abundantly grateful am I. . .

I hardly know where to begin! It was a fine Tuesday, and I'm feelin' extremely wealthy today. Charlie, our Chief Financial Officer, deposited second-quarter royalties for the reprinted Treasury..., and he was smilin', too. This is where I finally say the necessary and sincerely heart-felt words: "Thank you, one and all," for giving my book a nine-year run. Who'd-a thought? +++ I hope you will allow me to share an occasional antique block. To my eye, this 1884 piece has it all! I particularly love blocks of this quality because of their beauty, of course, but even moreso because they are so instructive. (They also pretty-up a text-only blog in a wonderful way, don't they?) Give this one a focused look for just a few moments, and notice as many of the "Essential Elements of an Antique Crazyquilt Block" as you can find. I wish you had the time to write them down, but most of us can't really do that. My serious study years were between 1987 and 1996, and that was when I trained myself to journal with total obsessive/compulsive passion! I probably thought that doing so would make me smarter (hah!). But, that's how I saw and understood the several generic features that 19th-century CQ makers combined to create their quilts. Most of these Elements are very commonplace and are almost too obvious to mention, but mention them I did in my latest Workbook, where all twenty-two of them are described and illustrated. And that's just the patchwork!

Today's "eye candy" will be my oldest and latest project, "La Belle BEAR Victorienne." She is still in pieces, poor Darlin', but there are only five parts left to construct with patches, and six parts of her are embellished as well as I can do it. As you'll notice, all of the seams are decorated with either a wide or narrow lace OR a ribbon or trim of some kind instead of using stitches.

The palette is somewhat odd: Primary Colors are Blue, Blue-violet, Violet, Pink, Yellow, Brown, Black, and White. The Yellow is always very "dirty," as in "antique" Gold, and the White has many shades of itself, including Cream & Ivory & Snow. In case it matters.

I gotta confess to ya: I started making her in Spring, 1994. She was s'posed to be one of three or four -- a family of Pretty Bears, all wearing organza ribbons around their necks. (Oh, dear.) The good news is, I'm using up a whole lot of my laces & rickrack & even a few motifs, so Heaven willing, those won't all end up in the posthumous Back-Porch Sale! +++ Will scan the Bear parts to MY PICTURES and hope they come back to this posting when I ask them to. I also hope these early attempts to pretend to be one-tenth as creative as Mary Jo Hiney, in whose book I found "La Belle," will inspire you just a bit. (Yes, I made a Laces-Ribbons-&-Trims-only Quilt, too, and you'll get to see that one pretty soon. Promise!) +++ A day full of Blessings to you on the morrow! +++

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