Happy New Year to Everyone!

I think one of my goals for 2011 needs to be that I post something new to my blog at least twice a month, if not once a week!  I get busy and read everyone else's blog but forget to update mine. 

We had a nice quiet Christmas, we spent the evening with friends down the block.  We had a nice dinner and lots of conversation.  She does not quilt but has some antique quilts made by her mother-in-law.  She has talked about them in the past, but she got them out to show me.  She was concerned they were faded and had some worn spots.  I told her to enjoy them the way they are.  One is a nine patch, faded quite a bit and hand quilted.  It has lots of character.  One is a wedding ring pattern and it hangs on her wall.  It too is very faded but beautiful and hand quilted as well.  She was concerned they were faded and old that maybe her kids wouldn't want them.  I told her they are still valuable and to enjoy them.

I have been busy with my quilts.  The Snowbound is ready to start quilting but I want to practice on something else with my new machine before I start on it.  I have started hand quilting Two Piece Puzzle.  I have two and a half rows done and I am loving it.  I think I have five and a half rows to go so it is going to take a while, but it is in progress.  I also started putting the APQ swap quilt together.  I set the blocks on point, never did that before, and I'm liking what I've got so far.  I feel good that these three quilts are all in progress.  Do they still count as UFOs?

I want to take some pictures of everything but it was too cold to go outside today.  Temps are in the low 20's and headed down for a couple of days.  It is suppose to warm up a bit next week.  I know that doesn't sound too bad to some of you, but it is unseasonably cold here.  We have snow on the mountain but what little fell over the last couple of days has melted out of my yard.  I can't complain about that.

I want to take a picture of the table runner my sister sent me for Christmas, too.  I love it.  Maybe tomorrow will be sunny enough to go outside for a bit.

I want to wish you all a very safe, healthy, and prosperous Happy New Year!  I hope we all get to quilt ALOT in 2011!

Busy, busy, busy

Wow, it's been a while since I posted anything!  Not to worry, I have been busy.  We worked to get the leaves raked and the yard cleaned up early in the week.  We have been on a couple of motorcycle rides since my last post.  The weather warmed up a bit, so we had some fun.  We still had to bundle up, but riding was nice.  One day we drove the car down to see the Bosque del Apache.  We left home at about 5:00 am and got there around 6:30 am.  It was nice to watch the sunrise over the mountains and the sky light up.  We saw a few bats, some mule deer and thousands of birds, mostly sandhill cranes and snow geese.  Here are some pictures:

These are mostly snow geese, the white geese with the black wing tips.  The larger grey birds on stilts are the sandhill cranes and there are a few other ducks in the water, too.  Here is a better picture of some sandhills:

They are mostly grey but the red on their faces is really pretty and they have some black feathers, too. 

Here is one of the mule deer, he had just one doe with him when we saw them.  He is about a 12 point and just beautiful. 

I finally got my Christmas decorations up on Monday, too.  I debated on not putting anything up this year.  Our kids are scattered out in Wisconsin, Florida, Colorado, Arizona, Oregon and Washington.  Our other family, my folks and brothers and sisters are in Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas.  So no one to spend the holidays with.  It will be very quiet this year.  Also, since we have made some big purchases this year, including my sewing machine, we have decided that we already have all the gifts we need.  I had a really hard time getting into the holiday spirit.  Since I did get the tree and other decorations out, I am feeling lots better.  Now for us, everything is done, gifts have all been sent and we can just sit back and enjoy things.

I have been sewing, too.  I purchased a kit for this table runner and got it finished:

This is the first kit I have used.  I love the colors in the fabrics.  I don't know if you can see or not but one of the fabrics has some tiny stripes in it.  I played with it trying to figure out how to cut it out so the stripes would all go the same direction, but failed at that.  I thought I had it until I started putting the pieces together and since it was a kit, I didn't have enough of the fabric left to re-cut the pieces that don't line up right.  I still like it, it goes well with the colors in my family room couch. 

I also cut the original binding off of a Christmas table runner that I made several years ago and re-did it.  I like it much better with a red binding:

See, much better in red!

Here are the last two snowmen for Snowbound:

Here is Mr. November  and Miss December:

I really enjoyed working on these little snow people this year.  I'm going to miss them once the quilt is all done.  I plan to stitch them all together tomorrow.  I have the borders all cut, so this top will go together pretty quickly (I think).  There are twelve stars that need to be appliqued on the outer border, but that will be fun to do.  I don't know how long it will take to get it quilted.  I still have the large red, cream and blue quilt to baste and get ready to quilt.

