What has happened, which is so surprising, is that our house went under contract before it was even listed!!! After we signed the contract with our realtor, she started getting the word out. As we were making the final preparations for being on the market and going away, she was scheduling the sign installation and the photographer. She put the word out with her network of realtors and the next thing we knew, people were asking for showings! The upshot was that the first people who saw the house made an offer and we are moving ahead with them. That’s why the vacation to Hendersonville ended up being more of a where-to-live-next search for Peter.

We picked up the cats from their little vacation. We take them to a wonderful boarding place – they let them out several times a day in the office so they can play and get some exercise. Before we left, Gizmo was traumatized. He is the poster boy for a scaredy cat. He either hides in the basement squeezed beside the freezer, or behind the coffee maker. I can’t decide if he thinks he is hidden there…

Our plan was to sell the house and then rent a place in our target area and start seriously feeling what the area is like and looking at houses. Settlement is June 21st (!!!) and so we are moving ahead with alacrity. We looked at houses in Hendersonville and spent a day in Greenville doing the same. Happily Peter and I are in agreement that Greenville is the area we want to live next! One decision down and many more to come.

We took a lovely drive there on another day of our trip, meandering through Southern North Carolina and towards the east side of Greenville. Artisphere was going on and so we parked and joined in the fun downtown. It’s a fabulous city with so much going on and the surrounding area, where we will be living, looks great too. Wow. I’m still stunned by how fast everything is happening….

On Saturday we started the drive to Hendersonville. We had chatted about getting away after the house was listed and Peter decided he’d like to see Hendersonville and start his part of the where-to-live-next work. So I quickly found this fun cabin in the mountains. And here we are! It’s what people call a staycation for Peter because he is only taking a few vacation days off. But we are away and not having to polish the sinks or vacuum or close the cats up in a closet!

Hendersonville has has a cool, wet Spring too, but there’s lots blooming. We have been enjoying the azaleas – they are few and far between in Chicagoland.

Peter was working hard yesterday, so I decided to amuse myself by heading to an antique mall that I discovered on my last trip here. I found this funhouse mirror that I thought would be great in our new bedroom!

And this life sized pair of carved lions made me laugh out loud! I am sure that this is what Peter and I looked like about two weeks ago! We were exhausted and so stressed out about getting the house ready. I most certainly am the one snarling at him and he is trying to be polite and turning his face away as he snarls too. ;-D

I discovered several quilts tucked away in the booths but I pulled this one out for a closer look. The workmanship is exquisite!!! And what an unusual pattern and pretty fabrics. There are pieced 8 pointed stars and some appliqued heart shaped flowers. Teeny, tiny grandmother’s flower garden shapes are also appliqued on the backing fabric with such teeny, tiny stitches.I wish the photograph was better. I don’t let myself buy old quilts but I was sorely tempted by this beauty. Sadly for me, the dealer knew what an amazing quilt this is and priced it accordingly….

There’s lots more news to share with you, but for now, we are enjoying the lovely mountains of North Carolina.

P.S. as usual, I am having trouble with WordPress on my iPad! I thought I published this yesterday ….. I’m trying again.

I thought you might like a tour of the new/old basement area. It’s one of the big reasons why we bought it. The realtors here call it an “English basement” because of the windows. (I don’t know if that’s Midwestern?) Here is how my sewing table can look – like a side board. It’s a Koala table and I just love it.

However, I don’t plan to close it; I think with a quilt hanging over the edge to disguise what is under it, it’s quite a pretty sight. And I do want to sew. I really miss the design wall, but otherwise it’s very useable.

This area is for games. We had the electric fireplace in the livingroom, but needed a focal point downstairs and this does the trick. The table and chairs, with fresh cushions, used to be in my parents’ kitchen, and was in ours for many years. In this house, it’s always been a game table.

Here is the computer area. I was going to put this all away and then realized that most families want and need such a place, so it’s been compacted. The shelves beside it hold what’s left of my scrapbooking supplies. Turns out that I am not much of a scrapbooker; I use these supplies for cards and gifts.

And here you see some of my fabric stash. Quite amazing, isn’t it? (A few of you have actually seem my studios over the years and I bet you are stunned at how tidy it is.) I have endlessly folded fabric. Some went on these shelves and some went in boxes. Now you see it….

