A House and a Car

I don't know if my readers know this, but I used to post a daily photo blog. I move around the city quite a bit during my work day, so I started taking pictures during my travels. Using the idea of other bloggers, I posted a new photo every day. After doing that for a full year, posting over 365 pictures, I stopped doing it. Sometimes, however, I catch glimpses of events or places that I would have loved to post on my daily blog. The pictures I am showing you today are daily-photo-blog-wanna-be's.

The first is a tree house! Isn't that a great one?? The child in me just about jumped for joy when I saw this! I would have totally LOVED having this in my back yard!



The next photos show a scene I stumbled upon when I emerged from a grocery store. A car fire in the parking lot! It wasn't far from where I had parked. For a moment there, I had a bit of a scare.... but walked closer and realized it wasn't my own. That would have been weird! Can you imagine coming out of a store and finding your car in flames?





It's cold here this weekend. I plan to stay inside as much as possible. Be warm, everyone.

A Good Night's Sleep

We had a good night's sleep under our cozy, new quilt. I tried to get a photo that would show the quilting a little better. For some reason I'm just not capturing the light quite right. Darcie is going to post a photo at her blog, too. Maybe she'll be more successful at showing the quilting.

Now we're off to make our second attempt at sleeping under this quilt and see if it still works. Nighty-night!

A Strangely Appealing Day

I'll explain the title of this post in a bit.. first, my goodness what an odd (but strangely appealing) day it was! I started out having a FUN first couple of hours at work -- a success my student experienced, and it put a happy grin on my face for several hours.



Then I stopped at my post office box on my way to the next assignment... I received my Secret Santa gift!! Fun! They did not lose it! It is from Anita in Australia. (Hi, Anita... Thank you! Can you see me waving at you??)

Also at my post office I received a quilt from Darcie of the Mavericks ring! She did the machine quilting for me, and I LOVE it!! She suggested Baptist Fans, and I agreed and am so GLAD that I did, because it's perfect, and I *love* it.

OK. I was feeling rather strange today. I had run out of some meds I take (from forgetting to order and from procrastinating), then started feeling really weird and blecchhy. Today I finally got more meds and took one. I felt better almost right away, but still weirded-out for the rest of the day.

After work I had to haul in my two big packages, some Christmas shopping I had done, the mail, we got a big package at home, too (mail order Christmas stuff), and groceries (yes, we spoil ourselves and have groceries delivered). Uffda, that was a lot of stuff to haul in. And on top of feeling halfway weirded-out, and being eager to tear into my boxes and see the quilt (I picked it up at 11:00 a.m. and didn't get to open the box and gaze at the quilt until nearly 6:00 p.m. - can you imagine??) I was just exhausted from my strange day. After hauling everything in and stumbling into the living room, I opened up the quilt, flopped it on top of me and took a nap! It was so warm and cuddly right away! Some quilts are a bit stiff at first and take a while to break in. Not this one! It's great!







Anyway, here are the photos of the beautiful quilt. This is for our bed that we got ourselves for Christmas a year ago! Isn't the quilting great (although I know it's hard to see much detail)!? I worked on the border HSTs while at our guild retreat, and another member of my guild said about one of the fabrics, "I find this one strangely appealing." She wouldn't have chosen it for herself, but she liked the way it looked. I think I'm going to name this quilt "Strangely Appealing!" Because it is odd, in an appealing sort of way, and I like having strangely appealing names for my quilts. :-)

And my day was strangely appealing by having such a mixture of happy times and feeling weird and rushing around and having lots to do and not being able to open a quilt box until 7 hours after receiving it -- the whole thing was Strangely Appealing!

Now here is another story about my day. I have been very determined not to open my Secret Santa gift until Christmas! I even felt superior when other people expressed temptation when their packages arrived. "I won't," I thought very self-righteously, "because I know I'll want to have an extra surprise at Christmas as I already know most of what I am getting. It'll be fun to have an unknown under the tree, therefore I am far superior to all those others who are tempted and must ask husbands to hide their presents. Harumphfff."

