How Green is my Valley

Finally, at last, there's GREEN in my front yard!! Hooray!! For the first time in many many years - almost 3 for us here, and 14 for the folks before us. The sorriest house on the street is a good buy, but getting it up to par is a long hard haul. This weekend I'm going to hook up our dump trailer and go buy plants for the perimeter planter, so cross your fingers I don't explode from excitement! While you're at it, cross your fingers that the rain holds off for a little bit, till Monday?



The fans are simmering on the wall while I figure out the rest of the design, but so far they have handles and strings. They had tiny black lace around the tops, but DH took one look and said, "Hey! Spanish fans!" Nooooo, hunny, those are Oriental fans. But, he's right, the black lace made it too Spanish. The strings are a bit iffy too, but I'm going to call that "Artistic License." So far it looks like they'll each be set in a square on point........ but hey, I'm a little unstable so that could change.

The first episode of the Alex Anderson/Ricky Tims internet show had the guy who owns Superior Threads. He's selling his product of course, but he talked about extra long staple Egyptian cotton verses long staple cotton. I did a bit of research and found out there may be something to that claim. So I ordered 3 spools of the Masterpiece and it came today. Aurifil has been my go-to thread for quite awhile now, so I'm going to do some sort of comparison. One thing I can say right off the bat is the Superior does feel a bit smoother than the Aurifil just feeling it as it comes off the spool. I'll let you know what I find out!

Happy Easter

It's easy to forget about Easter when there's no little ones around. As it worked out, Gramps and I were each others company today, and it didn't seem too different than any other Sunday. Because all of our kids have other families, it does happen sometimes that they are all celebrating somewhere else, and that's actually OK with us, neither of us feels deprived when that happens. So, what do you do on any Sunday after church? Well, sew, of course!


At our guild meeting on Saturday our speaker was the lady who judged our show last fall, and will be judging again this year. She trained at Pacific International Quilt Show and in fact was a judge there as well) She spoke about what judges look for in quilts, and gave a demonstration of how she actually does it. Last year she had 150 or so quilts to judge, (is that right, Rosy?) and she spent close to nine hours doing it. She is meticulous, and gives really excellent comments. I very nearly had kittens when I won a 1st and a 2nd at that show, and after seeing her in action I was really bowled over. So of course I came home all fired up, and nothing to do! ((haa haa haa -- so to speak!)) The fan idea has been in the back of my head for quite awhile, but was originally just a one block wall hanging, and the fans were a much simpler design. Ummmm....not so much now! The idea is getting bigger and bigger, and it's getting embellished and 3d stuff is evolving for it, and it's getting fun! Unfortunately, now I have to stop by the LQS for some odds and ends for it. Bummer, huh?

So my Easter festivities aside from church amounted to picking flowers from the yard and making pretties in the house. The lilacs are incredible.

And in case the kids ask if the Easter Bunnycame to our house, why,yes he did! And he brought Mrs. Bunny, and collected eggs from the hen house. Just as pretty as the colored eggs are the naturally colored greens and blues from my chickens. DH and I had breakfast at church and made a corned beef for dinner, and he made a blackberry cobbler for dessert . The world is all right!

Oh yea, one more thing - I had my colonscopy on Friday and all was well, a few little polyps so it was a good thing I went. Now for the mammo....

HAVE YOU DONE YOURS?

And Afterwards, Pass Out!

I've seen this around blogland and had to try it - what a hoot! All my crummy Springtime celebrations all nice and typed out, ready to file!
It'll sure be nice to get ALL that junk over with!

The Quilt Show

If you haven't heard, Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims have teamed up to produce a new quilt show online, called TheQuiltShow . The first two episodes are out, and let me tell you - if you have a high speed connection, go sign up! If you don't have high speed, call a friend who does and beg. The video quality is superb, the best I've ever seen for an internet clip. And it's long - a good hours worth. This show is terrific! Not bound by network constraints, they are free to be themselves, and it's like having them in your living room. My one and only complaint is the Bernina commercials - they're very short, and only a couple of them - but for Pete's sake! The second episode has Ricky playing a Native American flute, a beautiful haunting tribute to the mountains around his Colorado home, Wahatoya. I listened to that 6 times, tears running the whole time. (Then I bought the CD, and went back to listen some more!)
Go check it out!