I also trimmed up the blocks I have for the swap quilt.  I want to get the sashing strips and corner stones cut for it soon.  I can't wait to start putting it together but I have the other two quilts to work on, too.  I guess everything will get finished eventually.  But there are so many new projects I want to work on, too!  There is just never enough time for everything, I wish I could work faster.

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a healthy, happy, prosperous New Year!  I also want to tell you all how much you mean to me and how lucky I am to have gotten to "know" you through our blogs.  This has been a great year of blogging for me.  So, enjoy your families for the holidays and keep on quilting!

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone!

We woke up to a white Thanksgiving here in Albuquerque this morning.  Not much snow, just enough to cover everything in a little blanket of white.  This cold front is suppose to pass in a few days and our temps will be back into the 50's again.

We are spending a quiet Thanksgiving alone this year so we went to a local restaurant for dinner, it was nice, not too expensive, no leftovers and no clean-up.  We returned from our trip on Tuesday, just ahead of the reports for cold weather.  Got everything unpacked and laundry done by Wednesday.  We had a great visit with my family, Mom and Dad are doing well.  Actually they both look much better since entering the nursing home.  Dad is ready to go home, but I think it will be spring if that happens.  My sister, brother and his wife, and Mom went out to dinner while we were there.  Dad was feeling a little under the weather the first day, but was fine the rest of our visit.  We did some cleaning at my folks house and made arrangements for a veterans plaque to be added to my FIL's headstone.  So we checked off all the things we wanted to get done plus had time for some nice visits with my folks.  Then we were off to Arkansas to visit SIL's and their husbands.  While there, we got to eat at our favorite restaurants with them, had Thanksgiving dinner early and found a dresser at the resale shop to bring home for the guest bedroom.   Plus we put in a bid on a roll top desk that was old but in pretty good shape and had a phone call on our way home that it was accepted.  Our SIL's and hubby's picked it up for us, so now we have to plan a trip back to get it.  That will be in the spring with a trip to Florida to my step daughter to drop off our old desk to her, then swing through Arkansas to pick up the new desk. 

Other good news is my step daughter and her husband in Washington are expecting their second child around the end of May, so there is another baby quilt to plan.  They will find out in a few weeks if it needs to be pink or blue.  I'm hoping for pink, it is such fun to make little pink quilts!  Then we have to plan a visit to the northwest to visit after the new grand baby arrives.  It's not even the end of this year and we have two trips planned for next year already, whew!

Everyone liked the table toppers I made, I was happy to hear that.  Today I cut out a new project, a table runner for me.  I get to practice on my new machine, it will be a lot different sewing on it.  We found a sturdy 2' X 4' table to put it on, so now the height is better for sewing.  My old machine was in a cabinet so it has now become a night table in the guest bedroom.  That way, I can use it if I need to but it is out of the way.  Tomorrow is my class to learn more about my new sewing machine.  I have read a lot in the manual but putting it into practice is much better.  This first class is a general get to know your new machine, then after it I can sign up for a model specific class to learn all the features.

I still need to baste the red, cream and blue quilt, Two Piece Puzzle, so I can start hand quilting it.  I plan to borrow a large table from my neighbor to work on.  I will probably talk to her next week after all of the holiday activity settles down.  I have some ideas for the Swap block quilt but it will be a little while before I am ready to work on it.  I can hardly wait to work on it, I know it will be a favorite one.  I am ready for the last Snowbound block to come out in a couple of weeks.  Don't know when I will get that one finished, it will probably not be ready for this Christmas season.  I use to be so good and only have one project going at a time but I have caught the quilting bug and have several projects going at once plus so many new ideas!

I hope you all enjoyed some good family time and great food today!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Getting ready for Christmas . . .

How are you doing with your handmade gifts?  Here are the ones I've been working on:

These are the table mats I made using the Farmer's Daughter block.  They finished up at 14" square, perfect for an end table.  I was struggling to come up with an idea for gifts for family this year when I found The Farmer's Dotter blog.  She talked about the quilt block on one of her blogs and offered to email it to anyone who wanted a copy.  I also did several internet searches and ended up using this pattern for my table mats.  I decided since my father and my husband's father were farmers, these are quite appropriate, both to give and receive.  The best part is, everything came from my scraps and stash.  I really like the way they turned out, now I have to make some for myself!

