Karen Kay Buckley

I am having open heart surgery today.  Yes, you read this correctly.  I will take all of the prayers and, as my friend Pam says, good juju that you want to send my way.  I’m going to need it.  I’ve known about this problem for just under a year.  My doctors feel that I should take care of it now while all of my other tests are excellent.  If I have seen you recently and not told you please, please do not be offended.  I am a crier and I was having a hard time telling people without breaking down.  I’ve never had a surgery of any kind or even been in the hospital so this is pretty scary for me.  And, I’m starting my surgery experience in a big way.  The problem is with my mitral valve.  I have two leaflets that are flapping, my word not the docs, and my heart has become enlarged.  My surgeon is going to try and do a repair. It sounded more likely that I will have a replacement valve.  If I do get a replacement cow valve, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the cow.  It is nice of you to donate your valve for me.  I really do appreciate it.  If I am mooing the next time you see me, don’t be surprised.

Either Joe or my assistant, Lynn, will try and keep you updated.  I will be in the hospital 4 to 6 days and then home recovering for the next 6 weeks.

Here are more of my favorite photos taken while on my walks in Punta Gorda, Florida.

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Nancy sent me an email to tell me about her quilt based on my Magical Medallions pattern. It will be in the Quilt Art calendar for the week of May 16th.  Here are some photos from her amazing quilt.  Thank you for sharing Nancy.  Impressive job.  Congratulations on making it in the calendar.

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BOOK REVIEW

Just finished reading another John Sandford book called “Deadline”.  It is the 8th book in the Virgil Flowers series with Virgil being a Minnesota  state cop.  Virgil plans to help a friend with a dognapping issue and gets into much more trouble than planned.  While he’s in town to help his friend, there is a murder….then another murder….Loved the ending!

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In June of this year, I’ll be teaching a workshop (which is already filled! They are taking names on a waiting list.) and doing a lecture along with numerous demonstrations at the Shipshewana Quilt Festival.  Check it out  http://www.shipshewanaquiltfest.com/

Until next week……

I got stuck in the Charlotte area Friday night due to flight issues….”no crew for the plane”.  The joys of traveling….  Thankfully, my trip to Punta Gorda, Florida to visit the Peace River Quilters Guild was a good one.  http://www.peaceriverquilters.org/  I had a wonderful time with the ladies from the guild.  I had been there once about ten years ago, just before the big hurricane.  Nice to see they have survived and are doing very well.  Here are some photos I took on my morning walks.

Apparently, the owners of this home decorate their manatee mailbox for the season.  Honestly, some people have too much fun.

Betty purchased my “Folk Art Fantasy” pattern a while ago and brought her almost finished piece to share.  Looking good, Betty.  Thanks for sharing.

Until next week.

I just returned from teaching at Quilted Bliss, a quilt shop  in Amarillo, Texas. You can find them at https://www.quiltedblissquiltshop.com . Candy, the owner, is a very welcoming and kind-hearted soul.  It was a pleasure spending time with her and her husband.  The first evening, our lecture was held in the tallest building in Amarillo, the Chase building, if I remember correctly.  And the views of Amarillo were fabulous.

Here are some photos of the Quilted Bliss.

Love the way the fabric is displayed on this wall.

This week also brought me an email from Riet Voogd.  She enlarged my Fiesta Mexico pattern and turned it into a bed quilt.  How cool is that?

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BOOK REVIEW

I finished reading “The Snow Child” on my flight back from Amarillo.

It was rather unusual, and I don’t mean that in a bad way.  It takes place in Alaska during the 1920’s.  Jack and Mabel decide to make the move to Alaska after the loss of a child.  They need a new start.  Mabel is lonely and Jack is breaking his back starting their farm.  They are growing apart.  Faina, a child, comes into their hearts and home.  She enters their lives in a very unusual way.  You’ll need to read the book to find out more…..

I have been in the Waterloo-Kitchener area of Ontario, Canada for the past five days visiting the Waterloo County Quilter’s Guild.  My guild contacts were Elizabeth and Elizabeth!  It was wonderful working with both of them.  They had things very well organized. Their guild members should be giving them a big THANK YOU for all of their hard work.  Bringing in a national teacher is a lot of work.  And, going from the US to Canada can create some challenges.  You can find out more about the guild at http://www.wcquiltersguild.on.ca/

I gave two lectures on Wednesday.  One of the members brought her friend, Helen Blaskievich, along to the meeting.  Helen brought her finished “Magical Medallions” quilt.  I was awe struck.  Helen did an incredible job.  This is no easy quilt to make.  It has lots of difficult pieces. Helen conquered the task.  I am so glad Helen shared her quilt.  Love it.

