Hi, I'm beautress of the Great Piney Woods in rural Walker County, Texas and am new to this board. I'm thrilled to be here after having read a lot of posts last night, and I'd like to get acquainted.

My stash has gotten a little crazy lately. I finally got a china cupboard to put dishes in when we moved here last year from Wyoming, so I thought, "Well, opening the moving boxes can wait. I want to sew a couple of quilts for the charity quilters around here." So I put fabrics for 3 Shelter quilts in it and made 10 tops and 5 finished quilts in just a few weeks. Then, I thought, "Well, there's still some more space in the china cupboard," so I put some sewing equipment in it, too, and the new fabrics I was collecting from local quilt stores. Finally, I decided to put the fabrics in containers with the fabrics I moved here and put them in the nice empty bedroom upstairs that wasn't being used for anything else. I kept filling containers, and filling containers.

You have to have a lot of fabrics to make a few quilts, it seems. And the lady who said "She who dies with the most fabrics wins." may have been talking about me. :)



Some of my stash does end up in quilts...600 since opening a quilt store in 1987. When family mutters of "Oh, no, not another quilt!" were heard, I started giving them to a Handicapped daycare center until they were ordered by the government to wash the quilts in bleach. Then they went to the local police department in Wyoming to distribute to children officers deemed needing a quilt, and the city allowed me to actually show the quilts at City Hall for 7 years running until I got fibromyalgia and could no longer do the physical job of hanging quilts...

If I can ever find my album, I'll try to post pictures somewhere, but here are a few favorites I saved when making Wounded Soldier quilts between 2004 to 2009.

i am in contest with you on that

Welcome to the board! :D

welcome

great work

welcome!

Beautiful quilts and thank you for helping the soldiers.

heheh!

/anteing up 40 large plastic storage containers of 1 yard pieces or greater, 14 medium-sized storage containers of 30s, 30 large containers of paint pot colors separated as to light and dark with extra containers of reds, blues, oranges, yellows, purples, greens, and light neutrals...a 100-yard reel of sturdy muslin, and 12 library wood drawers full of fabrics for the upstairs sewing room, visited only when I need an extra cutting area when the dining room storage cupboard and huge table get covered with itsy bitsy pieces, the quarter yard stash, and too many finished quilt tops...

Is that touche er what!
Me so bad... :mrgreen:

Thanks, Sueisallaboutquilts!

Thanks, frugalfabrics, mrspete, and CarrieAnne.

Welcome beautiful quilts

Thanks, KonaLinda. We sent 34 that I quilted, a lady at my church donated one to us for the Purple Heart Soldiers Quilt project we did, and one of the helpers brought a finished wounded wheelchair soldier quilt. My shop in Wyoming donated batting and backings for all the others, and I did the quilting while others ran the store's day-to-day works.

It took 4 years to do the designing and work, but that's not near the gift one soldier gives us all when he lays down his life and future health for the good of defending our nation's people from predators.

In Wyoming, I figured it was so cold we'd make them full bed quilts, and a lot of them measured over 100" long. I used queen sized cotton batting and my shop longarm, which I greatly miss.

Thanks, kima.

Hello, and welcome from Idaho!

Perhaps you have soldiers in the family? Are you near any of the Texas bases? I have a son who was in Afghanistan and a daughter with the MN Nat'l Guard. Sadly most folks are not affected by the war unless they have family or friends involved. Life just goes on as usual. Folks like you are so special and appreciated.

Thanks and hello, Sadiemae. One of my most beloved quilt judges at the WY state fair lived in Idaho. Ran into her at the Grand Tetons Quilt festival in Jackson Hole in or around 1988 or 1989 and again at the WY State fair in 1993.

No, KonaLinda, I've no family presently in the military, and don't think there are any nearby military bases. Bless your son for his service in Afghanistan and your daughter for her service in the Minnesota National Guard.

I grew up as an Army brat, but I always said prayers for our soldiers who served as my father who served in WWII, Korea, and Alaska in the Cold War and my older brother, who served during the time of Vietnam.

I pray for all our soldiers and for the families who become bereaved when their loved one is killed overseas, for the families of those we lost on 9/11, but most of all for peace on earth for all nations. I think it'd be nice if everyone just laid down their guns, went home, and got a job helping others instead of homicide bombing helpless civilians.

Till that day, I can only pray and hope people will open their hearts to wounded soldiers who took terrible injuries to bring about a world where their fellow countrymen and women aren't the targets of mean world-class bullies.

