ANOTHER BABY QUILT!

Before anyone sends me an email about the spelling, I want you to know this is the correct spelling. This little girl is going to go through life with people misspelling her name. I was going to applique the letters on but was running out of time, so I called on my dear friend, Joyce, to monogram them for me. After she saw the completed quilt, she said "do you think we could make these to order for people?" I did not respond!

At the moment I don't think we have any more babies, in the family, on the horizon for awhile.

Thank Goodness!

I'm afraid to say anything about it, but I think Spring is here. Our trees have budded, Azaleas are budding and beginning to pop out, the Daffodils are up and beautiful in a sea of yellow, Tulip trees are full of blossoms and the garden centers are packed with people. Sure hope Mother Nature doesn't slip a freeze in on us.

Working on Double Delight. Have the center done and ready to start on the borders. As most of you know, I did not do mine in pink but in brown/blue/gold/green. There is so much green I've decided it needs a St. Patrick's day name. So I was thinking "St. Paddy's Double Delight". Will post a picture as soon as I get the borders on this weekend.

Until next time, happy quilting and stay warm.

OLD TOBACCO ROAD

is done

and on its way to Kerrville, TX

Once again a big thanks to Carol (www.cornfieldquilter-carol.blogspot.com) for the beautiful quilting job done. Finished putting on the binding today (even remembered to put a label on) and loaded it into DD's car this evening. She is headed down to San Antonio for a Music Convention for teachers and staying with her sister in Kerrville (65 miles from San Antonio). So the deadline was on to finish it in order to save on shipping.

I have made the resolution to not do any big projects after I finish Double Delight. I need to finish up some small ones and get things out of my sewing room. Of course, like most resolutions that will probably go by the wayside as soon as Bonnie (Quiltville.com) post another mystery or as she has renamed them - Challenges. Will keep you posted on my ability to stay on track.

COLD BUT FUN

What a wonderful 4 days I had with some of our fellow bloggers and some non-bloggers. If you can, you need to check out some of the other bloggers that were there, Dawn and Laura (http://www.pineridgequilter.blogspot.com/) . I am only listing these two right now, because I know they have posted pictures of our winter retreat.

I did not get as much accomplished as I would have liked to because I came down with a bad cold on the first day there. Riding in airplanes does it to me every time.

Carol (http://www.cornfieldquilter-carol.blogspot.com/) met us at Miss Mary's on Saturday during a very cold morning to bring me my OTR quilt. What a beautiful job she did on the quilting.

I added additional borders on both sides in order to get it to King Size. This one is going to daughter & husband in Kerrville, TX. She just loves scrappy quilts and I know this one will please her and get a lot of use.

I also finished all my blocks for Double Delight but with 12 of us in that little house with sewing machines going, there was not enough room to lay them all out. So I packed them away to finish here at home. I had started some Pineapple blocks at Camp in IN last Sept., so I went back to work on those for the remainder of my stay at Miss Mary's.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!!

DD, Tammy, sent me this Edible Bouquet. It was almost too pretty to eat. However, DH and I have made short work of it this weekend.

We escaped yesterday and went to Shreveport, LA to the casino for a day of fun and to celebrate my B'day. We had a great time and I can really tell I'm getting older because we were back home by 9:30 last night and I was in bed by 10:30.

OUR WINTER RETREAT

This is Miss Mary's in Indiana. Will be leaving for this retreat on the 21st and will have 5 glorious days of fellowship, laughter and lots of quilting activity.

Isn't this a neat place? We have enough room for about 12 sewing machines (cramped but adequate). We occasionally blow a few fuses. We sleep 6 upstairs and 3 downstairs. There is a kitchen and we all take turns preparing a meal. The day campers come and go at all times of the day. It is a blast.

Convenient quilt store next door. This old church has been turned into a quilt store and is right next door. How neat is that!!!! The same people own both places and really cater to us quilters.

I am counting the hours till I get on that plane and head to a wonderful retreat with my good friends. The only thing that will make it extra special is if we have a nice snow while I am there - not a lot, just enough to make it beautiful for a few days and satisfy my snow fix for the year.

BITS AND PIECES OF DOUBLE DELIGHT

Bonnie's NYE mystery is coming along. A lot of cutting and trimming but it is going to be great. All of Step 1 done, Step 2 half way there, Step 3 cut out. That is as far as I have gotten. Hopefully, I am going to have all pieces cut out and assembled by the time I leave for a mini retreat in Indiana on the 21st. Plan to assemble all the blocks and quilt top while I am there. I have to ship all this by the end of next week, so I best stay busy.

