of his quilt. It makes a very nice gift.

6 months later

I fell on March 6th, and was out of work for 8 weeks. I couldn't sew at all and that was very frustrating. When I returned to work in May, I had to make a decision about the quilts for school. I decided to try to make them for all the retirees for the district. At that time the list was around 15 quilts by June 25th. I started to collect information about the people. The list eventually grew to 22 and then 24 (the last two people will get their quilts in September). Yesterday was my presentation of the quilts to all of the retirees and it was impressive. All the retirees were so pleased with what I had done with the information collected and turned into a personal quilt. Peers had signed the backs of the quilts making them a gift from all of the teachers to the retirees. I love making these quilts. I basically made 17 quilts (some around lap size- some smaller) in less than 2 months. 4 quilts were made by a friend and co-worker of mine. One quilt was made by two other teachers in the district.

This year we tried making a template that could be used with different fabrics making each person's quilt unique. Next year we will continue to work on this procedure so that more people can help with these quilts.

I would love for you to see these quilts. I hope my attempt will work. I can make this type of quilt for retirees, weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, friends, engagements, remembrances, any occasion you can think of. These are personal quilts using novelty fabrics. They can be make in different sizes but most are wall hangings.

Snow on this last day of January

I love snow. I love to watch it snow. I love the feeling of a white blanket covering the earth. I am trying t.o learn more about blogging. I just set up a site on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sewlovely2/ . I hope I did that correctly, but if not I will learn how to change it. Today I will be working on projects from school. I have a group of sewers who are working on two community projects. One is to make fabric postcards which will be sent to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The other one is making pillowcases as part of the ONE MILLION pillowcase challenge to make pillowcases to be given to local orphanages and shelters to be given to children.