Testing 1, 2, 3 and a quarter inch

As I described in my last post, I've admitted my addiction to quilting and how a fabric store is a very dangerous place for me. I may have admitted it, but I'm not going to treatment. 

The Fire Escape quilt that got me the 

purple ribbon.

Monday night, I had an opportunity to be a part of a quilt pattern testing at the Calico Hutch Quilt Shop in Hayward, Minnesota. Even cooler for me was the opportunity to meet one of my favorite quilt designers, Terry Atkinson. Terry designed the quilt that I entered last August to the Freeborn County Fair and for which I got the Championship ribbon. Her pattern directions are so well written, may be in part because she uses test groups before sending the pattern to the printer. 

Terry's Shadow Song pattern

Every six months, there is a "Quilt Market" where retailers go and see the new fabrics and patterns. The spring market is next month in Salt Lake City and Terry is introducing quite a few new patterns. Including the one we tested last night. 

The pattern is called Shadow Song and our job was to follow the directions and make at least one of each of the blocks. I'm not great with keeping everything perfectly square, so I sometimes end up with misshaped squares. I got thru the first block and wanted to sort of hide it because it looked so strange and I was sure I had done it wrong.  Then another woman talked about not getting everything to line up. and then another. While I was concerned with understanding the pattern, someone else figured out that Terry had one cutting error at the very beginning that was causing the problem.  The direction said to cut the square to 3-1/4 inch, but the correct cut was 3-1/2 inches. Just a 1/4" makes a big difference. 

So Terry got her pattern tested and a crucial error was caught before it was sent to the printer the next morning. And I got to meet a quilting rock start. At least in my book. 

I love the Calico Hutch's back room with super high ceiling & amazing quilts covering all the walls

Talk about a place that distracts me!

A new design from Terry - A cute pillow with zippers for the design

Everyone is into making bags now. This is called "Stack & Stow"

Here's another newbie from Terry - Texas Two Step.

Carolyn & her staff made us hot fudge sundaes!

This is one of the blocks and the one with the cutting issue.

She almost got one whole row done.

Quilting Addiction

In February 1987, the Albert Lea Community Theater (also known as "ACT" cuz I guess AlbertLea is one word?) presented a musical called Quilters and I was the youngest member of the cast.

 It is a story of a pioneer woman and her six daughter which blends a series of interrelated scenes into a mosaic that demonstrates the challenges and rewards of frontier life. Each story centered on a various quilt block and depicted the life of a frontier woman: childhood, marriage, childbirth, spinsterhood, twisters, fire, illness and death (I had to die in one scene), but also the inspirational vision of simple human dignity and a woman's resolve in the face of adversity. The play ends with the various patches assembled into one glorious, brilliantly colorful quilt that qualified as the largest quilt I ever saw.  (The quilt was made by the Minnesota Quilters Guild for the Chanhassen Dinner Theater's production of Quilters.)

I fell in love with quilting during that play. I was unemployed at the time, so I spent hours at my sewing machine teaching myself how to do it. I will admit - I was horrible at it. I made my first real quilt (Log Cabin pattern) as a gift for a friend's wedding. I went a bit overboard and made it far too big. I pieced it and then tied it because I had no clue how to do actual quilting. 

Eventually, I got better and started making quilts for my nieces and nephews. That continued until about 1996 when I got involved with skating and focused all my energy and free time on that. Unfortunately, only five of the nine got quilts, so there are four nieces and nephews still waiting.

Then about three years ago, I started quilting again and my passion for this hobby has consumed me (along with much of my budget).

• When the owners of the quilt shops know you by name, that might mean you're a "good customer." 
• I always have several projects going at one time because I'm powerless over the allure of quality fabric and cool looking patterns. 
• When I started packing my condo for moving last fall, I think I had more tubs of fabric than I did of my clothing. 
• I can recognize a quilt pattern, tell you the name of the pattern and if I have one in process. 

 Last weekend, I went on my first quilters' retreat sponsored by the Calico Hutch (Hayward, MN)  Just me and about 95 other addicts at the Austin (MN) Conference Center. Everyone had their own table to lay out their paraphernalia like rotary cutters, templates and high-tech sewing machines.There was also one group who had their laptops set up with the Decorah Eagles on 24/7.

The staff of the Calico Hutch was wonderful to everyone and I'm already signed up for retreats in February and April of 2012.

This Carolyn Matson, owner of Calico Hutch, demonstrating how you can confuse a ruler with a handle with your phone.

Here's Katie Zenk, the blog master of Calico Hutch's blog and a wildly creative young woman. Plus she's a financial whiz.

 

 

 

 

And the photo above? That's the quilt I want to make next. It contains thousands of pieces. Thousands and thousands pieces. Doesn't that sound like fun??

I need a weekend

I need a weekend with nothing planned. 

A weekend without travel or skating or phone calls or work assignments or any other activity. 

