Fun Stuff

Hey, have you ever wondered what the icons on your desktop do for fun while you're away? A hidden camera captured the action here http://www.xs4all.nl/~jvdkuyp/flash/see.htm Check it out!

Works in progress

I have been a busy busy beaver! I made this Winnie the Pooh top today. I work with a man who's wife is expecting their first baby. They are decorating the nursery in WTP. So I just whipped this up! They know that they are having a girl, hence the pink and purple. I found a fabulous orange dot flannel for the back too. I even managed to piece it so I could use it. Every bit of this quilt was made using stash fabric, even the batting and the backing. I was really happy about that. Not much of the purple and the orange left that I used for the borders.

The next picture if of some focus fabric I felt compelled to buy recently. I had no idea why but I know now. I was invited to a baby shower last weekend but was unable to attend. A friend is adopting a 2 year old boy sometime in August. I think this will make the perfect little boy quilt, don't you? I got the coordinating dot too. I *think* I may make focus squares of the bear fabric and then using the dots make nine patches to go around those. I have a lot of the colours from the bear fabric to use in the nine patch. I'm not certain yet. I will look through some old magazines and books tonight to try to make a plan.

Those pesky "M"s are still waiting to be appliqued and the rest of the stars and rails cut for that U of M quilt, but starting a new project is so much more fun!

Jack, Jack the Pirate Cat

Jack...

We love our cat Jack. He adopted us one day several years ago. I really didn't want another cat, but he had other ideas. Having three cats already I wasn't really wanting another. So I finally resigned myself tothe fact that we were going to keep him. So...what to name him. hmmmm...Well, he did not know how to purr, just growl, kind of like an aaarrrr, matey type thing. Hence Jack the pirate cat name. (Captain Jack Sparrow, if you please). We took him in and all the other cats hated him. He did not care. he loved us. So I took him and had him neutered. I got him home and managed to keep him inside for the prescribed amount of time. He wanted to go out really badly so I finally let him out. He didn't come back. We were very sad. My DD#1 brought home a rescue cat, Hallie, (I believe you have seen her lounging on the doll quilt?) so everyone (all the cats) decided to hate her instead. About a year and a half after Jack left we thought we saw him during a particularly cold night under our car. He was much bigger, an adult now but it was him. We managed to get him in the house and what do you know?...He had learned how to purr! He loved being with us but the other cats decided maybe Hallie wasn't so bad so they could include her and all unite and hate Jack.

A few days ago I was cleaning and noticed the squirrel on my bird feeder. As I went for my camera and came back, apparently Jack had noticed him too! I shot this through the glass but I thought it was cute. Jack never got the squirrel, he was just monitoring him!

Birthday (Still)

Here are the pictures I promised to upload from my birthday gifts. The first one is the pincushion/box that the church ladies gave me. The next one is the quilt kit my friend Ellen gave me. Aren't the fabrics pretty? Back to an aqua and red theme! The last one is a combination of gifts. The wine and the holder came from my friend Kim with the church ladies group. The beautiful green and white dish and the wonderful stitched apples are from my dear friend Yuki. Isn't her stitching great?? I have one more picure to upload, but I need to rotate it first. More later.

Yummy

YUMMY indeed! Here you see Autumn giving me her opinion on my newest bow quilt. I had all the blocks done and had to sew them into rows and then sew the rows together before my quilting with the church ladies last Wed. Remember the party?? I was running soooo late, of course I know why *now*. I just thought Autumn was so cute supervising me!

The next yummy picture is of "our" new Harley Davidson motorcycle. (Can you say mid-life crisis??) My DH is a pilot. Pilots love fast things and of course "all the other boys at the hanger have one..." So after many many trips to many, many Harley dealerships here is his baby. (He will never be able to complain again about how much time I spend at a quilt shop!) He and my DS, Thadd took the motorcycle safety class last weekend. Both of them said the road test was difficult, which is good, less kooks, potentially anyway. Only about half of the class passed. They passed, in-fact, according to DH, he was doing well enough to be at the front as the example. People couldn't believe that he had never ridden before. I used to ride all the time with my dad when I was little and then by myself as I got older. I love riding on a motorcycle. If you want to know a secret, I stayed with one of my boyfriends in college long after I didn't really like him because I loved riding on the motorcycle!! I know they are/can be, dangerous but they are so much fun. DH isn't ready to ride with a passenger yet. I am looking forward to that time though.

On another aside, apparently my birthday week was extended to include yesterday too. My friend Ellen, took me out for dinner. We went to Carabas and it was excellent. I had the Caeser salad with shrimp. The dressing was just wonderful! I have to set up her present to me. Last Christmas I was stumped as to what to get her for Christmas. In addition,her bday is the beginning of Dec. I bought her a carrying case for her WIP stuff. What to do, what to do for Christmas. I received a magazine in the mail that had the answer in it. It was a pattern for a beautiful Christmas quilt. Little wreaths all done using squares. So I cut out the quilt, packaged it up and gave her a copy of the magazine inside her tote bag! She loved it and told me we should do this for each other's birthdays and Christmas. (yeah,like I don't have enough UFO's laying around, laugh!!) To make a long story short, she found some fabulous fabric while she was in CA that she bought to cut into a quilt kit for me! It is so pretty, I love it!! It has an aqua and red theme. Sound familiar?? I think I must have to re-do my bedroom to aqua and red! That way I can use my quilt and hand my doll quilt in there too. See what you started Monica?? LOL. When I get a minute I will take a picture of the pattern and of the fabrics to post later.

