Quilts on Beds!

Here's a different kind of quilt show... quilts on beds! This is at our recent quilt retreat. We always bring a quilt to sleep under, and on Saturday evening we tour all the rooms and look at each others' quilts. It's way fun to see them all. Can you figure out which one is mine? Also, which one is your fave? (Don't worry, I won't be hurt if your fave is not mine.) I goofed, and the numbering starts with 2 instead of 1... don't ask.

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Christmas Lights

Today after work I got Christmas lights put up on this small tree. I usually do a very small light display outside, on one tree, or maybe a couple of bushes. This year we have new landscaping, so everything is still pretty small. Here's my outside tree! Probably this weekend we'll get our indoor tree put up. Isn't this a fun time of year??

The Close of a Weekend

It was great to have a 4-day weekend. Now it has come to an end, and I wish I could have another four days. Is that greedy? I didn't get everything done that I wanted to do. However, I had some good times, and I'm thankful for that.

After Thanksgiving I enjoyed a nice car trip and conversation with my sister who I don't see very often. It was so great that she got to come to Thanksgiving this year. We found out that our niece got engaged Thanksgiving evening! We're very excited, and we really like her future husband. He's great!

I got only a token amount of sewing done this weekend. I finally got the binding on this quilt. Darcie quilted it for me quite a while ago. Now it's ready to go. Hooray!







Today I worked on a doll quilt. It's for a specific doll, but it looks ridiculous with her, because I made it way too big! So I'll have to do another one.

Back to work and the same old rat race tomorrow.

I'm A Lucky Great-Aunt

We had a nice family gathering of 33 people for Thanksgiving. My sister worked really hard to host all of us, and it was delicious and fun. These cuties are my great-nieces, playing inside...



...and my great-nephew, outside, playing football with the Big Guys. How's that for adorable?

The Case of the Exploding Purse

One of the door prizes at our weekend retreat was this Bag O' Scraps. I won it, full of scraps. My mission, should I accept it, is to make a quilted something out of the scraps. Next year's winner gets what I make. Want to see a purse explode?

Here it is, full of scraps.



Here are the scraps, released from inside the purse. They exploded into a pile twice the size of the purse!



Here is the lovely item that I won... last year's Bag Lady made this purse out of her scraps. Wonder if I can make anything half as cute for next year. You have 11.5 months to wait and see!!! :-)



This message will self destruct in 15 seconds.

A UFO Bites the Dust

This quilt top is another I finished on the weekend retreat. The Stack n Whack blocks were made in my previous lifetime. Then they sat around for ages. I finally got them put into this setting and am sending it on to a machine quilter. Hooray! It's done and off my list (and will soon be on its way to a deserving someone)!

Emmy and the Lost Quilt

Hey, with a cool title like "Emmy and the Lost Quilt," I could turn into a mystery writer! Or maybe I could just write the titles, and someone else write the books.

Emmy is the little Sweet Pea who endured major surgery ten days ago. At the time, they thought she would be in the hospital perhaps as long as until today or even longer! However, she fooled them all and bounced back very quickly, was able to go home in just under 48 hours. She is back to her spunky self! This news was fantastic for her family, as she had previously had difficulties and setbacks with other procedures. They needed a happy experience like this one, and they got it big time! Hooray for Spunky Emmy! And thanks for your thoughts and prayers for Emmy and her family.



The Lost Quilt has nothing to do with Emmy. I just happened to find it today and finally decide what to do with it (donate it to Wrap Them in Love). This is one of my early quilts. I was in a block swap and got the birdhouse, the cow, the baby carriage, and the tree with no trunk from other people. I made the rest of the blocks. I always really liked this quilt top and had a hard time parting with it. But... today while cleaning I ran across it again and decided it was NOT worth having this top sit around unused for over eight years. I have to get this quilt into circulation with some little cutie pie... so off it goes to a machine quilter and eventually to Wrap Them in Love.



