A Wonderful Visit with Jeannie Austin

It's been a long time since I saw Jeannie Austin. We've known each other over 20 years. I didn't have much to do with her, as she is a friend of my mothers. Over the last few years, I've enjoyed being around her. She has so much to teach!! She quit teaching because of having to take all her stuff around. Way too much to haul around.

I went to the school where she is staying till tomorrow. I got her up to date on the family and she told me a few things. She brought me some patterns that I could copy.

I showed her my progress on this block. She's thrilled I'm doing this for QOV. She liked the colors I've been using. I told her I wasn't crazy about the flower. She reminded me that when the leaves and grapes are added it won't be so "bold." I'm enjoying working on this. I'm still doing the baskets, but today I was working more on this block than anything else.

I stopped off at the quilt shop and bought some sewline pencils. I got two for Donna and I got one for me that is the yellow pencil. This is the new pencils they have. I like the older model. Plus these are made in Japan. I would like to see them made here in the USA. I'm not sure these will be as good as the metal ones. I like the metal ones better (look wise). I haven't used them yet, so I can't say if these will be as good as the others. It reminds me of a plastic pen. We'll see. I'll let you know which one I liked better.

I pulled out all the patterns Jeannie let me borrow.

Went to moms to get her lightbox. I started marking the patterns on my paper. I figured out it would be easier to copy the patterns then it would to take them to a copy center and have them copy them. If I did that it would cost me a lot, and I would be going crazy with the tracing paper patterns. I don't want to destroy her patterns. I've even been marking the patterns with Jeannie's copyright tag and my "copied with permission" and dating both. I love her eagles. I hope the people who receive the quilts will be happy with the eagles I'm making.

Jeannie had one of her eagle quilts that she made for her grandson. It was so cool! She did a eagle across the top of the quilt. She had different blocks that where made by others, and she had messages she wrote on the quilt. VERY patriotic!! I loved it. We talked about how American back in the Rev. War time where heart and sole American and would do anything to be an American. They would even burn their house down to get the French out of the country. Like my grandmother who was captured. My family is very patriot, and today I think Americans have forgotten what our forefathers did for this country.

I will probably be copying more patterns tomorrow. Patrick wants to go to the movies. Not sure how much time I will have tomorrow. I will be working on the stuff I'm taking to retreat next week. I have a lot of little things I will take. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I know I will be seeing what all I have down there to work on. If I take enough stuff, I should come home with something done. At least that's what I'm telling myself. I may take the squares I have cut and see what all I can do with them. I still need to do the quilt blocks for the retreat. I MAY try and do those this weekend. Not in the mood to sew on the machine yet, but I do need to do those blocks.

It will be interesting to see what I take, and it will be interesting to see if I actually finish something! At least I'll be Happy Quilting!!