Catching Up

I have totally neglected this.  I haven't read my email either and had 285 emails.  SO to catch up:

1.  I sent thank you cards to my circle of friends for my birthday gifts.  We don't really send mail any more the way it used to be, but it is still wonderful to get mail--real mail in an envelope and with something fun inside.  Bills don't count.  I sent a card with sincere thanks and a skein of embroidery thread.  That was the something fun part.  I went to the post office at 3pm and most were delivered the very next day.  I don't know where we get the idea that the post office isn't really efficient.  That was excellent!!!

2.  I read the blogs and am so happy now that I don't spend all my time doing that.  I have 10 pages of blogs--are they vintage, modern, traditional, recipes, freebies, tutorials, etc.  If anyone wants it, just email your email address and I will send it to you via electronic mail.

3.  Irene asked me if I sew everyday.  The answer is yes.  If I am not sewing, I thinking about sewing, contemplating what I will do next, figuring out how I can be more organized with my sewing and I count doing embroidery as sewing.  If I am not sewing, I am reading and trying to avoid the laundry.

4.  I spent Saturday helping a friend finish up a quilt.  She is injured and mostly I was fetching her water, coffee, and stuff.  She will be so happy when her ankle heals.

5.  My sister-in-law in Iowa is getting interested in quilting.  I sent her the Miss Rosie quilt book--the one with the Tag Sale quilt--my favorite quilt.  She wrote back and said how happy she was to get it and did she have to send it back.  That answer is no.

My most recent purchase was a pattern for a wallet.  Very sweet and how easy to make.

Have a great Monday......

blogging

I have spent the past weeks checking out blog after blog to see who does what, who writes what, etc.  I am making up a listing for my guild for our member demonstration night.  I had a show of hands last month to let me know how amany members actually read blogs and there were quite a few.  I am sure I left out a lot.  There are a lot of quality blogs out there.  The big deal now is to figure out how to list them.

I leave you with this:

     Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
                                                        --Martin Luther King Jr.

Sign in High School Classroom

Dear Students,

I know when you are texting.

Seriously, on one looks

down at their crotch

and smiles!

Sincerely,

Your Teacher

The Luncheon

One more try and I found the pictures!  So.....looking above is a photo of some of the door prizes.  I didn't get the Ott light, but it was a free standing full size light.  I have no idea who won that because I was so enchanted with what I won!

 There were 29 raffle baskets.  I donated to one called the travel basket.  In the picture, Clare is looking at the baskets which we hope will make us lots of $$$.  There was a Bee basket that had a bee cookie jar.  I wanted that so much until I learned that my friend Jayma had put all her tickets (in to one basket) and that was the one.  So, I hoped she would win.  The basket went to Maggie, who seemed really happy.  Darn, that cookie jar would have looked really great in Jayma's kitchen.

 We had a lunch of three different salads--a chicken salad, a green salad with a vinaigrette dressing and Mediterranean salad with tomato, cucumber and feta cheese.  There were rolls and butter as well as a raspberry mousse with real whipped cream.  The dessert was prepared in advance and was set out first to continue to thaw.  There were eight women at our table.  Some couldn't resist and ate their dessert right away.  some ate the whipped cream and raspberry that was on top.  Some ate the whipped cream and into the mousse.  One (that wold be me) took very tiny bites to get a taste and still leave the illusion that I hadn't eaten any at all.

Our speaker was Jan Krentz.  She does these faboulous quilts using a diamond ruler.  That is her above and one of her quilts behind her. 

Below is the picture of my door prize.  I don't know how it got turned around, or how to fix it so there we are!  Beside the door prizes, every person attending received a fat quarter of fabric (I gave mine to Valerie), a Red Rooster pattern, assorted goodies and a quilting book.  My book was a hand quilting book that will most likely be donated to some happy person who lkes hand quilting.  That would not be me!  I could see what book my mother-in-law received.......A visit to the in-laws should be soon........

I know I should be darn happy I won that wonderful door prize, but there was a quilt donated by Dawn Licker of Quilter's Corner that I really wanted to win.  I know some people who would have been very jealous of me had I won it.  But it was not to be.

Have a great Monday.  I will be back with my little darlings in middle school......7:30am.......good night!

Pinwheels and more Pinwheels

On Saturday I went to to a luncheon put on by my guild.  Jan Krentz was the speaker (very interesting) and there were door prizes. I won a basket with a book on pinwheel quilts (love them) with fabric, and assorted sewing items.  I took a picture, but it seems that it didn't pop up, so I will hope for tomorrow.  And with that bit of news, I am off to look at my new book and then off to bed.  Early to bed and early to rise does not necessarily make you wealthy and wise; it just makes you an early riser.  One day I hope to be wealthy so I can be late to bed and late to rise..........

Good deed for the week

My husband did his good deed for the week.  Good thing too, because he was beginning to whine a lot.  When you aren't happy with what you have, you should help someone with less and you might just begin to appreciate what you still have.  Last night we went to my friend Sandy's house to put in those bars in the bathtub/shower.  Last week she fell and fractured her ankle.  She has a lovely black boot on and is living in her pajamas.  Also last night, Sandy's sister, Marilyn, came over and brought dinner.  Some chicken and broccoli thing called Chicken Devine.  Sandy was worried that the bars would wreck the tile, but it all worked well.

Off to Thimbleberries tonight.  Ought to be different.  Pam and Nicole who are our fearless leaders, are at some quilt camp thing and Elaine will be our guiding force tonight.  Ciao.

