Magazine arrival

My magazine I won has arrived!  I have browsed through the pages and have found some marvelous blocks to do. I have even come up with an idea for a quilt! This is volume 5 and while I have the first 4, this is the only one I have won. The others I bought. Somehow I don't think it will any more cherished than the others, but it means a bit more since I didn't have to spend money to get it.

The way I won was by looking at the various blogs that Quiltmaker's blog, Quilty Pleasures, put up as a way to see what was coming prior to the magazine hitting the stands. I was thrilled to go to those blogs as they gave me an insight to what others are doing with their quilting habits. If you are not a quilter, you won't appreciate them as much as I do.

I'm working on several quilting projects right now and I really should be working on them instead of my blog. However, I wanted to update my blog, go that's what I'm doing.

Work is work - have to have that paycheck in order to spend money on my quilting habit. I would love to retire and just work on my quilts and maybe find my sewing room. Right now, I'm working in the dining room. I'm sure others of you are doing the same.

The weather has gone from spring to summer, contrary to what the calendar says. Yes, I know it's still technically spring, but when the temperatures get into the 90-95 degree range, that's summer to me. We've had a north breeze for days now and it just dries everything out. Me included. As a result, I drink a lot of fluids and stay hydrated as best I can.

I'm off to work on the misc. weekend stuff and then my quilts. See another time.

Winning

I've finally done it!  I won something off of a post I made on someone's blog. It's not much, it's a magazine, but it's one I was going to have to buy. Now I can use the Barnes & Noble gift card for something else that strikes my fancy.

What's new in your life? Any new quilts, read any new books, gone fishing, bought a car? None of those mentioned? Well, I've been working on quilts, I've read several books and I'm waiting to go fishing the end of this month. We'll open up our cabin and go throw a line into the creek just to say we went fishing. Have to love having that lifetime fishing license!

Well, I'm off to work on a couple of projects and then I'm going to watch "The Voice" to see who gets to stay and who goes home.

Take care and drop me a line once in a while.

April gone crazy

Yep, it's true! April has gone crazy. The month started with temps in the 60 degree range. This past week we've had temps in the 90 degree range. We don't usually see them until May. I've discovered that my car needs a tune up. It doesn't like the air conditioner running when in stop and go traffic.

It's late evening and the outside temp is still too warm and inside the house is even warmer. I'm not going to turn on the cooler just yet. It's supposed to drop back to the upper 60's- low 70's by the end of the week. Our cabin is in snow country and the county will start plowing on Monday. Guess they figure that the snow season is over.

My missing friend is not missing after all. She's alive and well and still taking care of her parents. I have yet to get a mailing address for her, but I'm sure she'll get it to me before long. Wish she would do it soon as I want to send  a card to her.

I've been working on a couple of quilt projects and I hope to get a couple more of my UFO's done. Quilt guild is a little better than a week away and I only have one finished. I wanted to have 2 done, but with the rest of what I have to do this week, I certainly don't see it happening.

I'm off to bed. Morning comes to darn early on work days and one of my co-workers is on vacation, so I will need to do part of her work this next week. And I will have to get caught up on my own since I took 3 days off for vacation last week.

Take care and tell me what's new in your world.

Missing Friend

Well, it's finally happened to me. I am now the person worrying about someone I know who has gone "missing". She's not returning phone calls, not from any of her co-workers or friends, her Facebook page has not had any activity since she went to take care of her folks. Those who have her brother's and sister's Facebook addresses have gotten no response.

I now find myself praying daily for her to contact someone, anyone, to tell us all that she's okay. I have left her a message on her cell phone. I left a message on her Facebook page. I'm going to send a note to her address and see if maybe she answers that way. It just is NOT her to ignore all of us.

What can I do? Not a whole lot. I know roughly where her parents house is, but I don't know the name of the street so I'm not sure I could find it again having only been there once. I know roughly where her house is, but one of our co-workers has already gone by there and no car.

So I find myself wondering - did we do something wrong? Does she not like us any more? OR did the unthinkable happen and she has no way to let us know where she is. Did she lose the cell phone and the new IPad thing her dad bought her? I pray she's okay and I pray that she will somehow see either this message or answer the phone and get back to me.