I opened up the mail packaging, because I knew the insides would have Christmas wrapping on them. BUT THEN THE TERRIBLE THING HAPPENED! I saw that the mail handlers along the way had been squeezing and poking this package, wondering what was inside and wishing they could see it. In the process, they ripped the wrapping paper!!! I could see and touch the pinkish fabric! Look at it and tell me you would be able to stick this under the tree and calmly wait 15 days to open it up!!! NO, I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU! You would give in, and just help that little tear go further. I know you would, because that is what I did! Oh, my, it went way farther than I meant it to go! Oh! Ooops, the whole insides of the gift fell out of the wrapping!



Looky here, ladies and gents, I received this fantastic tote bag with the beautiful hand embroidery work on it! Two Aussie FQs, and some Aussie chocolate! WONDERFUL!! Thank you so much, Anita. I just love it and know I will use that bag. It's a good, big size that will be great for hauling Show and Tell to guild meetings, and lots of other uses, too. Hubby and I enjoyed some of the chocolate and might save some to share with our kids (wink wink... hmmm... they no longer live at home -- they won't know if we eat it before they get here ... what do you think are the chances??)



Well, what a day. After all that, it's already time for bed. I am going to put our lovely, new quilt on our bed so we can sleep under it tonight, even though it's not bound. (Hasn't stopped me before. Does it stop you??)

May you decide that a sort of OK but somewhat strange day ends up being Strangely Appealing!

Another Long Day with a Little Quilting Accomplished

The days should be long enough to get lots done. I just don't seem to be able to get it all together. I had a melt-down tonight when I was trying to make a DVD of some of my quilt pictures so I can be sure to have them saved somewhere other than directly on my computer. And I do enjoy making them into a "movie" that makes me feel like a star! The problem comes when I try to burn it and I just cannot understand the crazy verbage and directions these computer programs think you should understand. I had a near melt-down (or if you ask my hubby, it might have been a full one) from getting so frustrated. He saved the day for me and I now have a DVD of my quilts. But this whole frustrating process made it feel like a very long day!

Do you like those ads on TV, "Hi, I'm a Mac."(cool guy) "I'm a PC."(dork) I think those ads are so funny! I used to be a PC person all the way, but I think with time Macs have surpassed PCs in being much more user friendly in lots of ways. Like making DVDs, for example.



Anyway, I did manage to get this quilt top put together. It will be for Wrap a Smile when I finally get it done at an unknown future date.

As usual I have stayed up too late, and tomorrow, another work day, will be here all too soon. So off I go to beddy-bye (how do you spell that anyway)??

OH -- AND HOW COULD I FORGET??? Karen, the "I Said the Donkey" creator, sends along this comment: >>Karen thanks all your blogger friends for their uplifting comments. They are very encouraging and sweet.<<

I Said the Donkey, by Karen

I love this song! Do you know it? "I," said the donkey, shaggy and brown. "I carried his mother up hill and down. I carried his mother to Bethlehem town. I," said the donkey, shaggy and brown. Click here to read the verses and hear the tune.

My friend, Karen, is my high school pal... now we are both grown-ups and both quilters. It has been so much fun to re-connect and to have this hobby in common. Karen watched us taking Tonya's winter class and decided to try some letters on her own. She claimed she was struggling... also asked me what I thought she could do to represent this cute song about the donkey. I sent her a sketch that I came up with, but little did I know she was already creating her own beautiful quilt! I just love it, don't you?? She doesn't seem to be struggling an awful lot! She's just too humble, that's all

Karen doesn't have a blog, so I'm posting her work of art here. She said "no one knows me, so it'll be OK." ha! Karen reads this blog, so please post messages here about her quilt. She can read them and find out if we think her work is "OK" or not.

Finally Traveled the Ring

I have not visited all the Mavericks in the longest time. Last night I finally took the time to visit each blog. I just couldn't leave many messages, because (1) I'm in awe of all the talent the Mavericks possess, but I wanted to make it all the way through the ring, and writing messages to each and every Maverick would have taken too many hours, and (2) some of you are becoming so well-known, you already have piles of comments and don't need a goof-ball comment from me. But, I did enjoy the trip through the ring, and feel so inspired by all of you.