Hello and Welcome aboard ! Glad you joined us :lol:

You have made some beautiful quilts - thanks for sharing

Welcome to the board from Southern California!!!!
Beautiful quilts!!!!

Hello and welcome from Germany!

Hello there & Welcome to the quilting board from the state of Washington!! We are so glad to have you joining us.
:D :D :D :D

Howdy and Welcome from Kentucky! http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/s...um/welcome.gif

To say that I am impressed is stating it much too mildly! I make lap quilts for the local VA hospital, but can never hope to match your record! I've wanted to do a couple 'Quilts of Valor' too, but may never get around to that...too many other things on my platter...

Hello and welcome from Ontario.

Welcome from Ireland. Beautiful work.

Welcome from Michigan.

Hello from Western Maryland !!

Thanks for the kind and welcoming words, Sharon B, Jim's Gem, Borntohandquilt, SulaBug, Qbee, granky, MamaBear61, ann clare, Lori B., and LAB55.

General Washington petitioned his fellow countrymen to donate funds for wounded soldiers for a token of appreciation, the purple heart. Today his likeness is on each purple heart medal given to a wounded soldier. I designed a simple quilt that would be fun for our Purple Heart Quilters that we could make as a group in honor of our dear soldiers who bear egregious wounds in our behalf. Below, I hope to post one of them that I couldn't post last night for some reason. (too slow server).

Hello and welcome from England !

Oh, I so would love to visit England sometime, deltadawn. Do you think it'll ever be safe to fly again?

Thanks for the :thumbup:

I really love Quilting Board after just a couple of days!

Atta, girl on all the lovely quilts! Also, it's great to keep a record of all the quilts you have made and donated!

Welcome, so glad you joined us. Thanks for doing so much for great charities. I don't know if you've got the biggest stash though. I've got 7 of the pattern cabinets from House of Fabrics, when they went out of business, all full of fabrics, folded, sorted by background color, and 24 large totes (65 qt.) full of fabrics, plus 5 totes(65 qt) full of scraps, plus 3 of the big black garbage bags full of scraps. This winter, I'm going to try to get through my scraps and get them all cut into squares and strips and organized.

Thanks, quiltiludrop. I have a large nearly full picture book of many of my quilts rather than a journal. My DH is getting on in years and doesn't take pictures any more. I just can't. So, I just take the quilts down to the guild for the local battered people shelter. I designed quilts, wrote teaching manuals to go with them, taught locally at my shop in Wyoming for 23 years, then retired after contracting fibromyalgia. I can still do tops and the quilting on infant-sized quilts. I miss my longarm that we left in beautiful Wyoming. But I love and seriously needed the r&r that retirement is on account of my muscle anathema.

You have almost as much as me. When I wrote this back on page 1: "/anteing up 40 large plastic storage containers of 1 yard pieces or greater, 14 medium-sized storage containers of 30s, 30 large containers of paint pot colors separated as to light and dark with extra containers of reds, blues, oranges, yellows, purples, greens, and light neutrals...a 100-yard reel of sturdy muslin, and 12 library wood drawers full of fabrics for the upstairs sewing room, visited only when I need an extra cutting area when the dining room storage cupboard and huge table get covered with itsy bitsy pieces, the quarter yard stash, and too many finished quilt tops...

I forgot about the room full of bins to the ceiling on the 3rd story of our quilt business' building--no less than 60 bins in that room.

I don't have room for them here. We need to put a tall metal building on a slab in one of the unused horse pastures on our new farm. We really need to get after that and get it done by next summer when we can go back with a trailer hitch and bring the rest of the fabrics and my longarm back here. Also, I forgot about all the boxes left unpacked in the converted garage here. The trouble with those plastic bins is that it's hard to get stickers to stay on them, and if you drape quilt material or a sample quilt square as to color or UFO in the bin, it can get damaged. I had to do all the samples in the store, and the leftover scraps piled up. I saved them all because I knew someday I'd retire and need them for continuing the work. I'm a believer and that to whom much is given, much must be given back. The fibromyalgia put a screeching halt to all my plans for years, then I discovered a product called Vital Factors that helps ease the pain but doesn't incapacitate the mind from getting things done timely. Even so, the cold weather sent us south, and we moved last year to beautiful Texas.

