On the Road Againnnnnn!

Off to Houston where exciting things are happening.

And at home the crabapples are just gorgeous. How about that for berries, ladies. No, I'm not doing a crabapple tree - yet.

And exciting things are happening here too. The storefront where you can use Paypal is coming along nicely. The kits are all in and we're starting on the books and patterns. Check it out at janpatekquilts.goodsie.com/ (You may have to paste that in your browser. I am NOT a computer person :). Meanwhile www.janpatekquilts.com is still up and running.

Have a good week ladies, Jenny and I are going to.

Easy Dresden Turkeys & Sneek Peek of Market fabric

I just love Thanksgiving. To begin with Pep and Max do nine-tenths of the cooking and even mostly clean up after themselves. I make the corn casserole, jello for the kids and a vegetable tray - they do the rest.

And I always like to make a new wallhanging or tablerunner. Turkeys are Zoie's favorite - they help her remember her pet turkey.

This year when I was over at Missouri Star Quilt Shop Jenny had this great idea for a turkey block. Together we came up with this great quick and easy tablerunner. It's our Mini Quilt Club quilt this month pictured on the right. And you don't have to get the Easy Dresden Tool to make the feathers in the kit, but it sure does make things a lot easier.

First you need 5" squares.

Each square will make 2 turkey feathers.

After you cut the feathers, fold them right sides together and stitch across the top. Snip the corner at an angle.

Then turn and wow! A turkey feather. Sew the feathers together and follow the directions in the kit to make a turkey block and a neat wallhanging or tablerunner..

This is the latest tin full of Candy Bars from Moda. Our Candy Bar is 2 1/2" x 5" strips of the prints in Linda and my line Lilac Hill showing at Fall Market. The tins will be for sale at Sample Spree.

Each tin has a pattern that comes with it. And of course when we got the news Jenny and I just had to sit down and make a little quilt of our own using a Candy Bar of Lilac Hill. Shops, be sure to grab a tin at Sample Spree. Then come see us at Booth 2021 to see our quilt and pattern.

Speaking of which, I'm off to go to Missouri Star and finish it up so I can quilt it.

And We're Back Home - for Awhile

And we're back at multitasking. Clothes unpacked and washed again, ready to be ironed and packed for Market at the end of the month.

The booth unpacked and sorted, some quilts to go to France for the book I'm doing for Quiltmania, some will go over to Missouri Star Quilt Co. for display and a few I get to keep for the house.

It was a really fun festival with only a few hitches. Tara locked the keys in the car when we got there to unload but a very nice officer from the sheriff's department got us back in. Once set up, Max joined us (he had class until Wednesday evening). He and Tara took care of things on the selling and adding up end. I got to sit and chat and sew and do demonstrations on Needleturn Applique. I don't really call it work if I get to sit and sew and show ladies how easy applique can be if you just know a few tips.

The show itself was awesome. The DesMoines Guild had some great quilts.

Moda Lissa was there and posted lots of pictures on her blog so I gave you the link to her page. It is really

worth seeing - I recommend it highly. Thanks Lissa.

This seems like a good place to announce the winners of the drawing for the Free Kit. Drumm rolllll ... And the winners are ..........Linda Lyn of Newton, IA and Marilyn Holder of Fairview, TN. Congratulations ladies. Tara will be emailing you and letting you choose between Sunflowers & Scarecrows and Sue's Snowman Basket.

Here's Christmas 101 again. It's also in the strip on the right because it's the Wallhanging Club offering for the month. We're building a new storefront - with only a slight delay due to a blown motherboard on a computer. The Mini Quilts and Wallhangings are up. As you may or may not know, I'm not taking credit cards any more. I found out the hard way that the merchant is not protected with online credit card orders. If someone steals your card - or gets your card number somehow - and uses it to buy something, the cardholder is protected. The merchant is not. They simply lose their money. Mastercard and Visa are not set up to verify that the person buying online and receiving the goods is indeed the cardholder. Paypal is. They are set up for online buying and selling.

If you're a Wallhanging Club member or anyone else who wants to buy the kit, click on the picture to the right and it will take you to the storefront. If you just want to look at the storefront, type janpatekquilts.goodsie.com/ (no www.) in your browser or just click on it. If you don't have an account with Paypal, it's very easy to set one up. We're also looking into Amazon.com and Google.com to accept payments.

Did I mention that the trailer had a flat tire on the way home. The show ended at 5:00, we were packed by 7:00 and I got home around 2:00 a.m.

It's good to be home.

Come See Us in Des Moines - Booth 1228-1230 Oct. 6-9

The week and especially the weekend has been spent multitasking.

I think everything happens in October. The apples are ready to be juiced and sauced, the peppers are ready, hens are still laying so we have hen fruit too. The green beans are ready too so we had a big mess for Sunday dinner along with the roast. And of course, Pep has to make bread.