Several Mavs are doing Bonnie's mystery, including me. As everyone else has said, I need another project like I need another hole in my head, but who can resist a free Bonnie design? I may have to buy a little fabric to fill out what I've chosen from my stash, but that's OK. I have done pretty well using up my stash this year, either by putting it in quilts, or sharing it with scrap users in other ways. So I allow myself to buy fabric without feeling guilty about it.

Last night our son stopped by, unannounced, with his new girlfriend. We are always happy to see him! She seems very nice and I'm excited for them both. You know how fun it is when you can see that your child is happy, and so is the friend? They look at each other with sparkles in their eyes, which is a very good sign. I was so embarrassed, though, because our house is a total armpit right now. She saw it at its worst. But she seems very non-judgmental, which is great. I've been meaning to clean up all week, but I chose to sew and to work on our Christmas cards instead. We got our tree up last week... way early, for us. And we have wrapped gifts under it, which is also way early.

I finished my top made in Tonya's winter class. It is bound and labeled and hanging in our living room! I think I finished this one in record time. I tried posting it SIX times and each time it had these terrible extra colors. Most of them were so bad, you couldn't even see the quilt. I gave up and posted this one that only has the extra pink stripe on there. How annoying. Does anyone else ever get this problem? I can't figure out what is causing it.



It's pretty cold this weekend (below zero F. overnight), but I ventured out today to give blood and to finish up a little bit of Christmas shopping. I'm nearly done, just have a couple easy things left that I can do in no time at all. Have a great week, everyone!

Did You Send me a Package?

On Mon., Dec. 3, I received a note in my PO box stating that I had received a package (or "large envelope") on Saturday, Dec. 1st. Unfortunately, the clerk could not find my package. He knew who had written the package notice and asked him... that clerk also couldn't find it, although he did remember it coming in. He said it was about 12-15" square by about 2" deep (I got the numbers from guessing at the shape he indicated with his hands).

I have no idea what the package or envelope might be. It has not shown up, and no one seems to know where it is. As far as I know, I didn't order anything that would have arrived on Dec. 1st.

Does anyone know about this package? I'm taking a long shot and asking my blogger pals if you might have sent me something. If it wasn't a surprise gift that you can identify and duplicate, I hope it was some junk mail, because I don't think I'll ever lay eyes on the mystery package. I'm curious about it but am trying not to be too upset about it, as there is nothing I can do. I guess the one in a million package that gets lost has to belong to someone! This time it was me.

For Tonya

I made this for Tonya. What do you think happened to my R - it's so tiny!? Or is it the A that turned out so huge?? Oh, well. It is what it is. At least the colors are bright (brighter than they appear in this picture).

Wow, This is Fun.

I'm so excited to have space for posting again, I just can't stop! I wanted to show you that I did finish my Secret Santa project and got it all mailed off... oops! I can't show you. But look. You can see how it looks all wrapped up. It's flying off to.... I can't say where. A country outside of the USofA. You go east to get there. Although I suppose you could go west, too. It would just take longer to get there. I hope the airplane carrying the package went east!

Merry Christmas to all the Secret Santas! It was fun to play the game.

Second Snowfall

Looks like it'll definitely be a white Christmas! Today we got our second accumulating snowfall of the season, already (total in our driveway approx 8-9 inches so far.. some shoveled out, some not yet). I stepped out my front door and snapped this shot.. it's blurry, but it shows our snow. See the red Christmas lights? At first I had them on the low bush in the front.. but the snow weighed it down so much that the lights were on the ground, under several inches of snow. It made kind of a cool soft pinkish effect through the snow, but no one could see them unless peering right at them from inches away. So I pulled them out of the snow and tossed them onto this other bush. It's not the most artful display, but what the heck.. call it Liberated Lighting.

And now I shall attempt to answer Tracey's question about space for photos on Blogger. Not that I understand it totally, but this is what we figured out. (I had to have my computer geek husband sit by me and listen to my whole history and see what I was describing and hope that he could help me figure it all out.) Bottom line is, each picture uses up space. Once you post the picture, it takes a certain amount of space. At one time I had about 4 blogs going, including my St. Paul Daily Photo blog which used up a LOT of photo space (at least 365 photos in the year, plus extras that I posted at a secondary blog).

