What Did You Do Last Night?

I had a really good night last night.  I got home and went to quilting at the church with the ladies.  A few months ago a really nice man named Jack came to us out of the blue and donated a lot (I really mean A LOT!!!) of fabric and notions to our church group.  In return he had this Sunbonnet Sue quilt top that his mother had done and he wanted our help getting it finished.  So since the top was already finished I got a back sewn and took it to LTW to work her magic.  I can't believe this is how it turned out!
She stitched around every "SUE" inside the applique with clear (smoke) thread using the same maroon thread on the back as she used for the "Sam's" and the quilting around each block.  The quilt turned out just beautifully!  Two of the CHV Quilters (Lucy and Pauline) volunteered to sew on the binding and hand stitch it down for him also.  Well, Jack and his wife came to the church to pick it up last night and they were just thrilled with it!  Makes my heart glad, I tell ya!
As I stepped outside at the church to speak with DD1 I happened to look up an saw these beautiful, ice covered, berries!  Aren't they beautiful?  I went back inside to get my camera and the CL's were asking me why I needed my camera in the dark?  I told them to take a picture of the beautiful berries, of course.  Well, that meant they had to follow me outside and see them for themselves.  The photo doesn't really do justice to how beautiful they really are though.
I worked on binding the Secret Santa gift I have done now, but alas, I can't show you the gift until after Christmas.  I have quite a few things now to send overseas, I am getting excited to wrap and send my package.  I have several overseas packages to get together for friends in Europe too.  In fact I am off to buy some things for them today, if I get a chance.  

I am going on a Shop Hop to 7 different shops this Saturday with my DF Charlotte.  I have been making a list of things I would like to get for gifts and for the next year's Big Ten quilt so we will see how I do.  We are taking a bus with a lot of other women and we need to be at the bus at 7:30am and we return around 8pm.  It will be a long and glorious day of shopping!!  Hopefully I will be able to share what I buy.  I won't be able to show what I buy for gifts until after Christmas but maybe some other things.  

I have been trying to come up with an idea for a quilt for DD2's friend.  She had asked me to make her a quilt using aqua, green and purple and black.  Sure, right, that's gonna be an easy one, right?  NOT!  So I was going through some magazines a week or so ago and found this amazing pattern in a Fons and Porter magazine that I had saved.  It was perfect!  I will use this fabric for the outside border (ordered from equilter)  It has all the colors in it.

This is the pattern I found.  I will not use the batik throughout the whole quilt like they did in this quilt though because the fabric I choose is not black enough for that.  I will use plain black.  I will need bright blues, greens and purples for the strings to go with the blacks.  I love some string piecing and thought this would be an easy one to get finished by christmas.  Although I really need the focus fabric to be able to pull the colored fabrics and I am trying to wait patiently (really hard for me to do!)  According to the tracking on the package, it should be at my home on Friday, which is really good because I want to be able to take it with me if I need to to fill in any gaps from what I already have that may go with it.
I am interested if anyone else has made this quilt?  It is done with string piecing on a foundation (which is super easy, think St. Pat's and the "M" string quilts) so I think it will go quickly.  If not, I will save it for a graduation present in a year, lol!