Melon Balls and Chocolate Chips

What to do, what to do..........the perpetual question floating around my quiltroom! Sometimes there's so many good ideas, and so many UFO's, and so much pretty stuff, that I get paralyzed. Can't start anything because I want to do it all. I finished putting together the Diamonds top from several entries back, AT LAST! The thing has been hanging on my wall way too long, taunting me. Just because I vowed that it couldn't come down until it was one cohesive top that I could fold (and stuff into a bag...ummm, or not) So there it hung, partially together. And every blessed day, that thing chided me -- "HEY LAZY! I'm hanging here without arms -- do you care??" and "Can we get a little pieceing over here?" Oddly, this comes out in a twangy Bronx accent. Someplace I've never been, but apparently they have a lot of diamond quilt top relatives around there.

So burrowing around in the wreck of a fabric closet looking for the rest of that gold for the inner border for the %$#!*^ diamonds, I happened on these blocks made at a retreat last year. They were the result of total boredom with the projects I bought with me to do, and a hasty and lustful visit to the LQS there. Gee, I had no problem whipping thru these! I have 18 of them - most are really well done, and a few have some WILD and WONKY points. (That I did on purpose. Sure I did. WHAT? You don't believe me?)
So now those are being held hostage on the design wall, and let's see what accent they nag in. The name Melon Ball came to me, I guess because of the colors - or maybe this puppy will be Jamaican?

Then for about a minute, this cute little guy was on the wall:

Because I had a WILD and WONKY hair to do a ChocolateChipCherrySomething -- for weeks! I dreamed about it, doodled it at work, searched all the blogs and magazines for other B/P's, and finally scrounged up 44 FQ's of pinks and brown, and tried something. Maybe the idea was sort of a post-modern ice cream cone - chocolate and cherry ice cream? And OH my gosh -- look at those perfect points! What a work of art! Hel-lo - eight points coming together, and it's not a thread out of whack.. Cool beans!! SO awesome! I showed everybody who couldn't get away -- "LOOKY!" And the only problem with it is:
I don't care anymore. Geeeesh!! I had a little trouble even finding it to take a picture, and I don't think it's a week old yet. Poor little orphan child..........
I haven't gotten to spend a lot of time in the quiltroom because of all the activity in our front yard. What has been for 3 years a dirt lot with weeds is suddenly becoming beautiful! It's all graded smooth, the planters are all lined out and edged - the creek is all spiffy and rocked and cool looking, and we have a little footbridge for getting from one side of the yard to t'other.

So far this has been all my DH and my collaboration, with hired help for the heaviest stuff. Last evening LandscaperGuy was here to lay out sprinkler system and calculate how much sod. DH and I have had a running argument about this lawn. I suggested that it was going to be over 1600 square feet, (it's huge) and he told me to stick to my quilting and stop exaggerating. HA! LandscaperGuy doodled it out, and it's 1780 square feet. HA! And HA again!! So LandscaperGuy looked me in the eye and said, "This is going to be a maintence nightmare, and a pain in the butt to install, all those curves" I couldn't even respond -- huh? What do you say to that? Then he followed that with, "But when it's all done it will be the best yard on the block" COOL!!! Hey, it's been the worst yard in the valley forever, so as long as it's not that anymore, I'm happy. LG says, "One of these days you'll come home from work and it'll be all done" Oh man -- I'll have an arrest on the spot - full code blue. And I'll go down smiling!

Antique Quilt Find!