And now you don’t! I am aware of how overwhelming all of my “stuff” looks to a non fiber person. It’s too much! I spent quite a lot of head time after I decided to make a curtain trying to figure out how to attach the fabric to the shelves without drilling holes. Then one day when I was wandering around Joann’s, I came across Home Decor Velcro. One side is sticky to put on the furniture, and the other side is sew-on to attach to the fabric. To make sure that the fabric hangs nicely, I made a pocket in the bottom and put in a piece of wood for the weight.

We are “entertaining” realtors this week. We don’t have one in mind, so have invited several in to give us their idea for a price and their strategy. We’ve never done this before, and it’s been interesting. I must say that our hard work was rewarded!!! The words “pristine” “move-in ready” and “immaculate” rarely pertain to a house that I inhabit. One of the realtors asked if I had the house professionally staged. When I replied that I had done it, she said that I could do it for a living. One of the others said that the livingroom looked like it was out of a magazine. ;-D Still smiling about that one. I’m done bragging now, but it was really great!!!!

These three designs are just one square wide. There are lots of ways to flip these single squares to make an attractive border design. In this group, the third design appeals to me the most. I love the wonky feel of the triangles flipping back and forth.

This pair is pretty great! The top one is a flying geese design. It’s edge made a box or square on point, which lead me to the next design. Piecing these borders would take some time, but they have a lot of appeal.

Of course in this set, I love the zig zag design and the way it forms such a tidy corner. The bottom border would be quite an intricate one to do and couldn’t be sewn to just any  sort of quilt top. I am not sure what I would do in the corner, obviously! That would take a bit of fiddling.

This is the last of my half square triangle posts. I hope you enjoyed them! I make a blog book at the end of each year and so I must admit that I did these for my reference. As I piece and piece half square triangles as leader-ender pieces, I will have lots of ideas to refer back to when I need inspiration.

In between working on house projects, Peter has been building our ark. Honestly – I don’t think short of several hurricanes we’ve lived through that I have endured so much rain. I neglected to take a picture when the rain was pounding on the roof and all the back yards were filling up. It looked like a model of the great lakes! Happily our house is on a little rise, but Peter had a back-up sump pump system put in a few years ago, and we’re so glad for it now. The sound of it emptying every half hour or so is very comforting! There are some daffodils in the front garden waiting for the slightest bit of sun to come out. The ones in the backyard are submerged. It’s been seriously nasty.

The painters have come and gone and now we are seriously cleaning, arranging and editing the house. Making the house more neutral and less personal is a chore, but very necessary. The general public needs to be able to imagine themselves living in the house and things that are too interesting can be a distraction. I looked at a wonderful house in Franklin TN and was fascinated by all the photographs on the wall. The couple was involved in the music business and had photographs of themselves with Dolly and Willy and many country singers that even I recognize. The last thing a realtor wants is their client looking at pictures rather than saying how much they love the house! I do get it. So here’s some of what we have taken down and will look forward to seeing in the next house.

This is the stairwell going upstairs. It has a skylight so it’s a beautiful, bright area and perfect to display my kimono collection. This is a wedding kimono that I hang up from December through Valentine’s Day. It’s a beauty. I was tempted to take down the hangers and leave the wall blank, but Peter thinks it does highlight the space, so we’ve hung another kimono and we’ll see what the realtors think. It’s easy enough to take down.

Isn’t this fun over the kitchen window? It was such a big blank space and I’m not a big fan of curtains everywhere, blocking the light. This vinyl saying really tickled me, but I finally decided that it was too amusing. I peeled it off and a good deal of paint came off, so the wall had to be re-done. I didn’t know that might happen with vinyl letters.

Peter’s office has been painted, so this saying is gone as well. This saying also made me smile every time I walked into the office. He had his own business for many years and it was a good reminder.

This definitely needed to come down – it’s part of my Asian textile collection and way too interesting. It’s a jacket that I bought in Shanghai. When I bought it, I tried to find out what ethnic group it might belong to, but the Han Chinese shop keeper didn’t understand me. It has so many amazing techniques in it. This is the back.

On the front, you can see that the black fabric is actually shiny and perhaps waxed, to make it waterproof. The embroidery along the opening and on the epaulets is lovely.