It's not going to happen this weekend and none of my last three weekends have been quiet. I have had a February to die from. I've had skating related activities every weekend in February including two trips to exotic locations such as Albany and Cleveland. While most people think south at this time of year, my schedule has kept me firmly ensconced in the snowy and cold north. 

Granted, I do these activities by choice. I'll be invited to a competition and when I review my calendar, I'm generally only looking at that weekend - not the weekend before or the weekend after. It was December when I realized that I had managed to erase all my weekend from the month of February.

www.nataliedee.com

I am so excited that I have ABSOLUTELY nothing planned for my March weekends, I can hardly stand it. I want to sleep in on Saturday, maybe go shopping or have a massage. I want to work on the bazillion quilt projects for which I have bought the pattern and fabric, but haven't found the time to do. I want to go to the Dan Abraham Health Living Center and try to remember what it was like to be healthy and fit. What it was like to fit into my jeans...and my skirts...and my suits.

Wait a second...for wanting weekends where I have nothing to do, I sure am planning on doing alot. 

Dang! Foiled again!

A Look Back at 2010

Since I seemed to have started the year with a small pity party about how the year ended (yesterday's post), I don't want to negate the fact that 2010 rocked. 

If someone would have told me in January 2010 where I would be and what I would be doing in January 2011, I would have been very surprised.  Shocked.  Disbelieving. 

2010 was an awesome year!

I don't ignore the fact that 2010 was the year of my 50th birthday. I didn't just celebrate my birthday on one day. Oh no, March 2010 was the launch of Elizabeth 5.0!

This isn't my normal birthday apparrel, but the lovely birthday outfit that Hazelden Development requires of its staff to don on their birthday.  Although I wasn't working in Development at the time, I did have a meeting there that day.  My chin is up because the glasses won't stay on otherwise. 

I received so many bouquets of flowers on my birthday, that co-workers wondered if someone died. 

I celebrated the night of my birthday with my extended family (also known as the Burnsville-Minnesota Valley Figure Skating Club Board of Directors) at Axel's in Eagan.

The Saturday after my birthday was the surprise party that my friends (high school and the Circle of Friends gang) and my family threw for me in Albert Lea. My bestest friend Mary even flew up from Atlanta for the occasion.

That's high school friend Trish Stanley (a friend since junior high) and Circle of Friends buddy Paula Treiber (who, along with her hubby Carl, drove from Sioux Falls for the party) in the picture above. The party was held at Casa Dorman - the best party location in town! (Kudos to Mary Jo Dorman and Jill Peterson for keeping me occupied the day of the party - wine is always a good distraction!)

In May, I traveled with my sister and her family to Drake University for my niece's graduation from pharmacy school.  (People say she looks like me, but I think she's far prettier!)

Included on the trip to Drake was my great-nephew Drake (I kid you not!) 

And isn't he just the cutest little guy?  

On Father's Day, my inner jock, the one that has been fighting to get out for the last 49 years, ran a 5K race - my first! On some days I was training because I wanted to lose weight and on other days I was training because I wanted to prove that I could do it, even at age 50. 

The new home for the Minnesota Twins opened this spring and I was lucky enough to have a sister with the right connections and an extra ticket. And not just any ticket - a VIP ticket.  It was a fun experience to see the stadium perks that I'll never experience again.  Were the seats good? Fourth row behind home plate! 

No telephoto lens was used on the photo above.  After the game, since it was the Friday before July 4th, we got fireworks! 

We celebrated Drake's 1st birthday later that month. My niece Anne (Drake's mom) gave Drake his own cake to play around with. I took lots and lot of pictures of him that day - (Don't you love digital cameras?) 

I love making quilts and friends dare me to enter them in contests or county fairs. So in August, I did!  Strictly on a whim, I entered a quilt that I made for my bestest friend Mary. I told her that I didn't care what I got, just as long as it was on display for people to see.  I ended up getting a Champion ribbon (purple), but instead of hanging up, it was folded up in a display case.  On a bright note, all Champion level quiltmakers are entered into a drawing for a $100 gift certificate to the Calico Hutch in Hayward, Minnesota (if you haven't been there - it is one of the best quilt shops I've ever been in!) Guess what? I won!! 

Isn't this quilt too pretty to be folded up? 

2010 was also the year that I officially became a blogger.  And because of the blog, I have met some amazing people and learned so much from them! A group of bloggers, organized by Missy from "The Marketing Mama," got together in January and volunteered together at "Feed My Starving Children," an organization that puts together food packets for people around the world who are in need of nutrition. We learned alot from that.  

Then Molly from "The Snyder Five" blog involved many of the Minnesota Bloggers (yes, we've organized!) in a great rummage sale event to raise awareness and money for Hunger in America. It was a cold and rainy day, but we had customers and raised some money. 

Then my life totally changed in August when I accepted a position with Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The fall was a blur of packing, painting, cleaning and moving. 

It was a pretty full year, wasn't it?

What's next?