Meanwhile, besides picking veggies and washing clothes, we been packing. This morning we're off to Des Moines.

And here's a sneek peek at one of the quilts we'll have along.

Christmas 101 is one of my favorite quilts lately. Come see it (and me) in person. I'll be doing Needleturn Applique demonstrations every day.

Fall is so awesome!

Awesome Autumn!

My, oh, my things have been happening around here.

I'll do the bad things first and get it out of the way. WE WERE SCAMMED!! (kind of like Identity Theft) - by someone saying they were a shop in Australia. Instead they were scam artists using other people's credit cards. YUCK!!! And it has thrown a huge hitch in the get-along. Everything had to be closed down and switched.

At the present time we're not able to process credit cards and we're not sure when we'll be able to. And let me tell you, I am not at all impressed with Mastercard and Visa - period. Their security is fine if you're a shop and the card itself is present. But they are not at all secure or up to date if your sales are over the internet. Nor are they helpful.

So we are back to the good old days. If you're a new customer we will ask for the 1st payment up front. After that we'll ship and bill you.

Most quilters are pretty trustworthy so we're not worried. (These people never would have put money up front the first time.) When I first started designing, that's the way we did it. And we will have the option of Paypal. They are savvy on internet sales. If you absolutely have to have something now and are a new customer, we can refer your sale to a nearby shop that carries our products and takes credit cards. So we still should be able to serve our customer's needs.

Now on to fun things. The Remembrance fabric is in and our first kit is ready to ship. I just love it. And it really goes with the way I'm feeling right now.

Size: 29" x 43 1/2"

Cost is $50.00 + $7.00 shipping.

Oh - Come see The Witch, me and all my Remembrance quilts at the AQS Des Moines Festival at the Iowa Events Center - October 6-9. Booth 1228-1230. I'll be there with kits, quilts and Needleturn Applique and Amy Oxford punchneedle demonstrations. See you there.

The Witch and all the new patterns will be on the website soon. Watch for them.

And the weather is beautiful and supposed to be this way all week. What a relief after the heat of summer. Have a good one, ladies.

American Spirit - Americans All

I taught Girl Gang today in Lee's Summit, then ran errands, did some sewing in the loft, went for my walk with the dogs and watered the chickens. All nice, normal things to do on a Saturday.

But this isn't just any Saturday - it's September 11th. A day to remember and to pray. And this Saturday, I think that we need to keep in our minds and thoughts, not only this day and those brave people we lost, but that the good Lord created all of us in his/her image. Which means that all of our diversity together makes up Gods image. So that we pray together - in alphabetical order as

Christians

Jews &

Muslims

that God bless us all and never let us forget that "United We Stand".

I can't believe it's been a month

I really can't - almost a month since I've blogged. And this needs to be short because Cullen and Quinn are here and will get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow. That's one of the reasons it's been a month. They have been staying with us every other week all summer. Their father is back in school - midlife crisis career switch - and he's been working construction in Oklahoma all summer. Since school has started again now, things are back to some kind of routine.

This is one of the sunflowers Quinn planted this spring. He checks on it the minute he gets here. They are awesome. And as my life always ends up in my quilts somehow...

Sunflowers and Scarecrows - I know there's only 1 scarecrow but scarecrows sounds better - poetic license in quilt naming. This is the next Mini Quilt Club offering that will ship in September.

Let's see - the new fabric lines - Classic Wovens and Lilac Hill are being worked on. Four new patterns for the wovens and some minirugs.

Then I took a break to work on the book I'm doing for Quiltmania - get to go to France next April on my way to Salt Lake City. The Quiltmania people are such a joy to work with.

And in between Jennifer Dick (editor extrordinaire for KC Star) sent proofs and we finalized Across the Wide Missouri book by Edie MCGinnis and myself.

Finishing up patterns for Quiltmania book the first couple of days this week and then on to Lilac Hill line. Even if I do say so myself both the Classic Wovens and Lilac Hill are awesome. See you get to say things like that when you do them with someone else :)

And this is Zoie and Quinn's masterpiece. Quinn's first assignment for kindergarten had to do with this gingerbread man. It was his job to decorate it to make it have something to do with him. Since the poor guy got pretty manhandled for a week, going in and out of backpacks, his dad rescued it and made sure it came with him this weekend. With a little help Quinn traced it and had me cut it out for him. Then he and Zoie went to work with fabric scraps, glue and markers. Then they decided to add his sunflower and things really took off. There's our apple tree and berry bushes and flowers! Wow! I think it is absolutely awesome and just had to show it off.

And something I had absolutely nothing to do with, (except one person removed) but get to enjoy, is the fact that I have a new granddaughter born on August 27th. Her name is Brooke and she is beautiful.

I lost the connection to the internet last night so am finishing it today. They did get up at 6:00.

Better go let the chickens out.

Keep quilting.