Gratitudes...

Yesterday, my plans were to spend time working on the secret project, but life interrupted. I got a phone call that Dear Older Daughter was in a wreck. I went to pick her up and call the wrecker service, set up the repair, etc. As we pulled away from it all, I decided she needed to go to the hospital.

She banged her head and shoulder pretty badly, and while she was dazed at first, she seemed to be better. Once we got into the van and started driving, she became dizzy and nauseous. A quick (6 hour) stop at the ER, one CAT scan and some x-rays....we're a tired bunch around here today. Thankfully, Dear Older Daughter has some bruising and is REALLY sore, but honestly, we have so much to be thankful for!!!

We will find out over the next week the total damages to the car. Hopefully, it can be repaired.....and not totaled. Aren't we grateful we have full coverage?? Wow....insurance is really worth it, not to mention the fact, required!! LOL

Off to get a haircut today, and I'll be enjoying some wonderful singing this afternoon. Dear Older Daughter, Dear Younger Son, Dear Friend of the Family and Dear Future Daughter in Law are having quartet practice here at our house!! Yay, I love hearing them sing. They will be singing at a local church tomorrow.....so glad I'll be able to hear them, even if I can't go to the service with them. Life is good.

Happy Quilting!!!!!!

Just wanted to let everyone know that the reason I'm not blogging right now, is because I'm not sewing right now!!! This is a quilting blog, after all, and I haven't had time to sew a stitch. Yikes.

We're in the 6 week countdown to Dear Older Son's wedding and things are picking up around here! I spent the day today at lunch with a friend discussing the Rehearsal Dinner...I'm SOOOO grateful for all the wonderful friends who are helping me get this dinner and the decorations together. Exciting times!!!!

I'm afraid there won't be much sewing going on here for a while, but I'll do my best to pop in and say hello! Between the wedding preparations and care giving, I'm certainly staying busy!! But, hey, it's all good!!!

Happy Quilting!!!!!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day
Dear Bloggy Friends!!!!!

Black and White Challenge

See my Black and White Challenge fabric. I finally settled on my one additional color!!!

Black and White Challenge Blog

Geese in the Forest = FUN!!

Can you tell my mom is doing better?? I've had time to sew!! Whoo hoo. She's still taking it easy, but doing so much better. The swelling is down and she's going to see her Dr. tomorrow. Arthritis isn't for sissies!!!!

Geese in the Forest Block 1, anyone want to join me???

Happy Quilting!!!!!!

Red Strings Top - DONE!!!

I ended up with 96 blocks and I'm happy with this one. It measures 48x72. I think it will be the perfect lap sized quilt. One of the problems with most lap sized quilts, in my opinion anyway, is that they just aren't long enough. I want my arms and my feet covered when I'm watching a movie!!

Actually, I put this on my husband's hospital bed and it's just about perfect. He's rather spoiled to his white blanket, but the red sure brightens things up.

As a reward for finally finishing this one up, I am going to start making the other five Geese in the Forest blocks!! I love them!!!! I think I'm pumped about this quilt because I just have to make a few blocks here and there, and I'm using my favorite fabrics....Civil War Reproductions!!

Happy Quilting!!!!

I'm making a mess!

I'm home today, playing nurse, housekeeper, cook and general cleaning woman. Today is Dear Niece's first birthday party, but sadly we weren't able to go to her party. I'm holding back tears, but sometimes things like this happen. It's been a trying week and today, I'm keeping my hands busy.

My mom, who is living with us, is having knee trouble and is under Doctors orders to keep her knee above her heart. She is NOT to walk on it!!! (Except for certain trips to another room!) So, I am caring for her and my Dear Hubby, while my "kids" have gone to the birthday party. So we are at least represented at the party!!! Since I've gotten the house straightened, the laundry done, my patients fed and in bed, I sat at my machine for a while this afternoon.



I pulled out my red strings and quickly got twelve 12 inch blocks put together. I laid them out to see what they are going to look like. I've got ninety 6 inch blocks made now, and I'm determined to get this quilt together! It goes quickly, but it makes a mess!! Red strings all over the place, snips and bits, and trimmings!!!



And, Anina at Twiddletails has started a BOM that I just cannot resist!! I know, please no one tell me I don't need to do this, because I really do!!! This quilt is called Geese in the Forest. She is doing hers in green with a touch of red. While I really love that colorway, I decided to do this totally scrappy in Civil War fabrics. It's not my fault......my bloggy friend sent me Civil War fabrics and I couldn't wait to cut into them!!!!

