Welcome to my blog and thanks for stopping by! I am a complete blogging newbie (this is my first blog ever), so it’s sure to be an adventure. My kids are heartily amused. Wish me luck!

I’ve been thinking a lot about welcomes lately. You can be welcomed as you arrive at church or a hotel. There’s the warm welcome given to a performer by a round of applause. When I come home and all three of my cats are clustered at the front door I get a furry, purry welcome. And then there’s the unspoken welcome when we teach something to someone. Kathy (Senior Editor) is the one who taught me how to get onto this page where I can write my first blog. So, I’m now a member of the blogging community. Welcome to the club!

As a quilter, it’s always fun to watch a new quilter join in our fabric party. And I am thrilled to announce that my lovely (and beloved) daughter-in-law has joined the dance. She recently graduated from college with a degree in Linguistics and is looking for a job. In the meantime, she found herself a bit at loose ends and pulled her sewing machine out of the closet. She’s sewing on a very basic machine, no bells and whistles, but she seems to be having a ball. Her first quilt was one she made for her grandmother. Grandma has embroidered the most fabulous collection of tea towels imaginable. Vanessa took a number of the tea towels, backed them with fusible interfacing, and cut out squares centering the embroidery. She them came up the canyon to my house (I live at 7500 feet) and raided my stash for florals. Squares cut from the florals alternate with the embroidered squares in the finished quilt. I taught her how to baste the quilt sandwich and then she quilted it herself on my Pfaff. In the twinkling of an eye she had it bound and ready to be given to Grandma.

I like to think that I’ve influenced her a bit. She sees me petting fabric and making quilts and I think that the sheer volume of fabric in my house must be an inspiration. Then there’s my job. Nessa’s had subscriptions to our magazines for a couple of years, even before she began quilting. She really liked the Stars of India pattern by Bethany Reynolds in the April, 2008 issue of McCall’s when it first came out. So, for her second quilt she borrowed my 60-degree ruler and made a quilt for her little sister. That’s one of the blocks in the photograph. She finished that quilt and then made another one for herself. Then there’s the baby quilt for her best friend’s baby and the reproduction quilt from our last issue of Vintage Quilts (her current project). The most amazing thing about all of this…she’s done all of this in 2 months!!! I’d really like to take the credit, but I think the quilting obsession is in her blood. The beautiful quilt pictured here was made by Nessa’s great-grandmother. The variety of fabrics in this quilt is amazing. I think every article of clothing worn by the family in the 30s and 40s found its way into this quilt. And, guess where it was hiding? It’s a bit of a story.

You see, Vanessa has a younger sister, Danielle, who came to visit me this weekend. She has two adorable dogs, Bruno, a German Shepherd, and Luna, a rescued greyhound. In Colorado, everyone who drives long distances carries a blanket in their car in case they get stranded in bad weather. Dani’s safety blanket is her great-grandmother’s quilt. If I were a great-grandmother, I don’t think I could come up with a better use for one of my quilts than to keep my great-granddaughter safe in a blizzard. However, Bruno and Luna had managed to quietly help themselves to the quilt and were quite content snoozing away on it late Saturday. Well, needless to say, the quilt needed a gentle wash and a safe place to wait until needed. So, now Granny’s quilt is clean and is stored in the car in a pinned pillowcase, safe from clever dogs.

Which is a long way around to saying that I think Vanessa gets her quilting talent from her great-grandmother. If you could see this quilt up close, you’d see perfect hand-piecing and a wonderful eye for color. And as shown in Vanessa’s bright block (only her second quilt), the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree.

It is so much fun to watch her prowling through my stash, falling in love with fabrics, dreaming of future quilts. I am one very blessed mother-in-law. So, darling Vanessa, from one quilter to another, welcome to our quilters’ dance!