Horrible, stressful, dreadful day at work. A 4pm phone call put me over the edge, and I left (with a huge headache) before I could start to take hostages - just awful. What you need at those times is Retail Therapy and Fabric - oh yea, same thing, huh? Hee hee -- but this time I wandered into an antique store. There's not many in this county, and they're not full of great finds, but I was thinking about a couple of bone china teacups/saucers for my collection. Instead, I found this:

Oh my my, it is luscious! Clearly old, in mint condition, very well made. The lavendar and peach are classic 30's colors, as is the brilliant daffodil yellow on the back. A LOT of different fabrics, a lot of feedsacks. (The colors in the pictures were pretty accurate when it left my Picasa program, don't know how they'll publish. Click on them for a better look!)
I spread it out over an old sofa and checked it out, then folded it up and put it under my arm, tightly. I was half afraid someone would snatch it away, or say "Ooops - that's not the right price on that!" but I was the lone only customer. I've never felt so much like a thief. What a prize, to me anyway. I would have paid twice the price. It's about twin sized, hand pieced, (very nicely, too) and hand quilted. The quilting is not teeny tiny stitches, but it's straight and even, and there's a lot of it. The batting is that dense rather heavy sort you sometimes see in old quilts. Heavy and flat.
It's is perfect condition - no frays, no fading or staining, no repairs. If it had heavy fold lines I'd think it's been folded in a cedar chest for 60 years, but not even fold lines. It has a funny little row of individual fan squares along one side, not enough to make the bigger blocks for a whole row, but too dear not to use. I like that alot - no orphan blocks in this lady's bag! For all it's wonderful attributes, what really got to me was the size of the fan blocks -- 3 1/2 inches. Every last one of them! A lot of old quilts I've seen aren't too particular about how things fit or lay, but these are all just so, and the whole is nice and square.
I may even take it to work tomorrow, and when things get nasty again, I'll wrap up in it while I talk things over with the Divisional Vice Prez. Yeah, that's what I'll do!

Frog Prince

Any froggers out there? I'm one kind of by default. It all started with one plaster frog my daughter gave me years ago, and I'm not sure when it got out of control. Now it's an easy gift opportunity - which is great! I wish more people had well-defined areas of interest to make gift giving easier. In this case, it's resulted in hundreds of frogs. My office is crammed with every conceivable frog ever made! Patients bring them in all the time. Someone tried to count one time, and gave up at 180-something. Many are put away in boxes with the thought that someday I'll rotate the displays. (sure I will)
A couple of years ago I made this wall hanging for my office and I still love it. It sure gets the comments! It's covering up a lame landscape print that I looked at for 6 years before I had to get rid of it or scream. I had a blast making it, and it was the first quilt made in our new house, and one of my first ribbon winners ever - third, I think. My granddaughter has designs on it, and I may have to make one for her before she gets big enough to knock me over and take it. She showed a love of frogs from the get-go. Her first Easter she was 6 months old, and I put a silky bunny and a stuffed frog in her basket. She never did bother with the bunny, it was frog all the way! But I digress, again. Something nagging in the back of my puny little brain is telling me it's time for a new frog wall-hanging for the office. I have a really cool pattern called Bullfrog Boogie, and I might tackle that, but it's a whole mess of teeny tiny pieces......... dunno if I can be that patient. I have a box full of frog wrapping paper that people bring me, and I've thought of using those cartoony guys for some sort of applique. This one is going to be hard to beat, I think, but I'm going to have to change it out. It can't hang around forever, and it's been a long time already. Perfect! Another project! LOL.....

Progress After All

Happily, the worse of the flu seems to have run scared at the sight of my armament of drugs, LOL! I spent one crummy day being miserable, and Sunday being just punky but not feeling to bad - I'm going to say I escaped! Ya-hoo!!! (now having said that, watch me go down for the count tomorrow) I played in the sewing room today, a little bit here and there, nothing concentrated. Made one little baby quilt for our guild donations - just cutting squares and sewing them together then doing an envelope style layering. I even did some wavy lines of quilting on it!


Later in the day, I was aimlessly looking for something to do that wouldn't be too time consuming or brain taxing. I started thinking about those squares of upholstery fabric from a few blog entries back. About 6 years ago I bought a big bag made of those types of fabrics, and it has been my GO-TO bag ever since. I take it to classes, to reatreat, shopping, to guild, on planes when I travel -- it goes everywhere. A perfect size for me. As a consequence, it's starting to look like I schlep it around all over the place - go figure! I started eye-balling that old bag and got out those squares and began playing, and by dinner time I had a new bag:


MAMA'S GOT A BRAND NEW BAG!

