LOVING my lilacs.......

I have a real fondness for lilacs.....the smell is heavenly (to me) and I love to watch the flowers swaying in the breeze against the blue sky. Yesterday, though, there was heavy rain predicted and I didn't want to see the few flowers my bush produced this year be destroyed in the rain, so I cut a couple of them that I could reach easily and brought them inside to enjoy. (The rain never did materialize...but that's okay...I'll enjoy the flowers inside anyway.) I wish the flowers lasted longer. This bush was brought by us from our previous home in NJ and transplanted into our yard here, so it is extra-special for me to have it flower each spring for me. I know you can click on the photo to enlarge the picture (don't they look BEAUTIFUL?), but just this once, I wish you could click on the photo and enjoy the fragrance! Close your eyes and let your imagination soar.... and maybe you CAN smell them. Don't they smell SOOOO good?

A UFO from some guild blocks-of-the-month......

A couple of years back, I won these 12 birdhouse BOM blocks in a raffle at a guild meeting (in a guild to which I belonged at that time). They have been sitting in a bag since that time and I just found them again yesterday. Some have to be trimmed down and a few need some extra strips added as they are too small. Luckily, I still have some of that green from when I made my block...mine is the middle block in the third row. I will need to find a fabric that works for the sashing and border and get moving on this. It's a good quilt for spring! A couple of the blocks even have "birds" inside the birdhouses like the one I showed close-up here.

Some R & R yesterday for lunchtime.....(includes photos)

Some of you know I am a retired teacher who now does part-time medical transcription work. It seems with the doctor for whom I work, it's either feast or famine...either very little typing or TONS of it. Right now, I am overloaded with typing. I was up and typing away by 5:30 yesterday morning. At 10 a.m., I was still typing but growing tired and feeling my accuracy would soon be slipping. It was time for a break. (Pictures follow the text.)

With it being nice weather and with us living in a beach area, we headed for Rehoboth Beach. The temperature was above 90 (too hot for this time of year, actually...but I still enjoy it). There were folks on the beach (not as crowded as it was on the weekend...another benefit to living locally...avoiding the crowds). The water, though, was FREEZING. I know because I put my feet in it for a minute or two!

We ate lunch at a nice restaurant called Victoria's. It's inside the Boardwalk Plaza Hotel. If it had been a normal spring day without excessive heat, we'd have eaten outside...which I wanted to do, but the hubby wasn't wanting to sit out in the heat, so we ate inside. That's fine, though, as you still have a view of the ocean (and actually a better one as we were a bit elevated from the outside level and could see over the dune grass...which you can't do as easily when sitting outside). I enjoyed a turkey and brie sandwich with apple butter and arugula on artisan bread and some homemade veggie chips along with freshly-brewed iced tea. Hubby chose ale-battered fish and chips with chipotle mayo. It was ALL yummy!!!

After a little walk on the boardwalk, we headed back to the car and off to get the first few annual plants for the flowerbeds. Then...it was home to resume the typing. BUT...the R & R was fun while it lasted. Hope you enjoy the photos. (You should be able to click on them to enlarge.)


Me "testing" the water...it was COLD
(not my best angle for the camera)
Folks enjoying the sunshine and the uncrowded beach The outside of The Boardwalk Plaza Hotel
(as seen from the boardwalk)
Part of the outside eating area is behind the white fencing

Inside Victoria's.....the restaurant....VERY nice place...lots of fresh flowers!

The view from our table while we ate lunch
Very relaxing atmosphere here!

LOVING this purse.....

A few posts back, I showed you the prize that arrived in my mailbox that I won in Amanda's giveaway (click HERE to see that post with the pattern info and find the link to Amanda's blog). Friday night I started the purse and finished it yesterday and will use it for church today. I think it is darling and I LOVE the long straps (as you can see in the first photo...they are really long). The second photo shows a close-up of the purse. (Click on either one to enlarge them.) This will also be a good purse to take to yard sales and quilt shows as I can wear it across the body and have my hands totally free....love that kind of purse...and it has two pockets on the front (on the outside of the purse). Thanks, Amanda, for a fun pattern AND fabric for a purse that I really love!

Isn't this cute?

