The Secret's Out!

I've been biting my tongue for almost a year and a half about a new project my friend (and fellow Sew-Ho), Susi has been involved in. About a year ago, she mentioned
that she had some individual quilt blocks she wanted me to quilt for her, but that it was very hush-hush.
These are what she brought to me:

And here's what I came up with. One has a great big shadow which was my hand on the zoom. Again. (Quiet, Carla!)




She'd had a brilliant idea to produce life-sized, detailed puzzles from images of 16" quilted blocks that could be used to educate the next generation of quilters. And she chose me to quilt them for her. After what seemed like forever, she found a manufacturer that could guarantee the product quality she required, and had custom packaging designed. Susi's marketing team worked with her to select which quilts would reproduce best and production began. And now, they're finally ready! Here's the first two puzzles:


Is that cool or what?!
Even before she had the first ones done, Susi came to me again with another batch of potential puzzles:





There's no telling which ones will make the cut.
Susi's marketing them to independent quilt shops, boutiques, and quilt guilds (wth whom she makes special arrangements so they can use them as a guild fundraiser.) Check out her website UnCommon Quilts, which, by the way, has several of my quilts alternating on the homepage like this:


Congratulations, Susi, on pursuing your dream and making it happen!

Going Postal

This is the result of 6 hours(!) struggling through a fabric postcard workshop offered by our guild. I live in a very snug quilting box, and this was somewhat outside of it. While everyone else was laughing and enjoying the process, I was in a total stressed out sweat over it. I don't know what it is that makes me:
1) so rigid and inflexible
and
2) want to even try to get out of my box

My friend and fellow Sew-Ho Susi has a box, too. My box is here, and hers is the rest of the world. She came to the next guild meeting with a box of postcards, tied up with ribbons into sets of 9. I had one (1). I wish I could be more like her...just let loose and go with it!
Maybe part of it is because I was raised in a convent (literally), and letting loose wasn't allowed. Or maybe it's just me. You'd think I'd be used to it by now. But it still makes me want to go postal.