What's on the line?

Since February is just around the corner, I am thinking of hearts so I thought I'd share this little hearts quilt today! This "little" quilt is, in fact, a design by the gals at Little*Quilts. The pattern can be found in their book...... Little*Quilts*All*Through*the*House. This is one of my most favorite quilts. I collected the thirties reproduction fabrics in the late 1990's so I could applique each heart in a different fabric. The yellow and the pinkish-red border were fat quarters that worked perfectly with the prints in the hearts. This was my first traditional applique quilt and I loved working on it. I never grew frustrated and enjoyed every stitch, all done by hand. The fabrics reminded me of all the colors in the quilts that the ladies made at church when I was a kid. You've heard me tell of my Mother, my Grandma Goldie and my Great Grandma Lillie, my Aunt Marie and other ladies of the United Brethren Church in Lehigh, Iowa who made mission quilts in the church basement. I love to be reminded of those times! I know that is why I like telling the stories of my quilts and those I've collected because I get to share those times again. And that's what I was doing a week ago last Thursday when I presented a progam to the quilt guild in Mankato. I always like to take a couple of pictures of the ladies who enjoy looking at all the things that I bring but that evening, it was so busy that I didn't get any pictures! This one was taken by the "guild photographer" just before the program started. The time went by so quickly that night and it seems to just keep going quickly!!! And yet, busy as it seems to be, I'm not sure I've accomplished much of anything. And that's partly because I was also relaxing (as in reading good books) as I was determined to give my arm and shoulder time to recover from overuse. It worked and I don't have any more shoulder or arm pain!! I even did a little stitching on a penny rug this past weekend. Plus, I baked two desserts on Saturday evening that were needed for the Soup Luncheon at church yesterday. Earlier in the day on Saturday, we did our grocery shopping together ! My husband came along for the first time in years! We had been out furniture shopping and on our way home, we decided to shop together rather than me going out to make another trip to the store. It has been ages since he has grocery shopped so I thought it was a really good experience for him. :-) And yes, we spent more than if I had shopped alone. LOL!
Going to be a busy week. Gotta catch up on stuff that I wasn't doing when my arm and shoulder were "out-of-whack". Think I'll finally build that Snowman quilt. It's going to warm up enough outside that one might enjoy making a real snowman! Anyway, just one last thing........ take a close-up look at that picture and the book on that quilt........it's called "Quilts & Nature" and is a quilting book written by my friend, Ilse Iversen. I'll share more about the book in my next post. See ya then!
Sandi