Memory Returns

As some are aware, I was supposed to go to Pismo Beach with five other quilting buddies, but due to finances, I wasn't able to be there with them.  The only consolation is that one other of the group had issues also, and we got to spend a day together.  One of the rules about the trip (and I use that word rules loosely) was that we each had to make a kit for the others.  There was a pillow of wool that featured a sheep, a lunch tote with wool ornaments, you get the idea.  Mine was an embroidery project--a bucket with flowers, six flowers--one for each of us.  There were actually seven flowers, but the idea was there.  I did the kit project along with the others because I had thought there might be a way to go and I didn't want to get caught short.  One of my friends was going to bring a few skeins of embroidery thread and let all of us use it.  Seemed wasteful to give an entire skein for just a few stitches.  So I did something similar.  I figured out what they would need and put a bit more on so there would be a little extra.  I wound it on the empty spools from my sewing machine thread (I never throw anything away!).  My other concern was that the talk about thread always seemed to have them using Cosmo thread.  I use DMC.  I have a lot of it and it is readily available.  I thought it might be a waste to give out the DMC thread if in the end it would judt be tossed, or given back to me.  That sort of thing.  Turns out they all used the DMC thread.  I could have given out skeins of it and it would have been fine.  I worried over something that was not even a concern and then I felt it looked chintzy.  One of the group gave us just a bit of thread and hers wasn't wound on anything and it looked fine.  I was so darn happy about using the spools and then found myself disappointed.  I will remember this and take it into consideration the next time!

What was it???

I went to Joann's to pick up the darling daughter from work.  I went in, bought some fabric for a Halloween idea for the BOM and had a great thought.  I know just what I will blog about tonight.  Now, six hours later, I am at a loss as to what was so interesting at the moment.  If someone out there knows, let me in on the secret.  This happens to me a lot.  I try writing things down, but I was driving at the time and couldn't imagine that I would forget whatever that was.  I tried to retrace my steps in my head.  I dropped the daughter off at her apartment.  I went to the post office to mail a quilt book to my sister-in-law.  I stopped in at Sam's Club to buy beer for the husband and shampoo for me.  I bought the latest issue of Victoria (the magazine) and I saw Pam at the store.  None of this rings a bell of "Oh, that was it!"

I did discover that the quilt I want to take a picture of is a bit too big for me to take the picture and hold it too.  So, the joy quilt must wait a bit.  I did start and almost finish an embroidery project my friend, Kim gave out at our last gathering.  I want to send it to my friend Kim who lives in Colorado and deserves a nice present from me.  She will be 50 this year.  A milestone birthday.

Speaking of birthdays:  I got a pair of embroidery scissors and an organizing bag, the book of stitches I had been wanting, a gift card to Barnes and Noble, a jar of peach jam (yummm) and a canning jar of rolled fabrics that is just too pretty to break up just now.  There was a gift certificate for Quilter's Corner and some of the loveliest pumpkin fabrics that will be perfect for the Pumpkinville pattern.  That gift came with these teeny tiny scissors that are real!!!  It was a bit overwhelming, but what a lovely parade, and my brother-in-law sang t me.  I was feeling a bit down.  Not anymore!  On top of that, I have a wonderful Lynette Anderson pattern that was made into a kit, a sheep pillow pattern and kit, a tea towel and wool project and two wool ornaments to make.

I'm off to put some of that away.  Where oh where will I put it all?  I don't know, but it will be fun looking for a place for everything!

I Finished It!

Alleluia, I finished the Joy Quilt.  I will probably quilt it over the Thanksgiving holiday in time for Christmas.  I actaully made two quilts.  One is in blues and will go to someone I love dearly.  That ought to cause some people to think.  Speaking of giving away quilts, I am seriosly considering giving my provance quilt (so named after the fabric line) to one of the workers at Joann's.  Xia is just so sweet and she does anything I ask--so far....  Xia is like most of the Hmong people I have met--cheerful, smart, hardworking.  So I will go home and take a picture of each to post so if they disappear into someone elses home, I can remember them.

Currently reading Home Before Dark by Susan Wigg.  Not anything to write home about, but I am only on page 32.  We shall see...

My Sister-In-Law

I have what might be an unusual situation.  I have never met my sister-in-law.  Actually, I have three sisters-in-law and I have met and know well two of them, but not one.  Laura lives in Iowa.  That right there is a barrier to getting to know her.  I have never been to Iowa and see no getting there in the future.  She is my brother's third wife.  Wife number one was a disaster and he divorced her.  Wife number two (who I really liked and would have been friends with had she lived) died and left my brother a divorced man with child from wife number one and a widower.  When he married Laura, they married on the same day as another family member married.  We had already accepted the first wedding invite and my brother married in Utah, also a place to far to go.  I did send a present and a note with explanation.  Also, my brother does not like me too much.  

Right after they married, my sister began calling Laura.  One day my sister called to tell me that Laura told her she would call the next time and then hadn't heard from her again.  That was literally the last I heard for a couple of years.  Since my sister never said otherwise, I assumed that Laura never called back.  Well, she did and they have been chatty for years.  Now, my sister has a relationship with Laura, but I do not.

Tonight, my sister tells me that Laura has mention an interest in quilting.  That was the good news.  I also understand that her dad, has cancer in his pancreas.  Not good.  In fact, my aunt found out she had that cancer and died five weeks later.  I pray that there have been advances since my aunt died twenty some years ago.  While I am keeping him in prayer, I did write a note to Laura and I am sending her my favorite quilt book, Miss Rosie's quilt collection.  It has one of my favorite quilts, Tag Sale, inside.  I hope she likes it.  I hope she likes quilting.