I finally have the top all together for Two Piece Puzzle and I have the backing fabric and batting.  Now I just have to get it basted!  I have been working on it for about 8 months, wonder how long it will take me to hand quilt a queen size quilt!  I'm planning to borrow a couple of long tables from my neighbor to do the basting.  I'm hoping that works out.  I don't have any bare floors to use.  I usually do the basting on the island in my kitchen, but this may take a couple of days so I don't want to tie up the kitchen that long.  Well, I guess we could eat out until I finish it but I don't think that will be a popular idea for long. 

I was so excited to hear that Katie is getting the long arm machine she wanted and . . . drum roll, I have a new machine, too.  It's not a long arm, I'm no where near ready to try that but it sure sounds like fun.  My husband went on a motorcycle ride with the guys last weekend and left me home.  I've been wanting a new machine for a couple of years, so I wandered over to the sewing store nearby.  I had talked to them a couple of months ago about an embroidery machine but decided that really wasn't what I wanted.  This time I checked out the sewing/quilting machines.  It just so happened they were having a big sale and I found the one I wanted.  It is a Brother that does lots of "stuff"!  It will take me a while to learn all of the functions but the shop has classes for new machine owners, so that will help.  I'm signed up to go to the first class the day after Thanksgiving.  I've been reading the manual and trying some things out.  It's fun, but so different than my old sewing machine.  And when I say "old" I mean that.  I bought my first sewing machine 41 years ago, I still have the sales receipt.  My friends were dreaming of buying their first car, all I wanted was the sewing machine!  This will count as my Christmas present for this year and that's OK because I love my new machine.

Right now I am working on the November Snowbound block, I think it will be finished tonight.  Guess I should go have some fun sewing.

Happy Halloween Everyone

Hope everyone is enjoying the day!  I finished my Halloween quilt Friday night, so it is officially done in time for the holiday! ! !

This is the quilt that I received the patterns for at a shop hop to four quilt shops in my area.  It was lots of fun to make, all of the applique let me be really creative.

Here are each of the individual blocks:

For the above two blocks I purchased the kits at the quilt shops.

These last two blocks I used fabrics from my stash with a little bit that I had to buy to get the right colors.  I didn't have any good purple for the hat.  The last thing I can add to the cat on the wall is a tiny ristra to hang from one of the posts.  I have to look for a cheap pair of chili earrings for that.

I stitched the narrow red border to my Two Piece Puzzle quilt top and I now have the fabric for the wider navy border.  I still have to cut it.  Another project has gotten in the way.  We are going to take a quick trip back to Illinois to visit my parents and I want to have the gifts for our family gift exchange ready so I don't have to mail them.  I am making five table mats.  Since my sisters and I and two of my SIL's all grew up on farms and my brothers wife is included since she is the daughter-in-law, I am using the Farmer's Daughter quilt block for the center of the table mat.  It seemed fitting to me.  Anyway, I have them all ready to quilt and that needs to be finished before I get back to Two Piece Puzzle!  I will post pictures of those when they are all finished.

Be sure to check out the two buttons at the top left of my blog page.  There are two blog hops coming up, one starts Tuesday, Nov 2, the other Nov 15.  There will be free projects, recipes and more.  They sound like lots of fun!

I hope everyone enjoys their Halloween eve, have fun!

Sewing Sunday

It's been a busy week.  I have the center of Two Piece Puzzle all stitched up, now to add the narrow red border.  Next is the wide dark blue border, but I am still looking for the right fabric for it.  I ordered a nice wide quilt backing fabric on Ebay, it will be here by the end of the week.  I have never used the 108" backing before, I thought it was very expensive.  I found some for about $8.00 a yard from a vendor on Ebay.  I bought 3 yards and she only charged an additional $5.00 for shipping.  I thought that was pretty good.  Otherwise the pattern calls for 7 1/2 yards of regular fabric and that would have been pricey, too, so I did pretty good there.  I have the batting since I went to JoAnn's for their "buy one get one" sale.  I bought two queen size battings, two spools of thread, and everything I needed to make a new ironing board cover for about $40.00.  

I spent a couple of hours today on the ironing board cover.  Here is the before picture, this one isn't that old but it is worn through.