The Golden Squirrel

I've been getting a lot of "Squirrel!" comments since I did my "Squirrel! blog post.  Of course, it distracts me from what I'm doing, but it did give me a fun idea.

www.nataliedee.com

I'm going to create a Golden Squirrel award that will given to the person, place or thing that most distracts me during the week. I'll need to find a cool graphic of a golden squirrel to put on the blog and perhaps on a certificate that I can present to someone if they are the person who is most distracting me that week. I'm going to guess that it is more likely to be a place or thing rather than a who, but nevertheless I shall have one prepared. (I love the word nevertheless because it is three words rolled into one!)

Thought I found the perfect graphic above, but then I realized that it is just going to annoy and distract me because it keeps rotating.

So now finding a "golden squirrel" trophy will be my quest during the next couple of weeks. I'm sort of starting my vacation today and I can see this obsession for the golden squirrel leading me to travel to strange places. 

Technically, the vacation doesn't start until next Friday, but I'm in Chicago for work Sunday through Wednesday with a great group of co-workers who will make the conference seems less like work and more like fun!  I'll blog from the conference for this blog and the work blog.

Then Thursday afternoon, I'll start my time off by having the permanent crown put on at the dentist office. (try not to be envious)

After that, the real vacation starts and I'll be sharing the joy that is the Six Best Days of Summer - The Freeborn County Fair in Albert Lea. If you're a city slicker and have never been to a real county fair (going to see either "Carousel" or "State Fair" musicals does not qualify you), you are missing so much. Fear not, I shall share with pictures!

July 30th is also the start of the 2010 Quilt Minnesota State Shop Hop. It's 16 days of fun and shopping. I'll do more than a few posts about these very cool quilt shops.

And to end the day - an amazing sunset over the Target Roseville parking lot. (Sure, I could have left it at "an amazing sunset," but adding the Target parking lot created a certain ambiance for the visual.)

Okay, in just one blog post, I have managed to reference squirrels, quilting, sunsets, musicals, county fairs, Target and Chicago.  Don't you think that takes a certain amount of skill?

Well, I never promised to stay on topic.

Passion or Obsession?

Melissa over at The Marketing Mama blog asked her blogger friends to write about what they are passionate about. (Of course, Melissa asked us to do this last week...oops!)

You'd be a pretty smart cookie if you assumed that someone with ADD would either have lots of things they are passionate about or have very fleeting passions - think "Passion of the Week."

It's the former and the latter for me. I have many areas in my life that I'm passionate about, but I would argue that my "Passion of the Week," is more like an "Obsession of the Moment." And Melissa asked us to write about our passions.

Individuals with ADD love anything new and out of the ordinary because it engages our senses and gives us something to learn. (I swear that I love to learn regardless of what my grade school teachers thought) My two big passions (quilting & social media), do both.

There are my shallow passions such as the importance of having Diet Coke for the judges at all skating competitions (wait, that's an obsession...), having a tan, or having cooler toys than the other kids, but I have two passions that keeps my ADD brain engaged for hours on end.

www.nataliedee.com

Quilting - Although I've been dabbling in quilting off and on for the last 20 or so years, it has really been in the last twelve months that I've added it to my list of borderline obsessions. My most relaxing times are spent working on quilts. I took vacation time last week and my prime focus of my staycation was quilting and getting this quilt finished before the end of July.

Ask any quilter about their stash and while they might deny having one, if you search their house, you will find fabric in places you would have never imagined. I got rid of the books in my home office and have now filled the shelves with fabric. Front hall closet? More fabric.

When you have ADD, there is a problem with starting projects and then losing interest in them and not finishing. That rarely happens with my quilts. I love the sense of accomplishment when it's finished. Not only do I have a Facebook photo album just for my quilts, but I also carry around photos of quilts to show off. 

You have your kids, I have my quilts.

Social Media - I love talking about social media and how it is changing our lives and our world. I was naturally attracted to social media because it was new and unknown (i.e. shiny object). In December 2008, I wrote a paper for a graduate class on the use of social media by nonprofits and that paper launched this passion. I've been fortunate enough to stealthily add social media responsibilities into my job description.

The other great thing about social media is that it is constantly changing and in order to keep up with the trends, you have to be constantly learning and searching out new information.

I love tweeting, blogging and friending. But I do get strange looks from friends and family members when I talk about social media. It is still a foreign concept for so many people. They may "get" Facebook, but that "whole Twitter thing" doesn't make sense to them. 

There are many awkward moments when in the course of conversation, you mention that you were just tweeting about that or that you just became Mayor of your neighborhood Starbucks. The unknowing will look at you as if you either have a third eye (not that there's anything wrong with that) or you're a stalker. And even though I know I'm not a stalker, I start to wonder...

ADD'ers get a bad rap for not staying with a project through to completion, but the fact that the two passions mentioned above have been a big part of my life for over 20 years and 2 years respectively, should help prove different. Give me a project that is creative and challenging and I'll see it through to the end.  

What are you passionate about? Is it a passion or an obsession?