It's the same size, but has a few tweeks I wanted. The original bag had a ring of pockets clear down at the bottom of the bag, and with the bag full it was tough to get to those pockets. I put custom sized pockets near the top - sized for pens, cell phone, can of mints, wallet, that kind of stuff. Because it was beautiful and sunny today, I made the bag sunny too -- and it definately lifts my spirits. I was moping pretty badly about missing my sew day. Aside from that, the weekend wasn't as bad as I was prepared for! In fact, it wasn't bad at all -- just slow and quiet. Not bad.

Just Pathetic

Being sick is a waste of time. Ruins all your plans and makes a beautiful weekend a total waste of gorgeous weather. Takes a perfectly wonderful Sew Day with friends and trashes it. Makes normally nice people grumpy. Suddenly you have to carry your own diaper bag of junk around just to get from room to room. So, me and my disease are going to bed and be grumpy and cough a lot. Please, everyone have a great weekend for me! I can't wait to read what you've been up to!

Blame it on Finn!

A couple of weeks ago, Finn wrote about a discount book website she had found, Hamilton Books. Addict that I am, I had to go look. Well, the box came the other day, and when Dh saw all the bounty, he asked, "Have you lost your mind?" then he asked, "Do you really think you need another quilt book?" (silly question) and finally, "How do you find all this stuff anyway?" I explained that Finn led me to it, and smiled................. to which he said,
"Well, at least books are cheaper in Finland" Hee hee hee, haa haa haa, ROFLOL!





I'm really really happy with that site - and the prices are fantastic. This big pile of books cost me less than $100, including shipping! And three of them are hardcover, that was a surprise, but a good one. I already have a couple quilts picked out that I want to do versions of. Not too much quilty this week besides the books - DH has been very very sick with pneumonia and that's kept me hopping, and not sleeping at night. I took to the couch so I don't catch whatever he's got, and I'm too long for our longest couch. I have a Sew Day scheduled for this Saturday, which happens to be National Quilting Day doncha know, but this morning I woke up with that coughing and congested feeling. Noooooooooo!!!

Everyone's doin' it, so here's my obligitory Spring Picture. Does it look hot? Because it is - over 80 today. Hard to believe we had snow 2 weeks ago. I do love my daffies, and can hardly wait till my whole yard is done being re-built so I can have hundreds of them. My chickens have suddenly remembered what their jobs are, and the egg basket is overflowing. Fortunately, we have 5 grandchildren living next door, so surplus isn't a huge problem. My DDIL won't eat them - she told us she doesn't want to eat brown eggs because they came out of a chickens butt. We asked her - Where do you think white eggs come from? With a perfectly serious face, she replied that White eggs come from the store. Ohhhh!!! Of course - the store!! Not a chickens butt at all -- Dh and I barely made it out of earshot before we howled with laughter -- our darling DIL is almost 40, but a city girl thru and thru. Another DIL was so tickled to see her hubby and his sibs chasing chinckens in my yard, something they grew up doing so they do it well. She couldn't get over that they knew how to catch them. She must have laughed for an hour, she was so tickled.
It's so beautiful I have to go back outside --

Big Brave Kitty

5:30 am, curled up with coffee and Simply Quilts, and my big guy Cuervo starts yowling -- a low gutteral growl that means something is not right. Pretty soom he comes at me with his trophy - a mouse!!!



He is 16 years old and has lived indoors all his life so he's not exactly the Big White Hunter here; this is is second mouse. So first reaction was "eeeeeewwwwwwww - keep it away from me!"


Second reaction is - "What a good kitty! What a big brave boy!"
Third - (after he was done playing with it and commenced to crunching) "So you won't be needing breakfast then?"



Finally, "OMIGOSH! There's mice in my house!!!"

I'm a slow thinker.



He very sweetly brought me the remains while I was getting ready in the bathroom -- 1/3 of a well chewed mouse -- YUCK!