Sorry it's so blurry but you can see the tears in it.  And here is the new one:

Aren't those little owls cute!  The fabric is a heavier weight cotton so I'm hoping it will last a while.  I put the new cover over the top of the other one so it will have some padding.  Now it will be fun to iron!

I'm still quilting the Halloween wall hanging but I think it will be done this week, I hope.  I decided to do a cross hatch quilting in the outer border.  It is all done going one way, I am now working on the stitching tilting the opposite direction.  I think I will use solid black fabric for the binding once the quilting is done. 

The weather today was sunny but cool.  Tomorrow more bad weather is expected.  Some parts of the state are in for 30 to 50 mph sustained winds with gusts up to 70 mph predicted.  That means we won't put up our flag tomorrow, I spent a little time today mending some rips in it anyway.  We will see what happens.

Oh, I have one more "wildlife" pic. 

I was outside a few evenings ago and found this praying mantis chowing down on a black widow spider.  How cool is this?  I can't take credit for taking the picture, my DH is the photographer in the family.  I see praying mantis' in the flowers all summer long, usually when they are much smaller.  When I go out to water, they pop out to say hi and watch what I'm doing.  They are my little pets!

Hope everyone had a great weekend and lots of sewing was done.


  

I Won, I Won, I Won

What a great way to start this blog!  Actually, I won in two giveaways!  One I just found out today, in the Fall Into Fall giveaways I won a pattern for a fall table runner and a hot pad from Mary Grace at Hooked on Needles.  That was my excitement for today. 

And yesterday, another win arrived.  It was from Kelly Mueller of the Wooden Bear on her The Bears Blog  .  In her giveaway I won this:

It's Kelly's book Fresh off the Farm with patterns for a wall hanging, pillows and several bags, and 24 fat quarters + a panel of her Fresh off the Farm fabric line.  This is the best.  Her patterns are adorable and the fabric is so cute.  I want to make everything in the book which means I will have to buy some more of the fabric!  I am thrilled with this.  Thank you Kelly!

As for what I have been doing the last couple of weeks, we have had company on and off.  My son came by two weeks ago on Monday.  He flew out on Tuesday to visit his best friend from college in Hawaii ( it's always great to have a friend who lives in Hawaii).  So we dropped him off at the airport at dawn.  He left his dog with us while he was gone.  Sadie is a 2 year old, 120 lb, Greater Swiss Mountain dog.  She is well behaved and was no trouble to watch, except she sheds a bit and smells like a dog.   Then on Thursday that week, my step daughter flew in from Florida for her friends wedding.  She was busy playing with Sadie, visiting friends and running errands, then flew home before dawn on Sunday morning.  This past Wednesday, my son returned from Hawaii so our fourth trip to the airport in two weeks was to pick him up.  Sadie did a happy dance to see her boy returned.  He stayed overnight, then drove home on Thursday.  I cleaned the yard of doggy droppings, vacuumed up dog hair, washed the guest towels and bedding for the third time in two weeks and cleaned doggy slobbers off of the sliding glass door.  It was lots of fun having kids in the house again, at least for a little while.  We rested up and today went for a 220 mile ride on the motorcycle to check out fall colors and a beautiful fall day.  We are suppose to have rain coming in a few days, so gotta get out while we can.  Now I would love to take a nap, all that fresh air and sunshine!

In between all of the house guests, I did manage to get some sewing done.  I have all of the blocks finished for Two Piece Puzzle:

There are 16 blocks with blue stars, 12 blocks with red stars and 28 hourglass blocks.  Now to square them all up, stitch into rows and put the quilt top together.  I don't know how long that will take, but the end is in sight.  After the blocks are all together, there is a narrow red border, then a wide blue border to be added.  Then, the quilting can begin!

I have the October snowman for Snowbound finished:

It is so cute, if I say so myself.  I embellished a little extra with the bow and bell on the sheep's neck and the heart shaped button in the star.  There are only two more months of snowmen left in this BOM and it has been so much fun. 
I have more swap blocks to show off:

These are from Theri.  They actually arrived weeks ago but the vacation and house guests kept me busy.  We finally got pictures of them.  I love the fabrics, they are just fantastic.  Thank You Theri, I love them!