This is a little wall-hanging (the kind that goes on a tiny quilt hanger) that I made for the gal who babysits for my granddaughter. For Christmas, I made her 3 mini's for the little star quilt hanger I gave her...one was an evergreen tree...the second was a snowman..the third was Valentine hearts...and the fourth was shamrocks. I told her I'd make more for her so she could change them with the holidays and seasons. This flower will be mailed to her on Monday. You might recall I made her one for Easter and blogged about it. (The photo is below.) I figured this sunflower could be used from now through the summer, but I do have a cute watermelon pattern and a cute lighthouse pattern, so I may try to make her another one for summer. Then I'll start on fall mini's for her. I love to make these...they are quick and cute!

A quilt for a cause....

There is a quilter in the state of Washington whose husband is going to face major heart surgery. There is a beautiful, full-bed-sized quilt being given away as a fundraiser toward his medical bills. This is a picture of that quilt. If you want to try to win it, click HERE for information...and pass word along to others you know who may be interested, also.

Some people are mean and rude........

BEFORE I talk about mean and rude people, let me clarify something from yesterday's post. Some seemed to think the wonky cottage block I posted was MINE....it's not. I believe it was made by the gal who organized the swap. It is a fun-looking block but I don't want to take credit for something I didnt make. Okay...now onto today's post. See this book? It's "Foolproof Machine Quilting" by Mary Mashuta. I had heard very good things about this book, especially from Qubie (click HERE for his blog). I discovered that our statewide library system had the book, so I put it on reserve. I patiently (well...not SO patiently) waited for it and after about a month, I got notified Tuesday afternoon it was at my local library branch. Since they have evening hours on Tuesdays, I drove there after dinner to get the book. I was very happy to have it in my hands and looked forward to reading it later that night. If I liked what I saw, I was going to order myself a copy of this book on Amazon.com. I got all comfy and sat in my favorite chair and....when I got to page 14, I discovered that pages 15 through 35 were missing. I looked at the center of the book closely and couldn't see that anyone had pulled the pages out......but I couldn't believe someone else hadn't reported missing pages if the book had accidentally been printed that way. Yesterday morning, I phoned the library to tell them about this and they said that this was another of MANY quilting books that had been damaged in this manner recently.....that the person has pulled out sections of books and then actually rebound the book...so the damage isn't obvious when she (or he) returned it. I would think they could look back at who had it last and figure out who DID this....but, I guess that person could claim they didn't have time to LOOK at the book or that it was damaged when they had it but why would they not have reported it? (And I guess there would be no way to prove that person had done the damage.) I am quite disappointed to think that a quilter would do this kind of thing. I believe that, for the most part, we are an honorable group of people.....and I am ashamed to think that a quilter somewhere in Delaware would engage in this kind of mean and rude behavior. If you are a Delaware quilter and belong to a guild, pass word around among your members.....that there is some nasty quilter afoot in our state who should be tarred and feathered...at the very least!!! Pretty disgusting, huh?

I'm in a fun year-long swap.....

My blogging friend in FL (Quilting Fiesta...click HERE to see her blog) decided to do a year-long cottage swap and I am pleased to be part of that. She and 11 others (myself included) each have a month. I am "Miss February". For our month, we are to make 12 wonky cottage blocks with fabrics that represent that particular month. We keep one for ourselves and send the other 11 to their new homes. It sounds like a lot of fun. I ordered a batch of fabric and some cute buttons (to send along for doorknobs on each of the cottages) from Fabric.com and it came today. (See the photos.) I am happy with the fabrics and they included a couple of "cutesies".....a lollipop that says "Go Sew" and a packet of seeds for their 10th anniversary with a cute saying on the back (shown in the last photo). ALSO...any of you who were following the bag giveaway that was seen on here (after I won Round 3) and didn't win can go try your luck for one of the two remaining rounds by clicking on HERE and going to Ooglebloops' blog.

Look what came in the mail.......

Recently, Amanda in Kentucky (Busy Little Quilter blog....click HERE to find her) had a special giveaway and awarded THREE great prizes. I was lucky enough to win one of them (and believe I mentioned it here at that time). The prize arrived in the mail yesterday....this great Terry Atkinson pattern for a Tag Along Tote AND this cute little bundle of fabrics to use when making it!!! (Click on the photo to see the prizes close-up.) Pretty nice, huh? Thanks, Amanda!!! (And the rest of you should add Amanda to your blog list as she does wonderful things that you will enjoy seeing her talk about on her blog.)