Mariners Compass

Not too much quilty going on here - so I'll tell you an old story. A couple of years ago, I was president of our local guild and trying to get something going to get members excited. One of the things I tried was having a NAME quilter come do a trunk show, a first for us. I was so lucky to find Judy Mathiesan (of Mariners Compass fame) who happens to live not too awful far from here. Judy is delightful and no differant than any other prolific lady in your guild, just a sweetie. She brought a huge collection of fabulous quilts, including 'Nautical Stars', voted Best in Show at Houston, and one of the 100 Best Quilts of The 20th Century (cover of the book) by the International Quilt Association. Ya'll, I got to hold this quilt!!!

As Judy unpacked her bags before the meeting, she was piling quilts in the order she wanted them shown. This quilt came flying thru the air at me, along with a quick - "Here, hold this". I almost stopped breathing. She made this one with all little calico prints, most purchased from the cheapie folded goods table at the old Sprouse Reitz store. That really surprised me and goes to prove you can work miracles with any fabric. Those are teeny little pieces. It is stunning -- it glows. During her talk I was so priviledged to be a holder, along with my tall friend Chari. We got to see what most people don't, the backs! We checked out the quilting, the pieced backs, read all the labels and generally had a blast. She adds labels as the quilt ages, noting awards it's won, which shows it's been in and any other information picked up along the way. What a great idea! It made for really fun reading. All of her quilts are incredible, and she has the cutest doggy quilts I've seen. If you ever get the chance to see her or take a class, go for it - you won't be disappointed.

A Teeny Tiny Block!

While blog-hopping tonight, I came across Dawn's blog, with the most artful, exquisite minitures I've seen. You have to go look. It inspired me to try it - Holy Moly, it was tough! I spent awhile with the calculator figuring the cuts, and did a bit of re-cutting and re-sewing to come up with this:


And it only took me an hour and a half! Good Grief but it was fun and a challenge and very very satisfying. That center 9-patch finishes at 3/4"! I can see in the picture what I didn't notice on the real thing - I need to take that right side off and try again. Isn't this too much fun for a Monday night?

Best Laid Plans ---

Well - I'll just say I'm a free spirit! Then I have to protest that outside forces were at work, making sure I didn't get any of my plans done. Heh heh heh. So the big plans didn't happen because Saturday I ended up gone most of the day and going out to dinner that night, then our friends came over. So much for that day! Sunday was more of the same - all fun stuff and fun people, but all time away from the sewing room. Then there was Mary Hickeys' book of baby quilts that got me all fired up to start making quilts for the first grandson coming in June - Jaden. I hope he likes cowboys! Just as I was sewing on the last border, Jaden's Daddy came in, scared the soup out of me. He lives 75 miles away! He came up behind me and did a "boogie-boogie" - whew! So I got to show him Jaden's quilt, and he wants me to do fleece for backing. I don't have any right now, so quilting will happen later - but the top was all done in one day!

Here's a close up of the blocks, fussy-cut from some cute fabric, that I think my darlin' Rosy gave me when she was my Secret Pal a couple of years ago. I can't remember buying it but I have a hazy memory of opening a gift and finding it.

Every bit of it came from stash, too! So it was free! LOL - how's that for reasoning? If I shop in my closet, it dosn't cost a thing. Makes sense to me! And I know anyone reading this will agree that it's too easy to get sidetracked into new projects - that's the fun of it all! Hmmmm...now what?

Free Fabric!

My mini-group, the 'Sew Whats', meets once a month or so to sit and stitch and and gab. This past Tuesday, one of our ladies brought a big pile of upholstery sample books! We had a blast tearing the books apart, making a mess of Leslie's house - (sorry, Les!) Everyone has a favorite, and the fabric was flyng; literally! "Hey Judy - here's one for you" followed by frog fabric flying thru the air towards Judy. In the end, everyone went home with a high pile. It took 3 pictures to get all of mine, and I was standing on a chair with my head brushing the ceiling!

As you can see, I tend to the bright side, clear colors mostly.

The majority of pieces were 6x8 inches or so, but there were a couple of books with very large pieces - 22x23!