And these came from Karen:

I love the bright red borders and the fun prints.  She also sent the cute little tote bag, isn't it pretty!  Thank you Karen!  I can't wait to start putting them all together.
In my "free" time, I made Trick or Treat bags for the three littlest grand kids.  I have a bunch of panel fabric, so I used a panel for the front of each bag, a Halloween print for the back, another for lining and made black handles with orange polka dot ribbon stitched on.  I mailed them before I got the camera out, so no pictures of them.

I guess that pretty well covers the last two weeks, they have been busy.  I have lots of projects to work on, which reminds me, I am hand quilting the Halloween wall hanging from the patterns I got on the shop hop last month.  I have the individual blocks all quilted and am working on the inside border now.  Once that is done, I have the outside border to do, then bind and hang.  I hope Halloween isn't done before I finish the wall hanging! 

Take care and happy quilting!


Oh, Oh, I almost forgot!  When we got home from our ride today and were putting everything away in the garage I noticed this across the street:

These are pictures of a roadrunner that was in our neighbors front yard.  It ran across her yard, jumped up on her front wall, then up on the roof.  I love watching these birds, they are so fast and fun to watch.

Welcome Fall!

Yes, I am still here.  Have you seen the fun fall giveaways?  One is here at Fall Into Fall, they have a ton of giveaways to enter.  It starts today and there's some great stuff out there.  The other one is Fall-O-Ween and I have the button at top right on my blog page.  It links to the list of designers who are participating.  It started on Monday and they are doing a free project pattern each day.  So far they are really nice patterns.   Visit each designer and leave a comment on their blog on the day they present their pattern.  At the end if you have commented on all of their blogs you will be entered to win some really nice prizes.  It would be great to win the prizes at the end, but so far the free patterns are worth the visit!

I promised some pictures of our trip to the North Rim so here goes:

Here we are at the campground at the North Rim.  It is a very pretty campground, very quiet, nice paved roads, but no hook-ups.  Water is nearby and they have restrooms throughout the campground and a laundry/shower facility at the entrance.  There is also the gift shop/store at the entrance, too. 

This is Angels Window, that is the Colorado river winding through the view in the rock.  We did some hiking on the trails.  Here the trail goes over the opening to a viewpoint, you can see the rails along the sides of the trail.  

There were some great views into the canyons along the trails.  At night, there were tons of stars and the moon was bright.

There were lots of tiny, tiny flowers blooming.

There were Kaibab squirrels, they are only found on the Kaibab plateau at the North Rim.  These little guys have dark bodies, tufted ears and white tails.  They were in the campground.

Ground squirrels were everywhere.

We also saw lots of wild turkeys and

  some beefalo.  They are a cross between cattle and bison.

In the lodge there is a life size bronze statue of Brighty of the Grand Canyon from the book by the same name.  Brighty was a wild burro who lived in the area long ago.  Marguerite Henry wrote the children's book about him.  His spirit lives on at the North Rim. 

Our last night there we ate dinner in the Lodge dining room, watched the sunset over the canyon and walked the trail to Bright Angel point just as it was getting dark.  This is the entrance to the lodge with the moon right above it.  The only time I had a problem with the height over the canyon was on the trail to Bright Angle point, but I made my feet keep moving and the view from the point was worth it.  There were a few spots along the trail where it felt like the edges just dropped off into the canyon and it was a little scary for me but I am glad I walked it.

The day before we left for out trip my husband rode our motorcycle to Grants, NM with several of his friends who were headed to Las Vegas, NV for a few days.  DH just rode part way, then came back home.  They invited him to go on the trip but we had the vacation trip planned.  Anyway, he got home and we went out and traded our Harley for this:

It is a new Honda Goldwing.  Several years ago we traded our old Goldwing for the Harley.  DH really wanted a new Goldwing then but they didn't have what he wanted so we ended up with the Harley.  We rode it for five years but it was loud and causing hearing problems for DH plus it was a bit of a rough ride.  He decided on the way home from the last ride with his friends that is was time for something different.  He has wanted the "tweety bird" yellow since it first came out and he found one at the shop in Rio Rancho so we got it.  It is so quiet and the ride is sooooooo much more comfortable and smooth.  We have been busy riding, have about 700 miles on it already.  Can't wait to take it on a trip, maybe to see his brother who lives north of Amarillo, TX. 

