“The Farmer’s Wife” (sampler quilt) & “Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler”

Two more examples of small block sampler quilts – only difference between these and Dear Jane is the size of the blocks are a little larger and also they use more traditional blocks that most all have heard of.  The Dear Jane blocks seem very unusual almost like Jane wanted to make the blocks as difficult at moments to make as possible – maybe to distract her from the war news going on around her?

I had heard of the Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler patterns – by Jennifer Chiaverini for some time and have meant to pick up the book for ages and never got around to it.  The Farmers Wife by Laurie Aaron Hird is newer and has only been out for about six months I think.  Astrid from Grandma’s Red Needle had mentioned the other day that she has both books and is intending on starting to make them soon.  We send e mails back and forth from time to time and discussed me making one of these sometime in the future after my second Dear Jane is finished and I thought no time better to track down copies of the books and start looking them over.  More sampler books that I have are “Nearly Insane” and “Just Plain Nuts” by Liz Lois (I just love the names of these books!).  Maybe instead of doing each quilt from each book I should pick out patterns from all four books and combine into one large quilt?  All of the blocks from these books are six inch blocks I believe so that would make it easy to mix and match.  If or when I get around to starting this new venture it would be a scrap quilt with a white/cream background like the first Dear Jane quilt but the difference would be that I would make this one much larger so it would fit on a queen or king size bed.

Whatever I decide it certainly will not be until I am finished with the second Dear Jane quilt “Insanity Revisited.”

The new books:

I buy most of my books from Amazon.com. I have no local quilt shop to support so it doesn't really matter where I buy from. I have noticed in recent months that Amazon quite often has prices for new quilt books priced lower than the used copies!! You might want to check them out. I saved on both and got the two combined for the price of one. I also buy books from the American Quilters Society but I admit to saving money when I can and buy where I can save some dollars.

I visited my mother yesterday for the day and have Lifeline in place for her and all the paperwork done.  While I was visiting one of my brothers – David – stopped by for a quick visit with mom as he was in her town for business from work.  I missed seeing him last time I was there so that was a nice surprise as I hadn’t seen him since Christmas, he was surprised I was there as well as I had intended to contact all siblings once again after I had things set up to let them know their share on the price, the appointment was set up much faster than I had anticipated.  David  lives a bit further from my mom then quite a few of the siblings do that live in Arkansas.  It was a nice surprise for mom too.  I had talked to one of my sisters a couple days before so Mary had stopped by for a short visit also.  After all left and it was just mom and I we went out and got a little shopping done, got something icy to drink it being such a hot day and then went back to her apartment for a short while before I took off for the 2 hour drive back home.  I think she will be pleased with Lifeline and feel more secure knowing that if she falls or is very sick and can’t reach a phone that they are within a button’s reach away.  I recommend all of you with elderly parents look in to this product  – I have no affiliation with the company – just pleased with all I had heard about it and the person who came out to install and talk was very nice.

I hope everyone has a nice Memorial Day Weekend here in the states.  Sunday we are going to Little Rock to visit with our daughter and son-in-law for part of the day and to deliver “Insanity” (Dear Jane) to them.  Melanie has been waiting for its arrival for some time now.  When I finished it in November I told her I needed to enjoy it for awhile before it left my house for her house – I thought six months of agony on her part was plenty