Once I realized I was running low on space, I completely deleted my Daily Photo blog as I was no longer posting there. However, Blogger has this all figured out. My photos still count against me. They are somewhere... on some obscure server somewhere, or floating around the earth in cyberspace or something, so they still count. Even though I deleted the blog, they are still in the permanent record of blogifications. Whatever.

We searched and monkeyed and tried to find the loophole, but there didn't appear to be any. So I gave in and bought more space. The original space that I used up was 1 GB. And remember, I had several blogs going and posted lots of pictures. This blog is coming up on two years old. So it does take a while to use up the 1 GB, especially if you have only one blog. It'll be a nice long while before you run out.

I bought the lowest amount of extra space which was $20 for 10 GB. That's $20/year. I enjoy blogging and posting, so I went for it. With that much space I can keep doing this for eons. Aren't you thrilled you'll get to keep reading my blatherings for a good, long time to come???

My Winter Top

I finished my top for Tonya's winter class. Here it is! I'll add a star above the manger (so technically it's not finished, I suppose).. and after quilting I will add some knitting needles reincarnated as drumsticks.

I finally gave in and bought more space so I could continue to post photos here. Hopefully it won't be an issue again for a long time.

Let it Snow!

I have been working on a project for Tonya's on-line winter class. I got my top put together, but might do some frog stitching and change a couple of things. If you want to see what people are working on, check out this blog (my assembled top isn't posted there yet):

http://lazygalwinter.blogspot.com/

I tried to post a photo and was told I had used up my allotted space, so now I have to figure out what that means.

My two+ week old cold is finally leaving, ever so slowly. I still cough a little but am feeling almost normal. Can't sing, though. Good thing I'm not scheduled to sing a solo.... in fact, that's always a good thing. I'm not a soloist!

Happy winter! (We're going to get snow overnight. Yippeee!)

Keep It Secret, Please

I am participating in this secret Christmas exchange. I would like to NOT see a picture of whatever is being sent to me. I plan to wait and open the gift on Christmas Day.

I'm making progress on the gift I'll be sending off... I think I'll work on it tonight, in fact. I hope the person I send it to will like it! (I will post a photo of it after Christmas.)

Yay! I'm Alive!

What a week! I was sick, took Tuesday off work, thought I was getting better, but Whammo! It came back at double the force and I was miserable from Thursday afternoon until Sunday morning.

Friday I decided to have the doctor check me out, in case I had something that could be treated with antibiotics. I was on my way to a quilt retreat and thought it would be good to get some meds, if I could. Couldn't, though. She said my lungs were clear and I just had a doozie of a cold. I apologize to the other retreat attenders... having to listen to me cough all weekend. I'm sure it wasn't pleasant for them.

The good news is, I feel loads better today (Sunday), and I'm home again which feels great, too. I'm alive again! I got a lot done at the retreat, so I'm glad I went. Remember my HSTs?? DONE! Attached to quilt! WooHoo, big celebration on my part! That one will soon be in the hands of a long-arm quilter and shortly after that will be on my bed!

Here are some more tops I got done or nearly done. Notice anything strange about this first one? You are right, it has a "broken right arm." I ran out of fabric I was using for the border and will have to figure out how to fix this little problem. These blocks, by the way, were all gifts to me over a couple of years. While I hosted an on-line block lotto, some of the participants sent me gift blocks along with their official entries. Wasn't that nice of them? So this quilt will definitely be one I keep for myself.


This blue one is also a result of a block lotto. I won these! Aren't they just beautiful? They make a nice wintery-looking quilt. I am contemplating adding a border to make it a little larger. Then... keep? Donate? Haven't decided.


This is my first-ever Irish Chain. I love it! This was made from fabrics I got free and promised myself I would donate this quilt. So once I get it bordered and quilted, off it will go to a child somewhere. And I do plan on making another Irish Chain at some point. They are fun to do and turn into something great almost by magic!



