Please go read this and try to help.....

I am going to put a link below to a blog post done by my quilting friend, Gene Black.  Maybe you would like to help.  I am thinking if you can't make a quilt, maybe you can, instead, donate a prize.  If you can't do that, I am thinking (although Gene didn't say this), maybe a little contribution could be sent to offset the cost of materials Gene uses for this project or for him to buy some little extras for the shelter residents.  Read this and put on your thinking cap as to some ways you may be able to help.  You can comment on his blog post if you have any questions.  Thanks for taking the time to read it and, perhaps, to help in some way. Click HERE for the link.

This is BEAUTIFUL.....

I have become friends with a very lovely person, Eva, from the Czech Republic. She follows my blog.  She does absolutely incredible handwork embroidery.  She sent me some very pretty postcards AND she made this wonderful embroidered piece.  Isn't it beautiful?  The photo in no way does it justice.....it is exquisite and the stitches are incredible.  It amazes me the kind of work some people can do by hand!  Thank you, Eva....I will treasure this always!  (And please, if you are a praying person, keep Eva in your prayers as she has had some significant health issues recently and I am hoping she will be much better soon.)

Some trip photos.....

Some photos from the recent trip......in no particular order....a few of them will enlarge if you click on them. Can you tell everyone had a wonderful time?

Guess we have to discuss color value!!!

This is the newest wall-hanging Jessi made here this week when visiting us.  I let her pick all her fabrics and she wanted to use the GO! tumbler die.  That was fine BUT when she laid them out (which I let her do on her own), she didn't really balance her color values very well, as you can see.  She was SO happy with the way it looked to her, though, so I didn't want to make her change it.  I guess next summer we will do some work on color values and balance in quilts!!!  For now, you can see she is very happy with this and it is cute when you see it in person.....just not "balanced".  LOL  This will be her "winter" wall-hanging...snowflakes and penguins!  (I will do the quilting and binding...hope to get her to do some of that herself by next summer....building on what she learned this summer.) 

I'm back!!!

We are back from a fantastically fun family trip to Walt Disney World.  Many photos of that...and reviews of things we did there....will pop up in the near future.  For now, here is a photo of my daughter and the grands with Mickey & Minnie!!!  Gotta love all of them!!!  (Notice Mickey playing with Jessica's pig-tails!!!)  :)

Taking a break.....

After another fun week of Jessi being here, we are preparing to leave in a few days on a vacation for a couple of weeks.......housesitter arranged and packing is in progress.  So.....I won't be reading blogs or posting (which, admittedly, I've not been doing much lately anyway).  When I get back, I'll post some photos from the trip.....this will be the first Disney trip for two of the grandkids, so we are all very excited about that!  This photo is of the Halloween-ish wall-hanging Jessi made while here with us last week.  She is very determined when selecting fabrics and also when picking a design to make.  This time, she chose a directional print (the jack-o-lanterns), so I had to deal with making sure those pumpkin faces ended up "looking" the right way!  She does seem to have a good eye for color and contrast....and I'm so thrilled she continues to be interested in doing this. (And yes, her two front teeth are missing!)

I'm a bad blogger......

Okay...so it's obvious I am a bad blogger.  I can't seem to post very regularly and my schedule doesn't permit me to read blogs very regularly, either.  So...I am sorry that I'm not commenting on very many of your blogs lately.  (Also...like so many others, I find it faster to use my limited posting time doing posts on Facebook, where I reach many of my quilting friends AND other friends as well as family.)  Anyway.....here is a brief "catch-up" for you (details below the photos).  Photos should show in greater detail if you click on them.

We had a great 10 days with Jessica and can't wait for her second of three summer visits (coming up in a couple of weeks).  She did soapmaking (which I showed in the previous post) and she also did chocolate candy-making as well as making another small quilt to hang on her bedroom wall.  Her goal is to make 3 of them this summer, so she can change them out with the seasons (along with the "anytime-of-the-year" one she made with me awhile back).  She loves using my GO cutter and my sewing machine set on "turtle" speed. We went to the beach and the pool and she saw two movies while here.  One was Madagascar 3 with "Grampy" and the other was "Brave" with me.  We did some of her summer schoolwork packet, she lost another tooth (and the tooth fairy visited here...lucky she could find us after so many years of not coming here!!!).  We also got to see the animals a family from our church raises on their multi-acre "ranch".   THAT was a lot of fun.  They have:  6 alpacas, 2 miniature horses, 3 goats, 1 donkey, 1 rabbit, 4 dogs, 1 micro-pig (litter box trained), 2 pot-belly pigs, 2 chinchillas, 1 gecko, several birds of various types, 12 cats, and 1 monkey (that is being raised to be a "helper" monkey for paralyzed people....he will go to Boston for the final training of that once he is no longer a "baby"),   Yes...they do have a permit for exotic animals...for any who might wonder.  Anyway.......I am petrified of birds (any animal that moves quickly, actually).  One of the birds flew and landed on my head, but I managed to maintain my "cool" and even smiled so I'd not frighten the kids from church who were there that day to see the animals, although I really wanted to yell, "GET THAT BIRD OFF MY HEAD!!!"  As you can see, I have posted some photos here of the fun times with Jessica.   (Well...the bird on my head wasn't exactly fun, but......you can see I survived to tell about it!)