My little and LAZY log cabin quilt......

Yes...the title of this says it all...this log cabin (made from my scraps) is little AND lazy!!! I needed a small wall-hanging in those colors, so it served the purpose nicely. THAT explains the "little" part of the title. Now...for the "lazy" part......I just did some very simple quilting along the edges of it and I did NOT do a binding. I am one who actually enjoys doing bindings (I know...call me crazy) and I rarely get this lazy, but with this piece, I just did the "pillowcase" method and sewed three and a half sides of it and then flipped it and sewed the opening closed and then did my minimal quilting. So....now you understand the title of the post...little AND lazy, but hey...I needed it done quickly, so I'm excused, right? I'm not usually into naming my quilts (because I can never think of good names) but I'm going to name this one officially now.....Little and Lazy it is!

Yesterday at the beach......

Yesterday we went with friends and their greyhound and our little dog to the beach. Twice a year in southern Delaware, there is a greyhound weekend. It's called Greyhounds Reach the Beach. The one in October is attended by LOTS of people and greys......a couple of thousand greys, usually. The one in April doesn't have many attendees, but since we live so close to it, we have gone every year recently. Below are some of the photos taken yesterday. You should be able to click on them to enlarge them. It was a glorious day....not windy...and temperature of 75 with bright sunshine and blue skies. Of course, today it will not go above 60 and the rain is returning for a couple of days. *sigh*

People and their pets enjoying the nice weather.
Our friend, Linda, with her greyhound, Chatsworth.
He had just taken a drink of the salty water....
and didn't like it at all.
Another look at people enjoying the great day.
My husband with our little dog, Pepi, who is a senior...
around 11 years old now. The guy squatting down behind them in the
picture is a professional photographer who was there taking photos
of the dogs on the beach. Our dog HATES the beach. I guess he doesn't
realize how lucky he is to live near the beach...many would LOVE that...
but not him. Silly boy!!!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival....what FUN!!!

I bet you didn't know you could attend a quilt festival RIGHT NOW......well, you can! Click on the logo on the sidebar and you will go to a blog that gives you a HUGE list of quilts you can see at the Festival. It is being organzed (and run) by Amy whose blog is called Park City Girl. YOU can participate and exhibit one of YOUR quilts, too...if you've not already done so. Here is what we had to do......show our favorite quilt that we've made. Mine is shown above and I know my blog followers have seen this one already, but I'm sure you won't mind seeing it again. I am to tell you about this quilt. It may not be the most perfect in technique or workmanship, BUT...it's still my favorite and here is why. I made this just a few months after I began quilting. The guild to which I belonged had a challenge that summer. The theme was "Summer Stars". Our task was to design and make a quilt that to US said "summer". To ME, one of the true stars of summer is the fruit that makes its annual appearance in summer and tastes SO good. I used fabrics that showed the fruits but I also used a few techniques....raw-edge applique, paper-piecing, and regular piecing. I hand-quilted the whole thing, which I enjoyed tremendously. You can click on it to look at it more closely. While it didn't win any prizes at the guild's challenge, I still love it and even though I had a family offer to buy it from me last summer for whatever price I wanted (their daughter collects all things "watermelon"), I will keep this quilt as it has a lot of sentimental meaning to me...of a time when I knew little about quilting but didn't REALIZE how little I knew, so I fearlessly jumped in and designed as I went and was really happy with the results. Now....hurry on over to the Festival by clicking on the logo on my sidebar and start to look at the other FABULOUS quilts on display!!!

My crazy background problem......

Any of you who read my second post yesterday saw that my blog background was a MESS!!! A few of you even made some good suggestions about how to correct it. I had also appealed on the Blogger HELP groups for assistance and SOME kind soul was able to give me an easy suggestion that worked. Thank goodness!!! You can see I don't have things all "messed up" now. I do not, however, have any cutesy background from that other webpage (The Cutest Blog on the Block)....and I think I am going to steer clear of that now...at least for awhile!!! Sorry this isn't a great blog post and there is no picture with it........but I wanted to update you on the background "issue". We are going to the beach with our dog and our friend's greyhound this morning and I may be back with photos from there later today, so stay tuned! GREAT spring day to go to the beach.