Here you can see the sleeve detail. The blue and white fabric is actually a resist technique, like sgraffito that is done on paper. I wonder if one woman made the whole coat or if each villager had a speciality that they would add to it. And as I digress, telling you about this coat, it’s obvious why things like this need to be packed away!!!

Collections of blue and white china have been edited and some put away for the day that the packers come. Lots and lots of pictures are coming down – I’m sure that I have too many Chinese ones. The nail holes are being filled. Peter is re-grouting and working on various electrical projects. Slowly but surely, we are disappearing….

On a very personal note, I see that A Daily Dose of Fiber has reached a milestone – there are now 200 of you who have hit the follow me button! Thanks so much to all of you who keep tabs on what I’m up to – I’m very flattered…   ;-D

This one is a bit of a cheat, as I put squares in each corner. It’s probably called a mosaic, but I’m calling it square in the middle star.

If you flip just the interior squares, you get the negative version!

This star has nice double points and you can see half square triangles in the corners.

This one is appropriately called Diamond Star. You can see it’s a smaller version of a whole cloth design I did. Imagine filling in the light parts of the yellow pieces and you’d get an 8 pointed star.

And here’s a star with a pin wheel middle. I’m sure you get the idea now, that rotating the half square triangles or playing with the fabric colors and values will produce an endless number of star variations.

This pin wheel is in the middle of a square on point. This might be a fun center for the quilt I plan to make.

I can’t remember where I found this pretty square, but it seems related to Yankee Puzzle or Flying Geese. There’s so much movement.

Here’s a great square called Windmills. I’ve seen some quilts where the pattern is even larger, making quite a dramatic quilt. This square is such a good example of how dynamic half square triangles can be.

I’m almost done, but there’s one more post coming next week, on using half square triangles in border designs.

Barbara was hooking her dog, Leo. She spent almost a whole day working on getting his tongue, which is so key to the design, to look right. Isn’t it great? And Donna helped the animal lovers get that dot in the eye to make them look realistic. Can you see those tiny pieces of white wool hanging from his ear? They are a 2 cut, which is the teeniest tiniest piece of wool you can cut. I can’t wait to see her progress on Leo.

Pat was hooking her dog Karen. What a sweet face! The design was from a great close up photograph of Karen begging. I think this is the second piece of rug hooking that Pat has done – wow!

Donna is holding up Susan’s design of her dear departed cat Daisy.

And here is Daisy at the end of three days! The drawing of Daisy’s face is so sweet, but then adding the garland of the flowers underneath is such a great touch. Hooking since she was in her teens (;-D) Susan is very accomplished.

Here is a room full of The Foxy Ladies, hooking away! It was pretty tight fit, so when anyone needed to audition colors, they went into the other room. In the other room, Donna set up a “store”. She had a lot of beautifully dyed wools, including many pinks and beiges for skin tones.

I suppose that my Eliza rug fits into the animal category, though I was hooking easy eyes and just fretting over color, not realism. Here’s my first try… There will be more on all my trials later, of course!

And again, I am missing the photographs I took of Diane hooking her darling dog pulling a wicker basket! Send me a photo and I will add it.

This pattern is a sort of simple bow tie design. It also looks like an hour-glass.

I’m calling this four square, for lack of a better name. Using half square triangles makes it so much more interesting than four solid squares would be.

This square has the look of the overall quilt pattern I plan to make. The corner squares could be twisted any which way to make an interesting secondary design when pieced together.

And this one flips just the center blocks for an almost inside out look of the previous block. A lot of squares like this are simply called Mosaic. In The Quilters’ Album of Blocks and Borders , my favorite reference book, it is named Mosaic No. 16!

Dutchman’s Puzzle is a favorite pattern of mine and I think I have it in every sampler quilt I’ve made. It has great movement.

Double Z is quite an interesting design. As you can see, it depends a great deal on light and dark values for it to show up well.

You can see that as well as twisting and turning the half square triangles around, there’s also color happening. Lights, darks, color families are all playing together – it’s so much fun!

We had Donna working with us for three days! I’ve never done a rug hooking class for that long and you get a lot done and learn so much. If you look at her website, Donna’s speciality is faces, both human and wild ones. This rug was designed and hooked by Donna for the annual Sauder Village Rug Hooking Week challenge. The rules were that the pieces had to show an athlete and include all the colors in the Olympic rings in the piece. Isn’t this a fabulous design ???

