crazyquilterly projects and possibilities...

Posting today with a happy heart, and trying to think of something interesting to say to my dear visitors! How've you been, anyway? My own state of intense well-being is due to several events, but more than anything else, we [well, Charlie, actually] found my missing stuff!, and now I can do a little mail-order jobby on Monday morn. Amazing how gray the moments become when one's eldermind leaves one without any -- ANY -- short-term memory. And that's the story from the Urban Prairie this sunny afternoon.

What do you think of my HobbyLobbyables? Yes, there is such a word, but that explanation will keep for another day. Mostly I wanted you to see something perty that I found in the 80-per-cent-off aisle at my second-favorite store a few years back, a find that brought tears to my eyes and a real gasp along with them. I just didn't expect it. Then later on in the year, dearest friend Lynn Tolles (who takes the in-house photos with her amazing Polaroid digicam with the 8.0 megapixels) stopped in Oklahoma City and brought back the postcard with the gorgeous watercolor painting of my other two favorite famous people in the history of famous people who aren't related to The LORD. (Oh, boy.) And later on that same year, while wondering what to do with the blessed postcard. . . well, that gaudy cloth-covered frame is its permanent home now, and it's the first thing I see when my eyes finally open enuf to let light in every morning. The box is exactly the right size for holding 4-by-6-inch photographs, and the 6-&-5/8-inch-square clock has a dysfunctional easel which occasionally goes "plop!" down on my big work table, but I loves it just the same. Everything was machine-assembled (with a lot of neat glue work for the linings & cloth hinges) in India out of seven different brightly-colored cottons of questionable quality, with plastic blouse buttons (sewn on!), shiny rayon-thread machine embroidery on seams and patches, 3-mm round sequins in several colors, clear 2-mm bugles, and a wavy (instead of pointy) lime-green rickrack used for "stems." Add some low-loft poly batting for padding. I'm thinkin', nice ideas for Holiday gifts! Maybe in a softer palette, hm-mmm? Of course, it'd be pretty hard to make the clock for only $3.20 or the box for $4.00. Gosh, I love a great sale, don't you?

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Miss Willa sent me a link to a store with an online presence that also made me grin a lot Saturday afternoon: CLOTILDE's! Visit her wonderful site at www.clotilde.com/, and for something very cool, check out some of her best apron patterns at www.clotilde.com/pages/catspreads/2832/catalogspread07.html.

Hope that works! (I rechecked that URL five times to make sure.)

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I have two commercial antique-quilts merchants to introduce to some of my readers who may not be acquainted with them yet. First, Cindy Rennels is a familiar face at all of the largest and most important sane-quilt conferences and expositions. But she has some of the nicest crazyquilts, too, from time to time. Try her 'site at http://www.cindysantiquequilts.com/ , and check her left-side navigation bar for any category of quilt that interests you. Not to be forgotten is another wonderful e-store at http://www.rockymountainquilts.com/ , which is actually in Maine, I believe. Betsy Telford's fine 'site gives us perfectly-taken pictures in great light, always full views with a generous number of close-detail shots that are downloadable to your MY PICTURES file for further study & drooling. I know there are other places online besides the popular auction 'sites where antique crazyquilts can be found, but these ladies are the professionals whom I would trust with my virtual several thousand dollars [grinning helplessly], so I mention them today.

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I hope you'll come back for more surprises PLUS another few pages about those "essential elements" I feel compelled to talk about at such length. So many nice comments I've been getting, though! As darlin' Senor Pancho said to his fans as he and handsome Senor Cisco (who never, ever lost his hat in a fist fight OR a high desert wind) rode off to film another weekly episode of adventure and romance, "See you soon!" (hah-HAH!)

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