2nd post for today...and I need some blogging help

EDITED TO ADD: the problem has been solved...see post in the morning to learn how! Last month when I changed my background on my blog to an Easter layout, it did not go smoothly. I have held my breath since that time in fear of what would happen when I went to get rid of the Easter background. I had been using a webpage called The Cutest Little Blog on the Block and had good results PRIOR to changing my background for Easter. Now I can't get the Easter background to totally go away. What is on my blog now is a combination of one of the Blogger templates AND the Easter background. I truly don't know what to do. Do any of you have any ideas??? I hate to close down my blog and start over as I don't want to lose all the previous posts and my followers' list and everything that it has taken months to "build" on here...but I am at a loss as to what to do about this. Needless to say, I am NOT a happy camper right now. I have to go out tonight (about 5:30, actually) or I'd spend the entire night working on this. If you have ANY ideas (or have experienced this problem yourself), please let me know, okay?

Some Friday fun!

Quilter Husband's Lament (I think my hubby should read this and realize he doesn't have it as bad as THIS guy has it!!!)

I've always learned that life was full of obstacles and woes.
I've learned to live with sickness, death, taxes, heaven knows.
I've taken all these things in stride, the problems and the strife,
But one I didn't count on was a Quilter for a wife.

Come home from work, the stove is cold, the dirty clothes still there,
The suit I wanted cleaned today, still laying on the chair.
"Where's Mama, son?" I asked my boy, "This house is such a mess.
Why, all the sheets are missing, we've been burglarized I guess."

"No, Mama stripped down all the beds and took the sheets away.
She cut them into little strips and pieced two quilts today."
"Why every pair of pants I own is cut in little squares."
"I'm demonstrating applique", my lovely wife declares.

I show up in the office in my boxer shorts and tie.
My secretary giggles and the clerks give me the eye.
It's freezing cold, I'm shaking and my knees are turning blue.
My boss considered firing me, but his wife's a quilter too.

I told him what had happened and he said he could believe.
I noticed that the coat he wore had only half a sleeve.
A husband needs a loving wife to help him when he's ill.
To soothe and comfort, mop his brow and help him take his pills.

Should influenza strike you, your life's not worth a dime,
Particularly if it hits at Quilt Convention time.
You'll lay there in an empty house in pain and deep despair,
While the workshops and the lectures keep your wife's attention there.

You learn to ask no questions when she smiles and drives away,
Rushing to the Fabric Shop for a big sale there today.
She's gone for hours, then drags back home all bleary eyed and down,
Now who'd believe a lie like that? She must be running round.

But I'll get by, I always do, some days are fine, some not.
When your wife's a Quilter you tolerate a lot.
I know that when my life is through and I have passed away
They'll have to set my funeral so it's not a Quilting Day.

-Author Unknown-

Wishing for warm weather......

Today I came across this photo of a butterfly block (appliqued by machine) that was made for the BOM raffle for a quilt guild I belonged to a few years ago. It was a fun block and I think it looked nice when done. (I didn't win the batch of blocks that month...I won them two other times when I didn't particularly want them and did give one batch away to a friend who loved them.) Anyway...this butterfly block makes me yearn for warmer weather since we have many types of butterflies in southern Delaware and there are three very healthy butterfly bushes I can see from my screen porch. This allows me to enjoy beautiful butterflies of many sizes and colors all season long. With the weather we've had lately, I wonder if warm weather will truly get here anytime soon. *sigh* Maybe I will try to find my pattern for this butterfly and make some more of these blocks in hopes that Mother Nature will see me and understand I NEED warm weather now...enough of cold and rain and needing the heat running in the house in the middle of April! Sheesh.......

Only two more rows to do.....