My New Doll Quilt

Oh my gosh, I don't even know where to begin! I got a small package in the mail today. I was hoping, hoping, hoping it was my doll quilt! I carefully opened the package and to my utter delight, there was a beautiful aqua tissue wrapped package all tied up in red ribbon. How did you know that aqua is my FAVORITE color? I thought of all the aqua quilts I have seen posted and held my breath...maybe it was the beautiful applique project with that adorable red bird. The anticipation was killing me but I wanted to savor it all and take lots of pictures. Suprise, it was!!!

I love the saying on the front (Let the beauty we love be what we do)and the binding in red. Why didn't I ever think to pair red with aqua, you are brilliant!! What a great quote. How true, our souls seem to be reflected in our quilts. I love it!!! Look at the cute little, perfect red bird! He is so sweet. How did she ever get the circles so perfect, mine are always slightly askew. Monica, I love it. Your hand quilting is fabulous. I don't hand quilt very well and it is so time consuming that I just don't do it. You did it for a perfect stranger. Thank-you. I now own something that was obviously quilted with love.




Then to top it all off, Monica *made* the tag with the adorable cat on it. I guess you figured out that I love cats, huh? I really, really love it. I know when my daughter, Shelby sees it she will want it!She is decorating a new apartment and it would look soooooo darling there. She will just have to wait for awhile while I enjoy it first.
I was so insecure about sending my work away and I was very lucky to have such a wonderful person receive it, Natalie. She suggested we take periodic photos of our little beauties throughout the year and post them so their birth moms can see them. I will try to be a good adoptive mom.
I took a close up of the actual label, but I need to take another one, obviously I drank too much diet Coke as the photo is a little blurry: ) I will try again and add it later.
Thank-you for taking the time, for a total stranger, to make such a wonderful, fabulous, breathtaking quilt! I truly love it!

Texas Quilt/Birthdays

My friend, Robin is brilliant! She has figured out a way to hang her quilts and photograph them, and use the photo for a quilting template for quilting them. So she helped me hang mine, and took many pictures of it. I am putting this one on the blog for you to see. It is MUCH better than the one I took on my front grass, lol! She loaded the pics into her computer, washed the photo out and printed out several copies for us to "play" with the quilting design on. Isn't that a fabulous idea?? Our quilter loves it as she can just pin it up by her machine and go to town on them. I will get pictures of the yellow bow quilt all quilted up soon, promise.

As an aside to the Texas quilt, I went to quilting at the church last night. I busted my hump getting the second bow quilt all sewn together before I left. I was running late and heated up some left over pizza for my "birthday dinner". As I ran out the door, feeling just the tiniest bit sorry for myself, I was going to stop and buy some wine for the meeting, being that it was my bday and all, but was soooo late, I decided to just skip it and go to the meeting. Well, I should have known better than to feel sorry for myself. I am very fortunate, God has a wonderful way of showing me, almost immediately, my faults! I walked into the meeting and it was packed. There were so many ladies at the meeting that had not been there in over a year. My dear friend (DF) Charlotte, had called everyone in the group and told them it was my birthday. Almost everyone in the group made an effort to come to the party they had for me. I could not have felt more loved and appreciated. I was speechless, and for anyone that knows me, this is quite an accomplishment!! They brought cakes, brownies and Indian fritters , and soda. They all stopped what they were doing and sang Happy Birthday to me. They even got me some gifts. I received a wall tapastry that says "When life gives you scraps, make quilts" (which is now hanging on my front door), a bottle of wine and a wine holder (locally made, in Ohio, who knew they even made wine in Ohio, thank you Kim!!) and the cutest, round "box" that had a top that looked like the old fashioned tomato pin cushion with a strawberry needle holder hanging from it. I opened the top of the box, expecting some sewing things and to my suprise, it was filled with money! I opened it and closed it quickly. I couldn't believe they had gone to all this trouble for me. I told them that I am proud to be their quilting guide, even if it is a little like herding cats sometimes! : ) I have been blessed by such wonderful friends. I had no idea that they felt like that about me. The funniest thing was when we were leaving and one of the ladies asked me if this was my 40th or was that upcoming? I burst out laughing and told her that I, in fact, was turning 48!! HAHAHA!! Life is Good!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Here I am another year older!! I guess it is better than the alternative :0

I had dinner with a good friend last night and I will have a meeting of the church ladies for quilting tonight so I guess my family celebration will wait until tomorrow. A "birthday week" if you will, yep, yep. I have dinner plans with some more friends on Friday so it really is lasting a whole week. When I got into work today 2 of my friends suprised me with presents. My friend Karen gave me some wonderful new perfume. She wears it all the time and I love it on her, Miracle by Lancome. I love it, and her, she is such a sweetie. She is from Brazil and she a really sweet person. My friends Yuki and Hiro gave me a bottle of wine with a cat on the front, hmmmm...how did they know I love wine and cats... They also gave me some magnets that are tiny quilt sampler blocks. Very adorable. Yuki also picked out some note cards that are a chair with folded quilts piled on it with an orange tabby on top of them. Looks like Aiden in my sewing room! They are very dear friends. I will try to take some pictures of the gifts so you all can see how nice they are too.

