Hi everyone, another Wednesday comes into view and a chance to say hello to all. We’ve had an enormous amount of rain in the last week, in fact, my city received a third of its annual rainfall IN ONE DAY!! That’s a lot of rain, I can tell you. Lots of low lying areas flooded, and roads closed, cars under water as well as houses. Luckily we are living in a raised area, so we were not threatened, but everything feels musty and damp. The garden of course, is singing at the top of its voice – all that lovely rain has made the entire flora totally confused and plants are bursting forth with new growth. It’s our fall or autumn here, so the flora should be going into hibernation about now, so it will be interesting to see how it copes over the next few weeks. We’re usually pruning in about a month, so everything’s topsy-turvy!!

Life in general for most earth inhabitants is topsy-turvy at present, and I hope you’re managing to keep an even keel with your family and loved ones, your working life and of course your craft life. It’s so important to have a balance between these things. Especially for women in these times. Back when I was a mother to young children and working part time, I belonged to a craft group who regularly held “challenges”. One challenge was to make a small quilt depicting how I saw myself. I surfed the web till I found a picture of a juggler and I copied this onto a piece of fabric, and gave myself 5 arms, each with a hand juggling a ball with writing on each one – one for family, one for husband, one for children, one for job and one for me!! It really helped me to have a voice about how I was coping, and that it was so important to put my needs up there with everything else. We are “wonder woman” to so many people, don’t forget to be “wonder woman” to yourself; make time for you to revive and rejuvenate each week. That way you’ll continue keep everything in balance.

I posted a book review on Sunday of a very, very good resource book for quilters. It’s titled Design Explorations for the Creative Quilter and it is another wonderful publication written by Katie Pasquini Masopust and published by C&T Publishing. This book is very exciting and has lots of interesting doable ideas for budding art quilters and traditional quilters alike. Here’s the link for you: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art3058.asp

The Forum has been busy, mostly chat between quilters. Feel free to log on this forum and contribute to the chats and subjects being discussed. It costs you nothing, it’s anonymous, there’s no catches – just some fun to be had!! Here’s the link to the forums. http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=43&page=1

Now to your gift for this week. Actually I have two gifts for you. The first is a lovely quilt screen saver that I’ve come across. I downloaded it onto my computer last week and I’ve just loved looking at the lovely quilts it displays. I’ve even reduced the amount of time before the screensaver comes on, to see it more often. Here’s the link to the screensaver. http://www.needlesongs.com/scrnsvr.htm I found it on the Needlesongs website and takes about 2.50MB. It’s very easy to download.

My other gift is a bit unusual, but I think is one of the funniest things to watch. It’s a very short film, and it’s about FONTS, yes the things you use when you’re using a word-processor. Can’t explain much more, but I really hope you have a look. Thanks to my friend Kate for forwarding this one to me. Have fun!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3k5oY9AHHM&feature=channel_page

That’s all from me for now; I do hope you’re all busy creating some wondrous quilts and handmade delights. Take care and have fun quilting!!

Cheerio for now



Judie Bellingham, Quilting Editor
http://Quilting.bellaonline.com

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