While we are at our retreat we hope to get Laura (http://www.pineridgequilter.blogspot.com/) to give us lessons on Tonya's letters so will be taking some fabric to do that. I have an attic windows wall hanging that I want to put words on for my 7 yr old grandson. Looking forward to that project.

HAPPINESS IS ANOTHER MYSTERY

Bonnie at Quiltville is posting another mystery to start on New Years Eve. (doing happy dance).

These are the fabrics I bought when I was at quilt camp back in Sept. Couldn't figure out what to do with them and then Bonnie came to my rescue. What do you think. It is hard to see the light (background fabric) and may not use it. It is a tone on tone (beige with lighter beige design). It is not as stark as it looks here. Her pattern calls for the brown and can't decide if the brown design or the solid would be better to use.

What's your opinion? Open to suggestion!

Have a Happy New Year!

LOOK WHAT THE POSTMAN BROUGHT ME

Fran, Making Memories One Stitch at a Time, sent me a present. The raindeer had lots of candy in it and DH and I took care of that very quickly. The fabric is fantastic and can't wait to figure out what I am going to do with it. Thank You, Fran, it was a wonderful early Christmas Present.

On the Quilting Front, I finished my Old Tabacco Road today and went to the fabric store where they were having a 50% off sale to get a back for it. 9 yards later, I have the back ready to put together. Contacted Carol, at Cornfield Quilter, to see if she could get it quilted for me by the time I go to Indiana the last of January. She said - YES! Will be putting it all in the mail tomorrow and will post a picture of the finished product sometime at the end of January. As Bonnie Hunter says, there is no quilt police - thank goodness - because I took some liberties in turning this pattern into a king size quilt.

This is our daughters 3rd through 5th graders at the finish of their program last week. They were great and everyone was proud of them, especially our daughter who is standing on the right side of the picture. She still amazes us in her ability. Proud of her.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Have a safe, warm and happy holiday.

"DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE"
These lights were put up by yours truly. This is the backdrop and stage of the school where DD teaches Fine Arts to Head Start through 5th grade. Approximately 220 lovely adorable children.

Last weekend I was recruited by said daughter to help her decorate the stage for the Christmas programs. She of course is afraid of heights, so I had to climb a 15ft ladder to put up these lights with safety pins. There are apprx. 12 strands and that is a lot of trips up and down that ladder. There are certain parts of my body that are still in pain from this adventure.

These adorable children are her head start and pre K children who sang beautifully. Also performing after this group was the 1st and 2nd graders. Tomorrow night we get to see 3rd through 5th graders.

I just shake my head in wonder on how she handles all of these kids at one time and actually gets a great performance out of them.

A most enjoyable evening.

I'VE BEEN REGIFTED

In September, I gave Dawn at Quilts and Pieces all my left over crumbs from making my Batik Jewels quilt. This week she returned them to me in a lot better shape than she got them.

Isn't this just adorable. The doll, mini quilt and basket are all made from my batik crumbs. I just love this and it makes me so happy to know my crumbs were appreciated. Thank you, Dawn.

MORE NEEDLEWORK

Here is some more of my Christmas needlework that I have done over the years. I went great guns on doing these for a few years and then quit. I think quilting got in the way.

Unfortunately the lights got in the way of these pictures. Also, I can not figure out how to turn off my flash on the camera so you get the flash light on there also.


Sorry about the flash.

'TIS THE SEASON

It is time to decorate. This is a picture of our mantle that is my DH's responsibility. He painted all of this village and takes great pride in setting it up every year. There are lights underneath all that "snow" that makes it really dramatic when the room is dark. Of course, I wouldn't dare rearrange anything on this project but as you can see all the buildings are lined up (he is a little anal - we call him Mr. Monk).


The cross stitch pictures of Old World Santa's are my handiwork. I have some more around that I will take pictures of and add to the next post.

My Christmas Goose. Made this wall hanging back when I first started quilting. As you can tell I got fairly close to having it even all around. Even entered it in a contest at a quilt store where we lived at the time. Managed to get 3rd and won $15 in a gift certificate. I don't care if it is not perfect, still like it.

More handy work to follow in next post.

PIGS

Aren't these cute? Dawn at Quilts & Pieces sent me the pattern. They look big but they are only about 11" long and 8" high. So Cute!!!

My 7 yr old grandson is raising a pig right now , known as Maverick, so I thought these would be a cute gift for him to put on the shelf in his room. Quick and easy to make from scraps.

UPDATE on Old Tobacco Road quilt. I have added the flying geese border and stopped because I am still trying to figure out what to do to make it King Size instead of Queen. Hopefully, will have that question taken care of by next weekend.