Here are the blocks I made that I was so pleased with... and the reason it was hard for me to give this quilt away. After eight years, I believe now I am ready to part with it.

Retreat! Fall Back!

A quilt retreat is the perfect time to sew your little heart out, at all hours. That's what I did this past weekend. I took Friday off and spent two and a half days sewing, along with a couple dozen other ladies from my guild. We always have a great time. (This was our 5th year of retreating.) When I wasn't sewing, I'd fall back on the bed and read a good book... or take a nice nap.

I got a lot done! It feels great. I would have liked to finish more, but after all, my time was finite.

Now I wish I had another day or two for catching up on home stuff. But.. duty calls. Tomorrow morning it's back to work.

Some of these I made from scratch... others were in progress, and I finished them. I got started on some other stuff, too, so luckily, I won't run out of things to do.

Sometimes I Finish a Project!

Here's a finished quilt! A table runner that someone is getting for Christmas. I am 99.999% sure whoever is going to get this under the tree does not read my blog or know it exists. My co-worker bought this (yes, paid real money to Little Old Me) for a Christmas gift. I hope the person likes it - just in case you are thinking, "ew, I hope Carol's co-worker isn't giving that ugly thing to me!" - I should tell you that the colors and quality are a little off in this picture. In real life it is MUCH prettier than it appears here. You know how it is ... when it comes to quilts, a picture is only worth 47 words.



I received my squares for the Spare Change swap. Aren't they fun? Already they have become another NESY (not even started yet) or PIG (project in grocery bag). This one actually is a PID (project in drawer). I have so many of all those things:
NESY
PIG
WIP (work in progress)
UFO (unfinished object)
Stash
half-baked ideas
and Scraps!!!!!!!!

If I live to be 109, I'll probably still have that many quilty things to finish. I hope my descendants like UFOs!

I'm thankful for...

Join Kelli and friends in celebrating Thanksgiving. She's even giving away some prizes!

I have been blessed with many things to be thankful for:

1) my husband. He is such a nice guy and loves me even though I'm half crazy. He is my best friend!

2) living in Minnesota. I love this state. It's beautiful and varied and has lots of lakes which I LOVE.

3) my job. I am so lucky to work for a city school system. I have learned so much from my students. I've had the opportunity to meet people from all over the world. I am honored when they share their life stories with me.

4) quilting. I love making quilts! It satisfies my creative urge and has led me to meeting very interesting people and making new friends.

Minneapolis Skyline

I found this at YouTube and just thought it was cool. Even though the view never changes, the view changes a lot! Watch and see what I mean. (click on the words YouTube, not the photo.)

Finally, a Quilty Post

Yes, I still make quilts! I was starting to wonder myself. This weekend I had NO obligations and used the time to get some sewing projects done, and others started. (There is no end to UFOs in this household.) I had a blast!

I think I may have shown you this pink/white/black crumbs quilt before. I really like how it turned out. This year I have concentrated on crumb blocks quite a bit, and still have quite a pile of them. I have made 13 crumb quilts this year! Along with the pink one, these are my most recent.





This is the back of the orange crumbs quilt. I got this fabric at a going-out-of-business sale. Isn't it adorable?




This novelty quilt is in a box to send to Betty for quilting.


I finished a red/white quilt! This one is going to a local 5-year-old boy who has leukemia. I'll give it to a woman in my guild, and she will deliver it. I still have some red/white blocks and will be able to make one more top. That will be a total of six tops from my recent red/white challenge. Thanks for your generosity, everyone!



Recently I bought a couple of UFOs at a local quilt shop that is going out of business (same sale I mentoned above, on the orange quilt backing fabric). These will be quilted and sent to Wrap Them in Love. The pink/blue one below was only $10!





Tonight's supper is cooking away in the crock pot and it smells SCRUMPTIOUS. It's a meal I got at Let's Dish. That place is a godsend for someone like me!