Got some bad news last week, my Mom and Dad have moved into a nursing home in my hometown.  Mom has been taking care of Dad for a while now and she has gotten to the point she needs some care herself so they made the move.  So far they are getting along fine, it is just hard knowing it has come to the point they need more help.  But they are getting what they need and doing well.

As for quilting progress, I only have 14 more blocks to put together for Two Piece Puzzle.  All of the HST are made, I just have to put 16 HST together to make the star blocks.  This part is a little boring, doing the same thing over and over to make these last 14 blocks.  Once they are done, I can put them together into rows and the quilt top will really take shape.  I have the Halloween blocks finished and the top is basted and ready to quilt.  I will work on that while watching TV in the evenings.  I want to make some Trick or Treat bags to send to the grand kids so I will break up the monotony of piecing blocks with that project. 

I still have to take pictures of Theri's blocks and the Halloween quilt top.  I will try to have them for the next blog.  

Don't forget to check out the giveaways, there is some great stuff there!



Getting ready

I never know what to use for a title for these blogs.  My creativity has never been in writing!

We are getting ready to go to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for a few days.  The camper is cleaned up, the water tank is filled and we are ready to start loading food and clothes.  It's not really a huge job, the camper is a small one and we travel light.  I'm not taking any sewing with me, I think we have lots of things to keep us busy, plus I don't want to loose a needle inside the camper.  I do have some magazines to get more ideas of cute things to make.  If we get some good pictures, I will post them when we get back.

I have finished quilting Patriots Home but I don't have a label on it yet:

Here is a close up of the center block:

It is hand quilted, mostly in the ditch, with stars stitched into the corner squares.  I love the fabrics and the pattern.  It turned out quite nice, I think.  It is from the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of McCall's Quilting magazine.  I ordered the fabrics online so I could get the exact ones used in the magazine.  There is a mini quilt pattern on the McCall's web site that I may try someday.  The hexagon template for it is less than an inch wide, so that might be fun.  The mini finishes at 16 1/2 X 16 1/2 inches.  The larger version is 41 1/2 X 41 1/2 inches.  I had fun making it, the flower blocks were what really caught my eye.  They are made from a striped fabric that has 2 1/2 inch wide strips of each of the different fabrics in the line.  The hexagon template is centered over the line between two different fabric stripes to create the pattern in the flower shape.   

I have my September Snowbound block all finished, too:

I think I have to call her Miss September since she is wearing a purple hat and pink scarf.  It's hard to believe there are only three more snowmen to come before the BOM ends.  I am having so much fun with them.

My other finishes are these:

This one is all done.  The next one is almost done.  I still have to add the little glass beads for eyes on the owl, bat and cat and "write" on the headstones. 

Each headstone has a quilty saying.  There are two more blocks to be made yet, one with a pumpkin and one with a black cat.  They will make up a Halloween wall hanging that I hope will be ready by the end of October.  These block patterns were free at the shop stroll from a couple of weeks ago.  

I have been working on Two Piece Puzzle a little.  I have about half of the red star blocks finished and only one of the blue star blocks ready.  I am anxious to get them done so I can sew them into rows and get the quilt top together.  Once that is done, I can put my swap blocks together into a top and I still need to sew the Snowbound blocks together with their Irish Chain blocks.  I still have lots to keep me busy!

Now it is time to go bake some oatmeal cookies for our trip, tomorrow is laundry and packing.  I won't be near a computer while we are away so I will catch up with everyone when I get back! 

I love to get the mail . . .

Wow, where has the summer gone?  I love all the lovely fall fabrics in the stores, all the yellows, oranges, reds, greens and browns.  They are all so "comfortable" feeling.

I have more swap blocks to show off:

From Liri:

I love the fabrics, especially the little apples in the one block and the funky jungle print in the border of the other one.  The beautiful yucca embroidery block is so nicely done.  She also sent some chocolate, it is long gone but was so yummy, a picture frame, buttons and the great piece of fabric.  Thank you Liri, you are so generous and talented!

Next, from Mary:

 Mary went all out with her package.  Her blocks are so pretty, she has some really beautiful fabrics in them.  And Fannie May candies, I can't get Fannie May in NM unless I order it online . . .  Originally being from the Midwest, I love Fannie May chocolate!  She also sent a Hancock's of Paducah catalog and a Quilt magazine.  I can spend hours browsing through them.  The Hancock's catalog is fantastic, I can get lost in there.  And the NM gardening book.  She remembered my blog where I talked about how different gardening in a high semiarid desert is from where I grew up in Illinois.  This is a "thank you" for the funny chicken pattern I tracked down for her earlier this year.  Mary, this was way more than I expected and I thank you very much!