All of these were UFOs, sitting on my shelf for years, waiting to turn into these beautiful quilts. Why did I make them wait so long? Now I'm very excited to have them getting close to done. Like me, they finally feel alive. :-)

Ready for the Long Arm

I got this repaired so the pieces are right side up. I bought fabric for the borders and got them on the next day! That's a record for me! (I don't like borders and tend to procrastinate.) It's done and measures about 60" x 78".

I'm happy with my quilt top! The border isn't the fabric I was looking for, but I like the way it turned out. You maybe can't notice in this small picture, but I think the pink flowers in the border bring out the pink in the quilt nicely. Now I'm excited to get it quilted!

A UFO Almost Done!

Yesterday and today I worked on this UFO. I have had most of the orientals-fabric blocks for a couple of years. They are from a block swap thing we did in my guild. The smaller blocks were given to me by a friend 3 or 4 years ago. I made seven blocks to fill this out, added the sashings, and here it is, almost a completed top.

I did put some pieces together upside down. I want the lower right corner basket to be in that orientation, but the whole middle part is upside down, making a hummingbird and several flowers all upside down. So I want to fix what I sewed in the wrong direction. Also, I am going to find more of the dark blue (I hope) and make a final border all around. I think I have seen this fabric out in the stores, so I'm hoping I can get some today and finish this up in time to give it to my long arm quilter on Tuesday at guild.

Making progress on UFOs feels fantastic!

Thanks for the nice notes on my previous post about the table runner I wasn't happy with. Maybe you are right and someone will like it enough to bid on it. I'll finish the binding soon and give it to my guild.

I'm still working away on green/blue HSTs and need to give those a little more attention with the rest of my weekend.

Finally, I'm Sewing!

Hooray! It's Saturday! And I'm at home and have some sewing time. Last night I whipped up this table runner, and I quilted it this morning. (Binding not yet attached.)

It is not at all how I had pictured it, and I don't like how there is too much color and you can't even see the pattern that well. I'm going to make another one, with better color choices and contrasts. But I am wondering... does anyone like it this way? For example, if I put it in our small quilt auction at my guild's show, do you think anyone would bid on it?

I quilted boldy in white around the three middle quares to try to set them off. It helped.... a little.

It rained overnight and has that fall, rainy chill in the air today. Nice day to stay inside and sew. I hope to report more progress by the end of the weekend.

Look What I Did!

Just a couple of days ago I was shocked that November had already started. Today I wrapped some Christmas gifts! What got into me? I like to start my shopping early, but I usually don't wrap this early. I'll tell you what got into me. I was telling myself to do some house cleaning, and my other brain half would have nothing to do with that, so it found something fun to distract myself with. That is the truth!

I did manage to do a couple loads of laundry, so now I need to fold the clothes and get to bed. As usual, I have stayed up too late. Waaaah! I have a night owl body and an early morning job. Not fair!

It's November Already??

Hard to believe it's November! I lost a week or so while I was off taking care of my mother. She was very sick, but recovered wonderfully and is back in her home, feeling tons better. What a relief! It's hard to keep track of time and days while in the hospital... hard even to remember that the rest of the world keeps going about its business. Hence I have lost some days and find it hard to realize that it's November.

I did manage to visit briefly with my niece and her kids on Halloween night. Now that was a wild scene! Here's the youngest of my niece's children. She's 18 months old and a true "punkin." Sweet as can be!



Had a nice visit with Karen, too. Hi, K! Thanks for the tour of downtown. On my drive home today I stopped at Aunt Annie's (quilt shop) and forced myself to buy only three fabrics. I love that shop! I could easily have bought 15 fabrics if I had no self-imposed limits (guilt, budget, fear of debtor's prison, etc.)

We get an extra hour tonight, so maybe I'll go to bed early and take advantage of that hour for some extra sleep. Usually I stay up extra late and use the extra hour (and then some) for sewing, and then end up more tired than ever. In my old age I'm trying to be wiser. Nighty-night!

Just Checking In

I haven't been able to do any quilting, blogging, or photography, and I'm not in my usual routine this week. My mother was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday and has been quite ill. She is 86 and diabetic, so a serious illness can be truly serious. We were a little worried for a while, but she is doing much better and will be going home on Friday. I'll stay and help her get settled back into her home and then will get back to my own routine shortly after that. I'm glad for the happy ending to this story!

