Sneek Peek at New Summer Design

So, we've had an entire week of nice, relatively warm temperatures. All of the snow and ice is gone off my driveway - Whew Hew! That alone excites me, but our UPS driver has a greater appreciation for it naturally. Our office/warehouse sits up much higher than the road, so the driveway isn't steep, but it's still a trek uphill. He's only slid backward down the driveway once this winter. I bet that's a ride ya wouldn't care to take!
Here's a picture of the driveway. Madee is standing there looking for the source of the chirping she hears - a Bald Eagle chick was chirping loudly from above the bluff nearby.

So, needless to say I've gone thru 150 pounds of ice melt already. Yeah, you could say I'm ready for this warm up. Oh yeah bring it on!

Here's a view of the office/warehouse. Looks more like a house I suppose. Harper is standing out front. Notice that clear blue sky - ahhhhhhh.
The sun has even shown it's sunny face a few of these past days, which as I've said before (and will probably say again) is so-so-so rejuvenating! Hello Sun!!! Puts a smile on my face, a spring in my step and a spark in my creative pencil.


Yes, the sun actually helps to stir my creative juices and I've begun to work on new designs. Actually, I've worked on 2 specific designs; one for fall & one for July. I can't show you the fall yet, as it's going to be featured in the fall issue of Fons & Porter's Easy Quilts. So be sure to pick up that issue and keep your eyes peeled, because it will be a free pattern in that magazine!

The July design I can show you.

Here is a brand new design that will release soon! It's firecrackers & a Bang! At this exact moment, it is so sqeaky new that there is NO pattern for it. But that's my task today is to get the pattern written so it can ship off to your favorite local shop very soon.

I made the background out of navy blues, so it would have the feeling of night sky fireworks. There's a little bit of embroidery details that are too small to see in this photo, but the pattern cover photo will show all the details. =)

My childhood memories of July 4th are filled with fun, fun & more fun. When I was a kid - say around age 8 and on, my family would take a road trip down to Missouri to buy fireworks for the 4th of July. Fireworks, or at least the fun ones are illegal here in Iowa, so there's a steady stream of cars on I-35 heading across the state line to (insert gasp) purchase illegal fireworks. I know. I was an accomplice to my parent's illegal activity. Yahoo!!! We found this very sweet older couple who sold fireworks out of their garage and we returned to them for a few years to make our . . uh . . hum . . purchase.

So back to Eastern Iowa we would return with a truck load of "fun" fireworks. It was like "release the hounds" when my brother, my 2 cousins and myself were allowed to finally dig into the boxes of explosive goodies and take out the "daytime" ones for an all out day of fun.
Daytime fireworks for us were the Black Cat firecrackers that had a fuse which lasted for a whole split second! Man those fuses were like lighting fast! Ouch! Sure they were dangerous, but it sure did sharpen our reflexes. When you lit the fuse, you'd better be ready to throw! No dinkin' around.
Okay, I have to pause a second and ask what kind of mental image of my family do you have at this moment? HA HA! I'll finish painting the image by sharing this:
As if giving us split-second-fused firecrackers wasn't dangerous enough, we were also given lit cigarettes to light off those firecrackers with! Well, we had to light those somehow! Duh!

When I was growing up, we as kids were given so much responsibility, though in the eyes of "today" this story about giving kids a gross of firecrackers and a lit cigarette could land a parent in jail for abuse or neglect. Quite the contrary. My childhood memories are full of fun things my parents would let us do, such as this. I mean, I had a fantastic childhood. My memories are precious. But the responsibility, independence and no-fear I learned was the bigger lesson. We knew if we were caught lighting anything other than a firecracker on fire, we would never see the bang of another firecracker. I'm sure at some point we all tried a puff off that cigarette, but it must have choked all of us, because not one of us kids grew up to be smokers. There's so much more than good reflexes that I learned from July 4th celebrations as a kid. My fearlessness and sense of independence learned at a young age, has served me well.

So, today I leave you with a little glimpse into what has made me, me. I hope you enjoyed the story. . . . . til next time.
I better get to work writing this new pattern!

~Julie