We have a small group of quilters who all live within a few blocks of each other in my neighborhood. Sometimes we work on our own projects and sometimes we just talk when we get together. We take turns meeting in each other's homes. Today we were at my house. It was a day where all of us were tired from our various Easter activities, so we mostly just talked and planned what we'll do next time we meet. We decided to do paper-piecing and I'll "guide" them on that since I'm the one with the most experience. (I really enjoy paper-piecing!) I brought out a few of my books and told them each to pick a block as with only four of them going to be here, I could easily do individual instruction of whichever block they chose. As it turns out, two of them chose to do a hummingbird block and the other two chose a goldfinch. I think they will enjoy their lesson and will be happy with the results. Now.....the title of this post is "only two more rows to do"...and that's because our little group of six has been doing a row-by-row quilt. We made our own "rules"....each of us chose a block and we made that same block in multiples for ourselves and for each of the other five gals...in their fabrics, of course. It's always fun to see how the blocks look in the different fabrics, isn't it? The two blocks shown here are the blocks that I'm doing. It's the Flying X block from Quilter's Cashe. (You should be able to click on it to see it enlarged.) So far, I've done my own row and the rows for three of the other gals....so I only have TWO more rows of blocks to do....YAY!!! While I've developed a real system and can chain piece these babies now like nobody's business, I'm also getting very tired of doing them. (I guess the only thing that keeps me from being totally bored with them is getting to change fabrics with each row I do! I don't think I could do 36 of them in the SAME fabrics.)

Once upon a time.......

A few years back, I took a mini-workshop at the LQS. It ran for 4 weeks.........2 hours a week, as I recall.....and we did 4 projects. This was one of them. (Click to enlarge.) We used a gift bag as the base (the plain ones you can buy in bulk at the craft store) and then covered it in fabric. I was happy with the way mine turned out and used it to give a Christmas gift to another quilter...a gal I knew would appreciate the amount of work that went into this (which was a LOT). This is the kind of thing that was very work-intensive for such a small project. I have to dig out the pattern and see if I'd have any interest in doing it again. I do know that I'd never make it to give to someone who would just throw this gift bag away after opening the gift! LOL

Can you believe I won ANOTHER giveaway????? (AND winner announced for bag giveaway.)

I guess I should be embarrassed to admit I have won my third giveaway in less than 3 weeks. BUT.....I'm NOT embarrassed about it at all. Why?......you might ask.........well...here is why. Contrary to what you might think, I do not enter every giveaway I find here in Quilting Blogland. I am totally honest with myself and if the prize is something that I suspect will sit unused for longer than a reasonable amount of time in my home, I feel it's best NOT to enter......to leave that prize for someone else who will use it quicker. That being said, I can tell you of my latest win. NO...it is NOT the dog you see pictured above. It's a one-year subscription to McCall's Quilting magazine. YAY!!! I can assure you this is a prize that will not sit here unused! It came from Molly and her dog, Lulu...pictured above....who helped Molly decide on a prize for her Blogiversary. Thanks, Molly and Lulu! Click HERE to visit Molly's fun blog and tell her you heard about her (and Lulu) on my blog, okay? Look below this photo for the name of the winner of Round 3 of the blog giveaway......
TA-DAAAAA....drum-roll, please. The winner of Round 3 of the bag giveaway is.......Oooglebloops. She will have until this Wednesday to get back to me with her mailing information. (No email address connected with her entry.....but she does have a blog and you can click HERE to see it.) After I get the mailing info, I will send the remaining bags and a small surprise to her and she will then post Round 4 on her blog.

Happy Easter........

As I wish you a joyful Easter day, I will show you this photo of me (with my sister and my parents) on Easter Sunday in 1957 in a little town in New Jersey called Hawthorne. (I am the one on the left...sorry this one doesn't enlarge when you click on it...so you will have to take my word that I look fabulous in it.) But...don't be looking any further for a picture of me on this PRESENT Easter Sunday as I am no longer in the "cute and skinny" stage and I no longer pose for Easter photos, either! How many of you dressed like this for Easter some years back...complete with hat, white gloves, and flowers? May you all have a bright and happy day today!
NOTE: For any who found the Peeps post here of interest the other day.....the winners (complete with photos) were announced in that newspaper's online edition today. Click HERE to see them.

A fun little activity.......