And these just arrived today from Christine:

These fabrics are wonderful reproduction fabrics, I love them, too.  I have some very similar fabrics in my stash.  Thank you Christine, you made my day!  I am really enjoying receiving all these different blocks.  The variety of colors, styles and fabrics are just so much fun.  My quilt will be a beautiful scrappy one. 

What have I been working on?  I have 'Patriots Home' almost all quilted.  I want to stitch some stars into the corner blocks before I add the binding.  I have not worked on the big red, cream and blue quilt for a while.  It will be next.  I have been playing with the Halloween applique block patterns I got free as part of the shop stroll I blogged about in my earlier post.  I have one almost finished, three more to go but I think I can have the wall hanging done for Halloween.  We will see!  The next Snowbound block comes out on Sunday so I am anxious to see what it will be.  I have pictures of the eight snowmen that are complete on my Flickr page.  It is such a treat to have comments from Anne Sutton about each block.

We are planning a trip in the next few weeks to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  I needed a haircut, so I decided I wanted something different.  I went with a layered cut and a perm.  I had done it years ago and really liked the effect.  Not this time, I hate it!  The perm didn't turn out as curly as I wanted, it was just kinda wavy when I let it air dry.  I didn't want to haul the hair dryer and curling iron on the trip but I think I will.  It is better when I straighten it with the dryer and then curl it.  I'm not happy with it, but it will grow out and I can try something different the next time.  

That's about all for now.  Keep on sewing!

 

More swap blocks and "stuff"

I have been busy with some fun stuff!  Last weekend four quilt shops in the area had a shop stroll.  I spent a day going from one to another, about six hours and almost 100 miles driven.  Busy Bee Quilts is 27 miles away(one way), so I drove out through the canyon to a small town east of the mountains.  I really enjoyed the shop, great staff and lots of fabrics and patterns I liked.  I will make the trip to go there again, just not very often.  I will wait until I have a project in mind and get everything I need in one trip.   The next shop was 13 miles to the north west.  It was a nice drive across the Rio Grande river to Quilts Ole.  I really enjoyed their shop, too.  They also have a great staff and wonderful fabrics.  I want to visit them again, too.  So the two shops that are the farthest away from my house are the ones I loved!  Kokopelli Quilting (only six miles away) has lots of beautiful southwest fabrics and patterns so if I want to do something with a southwest flair I will stop there.  My last stop was only about 3 miles from home and it is the shop I usually visit, Quilt Works.  They have a very helpful staff and a large selection of fabrics, too.  I had lots of fun, bought a few goodies and am entered in drawings from each of the shops.  Each shop gave away a Halloween block pattern to make a cute wall hanging.  At two of the shops I bought the block kit for their piece of the wall hanging, at the other two I found patterns I liked.  One of the drawings at each shop required a $5.00 purchase to enter so I made sure I entered each of those.  The drawings for the large prizes are at the end of this month, so I have my fingers crossed for luck!

I received swap blocks from Beth:

These gorgeous blocks, a needle keeper and a very nice note.  Thank you Beth, I love the variety of wonderful fabrics and colors. 

Next, I have been working to catch up on my Snowbound blocks.  I finished June, July and August. 

Cute little Mr. June in his derby hat.

Sweet Miss July with her ribbon of hearts.

And Mr. August racing away in his little wagon.

I am enjoying stitching these little snowmen so much.  The next block pattern comes out the 5th of September so I am ready for it.  I need to start putting the snowman blocks and the Irish chain blocks together.  I have enough done to finish three complete rows.  August, September and October form the fourth row with November and December in the last row.  The idea is to have a finished quilt by Christmas, we'll see if that happens!  I will have to have all my other projects finished so I have time to do the quilting before the holiday.

I finally made the label for the blue stars quilt and got it in the mail to Florida.  I decided to just call it "Stars In the Sky" because the background looks like the evening sky.  I forgot to take a picture of the label though.  I used two left over blocks from the quilt at the top, stitched on a cream square to write on, added a poem, the quilt info and a navy blue border around it all for the label.  It looked really nice on the back of the quilt.  That's about all for now.

Hope you are all making lots of progress on your projects!