Fun weekend....and a contest to enter.....

I had a very nice weekend with my daughter and two granddaughters (photos to follow tomorrow). I'm trying to catch up on some blogs now before I turn in for the night and came across a really nice giveaway contest being done right now by Bec in Australia. Click on her name in the previous sentence and hurry on over and read about it and enter...even though more entries will mean less chance for me to win.....LOL

Weekend plans.....

What are your weekend plans? My daughter and the grandkids are coming here this a.m. They don't get to visit that often. Even though we live less than 3 hours apart, things interfere with their making more frequent visits......daughter and SIL's work schedules, the one granddaughter's activity schedule, etc. It should be a fun day and evening. They are looking forward to seeing (and hearing) Grampy's light show tonight, and I think we will go visit Santa, too, at his little house on the main street in downtown Lewes. I won't have much time for sewing or computer, but I don't mind when it's because of a reason like their visit. Hope you all have a nice weekend, too. Will be back with you here late Sunday night or on Monday morning!

Look what my friend did.......

Kaye, one of the gals in our neighborhood quilting group, was given some old quilts by her sisters that her mother had made years ago. They were in very bad shape with fabric that was in no way going to be totally restored. She painstakingly took them apart and used some of the blocks to give to the family members who had received these quilts originally. The above 3 photos show blocks from one of the quilts. The piece with 4 blocks will go to one of the nephews and the 2 smaller pieces will go to his young children. The pieces don't look crooked in person....we just didn't have them hanging right for the quick photos we were doing (and the bigger one will have a couple more hanging loops added to it, too). Kaye managed to get the label off the big quilt and has that on the back of the larger piece, too. I'm sure Kaye's family appreciates the time she so lovingly invests in this so they can still have a piece of their dearly beloved grandmom in their hearts and homes.

Is it just my imagination, or......

Is it just my imagination, or are many of us behind the eight-ball this year when it comes to holiday decorating? From my own circle of friends, it seems everyone is behind where they'd like to be (and some are even considering giving up and not doing much decorating this year). I am seeing some of that "feeling" in the blogs I'm reading lately, too. I'm thinking part of the reason might be that Thanksgiving was so very close to the end of November this year....giving us only 3 days after that until December was upon us. I'd prefer to think that is the reason as the only other reason I can come up with is.....the general feeling of anxiety and sadness that seems to exist due to the present economic climate in our country. (I'd hate to think any of us would let that stop us from enjoying the personal satisfaction we get in our homes each year from seeing our much-loved favorite decorations surrounding us.)

Let me know the status of decorating in YOUR home, okay? Here, at our house, I am more behind than usual...and I'm blaming the fact that December came too soon. That's MY story...and I'm sticking to it!!!

Label-making fun today.....

Not too long ago, Pat Sloan (the favorite designer of many of us quilting bloggers) had a virtual retreat for label-making. It was terrific to come away from that weekend with so many finished labels....ready for me to write on them and put them on quilts as soon as I finished a quilted piece. The little neighborhood quilting group we have was impressed with those labels. Since I have a good supply of stamps, fabric markers, brushes, and paints, we met here today for our own label-making session. These are photos of some of our fun today. First, we see Linda looking for just the right stamp for her first label.
Next we have Joann, busy as a beaver, working on one of her labels. She went right to work and had a lot of fun doing this. I'm sure some of her labels will find themselves on quilted things she makes for her two-year-old granddaughter.
Linda, Sherry and Joann concentrating on their work here. (Somehow I didn't get a photo of Kaye hard at work....I think she was washing off her stamps when I took this picture.)
I guess each gal made an average of 5 or 6 labels. Of course, I didn't think to take a photo of ALL of them, so I had to take one after they left of just a few that were still drying here...click to enlarge the photo... (top to bottom, left to right....holly leaves and berries, strawberries, a quilting lady done with markers, a snowman, a snowflake, shamrocks, and a pumpkin & kitty). Once they all dry, they will be finished in a variety of ways....some with borders.....some will be "pillowcased". I showed them some of the ideas we got at Pat S's "retreat" and they liked a lot of what they heard. They especially like the idea of having a supply of ready-made labels available to them at all times. We will get together to do this again in the future, I'm sure.
And....of course.....our sewing group get-togethers include some kind of food-sharing. Sometimes it's lunch and today it was a few little pastries, coffee, and tea. Above are Kaye, Linda, Sherry, and Joann. We missed our other girl, Ann, who is dealing with some chronic health issues right now and we hope she is back with us soon.

The Guild's Auction and Luncheon

Yesterday was the quilt guild's auction and pot-luck luncheon. (We have two auctions a year....a "treasure" auction where folks bring in quilting and craft items they no longer want in June, and this one where the items are all finished items......handmade or store-bought....that are suitable for gift-giving.) A good time was had by all. I am relieved to report that there WERE bids on my scarf and I believe it was sold for $10. (I always worry that nobody will like what I've donated and there will be no bids on it!!!)

The luncheon, as always, was spectacular. We don't sign up for any categories, so it always amazes me that there is a wonderful variety with no extreme duplications.....from appetizers right on through to desserts....and yesterday was no exception.

This was the first month of our year-long Secret Sister program, too. I hope my gal enjoyed her gift package from me. I got a nice one from MY Secret Sister (trail mix, a snowman candle, and 2 batik FQ's in shades of blue)...and have no clue yet who she might be. We do this until November, when we will reveal ourselves and go out to lunch as a group.

What a nice surprise!

What a nice surprise for me today. I was honored to get the "Kreativ Blogger" award from a nice blogging gal in New Hampshire named Sara. (Visit her blog by clicking on her name, okay?) Since I am a new blogger, it is fun to find that news of my blog is getting out....and then to get one of the blogging awards so quickly.....that is REALLY fun! Of course, there are "responsibilities" that go with the nomination. They are as follows....

1. The winner may put the logo on her blog.

2. Put a link to the person you got the award from in your blog.

3. Nominate 5 blogs. (This is hard as I like SO many blogs! I also decided not to nominate any of the professional designers for their blogs Pat Sloan, Judy Laquidara, Lynette Anderson, etc......just ordinary gals like me!)

4. Put links to the blogs.

5. Leave a message for your nominees.

Here are my picks:


1. Amanda in Kentucky "Busy Little Quilter" -- she has posted some really wonderful quilts and she has taken the time to write me detailed instructions on how to do things when I was starting my blog.
2. Nancy "With Thread in Hand" -- she makes interesting posts and on quite a regular basis and has been helpful to me when I've asked questions about blogging.
3. Kathy in Delaware -- she is the one who first encouraged me to start a blog and told me I could do it...and she was right! Thanks, Kathy!
4. A mother and daughter team and both their blogs.....Val and Jenn in Washington. They post such great family photos and I enjoy their blogs (although they need to post more often!!!)
5. I had such trouble as I wanted to choose SO many more, but I decided on Kathy in Maryland, the only non-quilter in this list. She is a grandmom like me who struggles to get with the modern technology and she has done nicely with her blog in the short time she has had it.

I hope you visit all these blogs (by clicking on each gal's name) and tell them I sent you! Bloggers all love to get comments and know that people enjoy their blogs (and, especially, their photos). I wish the "rules" let me choose a lot more....because there are many bloggers I read daily who have inspired me a lot, but this is it for now. If you are one of my blogging friends and I didn't nominate you, please know it was a hard call.....and just because you might not have made this list, please know that I do love your blog, too!