I think they should redesign all the bins to have clearview plastic and paper covers for marking what's in the container in very large letters so even the most nearsighted person can see them from the floor if they're piled up to the ceiling.

That'd encourage us to get back to the UFO in the 10 gray containers you bought to house leftover fabrics. I collect bird fabrics, animal fabrics, and use fabrics like an artist mixes colors--only we can't do that unless we get into dying. I don't like anything about the dying process except the finished product, and I need all those value shades, and I have to replace all the blues if I get on a kick and complete 10 full-sized blue log cabins, which I can do in a short 3 months.

Do you feel bad if you lose all your favorite colors after binging on blue like me?

I give! It sounds like you've beat me with your stash. LOL

I have a couple of friends with fibromyalgia, I would like to tell them about the Vital Factors and that it has helped you, maybe it would do the same for them. Where can they find it?

Welcome from Michigan

http://www.vitalfactors.com

They will probably be convinced it's just another blind alley, so they should scroll down where it may still offer a week's supply for the price of shipping and handling, or call the 800 number listed there and call in and ask if the offer is still good. I have a hunch it will be. I started taking Vital Factors on a Monday, and by that Wednesday, I was able to put the Neurontin my doctor had prescribed for excruciating pain on the shelf never to take it again. That was about 6 or 7 years ago. You take it 5 days and skip 2. All it is is natural vitamins and minerals and plant extracts from around the world that some doctors and biochemists collaborated upon and are still improving to this day. After I post this, I will try the website again. I haven't had to call them except when I moved from Wyoming to the farm in rural Walker County where I live now. I still take it faithfully. It still stops most of the pain (about 90%). Bless your friends with this disease. I will put the friends of you on my prayer list for alleviation of their pain and send you a pm with this message in case you miss it.*

Edit: * The vital Factors website is still good after all these years. No wonder. Their product really, really works for many people.

Doggone it! I have to go get another plastic tub: Our hobby is driving around taking in another Texas quilt store every couple of weeks. We found one in Stafford Texas called the Quilt Emporium, and they had: complete new Wildflowers IV from Sentimental Studios by Moda. I fell in love with the allover forget-me-nots in dark blue and light blue and decided they'd make a great background for a postage stamp map I'm designing of the state of my birth here, so I got yards and yards of both blues. I've been doing some serious nonstop sewing for the last 2 or 3 days between postings here. It's going to take all that fabric just to go around Texas, and I calculate she will be a queen or king sized quilt when I get her done. I'd already done my homework of getting a map, doing some math calculations to dumb down inches to 10-to-the-inch engineering paper, but the map took every square from one side of the paper to the other, so I decided I had to have squares 1.25 inches and had to replot the whole thing as 4 squares on the paper to be one square. So it will be a little boxy, but that doesn't matter. I love the quilt, and my math formula helped because Texas is 83 or 85 itsy bitsy squares high and about 87 or 89 wide. I had a couple of places where I had to add a row to get some visual details in at the Red River area of the state, and I will also have to exaggerate a little on the Sabine River between Louisiana and the Lone Star State of me birth, so that means adding an additional row of width to get a visual product I can live with as to counted work. That means I will also have to add a row somewhere in length, most likely an east west row within the Llano basin region between the city of Llano and Corpus Christi, except going perpendicular to the Llano basin, which if I remember from my 7th grade geography class was shaped something like a huge swan's neck with the head up north and the base of the neck way south. The other thing I remember was it had the characteristic of having blackland farms and was thought to be the richest farmland in the world at one time. I always thought, wouldn't it be neat to farm and never have to fertilize with that kind of soil. (Youngsters have notions that probably aren't very accurate).

Anyhow, I completed the Amarillo panhandle area this morning, and it will take 2 or 3 days to get the El Paso and Big Bend area joined.

With all due respect, I blacked out parts of New Mexico and Oklahoma around the panhandle with the pretty blue Forget-me-not light and blue fabrics, which was the nicest way I could handle the delicate issues of how to deal with Texas' bordering sister states and still stay friends.

:mrgreen:

I apologize in advance when I add the south of Arkansas and the western area of Louisiana with the same precious fabrics. Oh, and probably the greater part of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico on the south and southeastern coasts of the Friendship State.... Let's see if I can get a picture over here from the good people at Moda Fabrics:

Thanks thequiltmama from Michigan!

Thanks for the site, beautress, I'll let my friends know about it.

Hello and Welcome to the board :D:D:D
Love you quilts!!