Recently someone told me about a fun activity online with something called Tag Galaxy. When you go to the link (which I'll put at the end of this post), you will see a spot in which you can type any word you wish. I began by using the word Easter, but...of course, you can use any word. Then......other words will show up around the word you chose. In my case, one of the words that showed up was chocolate and you know I just HAD to click on that! Other words then showed up around the word chocolate, but since I wanted to see the chocolate photos, I clicked on the sphere in the middle of the screen and it filled with OODLES of photos of Easter chocolates. WARNING: This tag galaxy activity can become addicting, but it is a fun way to see many MANY wonderful photos of the same subject....a subject that YOU get to choose. In fact, there are often so many photos, that they can't all load onto the sphere at once...and you need to use the arrow at the top of the screen to load other batches of photos for you to see. I was amazed at the number of photos that can be shown on all sorts of topics....and when you click on photos to see them larger, most of them are really terrific photos! So.....are you ready to have some fun? Click HERE to start. And then come back and comment to tell me what word you chose and how you liked all the pictures you got to see!

2nd post for today....

I don't often do a 2nd post in one day...but there are exceptions. Look on my sidebar to enter the spring giveaway being held by Lani at her blog. If you click on the photo of the prize package there, you can go and enter. Lani is quite a CHARACTER....so try reading some of her blog entries and Im sure you will have some laughs!

More talk about giveaways.........

Okay...yesterday I showed 3 bags for Round 3 of the giveaway (and explained how to get a chance to win). Some people contacted me and asked to show the bag I selected for myself......so the first photo below would be that bag. How's that for a pretty tropical fabric? I liked all the bags but picked this one for its particular size. I'm going to use it to tote around my rotary cutter and other small items when going to quilting workshops and our little neighborhood quilting group. (I also got some of this same fabric ....courtesy of Barb...and would like to make a tote from it!)
Yesterday was also another lucky day for me because I discovered I was one of the 3 winners of Amanda's 2nd annniversary of her Busy Little Quilter blog! (Check out her blog HERE.) I won a Terry Atkinson pattern/kit to make a bag.....and that is this second photo. Thanks, Amanda...for a fun prize and a GREAT blog and for being my helper with starting MY blog!

Do you want to win one of these?

Okay....here is Round 3 of the unique bag giveaway begun by Barb of Bejeweled Quilts (click HERE for her blog). Here is the story......once upon a time, Barb, who lives in the beautiful island paradise of American Samoa, made 5 cute little bags (with zippers....and VERY nice are they). She wanted to share them with her friends and decided to have a giveaway with a twist. The winner would get all 5 bags, BUT....had to choose just ONE of the bags and then have a giveaway on her (or his) blog for the remaining 4. When a winner was selected there, the bags (along with an extra little gift) would go to that winner.

The winner of the first round was Mary of the Quilt Hollow blog (click HERE to read her blog). She chose a bag and sent the remaining 4 to ME along with some nice fabric. (Thanks, Mary!)

I have now chosen a bag and 3 remain...the 3 shown here. If YOU would like to win Round 3, just leave a comment on THIS post (being sure there is a way I can contact you if you win). I will select a winner on Sunday. The 3 bags (along with a little something else) will be sent to the winner early next week...and that winner must then choose a bag, put a photo of the remaining 2 on her (or his) blog and conduct Round 4 of the giveaway.

So....join the fun. And a big thanks to Barb for making FIVE bags to be part of this multi-part giveaway.

PEEPing good fun......

It seems in recent years there have been a lot of fun art contests with those good old marshmallow Peeps. The newspaper where we used to live has a whole section dedicated to a contest with them this year. Click HERE to see a page with many photos of what people have done with Peeps. When you go to that webpage, be sure to click "Next" to see all the photos or scroll down and click on some of the thumbnail photos AND read the captions under them, too. (And some say QUILTERS are odd???? I think these Peeps' people have too much time on THEIR hands!!!) Of course, you recognize that the Peep photo accompanying this post is paying homage to The Wizard of Oz. Pretty silly, huh? (But fun, too!)

A fabric challenge for next month's guild meeting....

We are having a small fabric challenge for guild next month. Ten of us signed up for it. We were each given a piece of Hoffman challenge fabric and the guidelines for our project. The theme is "baskets" and the piece is not to exceed 25 inches by 25 inches. Mine will be smaller. I know many of the other 9 gals who signed up for this are excellent at embellishing. I am not...so mine will be finished simply with a good amount of nice hand-quilting...maybe using metallic thread on the focus fabric. I chose a paper-pieced pattern called Tulip Basket by Linda Worland that I found online. (I LOVE to do paper-piecing!) I'm happy with the results so far. The fabric used for the basket is the Hoffman fabric...and you can see a large piece of it behind the project. (Click on the photo to enlarge it.) I will use the Hoffman fabric for the backing and for the binding, too. Do you like it so far? (Any and all ideas for how to do the hand-quilting will be welcomed and happily considered.)