During the workshops, Joan Doke shared one of the blocks she made from Fiesta Mexico.  She is working on the entire quilt but she just brought Block 11 to share.  I love it.  This is Joe’s favorite block on the quilt so it’s fitting that he got into the picture.

Lots of fun in the workshops….

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BOOK REVIEW

On my trip home from Florida, I started reading “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed. I finished it on the airplane ride to Canada.  I have not seen the movie and did not know much about this book except that several people recommended it to me.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  I really appreciate that kind of perseverance.  My feet hurt just thinking about how far she hiked on the Pacific Crest Trail.

During my visit to Galveston, I was lucky enough to meet the author, Arlene Sachitano.  “Quilt As Desired ” is the first in her series she calls “The Harriet Truman/Loose Threads Mysteries”  This was a great, light read.  And, because it relates to quilting, I liked it a lot.  Harriet returns to her old stomping grounds to help her Aunt Beth with her machine quilting business while her Aunt is on an extended cruise.  I liked the characters and it kept me guessing as to who murdered Avanell.  I will definitely read more in the series.

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This week led me to Fort Lauderdale, Florida working with the Broward Quilt Expo group.  I worked with Janet, Linda and Jenny.  They were lovely to work with and they served their butts off putting together a lovely show.  There were vendors…quilts…and classes.  What more could you ask for?  The only other thing I could ask is for  students and quilters to share some of the quilts they made as a result of taking my classes or quilts created from my patterns.  The “Quilt Guild by the Sea” made their version of my “Midnight Floral Fantasy” pattern and they call their quilt “Green Garden Fantasy”.  It is their 2015 donation quilt project.

To find out more about purchasing tickets for the quilt raffle, write to quiltguildbythesea2011@gmail.com

To find out more about the guild, visit their website http://quiltguildbythesea.com/

I love the green background.  What’s not to like about green?!?  I consider it a neutral!

Two students shared projects they made after taking some of my classes.  I am sorry I did not get the names of the makers to give credit to in the blog.  If you know their names please contact me so I can post them in the blog.  These are from my “Heard It Through the Grapevine” workshop.

Jo Wilson responded to my email request.  Jo is below holding her project.  Very nice job Jo.

The next photo is from my “Garden Medley” workshop.

Thanks for sharing ladies.  I love to see a good finished projects.

Peggy Mead took one of my workshops and I want you to know that she is perfectly sane.  Or, I think she is sane.  This little Grandmothers Flower Garden project is amazing.  Peggy showed me one of the templates she used to make her quilt called “Let Freedom Ring”.  The template was so small I could not even hold it.  It was sewn using the English Paper Piecing method.  Impressive.

“Family Tree” was appliqued by Sara Michael and quilted by Helia Ricci.

I really like this black and white “Dragon Fly” by Linda Nastro.

A quilt with some whimsy.  Charlotte Noll made her quilt using Dipioni Silk.  A sewing machine design sewn using a spool block design.  How cool is that? Great idea!

The South Florida Modern Quilts had a very nice exhibit at the show.  This one was quilted by Meryll Warner.

I am certain people in Florida see lizards all the time.  But in Pennsylvania, this is not a common event. I am intrigued when I see them.  There are two in this photo.  One obvious and one by the purple flower.

Fascinating creatures.

This week I am off to Canada…around the Toronto area.  See you next week.

This past week I taught for Barbara Blanton at the Academy of Applique in Historic Williamsburg, Virginia.  This is the third applique event I have had the pleasure of being involved in this year.  I absolutely love the Williamsburg area so I’m always game to make the journey.  I taught a 2-day class and then a 3-day class. So, five days of classes.  I think some of the classes were single day events at the start of the week.  In both classes, I had the best students…some experienced and some newbies.  To find out more about the upcoming show in 2016, visit the website http://www.academyofapplique.com/

One or two of the teachers did a 10 to 20 minute presentation each day at lunch .  On Tuesday, Nancy Kern shared her presentation.  Check out her amazing quilt behind her.

On another day, Jeanne Sullivan did a nice presentation at lunch.  It was fun to learn a little more about each of the instructors.

One of my students, Liz Schuman, brought her finished Fiesta Mexico-Block Nine project.  Nice work Liz.  Liz is a little crazy…she took five days of classes with me!  She came with her posse from Long Island.

Patricia Bandura took my Magical Medallions one day class a while ago. She decided to purchase the full pattern and make five more blocks for this fabulous piece.  Patricia changed the layout using gold bias strips to make a celtic design of sorts, framing the blocks.  Love it.

Beautiful!!!

Elma May Brey brought her finished Fiesta Mexico-Block Three to share with me.  You know how much I love seeing finished projects.  So, I was a very happy camper on this trip.  Great job Elma May.  And thanks for the hugs.  Some days I need a hug or two.