All of them had paper glued to the back, either
a single strip across the top or down all 4 sides. Let me tell you, that paper does not want to come off. In the end, I just cut it off. The common denominator turned out to be 5 inches, so now I have a large stack of 5 inch squares.

My very most favorite bag is made from this type of fabric, and I've about loved it to bits. Time for a new one! Or 4, or 5.........

Always with the big plans!

Maybe if I put it in writing, I'll be shamed into getting it done. Heh, heh, heh - ummmmm, maybe? I want to get this bordered, quilted, bound and out of my way. It's not too old, but I really really really don't want UFO's to breed when my back is turned, and they seem to be doing that.

It's all folded up, but when it's all done it will generously cover a queen. I also want to get the rest of the diamonds pieced this weekend - I'm doing it in chunks instead of rows, hoping to cut down on the stretching. This one
grew and grew, and it will end up on my king size bed when it's done. I have to get it off my wall!

Finally, I have this wall hanging that's been hanging around. I love the pattern, didn't love the way it came out because there's not enough contrast for me. However, it needs to go away from my shelves.



There's more, of course, but right now those are the burrs under my saddle. And there's all those nifty new things I HAVE to start!! LOL! I should have the whole weekend to play, knock on wood, and it looks like it's going to be a rainy freezing weekend to stay inside without guilt. Oh yea - I have a huge stack of cotton upholstery fabrics to play with too -- more on that later. I need to retire........

HOME and other Good Things

As they say, nice to travel, nicer to get home! A week in "The World" is about enough for me - little country mouse as I am now. But a week with Mom wasn't enough! Here she is, hiding under the quilt i brought her:

The high point of the trip was the trip to UC San Diego Cancer Center - Good News!! Her cancer is all 100% estrogen sensitive, in other words, it is breast cancer, metastizied. The good part is, the doctors stopped her hormone replacements in January, and since that time her liver has shrunk 8 centimeters - nearly 4 inches. The cancer marker in her blood tests is down from 3300 to 600; incredible decrease. She feels 100% better, has gained 4 pounds, has no pain whatsoever and all in all everyone is a bit stunned, including her doctors. I'm willing to give credit to the withdrawal of the 'cancer-feeding' hormones since I have always believed that it plays a role in cancers, but equal time has to go to all the good people praying for her. We figured out that she had no fewer than 6 demoninations totalling probably 9 church congregations holding her up in prayer! Add family and friends and that's a pretty formidable force to be reckoned with. She is not cleared and they won't quite call it a remission, but considering that 2 months ago they were sure she would not live to new Years - it is a HUGE step in the right direction.

This is Mom with her little brother John all smiles the night we got the good news. (I don't know where this underline came from, and there's no tab to turn it off -- THANKS B'ger!
We all stayed with my Uncle John and Aunt Alice in Escondido in the middle of 20 acres of avacados! We had fresh avacados every meal - what riches! The entire property is on a hillside, and Mom felt so well that we went on several hikes around the orchards, gathering dropped avacados. She set the pace, and a mighty brisk one it was, too! Up and down hills like a kid - it was wonderful!



The morning I was to leave, Uncle John went to the orchard and picked a bunch of Large Greenies for me to take back - we made a lot of jokes about taking grenades on the plane. Guess what? You can't even make those jokes in your own home - I was called back to the luggage check-in to unlock my suitcase for inspection! All those avacados wrapped so carefully in my clothing..........But they were very green, and made it home just fine. Oh, and the limousine? THAT was a blast!! As it turned out, my connecting flight out of LA was delayed nearly 5 hours and by that time my uncle or step-father could have come to get me, but we didn't know that when the arrangements were made. I waited with the other passangers for that flight for many many hours, and we all talked a bit, etc. When we finally landed and poured into the terminal in Carlsbad, there was the uniformed driver, holding a sign with my name on it! Everyone looked around to see who had the driver waiting and that was funny and a bit embarressing, but it was sooo nice! The driver got my bag and opened the back door for me, and I had that whole huge backseat to myself, and there was water and sodas in the back bar of the car....it was quite an expirence. I could get used to that! Talk about getting spoiled! LOL -- limos are wasted on high-school kids. There will be more rides like that in my future I promise.
Now back to the real world, back to my chores and back to my quilting - today I'm going to cut more diamonds and start sewing them together. I managed to get on of the dolly quilts completely hand quilted, heavier than planned because I spent SO much time waiting, but it's fun - and wrinkly! OH well -- I also want to catch up on blog reading - I've got a lot to do!