The finished miniature quilt....

Even with the kids here this weekend, I finished the miniature quilt for tomorrow's guild meeting. I didn't do a lot of quilting on it...just some very simple hand quilting as you can see on the closeup photo here. (Click to enlarge.) Each of the green blocks has a simple flower shape in it and the center beige box has just a simple stitch around the edge of it. I think doing it in colored thread like some of you suggested improved the look of that beige box...so thanks for suggesting that. The second photo shows little Jessi holding the mini for a picture. She was fascinated with it and asked if it was for her. I was touched that she liked it that much. I told her I'll make her another one for her doll crib. She was happy about that. I'm glad she was interested and hope she might be another quilter in the making! She will be 5 in June and I'll see what kind of easy sewing we can do when she comes for her summer vacation time by herself here for a week.


And...some exciting news for me. I won a giveaway over on Quilt Hollow...it is part of a multi-stage giveaway started by Barb at Bejeweled Quilts. I'll put more details about it (and links to both of their blogs) in another day or two! The fun part of this is that when the prize gets here, I select one thing from the prize box and then post a giveaway HERE to pass the rest of it to another winner...and on it goes! So...stay tuned for more info and a chance for YOU to win.


Closeup of the simple quilting on the mini.
Jessi holds the mini for a photograph!
(Fun to have such a cute quilt model)

An Easter egg hunt on the beach......

Yesterday there was an Easter egg hunt on the bay beach near us. We took little Jessi. It was a sunny day...temperature about 65, BUT....very VERY windy. The kids still had a good time and she was very happy with the 6 eggs she found. She wasn't really fond of this Easter bunny...not sure why.......but she did agree to have a quick photo taken with Bunny!

Here is Jessi with her mom and dad before the egg hunt began. (Living in a town on the outskirts of Philadelphia, you will notice if you enlarge the photo that they had to wear their Flyers' caps....backwards, of course! LOL)Jessi stopped for her Grampy to take a photo of her on the beach after she found those 6 candy-filled eggs and decided that was enough and let the rest of the kids go on digging. (I suspect we will find more eggs on that beach in the early part of the summer because I don't think the kids found them all today in the wind!)
This is the somewhat reluctant photo with the Easter Bunny....that's my hand keeping Jessi in the picture!They had an adult egg hunt, also, and our daughter found several.....for a total of $6 inside them! She was happy...and the lady who found the one "golden egg" with a $25 restaurant gift certificate was even happier. Here is our daughter (cap on forwards now!) hunting for those eggs. They had the adult egg hunt in amongst some beach grass....not quite as easy to find the eggs there as it was on the beach for the kids! The adults had fun, too, as you can see.Of course, we had a show and tell in the car on the way home of what was inside the eggs! (And yes, a Flyers' cap is now on HER head!) Each child also got a small bag with some goodies....so nobody left empty-handed.They will be heading home later today....but we will go out for a nice family breakfast this morning and that will be nice. We had a good birthday dinner last night (cooked by THEM) for my hubby's birthday wonderful salad, dinner rolls, BBQ'd chicken done on the grill, fresh asparagus and mashed potatoes with chives and garlic and a great red velvet cake they brought with birthday candles that don't go out when you try to blow on them...should have had the camera ready for THAT. It was pretty funny!

Is THIS a fabric shop...or what?

When reading blog posts, I came across Jodi's post (click HERE) about a fabric shop that is out of this WORLD! This photo is JUST the Gutermann thread!!!! Be sure to check out what Jodi wrote about the store. She did say they have 11,000 bolts of quilting cotton as well as oodles of thread and many MANY books and all the notions and rulers you could ever want. She included their website link since they also sell online. Gosh.....I wish there was a store like this near me! (But maybe it's best for my budget that I don't and maybe I shouldn't look at their website, either!!!) Oh, yes...Jodi is having a giveaway, too, so check it out.

A sign of spring......