During the afternoon session on Friday the fire alarm went off.  I got the important stuff…the students, my purse and my quilts!  Oh, and my coat.  It was rather cold.  The alarm turned out to be nothing which was a good thing.

Another successful event.  Talk to you next week…..

I had the pleasure of working for Amy, Bonnie, Sally and Judy this past week.  They are the organizers for “Applique Away On Galveston Bay”.  What a great group of ladies.  To find out more about their upcoming event for 2015 check out their website http://www.appliqueawayongalvestonbay.com/  It’s a really nice location for a workshop.  Their were four hand applique teachers and each class was two days in length.

One evening at “Show and Tell” Vera brought her finished “Garden Medley” project.  We won’t tell you how many years it took Vera to finish it!!  I absolutely love seeing finished projects from my workshops.  Thanks Vera for sharing.  It looks great.

Here are some happy faces from my Wednesday-Thursday workshop.

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Joe In Thailand

Joe was in Thailand recently visiting his brother and family. I thought you might enjoy seeing some of his photos.  This was Joe’s second visit to Thailand.

Ayuttaya, the capital of Thailand from 1100- 1600, has some wonderful ruins

They are beautiful as seen during the day

or by night.

Five years ago Joe visited and played with a tiger cub. (Photo taken in 2010)

Joe visited with the same cub on this trip but both had grown a bit.

More from Joe’s visit next week

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I thought Clover discontinued their 3/8″ bias maker and I was bummed.  But, I was wrong.  I found it and now have it along with the 1/4″, 1/2″ and 3/4″ on the website.

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BOOK REVIEW

I read a previous V.I Warshawski’s, private detective, book and liked it so I went for a second book.  This one takes place in Chicago. V.I’s closest friend, Lotty Herschel, lost most of her family in the Holocaust.  Lotty fled to London with a childhood friend, Kitty.  Kitty’s daughter is in trouble and her grandson is missing.  The story takes you back to Lotty and Kitty’s past.  I enjoyed this book and would read another one in this series.

I’ve been working on some small quilts to add to my workshop choices.  One of the new projects is called “Modern Poinsettia”.  It will be a three hour workshop.  There will be some other versions of this using different colors and different flowers.  Patterns and more quilt designs similar to this coming soon………

Now, for a new 6-hour, one-day workshop, I just finished “Circular Garden”.  It still needs to be quilted.  I worked from some Cherrywood hand-dyed packets.  Circles…they make me oh, so happy.

I am working on a new competition quilt and still playing with the layout.  I changed my mind from my original plan which meant I had to do some ripping.  I had to rip about 50 pieces of applique.  Yuck!  I honestly don’t think I’ve ever done this before.  With my layout change, I needed to move these pieces to a different background fabric.

Well, during my travels, someone gave me a “RipTweezer”.  It is my new favorite tool.  One end is a ripper and the other a tweezer.  It worked beautifully.  I ripped about every 4th stitch and then used the tweezers to remove the loose threads.  This allowed me to save every one of my applique pieces for reuse.  Awesome.  For information on the “RipTweezer” visit http://www.riptweezer.com

I have recently returned from a new seminar held in Rockwall, Texas.  It is called the “Kathy Dunigan Academy of Applique”.  Kathy is planning to hold this annual event every February.  Check it out at http://www.kathyduniganappliqueacademy.com/ If you like applique, you really need to consider this event.  The five-day schedule is set with two single days of classes and what she refers to as the “main class”. This means you have the opportunity to spend three days with your instructor.  I think there were a total of nine teachers.  The  evenings consisted of fun events to attend and lots of door prizes.

The seminar is held at the Hilton in Rockwall.  The location and facilities were excellent.  The hotel was located right along the lake.

The larger, convention area room held about six vendors.

Texas Quiltworks had a booth selling BERNINA machines.  They provided the machines for my machine applique workshop.  Thanks Lynn, Joanna and Glenn.

As I was walking around the vendor area, I saw this quilt.  From a distance, I thought it was painted. I was wrong.  This is all hand appliqued and hand quilted by Meg Maeda.  Meg is from Japan.  Her patterns are distributed here in the states by Myra K. Forbyn.  Her shop is called Aunt Myra’s and her website is www.auntmyras.com

Another of Meg’s patterns.

Here are some of my students during the three day machine applique workshop.  Some of them should soon have photos of their finished pieces to share on the blog.

The final picture is of Kathy Dunigan and her mother, JoAnn.  I wish I had a better photo.  The lighting in the room cast a yellow color over all of my photos.  I shoulda used my flash.  They worked so hard to put this seminar together and it paid off. Their hard work resulted in a very, very successful event.  It was an honor to be one of their first teachers.  Again, if you like applique, you’ll want to look into attending.

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The best dog ever…that would be my Sasha…turned 16 this week.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY SASHA!  And, here is to many more.

Until next week…..