A little detour........

Before I begin showing some of the photos from our recent vacation, I have two photos to show of surprises I had in the mail upon my return.  One is from a blogging pal, Linda.  (HERE is her blog.)  She and I share a love for Disney World and she had made these terrific neck coolers for when she went with her family.  We had been in touch about this and she was going to let me have some of the little cooler "beads" to put in some neck coolers I was going to make. Well....imagine my surprise when I returned home and found not only the "beads", BUT also 5 coolers just waiting to be finished.  She included a lovely note (and her handwriting is among the nicest I have ever seen...and as a retired elementary school teacher, I feel qualified to judge that)!!!  The photo shows what she sent me and I LOVE the Disney fabrics she used!  THANKS, Linda!

         The other surprise in the mail was the arrival of a cute necklace I won on the blog of another blogging pal, Nancy.  (HERE is her blog.)   I don't wear a lot of jewelry but this necklace really appealed to me and it will get a lot of use.  THANKS, Nancy!!! 
     I promise to start posting vacation photos next.........I have tons of them, so I will spread them out over the course of a few weeks.  We had such a nice time and such beautiful weather that there were photo opportunities every time we turned around and looked!
       Thanks for all the kind comments on the drawings I posted yesterday.  Believe me when I say I CANNOT draw, but the Disney artists step everyone through the class in such a way that everyone experiences success and has a lot of fun doing it.  On my own, I could never have done those drawings...that's for sure!



  

Back to reality.....

We got back home day before yesterday from a trip of 3+ weeks to Florida.....visited some friends as well as did a wonderful week at Walt Disney World and a nice stay at both the Sarasota area and on Clearwater Beach.  I am very behind on blog-reading and realize I will never catch up with that, so will just start fresh now.  (Excuse me for missing some of your posts while I was away.)  I am going to share many photos from the trip in the coming weeks.  I am going to start out with photos of drawings I did in the free animation classes offered at the Hollywood Studios part of Walt Disney World.  I really enjoy those classes....20 minutes of working with one of their artists and they get even a terrible "artist" like me to draw something very cute.  I am going to collect a few more in subsequent trips and then mount them all, collage-like, in a frame.  Here are the three I have done so far..... Dopey from Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs......Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.....and Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio (that I did last year).  Of course, Blogger did not let me position the photos where I wanted them........GRRRRRR.....but at least all 3 of them posted!  I think you can click to enlarge them if you wish to see them in greater detail.  It is amazing that the Disney animators get a group of about 50 people from age 5 to VERY old (and with varying degrees of ability) to do something so cute in such a short period of time!  If you ever go there, try it....you'll have a great time.

What a dog!!!

As you can see, this post has nothing to do with quilting or crafts, but I saw this dog awhile ago and had to take a picture.  His name is Diesel.  I thought of a couple of cliched sayings when I saw Diesel....things like "He has a face only a mother could love".....and "He is so ugly that he's cute" and even "That face could stop a clock".  LOL  Diesel was very happy to pose for a picture, though....once his owner said his name and promised to give him some cheese!!!  He had the most crooked teeth I have ever seen on a four-year-old but he was a very friendly, gentle boy!  What do you think of Diesel?

My hairdresser is so nice....

I love the gal that does my hair. She is so nice and goes out of her way to accommodate her customers.  She is also a very good hairdresser.  For Christmas I made her a small zippered bag.  I had no idea if she would like it.  It turns out she liked it so much (and used it so often) and felt she could use one even larger, so...I surprised her at my last appointment with this new, large one...measuring about 9" wide by 8" high...with a nice, glass-bead zipper pull and two inside pockets. She was very thrilled with it.  She said many of her friends have asked where she got the smaller one...and she offered to sell them in her shop if I wanted to make them, but....I'm not too keen on that idea right now.  Maybe I'll reconsider down the road, but for now.....I told her "Thanks, but no thanks!"

How silly of me......

I went to the trouble a few days back to post the nice flowers from our Valentine's Day breakfast but I also had a photo of what I ate there...and forgot to include that, so here it is now.  (I sure am enjoying reliving that breakfast a couple of weeks later.....aren't I? LOL)   This was called Bananaberry French Toast. There was a mixture of berries and cream between the pieces of bread as they were cooked and then the syrup and the bananas on top.  It was super-yummy!!!  The photo under it shows the hotel's small indoor pool (that goes outside to a hot tub and overlooks the ocean...which you can see if you click on the photo to enlarge it...IF
Blogger lets it be enlarged, that is.)  The hotel has a nice glass elevator, too, so anyone riding it can look out at the ocean.  It is a really nice place!

For a baby girl....

I wanted to make a gift for a baby girl who will be born in Florida in May....at the time of year where she will be in her car seat in an air conditioned car and in her stroller in air conditioned stores.  I figured a quilt sized just nice to cover her up and protect that tiny little one from the chill in the air would be nice.  I made something uncomplicated, simply quilted, and very soft.  I used the very popular (lately) Swoon block as the center (but cut it all out with my GO! cutter so a lot of time was saved in cutting and assembling).  I was going to add some fancy borders but I didn't want to take the focus away from the center of this one.  I used a fun fabric on the back and used the same one for the binding.  (I think I'll take a picture of the back of it when it comes out of the washer and dryer and post that next time.) I'm not a big fan of the look of machine-stitched binding, but I feel it is sturdier to have it machine-stitched...and sturdy is good for a quilt that will be laundered a lot...like this one will.  I hope the soon-to-be-mommy (and then the new baby) will like it.

Keeping busy.....

I have been keeping busy....doing little odds and ends that need attention around the house (and in the sewing room) and also doing the seemingly never-ending chore of weeding out closets and drawers...donating items to one of the area thrift shops, etc.    Here are two recent projects...one finished and the other one in progress.  First is another runner...also a gift.

  

Well...darn Blogger isn't letting me ADD a second photo, so I'll have to wait and do a new post with the other project...the one that is in progress.  Maybe I'll just wait until that next project is further along to show it.  On days like this, I just HATE Blogger......grrrrrrrrr!!!  *sigh*  (And not sure why there is so much space between the end of this post and where you can comment, either......"Blogger, shape up!!! You are really getting on my nerves!!!")