This photo shows a hummingbird at one of our feeders during the summer. A few years back, I found a webpage that tracks ruby-throated hummingbird sightings in the eastern part of the United States. Prior to that, I never realized how early the first hummers appear. They fly ahead to scout out good feeding areas. I discovered that if you don't put feeders out for the early visitors, they will set up "camp" for the season elsewhere (where they find good feeding)...but if you put the feeders out when they first arrive, you will attract a good number of them all season long. If you want to visit that website, click HERE. Then scroll down to the second map for the U.S. migration and you can see if they are near your area yet. (The top map shows migration for Canada.) It appears from checking the map that I must get the feeders here cleaned out and ready. I guess this means spring really IS on the way...because these birds can't be wrong.....can they? Side note: kids coming this weekend to surprise their dad for his birthday, so I won't be doing much blog reading or replying to comments on my blog, either....but will try to catch up on Sunday night.

A tiny quilt.....

I am in the process of making this tiny quilt...probably should click on it to see it closer. It is a miniature quilt......about 8 inches by 10 inches. It still needs to be sandwiched and quilted and have a binding put on it. It is for our guild's silent auction of mini's that will be done at our fall quilt show. I am intending to hand-quilt it...putting flower motifs in the green squares and a smaller flower motif in the very center square (the tan one). I'm not liking that tan one and wish I'd used another color there. OH, well....too late now. I was determined to use only SCRAPS for this and succeeded....so I'm happy about that. I will probably make a couple more.....using different blocks and maybe not exactly this size. I want to do one with lots of really TINY blocks......maybe teeny tiny string blocks....lots of them. I think that would be fun and I sure have enough scraps to do it!!! I think, though, there would be too many seams if I did teeny tiny string blocks. Well...back to the drawing board for more ideas for other mini's. I'll show you this one again once the hand-quilting is finished on it.

She's BACK.........

This is a rather lengthy post, but I need to vent. Please humor me with this one......

Today we went to get my sewing machine. Well...actually, it's not the same one I dropped off to them....it's a new one...a replacement for that broken one. Janome said they found nothing wrong with my machine (HA....eating fabric and showing an electronic error code means NOTHING is wrong???) but for good customer relations, they would give me a new one. Hmmmmmmm.....not quite sure I believe that. Funny thing...the bobbin winder never worked properly on the one I returned to them....but now it DOES work, so I'm sure at least THAT much was wrong with my machine and an improperly wound bobbin might have been the cause of all the other problems the machine was having....and the error code that appeared and said to take it to the dealer......so there had to be a reason for that.

At any rate, they said I had to have a quick "lesson" on the machine before they would release the new one to me. The gal who worked with me today is the gal from whom I took 3 classes on this machine when it was new. She is the same one who thought my machine had a certain function and when it wouldn't do it at the third class, she said there must be something wrong with it and made me leave it there for repair. (Janome then informed the dealer that this model doesn't DO that function the teacher thought it did. Guess she didn't know the machine very well, did she?)

When we had the classes, she had no problem with the way I (and the others) held the thread when threading the machine. I've used the machine for 6 months with it working most of the time...but today she was all picky about pulling the thread a certain way and holding it a certain way. I said, "Gee....you never showed us to do it that way in the classes we had on the machine." It seems like she SHOULD have shown us that at the class if it was such an important issue. She just kind of laughed in a nervous way. She then was picky about something else, and I said, "I wonder why Janome doesn't say that in the instruction manual? They really should, you know, if it's so important. " She just laughed again. It seemed like their whole purpose today was to convince me that the machine I brought back was FINE but I didn't know how to thread it and use it and caused the problems myself...and that I should be bowing down at their feet because Janome is so wonderful and so concerned with good customer relations and that is the only reason I got a new machine. I've sewn for over 40 years.....so I am reasonably sure I know how to thread a machine, and I will just try to put their nonsense out of my head.

I could have retrieved this machine by going to their dealer store that is about 20 minutes closer to me (where I bought the machine), but they made me drive over an hour to go to their other location for her to be ridiculous and waste my time. BUT....I have a machine back now, so I'm telling myself that's all that counts...and I hope there are no further problems.

And there ends my vent. Thanks for sticking with me on it. Let's hope this is the end of anymore stories about my Janome!