Sad Joy

If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you may remember that my husband's partner lost his wife Pam to cancer just before Christmas. (A Beautiful Goodbye) Spike called me a couple weeks ago to ask two favors. One was to find a use for Pam's library of quilt books. The other was to ask if I would finish some of Pam's unfinished quilts for him and their two daughters. Wow- I was overwhemed with joy that I could do something that might bring them comfort. And you know I love quilt books. He filled a cardboard carton with her books, and there were only about three that were duplicates of my own collection. I have been reading through these and deciding which to keep. Many of them were bookmarked for certain projects. :( Some I gave to members of my quilt bee, and the others will be donated either to the Capital Quilters Guild library or the public library.

One of the favorites that I kept is called At Piece With Time: A Woman's Journey Stitched in Cloth. This is a lovely book with watercolor illustrations, many charming and inspirational quotations, and a series of blocks that make up a sampler quilt. The author is Kristin C. Steiner and the illustrator is Diane c. Frankenberger. I had never heard of this book, but highly recommend it as beautiful eye candy and feel-good inspiration. I love the style of the artwork, and have been copying some of the sketches for drawing practice.

The UFO's include a partially finished lap quilt with a golf-themed fabric surrounded by mitered framing strips. It is long and skinny, so it either needs more blocks or borders. She also has made some lovely rose and green blocks, which I will use for something for the girls.

Not that I need more UFO's, but you know I will get these done!

And yesterday, I bought another book because I am trying to learn as many techniques as I can to transfer photographs to quilts. This one is called Photo Album Quilts, by Wendy Butler Berns. I think that I learned of this quilt artist from The Quilt Show. Can't wait to discover her techniques.