It's a New Day

Have you been wondering what Alex Anderson is up to now that Simply Quilts is off the air? Well, aside from posting wonderful podcasts on her website, she is now the co-host of an on-line only quilt program called "The Quilt Show". She co-hosts the show with Ricky Tims who is a quilt designer and teacher. The show itself is viewed on your computer. You need to pay a membership fee to view the shows, but the very first show is up on the website for all to view for free (you get to see if you like it before you join). The membership is $24.95 for the year, and they have all kinds of perks for members. I've watched two shows now, and I think it's great. It's like an honest-to-goodness television magazine show with a live audience. They interview guests and have demonstrations, etc. The length of the shows vary -- the first episode is 52 minutes long and the second is 47 minutes. You can pause, reverse and fast forward as you choose. Personally, I like it, and I think it would be worth checking out!

ga-ga for yo-yo's

Okay, so I can't stop talking about yo-yo's. It' s not that I personally have made a lot of them or am overwhelmingly infatuated with them, but once you start looking into them, they just seem to find you. Sunshine Harbaugh over at Sunshine's Creations has done a lot with them. To see her yo-yo posts all in one spot, you can go here. She's got a yo-yo Shamrock tutorial (made from the heart tutorial, and also an Easter Egg tutorial.

And if that's not enough, there is a whole group called Ga-Ga for Yo-yos who post pictures of all of their yo-yo creations.

Stay tuned, I'm sure I'll find more...

You can call me Al

Here is a charming story (blog post, really) about Al, an 89-year old former WWII POW, who has gotten hooked on making string quilts. Why string quilts, you ask? It's part of the Heartstrings Quilt Project that coordinates quilters to make string quilts for charity. There are certain guidelines for making blocks that you can send in for others to sew together. Or you can put together quilt tops yourself (where you don't have to follow the guidelines) and then you can send them to a volunteer longarmer who will quilt it and send it on to the charity. (The guidelines are in place for individual blocks so that there is some consistency when they are assembled with the others.) Check out the website for all of the information. I've been setting aside scrap strips for a while now for this project, but I fear I won't get to it until they add that 25th hour in each day.