If she just doesn't want to come back to work, hey, that's okay. I'm good with that, I just want to know she's okay.

If you're reading this, please, please, call me at work. Leave me a message after work if you don't want to talk.

Love you girlfriend!

March going out like a lion

Yep, March is going out like a lion. Today being the last day of March, we have been blessed with some rather blustery rain deluges. No, they were not showers!  We could barely see across our backyard. Weather today is supposed to be rainy and windy. Well, so far that's what it's been. In looking at the weather radar map for our area, it looks like it will continue.

While March may be going out like a lion, spring is in evidence in our backyard. The apple tree is in bloom, although with this weather I doubt the bees will be doing their normal pollination flights. And the tulips are almost ready to start blooming. So, that said, I'll just watch the rain and the wind.

And that makes it a perfect day to stay inside and quilt. So, I'm going to do just that. I have 4 small quilts sandwiched and ready to do the quilting on. I hope to get at least 2 of them done so I have something to turn in from my UFO list. Once they've been turned in as a completed UFO, then I can show them during Show & Tell. If I can get 3 of them done, I'll be halfway through my UFO list. As long as I get one done, I'll be happy.

Meantime, the day will be spend with doing laundry, paying bills (Yuk!) and doing the other stuff that one has to do to keep the house prosperous.

Till next time!

March and Spring

March is a month of many weather surprises. Sometimes it's wet and nasty, sometimes dry & windy. It also heralds in Spring. Here it seems that spring will be a little bit late. We've had rain most of the weekend and the weather people are predicting more of the same for this next week.

March also brings us daylight savings time. While I like the longer amounts of daylight in the evening, I can't say that we are really saving time. What knothead came up with that? Who knows, but we certainly can't save any of it for later.

I've been working on a project for our local theater. Seems they are doing "The Wizard of Oz" as a stage production and they needed poppy fields and snow fields. Enter the fabric - one piece of the most gorgeous scarlet poppies and one piece of (snow) white fabric - stitched together to make the fields. Sounds a bit crazy, but when you realize that some small person will be holding these fabric "sandwiches", it will work. I got them all done and back to the theater for the rehearsal that started at 6:30pm tonight. Considering I got them on Tuesday, I figure I did well. Now I just have to be able to find a night to go see it!

I've also been working on my UFO list and have made it to the spot where half way is in sight. I sandwiched another two small quilts today from that list and hope to get them finished before our next quilt guild meeting. I am determined to finish my list this time around. I got done the guild $2 block of the month as well today. All in all it's been a very productive weekend.

On to other things, another post, another time. Meantime, take care of yourselves.

More quilts done

Yes, I'm getting more of my UFO listing done. For the second month in a row, I have finished 3 of them. While I'm not winning any prizes for this, I am feeling like I'm getting things done.

This one is called "Birds out My Window" and is one that has been hanging around since 2007 when I started it in Grass Valley at Pine Tree Quilt Guild Show. I'm really glad to get it done as it was one of my older UFOs. It was a free little lesson in how to do the black grill work. I forget what it's called, but since the lesson and the fabric to make the top were free, my friend and I signed up. Haven't seen anything like that at their show since.

This second one is called "Yellow Rose of Texas" and was a free pattern on the Whimsys web page. I have a small group that I get together with once a year to work on our projects. We usually attempt to try one new quilting method per year and try to get at least one project out of our stash either started or done. I worked on this project, but didn't quite get it done. I started a Halloween quilt that I've been collecting fabrics for and got the top mostly made. Still have a couple things left to do on it before I can sandwich it. When it's done, I'll post a picture of it here.

This little quilt is a Patch Ability pattern called "Park It, Wanda". I bought it as a kit, something I rarely do, and finally got it finished. It's small, 6" x 18", but I really love it. Course, I really like the pattern company which is a good thing since I probably own about 45-50 of their patterns.

I'm working on getting more of my quilts done so you will see more of them as I finish. I signed up to complete 18 for this UFO Challenge in 2012. I intend to finish them all plus maybe a few more. Our guild as a whole has 34 people signed up to finish 665 quilts. I certainly hope we can make a big dent in that number.

Till next time - have a good day and enjoy!