Here is my first block. There will be five more of these....so over the next few days, I'll take a few minutes and make some more. They went really fast!! And, you know I love paper piecing!!!

Happy Quilting!!!!

How many people read your blog?

Have you ever wondered? Well, I discovered a way to find out how many subscribe to your blog through Google Reader, have you???

Subscribe to your own blog....Click to show details. If you do that on my blog in Google Reader, you'll see that I have 106 people who have subscribed to my blog in Google Reader. And, I have another 38 followers, look in my side bar. Now, maybe they overlap some, but I had no idea that many were reading.

There may be some who have book marked my blog and I can't see them that way. And, I know, there are other ways to see who is reading, etc. But, I'm not very tech savvy! LOL You can always comment and tell me ways you've figured out how many read your blog. Teach me a few things here!!! LOL

Happy Blogging and Quilting!!

Bloggy Friends!!!!

I met a wonderful quilter through blogging and we've enjoyed many friendly e-mails. She has been an inspiration to me in so many ways. She's an awesome quilter and a wonderful woman! She recently asked for my snail mail address and told me she wanted to share some of her Civil War fabrics with me! I was totally surprised, but wanting to be gracious (LOL), I promptly e-mailed the address with a huge thank you!!

The only stipulation to the gift? She didn't want to be blogged about or thanked publicly. This shows the heart of this fine woman. I did ask her if it would be ok to share with you the wonderful fabrics she sent me.....and she agreed to that.

She sent me half yard cuts of most of these fabrics and a few of these are a bit smaller. Lots of wonderful fabrics to add to my stash of Civil War fabrics, just waiting to be sewn into a wonderful quilt or two!!! She also sent along some dark chocolate...with mint!! How did she know??? And some wonderful trail mix. I was a bit confused about the mint tin, until I read the note!! So smart!!! It is for storing old rotary blades, broken pins and needles in so that when you do throw them away, no one cuts themselves in the trash. What a great idea!

So, Dear Bloggy Friend, thank you SOOO much for the wonderful gift!! I LOVE it all. Keep on sewing and inspiring!!! Quilty hugs to YOU!!!!!

Happy Quilting!!!!!!!

Award winning???? Well, Millie thinks so!

I received an award from Millie at Millie's Quilting......this award says:

"This blog invests and believes in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are extremely charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly written text into the body of their award."

Thank you so much Millie. I am supposed to pick out eight bloggers and give this award. I just can't. I have met so many wonderful bloggers over the past year and a few months. I've enjoyed our chatty e-mails back and forth, your kind words to me and your inspiring blogs and projects. The world is full of AWESOME quilting bloggers.

So.....Happy Award Day Quilty Bloggers!!!!!!!!!!!!!

8 Random Facts About Me!!

Eileen, at Eileen's Attic, tagged me.....so here are 8 random facts.




1. I have schooled all of my children at home, since they were born. (Three are graduated, productive adults, the last one is still being schooled at home.)

2. I enjoy cooking, and people tell me they love to eat at our house. We don't have fancy meals, but you won't leave hungry!!

3. I adore Civil War Reproduction fabrics.

4. Our church sponsored a Bike-A-Thon to raise money for missions when I was in high school. Several people participating were afraid to approach the richest man in our church to ask him to sponsor them. We were riding for 20 miles. I decided that the worst he could do was say no. He told me that he would give me $25 a mile, if I rode my bike with training wheels. LOL.....I really wanted to raise the most money, so I agreed. I got my older brother to put training wheels on my bike and turn them up in the air. When he showed up the day of the Bike-A-Thon to see if I kept my end of the bargain, he laughed and said, "Here's the money. I really didn't think you would do it. And, I didn't clarify "how" to put the training wheels on your bike." With his donation and the others I collected, I raised the most money!

5. I have a short story published in a book. It was a collection of miracle stories. Sadly, the book is no longer available.

6. I am pigeon toed....but not as bad as I once was. When the Dr. told me that, I started making myself walk differently.

7. My two favorite beverages are coffee and Dr. Pepper....but I drink lots of water too!

8. I'm 43 and I need bifocals!! I am doing the trick my mother once did. I hold something and move it back and forth, closer and further away until I can see what I'm looking at!!

You're it!! Take this tag and post 8 random things about YOU! Let me know you did it, so that I can find out more about you.