It is holiday time and we are headed to Kerrville this weekend for a visit. This is provided DH is up to it. He is having a steroid epidural on Thurs. for a sever back problem he has had for about 2 months now. We decided to go before Thanksgiving and beat the traffic and hussle/bussle of the holiday weekend.

Know everyone is looking forward to the holiday. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

YEA!!!

Center of Old Tobacco Road Done!!!

I really do like the way this is going. Still have some borders to do, but this was the most time consuming part of this quilt.

Thanks to DH a square turned wrong was found and corrected. I wasn't happy because it was right in the center, but glad he found it now instead of later. Looking forward to doing the rest of the borders.

BTW what do y'all think about piano key border to bring this to king size. I really want to give this to youngest daughter and need for it to be king size. So it will be narrow solid border, flying geese border, wide solid border and then piano keys. Tell me what you think. Too much????

ANOTHER JACKET

I decided the other jacket was a little to small, so back to the fabric store. Tried to find some heavier fleece but all they had in heavier stuff was solid. I knew daughter wouldn't like that so spent about an hour feeling all the fleece they had. She really likes SW theme so this was the best I could do. Bright isn't it?

Guess the other one will have to go to GD..of course you know how difficult it is to get 13 yr olds to wear a coat. It usually ends up tied around the waist.

A few more satin pillow cases to make tonight then back to OTR quilt. Should be able to get center finished tomorrow and start cutting the first border. A bunch of flying geese, so that will take awhile.

MAKING GIFTS

My girls seem to know when to call and request certain things. This week it has been "Mom, do you still have the pattern for ----, can you make me ----, will you make (grand daughter) -----.

Got busy and got some of them done today. The first thing is a copy of a Neiman Marcus jacket from about 14 years ago. It came out when Polar Fleece was brand new (never thought the fleece would take off like it did).

This took me most of the afternoon because of all the fringe that had to be cut. When I finished it, I realized my mind was not working real well when I bought the fleece. I got the regular fleece fabric instead of the heavier Polar Fleece. So this jacket is not going to be as heavy or as warm as it should be. Hope it will be OK for daughter in Southwest TX where it usually doesn't get that cold. If it isn't, will probably be making another one sometime soon.

The next project to be accomplished was satin pillowcases. One daughter's birthday is Monday and this was her request. Of course when I told the other daughters that I was making them it was "Oh, Mom, I need a new set too". Those will have to be Christmas.

In the background you can see half of the center of the "Old Tabacco Road" quilt that is a mystery by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville. Doesn't it look like fun? I have still got a ways to go with it and also try to figure out how to get it to King Size with some easy border additions. I'm pulling a Scarlett O'Hara "I'll think about that Tomorrow".

It's time to give the mind, body and fingers a rest and get some sleep. Have a nice weekend everyone.

The Weekend Is Over

I went into my sewing room on Saturday to try to put it into some order and after moving fabric around from one place to another and then back again, I finally sat down and laughed. I was making no progress because I kept running into future projects and would stop to think about it and feel the fabric. When I realized what I was doing, I decided to get rid of some of the big pieces I had put back to make Pillow Quilts.

This is the fruit of my labors from the weekend. The Southwest one is for daughter and son-in-law in Kerrville who are into SW and the Dalmation one is for 7 yr old GS. My family (all 3 girls) just love these quilts. For those who do not know about them they are 42" x 72" and fold up into a pocket making a pillow. I can't begin to count how many of these I have made over the last 10 years.

YEA! 8 yards of fabric gone from my stash. I have put away all ongoing projects and refuse to get them back out till I clean up the mess in the sewing room. Need new bins for fabric because some are falling apart, so it is off to Wal Mart I go. New Years resolution!!!! DO NOT BUY ANYMORE FABRIC. Work with what I have. Word to the wise, I have never kept a New Years resolution yet.

My sewing room is the storage closet that was at the back of the garage. When we bought this house we closed it up and cut an opening into it from the laundry room. It is not very big so all my fabric is in bins and stacked to the ceiling. At the moment, I have as much on the floor as I do in bins. There is a path to the sewing machine and the ironing board is at my back. That's all that is needed, right?

Pray for me, I really need help to stay on track in the cleaning up process.

I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS!!!!

I was finishing up the mystery quilt from camp and all of a sudden I noticed I had no heat in my iron. After replugging it and shaking it, I came to the conclusion that this is where it needed to be.

A quick trip to Wal Mart settled this problem and I was back in business. With the new iron I was able to complete the mystery.

I am donating this piece to the Women's group at church to be put in a raffle for next year. All proceeds will go to our mission fund. Of course, I have to get it quilted first. Will probably take it to a lady here locally and give her until next summer to get it done. It was a fun mystery with a lot of little HS triangles. The really fun part was making that border come out right with the two colors.