Leaving on a Jet plane

Finally, finally, finally going to see my Mom! We found out almost 2 months ago about her terminal diagnosis, and I've been just crazy to get my eyes and hands on her. At last!
Because there won't be anyone who can meet my plane, I was going to rent a car and drive myself 45 miles, thru a metropolis that plain did not exsist the last time I was there 35 years ago. In the dark. And find my uncles' house somewhere in the middle of an avacado orchard! Well, after some thinking and web surfing, I discovered that I can get a limo to take me, for less than half the price, AND someone else will sweat the driving! Oh goody! I received my confirmation along with a note that my driver will be waiting at the gate for me, holding a sign with my name on it - !!! Outrageous! LMBO - it just strikes me as hilarious! But hey, I'm going to enjoy it.
I posted my siggie blocks off to Cynthia today, yay! Unfortunately did not take any pics, but the ones who did take pics, and put them on blogs are beautiful! I can't wait to see them all! I have some little handwork to take along, quilting some dolly quilts for the DGDs. Whew - I better get busy! We leave bright and early for the airport -- see you all in a week!

Happy Birthday Baby!

35 years ago, on a dark and stormy night, God sent me an angel to have for my very own for awhile. Steven Michael weighed in at 9lbs, 6 oz and was a long 24 inches. The hospital made me take him home even tho I didn't have the faintest idea what to do with a baby! Today he is a strapping 6ft 6 inches, has a lovely wife named Kelly, a baby of his own on the way, and his own succesful geology business. Everything I could ever have wished for this child has come true and I am so grateful. Who would have ever thunk it? Me so proud.
Now, for the dark side of my son: I called him to sing my customary off-key rendition of Happy Birthday, and he responded with "Thank you Mom, that's very nice. Say hi to everyone - you're on speaker phone" YOU RAT FINK!!!
(I wasn't, but I guess he gets his jollies from harrassing old ladies!)

Super Weekend

What a great weekend! OK, nothing earth-shattering - (lol, just what I need!) but a good feeling of accomplishment. Friday started off very badly at work, and when I had to run out on an errand, I took myself to the fabric store too! They had just placed a bunch of bolts on the markdown table, $2.97. I've been being a lot more picky about what I buy these days, since I'm not really stash-building anymore, but there was some nice stuff!

A little indulgence is good for the blood pressure, I think -- Besides, it looks like we have at least one baby boy coming, and I don't have a lot of blues. The FQs are for the Diana's Diamonds, which I decided has to be bigger. Saturday was Guild meeting, and that's always good for inspiration and a little boot in the fanny. I always come home fired up and wanting to quilt the world! LOL! We had a wonderful speaker and trunk show, and when I remember her name I'll post it. She had a lot of artsy landscapes and abstracts usually not my style, but as she explained her creative process I was more drawn into the quilts. Very interesting, and a nice person AND a good speaker! So all inspired, I came home to finish the sailboats for my DIL. We found out by accident that the baby is due in a week - she didn't tell me that part! Talk about in the nick of time!

I quilted alternating rows of waves across the body, and watery ripples in the borders. I found a batt in my closet that gave me exactly the amount of poofiness I wanted, not all puffed up but not as flat as I usually like them. Perfect. Chalk off another finish for the year!

Finally today was church, chores, catch-up, a granddaughters' 6th birthday party, getting the curtain rod hardware changed out and the new curtains hung, and oh yea - some football! Our friends from Chicago didn't enjoy the game quite as much maybe as we did - there was a lot of crow-eating going on! It was a fun afternoon of some heavy duty teasing and harrasment, and in the end my DH let them keep the $$$ they had so confidentaly wagered - LOL!! And we got to have chili nachos and beer for dinner - what's better? Ahhh -- a good weekend!