Everlasting Quilt

When my kids were little, we went shopping with grandma one day and found a book entitled, "Gilbert's Gobstopper". The book tells the story of a little boy and his gobstopper (jawbreaker).

The library of Congress describes it this way: This book follows the adventures of Gilbert's amazing gobstopper as it travels from his mouth to the bottom of the sea to the wilds of outer space.

My kids loved this book about the everlasting gobstopper!!

And, the title of this post? Yeah, the Everlasting Quilt. Lots of little pieces and seems to be taking me forever!!! It's actually called Everlasting Wreath.....scroll down on the linked page to find the pattern. I am enjoying seeing it come together, but I am SOOOO far from near the end of this one! I suppose this one qualifies for a WISP (Works In Slow Progress). Yeah, definitely. But, I'm keeping the project container near the machine and having it there makes me remember to sew a block here and there. I've got 19 of them done. And, let's see.....I need just 91 more!

I precut the fabric pieces and sorted them well, but it seems that I keep picking up the same fabrics over and over again. I know there will be more variety when I reach the end of the blocks, but for now it looks like I've only used 6 different fabrics!! Crazy!

Over the weekend, I also made 10 more red string blocks. Hmmm.....I need to decide how big I want this quilt. Maybe until I run out of red strings??? I don't know, that bucket was awful deep! LOL

And, I've been working away on my secret project. My goal was to sew an hour a day each day. Well, I'm almost half way done and I've spent 32 hours on it. Hmmmm, doing the math, I'd better sew for two hours a day to get this baby done in a timely manner! Not going to happen, I'm afraid. But, I'm plugging away at it!

Not alot to show for what I've done recently....but that happens sometimes. Working on blocks is really rather boring to blog about, but putting a quilt top together is exciting news! The only problem is you have to make blocks to make quilts!!

Happy Quilting!!!!!

Blogger and Word Verification

Read to the end to see the pattern I ordered today!!

Mrs. Noodles posted today about Blogger issues. I rarely have issues with Blogger, but it got me to thinking....

I set my blog up to allow only registered users to comment. Then, I decided that I needed to have word verification to prevent spam comments. And, lastly, I moderate my comments. In other words, when you leave a comment, I reserve the right to delete it. My reason for that was so that no one could leave ugly comments or language that I personally find offensive. I don't think quilting should lead any of us to be mean or ugly, unless I write something argumentative and mean, giving you reason to lash back. And, really, I try to avoid contention in my posts and in my comments on other's blogs.

Since I started blogging in November 2007, I have only deleted a few comments and they were because they were duplicate comments. You know how sometimes you aren't sure if you clicked to leave the comment or hit preview or the computer is taking too long and just out of frustration, you click it twice. Yeah, I delete those duplicates. I don't want people thinking I have readers who are impatient!! LOL

I've never gotten an ugly comment or language that I've found offensive. I'm so grateful that the people who read my blog are wonderful, kind and encouraging!! Thank you all!

But, I do realize that if you visit a lot of blogs, commenting can get annoying - having to jump through all the hoops!! So, I decided to make a few changes to see if I could make it easier for my readers to comment.

Because I left the moderation on, I have allowed anonymous comments. If you say something ugly, and can't own up to it, I'm certainly not going to publish it. And, I've also turned off the word verification. I realize I may live to regret this one when I get dozens, perhaps hundreds of spam comments! But, I'll chance it. I'll be moderating anyway.....we'll see how long this one lasts!!

Hopefully, these changes will make it easier for you to leave comments.

Finally, because no post is really fun without talking about quilting....here is what I ordered today. I put the quilty blame on Chris at Cats On My Quilts! She is making this quilt and I fell in quilty love and within 3 minutes, I had it ordered and on it's way. I just got the pattern, I've got loads of fabric. I may make it the same colors.....and I may go completely scrappy!!! I ordered it from Country Threads. Click the link to see their completed quilt!! It's sooo pretty.


Happy Commenting and Quilting!!!!

I like change

If you are reading this through Google Reader or something similar, you won't notice the change. But those of you reading my actual blog might. I think I might change my background once a month. With all the options available at "The Cutest Blog on the Block", why not???

It's really super simple, easy to do and so much prettier than the standard Blogger backgrounds. If you haven't tried it yet, check it out. Yes, you can do this...if you set up your own blog, this will be simple. Just read the instructions and do what they say. Simple.