Now on to finishing Old Tobacco Road. However, I have a lot of things to finish for the church bazaar first, of which I am chairman of the Women's booth (can't figure out how I got that job). Plus, we are having a "Homecoming" at Church in a few weeks and expecting about 600 people with a catered lunch after services on Sunday. The rest of this story is another lady and I are in charge of making the table decorations for this event (once again I don't know how I got that job). As soon as all this is accomplished, it will be time for Christmas....Woe is me!!!

THINGS WE DO FOR OUR CHILDREN!

This is a picture of 25 scarfs made for my DD who is a fine arts teacher in an elementary school. She brought me 4 yards of the creepy crawly scarf fabric and I was about ready to disown her for it. This is the worst stuff to work with and she wanted rolled hem all around. Thank goodness for Sergers. They were suppose to be 12" square so I cut them (not very well) 15" and hoped I could square them up to at least 12" while doing the roll hem. It doesn't look like there is 25 of them here so that should tell you how difficult this fabric is to work with. I do like the colors, however, and am sure the kids will enjoy using them. It will be a fun time for them.

Packing to head off to Indiana and guild camp on Wed. a.m. Have to drive to Dallas and spend the night Tues. in order to catch the plane at 8 a.m. Wed. The only hitch in this scenario is Gustav, the hurricane brewing. Don't want to wish back luck on New Orleans but sure hope it misses TX because it will play havoc with my trip on Wed. Timing is everything here.

Shipped 2 boxes to IN on Monday. All my projects I will be working on plus everything else I will need. One box weighed 36 lbs! Had to get DH to help me get it in the UPS office. I keep a Featherweight up there for these retreats, so that is one thing I don't have to worry about. My DSIL keeps a drawer and corner in her sewing room for all my stuff. Got the clothes packing down to a science. 1 carry on suitcase for 6 days.

Looking forward to a great week of sewing, friendship and fellowship.

CHALLENGE

There was a group of us quilters that went to FL last year to stay with our good friend and fellow quilter, Mel, at her home around St. Petersburg. In our quilt store hop, I fell in love with the fish fabric we saw. This is the first stage of this project. Don't you like the attic windows? Looks like an aquarium, I think.

The "Challenge" is to come up with words to be done in the border. The second challenge is to my friends who we have been dubbed "Queen" of words (learned from Tonya). They will have to give me lessons in this stage which I hope they will do when we are at Camp in IN in a couple of weeks.

Join the fun and give me your ideas for words. It might help to know that I plan to give this to my 7 yr. old grandson for his room.

CRUMBS

Here we have a pile of scraps I had left from making the Batik Jewels. As I said before, I hated to waste all this so I started making crumbs and never made a dent in this pile. So these are going to camp with me in September to be given to Dawn or anyone else who wants to go crazy making CRUMBS.

You can't see the depth of this pile from this picture, but believe me it is piled up and it is all Batik fabric. I know this is going to make someone happy and I will be overjoyed in their happiness.

Now for the results of my use of the above pile. It looks like the neutral fabric is white but it is really a marble batik cream. It is lap size because I got tired of making crumbs. Plan to sandwich it this weekend and machine quilt it. When all is said and done, I really did like this little experiment in CRUMBS.

GREETINGS FROM KERRVILLE, TX

I am in Kerrville, TX visiting daughter and family for a few days. For those of you who don't know about TX, Kerrville is in the part of TX we refer to as the hill country. It is 65 miles NW of San Antonio. They live on the Guadulupe river and it is very picturesque down here. No tall trees, just mesquite trees, hills and beautiful scenery.

While I was here I had to do some repair on a quilt I had made for them a few years ago. Thought I would take the opportunity to post it here for those of you who have never seen it. They are into Southwest decor and of course live in the perfect spot for that. This quilt is kingsize and we have a kingsize SIL to hold it up. 6'5" SIL's do come in handy.

Daughter, Tammy, has a birthday in a few weeks, can't tell you how old but it is a big one. Hard to believe my baby is going to be that old. I had bought her a little what they call farm table and chairs for their breakfast eating area so she and I sat in the floor yesterday and put them together. Of course GS was excited when he got to use the rubber hammer to put the plugs in the holes.

I am headed home in the morning and they are taking off for a camping trip. Packing the camper as we speak. 7 year old GS is running around acting crazy due to the excitement of getting ready to go camping. SIL is smoking ribs and brisket for dinner tonight and boy do they smell good.

LIFE IS GOOD IN KERRVILLE, TX.