As I mentioned in another post, with all that’s going on now, I just couldn’t do anything that required much thought or originality. There are several family photos which I would like to hook some day, but this isn’t the time.Though I wasn’t hooking facial features, I did enjoy listening and watching as people’s “subjects” appeared. Some of the patterns were drawn by Donna from photos that were sent to her, but several of our group drew their own designs. They are all going to be such fun and special pieces.

Karen was working on her own design of her son swimming in Lake Michigan. We all loved his towhead and also the great sand and water texture that Karen was busy hooking on the third day. The background is going to be all about texture and color and movement. {I bet she has it done by our next meeting!}

Carol was working on these four bathing beauties drawn by a friend. She is using a wide cut of wool and eye-popping colors in this stylized design. If you look closely, you can see that Donna drew some cute patterns on the bathing suits. It will be fun for Carol to hook.

Lynette was hooking her kindergarten school picture. In this shot you can see how everyone was working from a photograph, or several. Donna called this the source material and used it to help each hooker decide where to put what value. Many people had the photos posterized, which lessens the colors and makes the image more graphic so it is easier to see, draw and hook the values.

Linda had a challenging design with three faces! You can see that she has a great start on them.

Pam was working on a self-portrait of herself hiking some years ago which Donna drew for her. Pam’s face was one of the smaller ones being hooked and required less detail but bolder values for her face to emerge.

And I do like the way that Pam works. She fills these baskets with all the wools she is using. They are so appealing and make it easy to choose the next color. I am afraid that the cats would find them appealing as well…

Donna did several demonstrations and here she is hooking a human eye. Trained as an artist, she had so many great tips about how to paint with wool. Here she is talking about adding the white dot to make the eye look real.

{Sorry ladies – I missed a few human projects – I know I photographed them but I think my camera was not working, and if you want to send me a picture, I will post it.} In another post, I’ll share photographs of the animal portraits being done.

Beth, who was sitting opposite me, was hooking a portrait that she drew of her grandson Will and she kindly sent me his photo to add to this post! This is his school picture and I think she’s doing a great job with him. Can you see the white dots in his eye that make him look so animated?

This pin wheels pattern is a quilter’s favorite. For this design I think I would need more darks to make the pattern pop, or I could put a plain square in between each pin wheel. The movement is really great!

Here is another favorite quilt pattern design – flying geese. Though this design works, it might be nice to add a plain strip between each “formation” to give your eye a rest.

The geese don’t always have to fly in a straight line, do they? As I was taking the triangles off the wall at the end of the weekend, I “noticed” this design. I had taken many of the triangles down, so it’s not the same size as the other photographs.This one works well with my colors; perhaps it’s the relief of the light values between the darker ones.

This design radiating out from a square is really impressive. I guess it might be a Trip Around the World in all half square triangles. It could be fun to piece or applique a medallion for the middle.

I found many beautiful versions of this when I Googled half square triangle designs. The many colors make such lovely shadowy designs, and soften the edges of the squares. I’m calling it a square within a square.

These last three designs use another shape to make the design, but I wanted to audition them. This first one is called Ocean Waves, I think, and is a pattern that’s long been on my want-to-make list. I tried out several middle fabrics and Peter and I like this dark one best. Though I wouldn’t use a fabric quite this dark, it makes the candy colored fabrics really sing.

I saw a quilt top with this huge flying geese design at a little quilt show that I recently attended. Making a triangle out of triangles is quite striking, though sewing the big non pieced triangles might be a bit tricky.

This is a pattern that I have long admired. I am a great lover of stars and I’d like to do this one. Since I am without a design board, this one will have to stay on the want-to-make list.

Which design will I be sewing? I had a comment from Jo, from a family of quilters, and she asked which one I was planning to make, so she was paying attention. ;-D Peter checked out all the designs as I arranged them on the wall and then we looked over the photographs. He likes the square within a square one and I do too. Although I will have to arrange and plan this quilt, I can manage without a design wall. Meanwhile I have a great pile of triangles to continue to sew – you can see that what I have done is not enough for a quilt!

Look at last week’s designs as well as this week’s and tell me – which one you would choose to sew?

Next week – quilt squares made from just triangles.