My DD, Kelsey gave me a lavander blanket. It is light purple Minkee with dried lavander sewn into it. It is for stress relief 9I don't know who she thinks is stressed...) It is vrey nice. I love it and her!

My friend, Liz the quilter, actually gave me back the yellow bow quilt today. I just gave it to her yesterday!! She is simply the best and most amazing person ever!! She is leaving on vacation next week and knew that I wanted to get the binding and label on it for a baby shower on the 25th so she did it first thing for me. Isn't she such a sweetie?? Once I get it bound and the label on it I will get some photos and post them too. She did an outstanding job on the quilting. If you thought it was cute, just the top, wait until you see it quilted.

Looking back over the last year, I have to say it has been a good year. Everyone in my family is healthy and happy. I am truly blessed by my family and my friends! Have a wonderful day!!!

SHIPSHEWANA

It was a glorious day. My DH had the day off work and my Japanese friends Yuki and Hiro took time out of their busy schedules to go on a road trip with us. So we packed up the car and drove to Shipshewana, Indiana. Now some would ask why there? Well, for the person with a serious fabric addiction, this place is like Nirvana. You see, it is an Amish community. So in addition to fabulous quilts and a wonderful assortment of fine, hand crafted furniture are amazing fabric stores!! Yuki and Hiro had never been to an Amish town (I'm going out on a limb here and guessing there are no Amish in Japan) The first pictures are of Yuki and me and then Hiro and me in front of the most amazing fabric shop, Lolly's. Yuki and I had so much fun inside that we forgot to take some photos there so had to settle for some outside as it was closed when we thought to go back and take some pictures. We are planning on going back so I will *try* to remember to take pictures inside then. (As I age, I become more forgetful! And I will add another year very shortly, on Wed 7/11, lucky huh?) The first place we went was the Pretzel shop. It is inside the Davis Mercantile building right by Lolly's. You can see Chris, and Hiro and I at the shop. The pretzels are made from scratch and are really wonderful. Then Yuki and I went into Nirvana, er, I mean Lolly's. We emerged 4 hours later (much to Chris' and Hiro's dismay) They were such good sports. Have I told you how much I love my guy?? Anyway,Yuki and I got many new fabrics for some of the projects we are working on and I didn't even spend as much as I thought I would, so it was good. I really only bought things I needed for current projects. (I was very proud of us!)

Then we went in some of the little shops and did some looking around. DH went and found out about a buggy tour so that is were we went next. These pictures are of us getting into the buggy and of riding in a buggy and of our Amish driver. We had a buggy actually pass us and that is when our driver told us that many of the horses they purchase are old, retired race horses that weren't good enough for racing. Although he assured me they were plenty good enough for buggy travel. We even drove by his home and saw his daughter leaving the home after coming to help his wife with the housework.

It was a good time although we didn't make it to the other fabric shop or the meat and cheese shop, called, suprisingly, Yoder's meats and cheese and Yoder's Department Store. We did go to the Blue Gate and have dinner. It is a family style chicken dinner and the food was wonderful! We were starving, but the fried chicken was really good. I think if we go back again Yuki and I will get our friend, Robin to go with us and we won't feel bad about just hitting the fabric shops! We did go to a shop that had Mercury glass Christmas ornaments and antique quilts. Yuki found a beautiful antique quilt with many lonestars on it with all original feed sack fabrics and all hand pieced and hand quilted. It was fairly large, maybe double bed size but the shop only took cash or checks and they didn't have their checkbook with them so maybe another visit. I think we should have taken a picture of that one too but we didn't. Next time...

Baby quilt and more on the Doll Quilt Swap

Wow, it has bee a busy couple of days. I just have to say that I celebrated my holiday (the Fourth of July) with my family. I spent most of the day working on this baby quilt top that you see in the photos. It turned out so cute. The sun kinda washed out the colors so once I get it back from the quilter I will try to do better with the pictures. Please let me know what you think. It is the first time I have tried a 3-D thing. A friend is having a baby girl in September so I wanted it finished.


Now, I have to tell you that my doll quilt arrived with Natalie at the Chicken blog. She absolutely GUSHED over it, *blush*, she sure said some awfully nice things about yours truly and the quilt. Please go to her blog and see the beautiful pictures she posted there. Her cat gave it the cat seal of approval too. You can see the label there too, as I couldn't put up before. If I can find my photo I will edit this and show you myself.

I went to Shipshewana, Indiana today with my DH, and my friends Yuki and Hiro (her DH). I promise I will post photos tomorrow I am too tired to do any more tonight.