Loving the Extended Fall

It's really quite late for us to still have beautiful fall colors. I am loving it! Friday after work I stopped at this little lake and stayed quite a while, until the sun set. The water was like glass! There were some ducks swimming around at one point, but I didn't get good pictures of them. I enjoyed the ambiance, however.

I don't have quilt pictures to show you, but I AM working on my blue/green HSTs! And I bought more green/blue FQs to use in my HSTs.

Report on our recent church bazaar (I posted photos of some of the stuff I was donating to the bazaar).. I bought myself a pretty bracelet. Of my four table runners/toppers, only one sold. The baby quilt did not get any looks and only one comment, which was quite unusual ("babies can't have quilts any more"). The baby onesie thing I made got a few comments but did not sell. I have not had good luck over the last few years selling my quilty items, so I think it's just not the right crowd. Next year, I'll make stuff I want to keep or give to friends and charities, and everyone will be happier.

A Late Burst of Color

We had a very dry summer, then a very wet fall... not the best combination for making glorious fall colors. Finally in the last few days we've had cool nights and sunny days. That is perfect for the bursts of color, and suddenly they are everywhere. Here are some great autumn colors for you to enjoy:








I had more photos to show you, but I'm having that darn problem of pictures uploading in all the wrong colors (like a printer that is running out of ink). So this is all you get for tonight.

Happy Autumn!

Days Off = Sewing!

Last week I had two days off, so I took advantage of the time and got some sewing done... not as much as I had hoped, but nevertheless I am happy with how much I accomplished.

Here are some heartstrings blocks I made for the October project - pink for the middle string in honor of breast cancer month. These quilts will go to breast cancer patients.



Here's a little quilt I made kind of by accident. I wasn't so sure that I liked it until I got it quilted. Then it looked lots better!



I didn't make all four of these this week, but I made the two on the left... then photographed all four of them together. They will be put in my church bazaar this week, and I hope they all sell. I had intended to make more Christmasy runners/toppers, but realized that I have very little Christmas fabric. And guess what... I didn't remember that the purple runner and the fall colors runner are made of the same block until I saw them photographed side by side! Silly me!



Finally, I made this crumbs quilt sashed in PINK. It's quilted but I have no appropriate fabric for the binding. I'll need to go shopping, or do some deeper scrounging in my stash and hope there's a dark pink I overlooked.



And to anyone who is wondering, the answer is no... I have not made any more green/blue HSTs. But I intend to very soon!! Stay tuned.

Plodding Along

I have some quilty projects that just never seem to get done... I'm not even talking about the zillion-year old UFOs I have. I am making a pieced border for this quilt, and I keep procrastinating!! I finally made some of the border today. When playing with its placement, I changed my mind on the kind of border I'm going to do, so now I have to make twice as many HSTs as I had thought. Oh, man... this is the kind of thing that I am good at putting off for ages! This is what zillion-year-old UFOs are made of: almost done projects that just need one thing that I find too boring and monotonous to make. Hundreds of the same thing over and over. Uffda!

I am hoping to keep plodding along and get this thing DONE! It is going to be for our queen-size bed. I'm excited to see it turn into a real quilt.

Here is some of my HST-making progress while working at church this afternoon:



This is the border the HSTs will become. I really like it and hope I can stick to these HSTs long enough to get it done very soon.



Have a great week, everyone!

Trouble Posting Photos

Lately when I try to upload photos to Blogger, some of the pictures show up half washed out, sort of like a printer that is running out of ink. (Due to this problem I had to choose not to post some pictures that I wanted to show you in my previous message.) Has anyone else had this problem? Does anyone know how to fix it?

Quilts, My Niece, and Fall Colors

I managed to do a little sewing this weekend. The only thing I have to show for it is this paper pieced block. The other projects aren't ready to show you yet. (Hey, did you read Tonya's idea about a Class in a Box? Fun! She is so clever, isn't she??)



I also went to visit my niece. She used to live in another state, but now she's back home, about a 2-hour drive from my house. We had a fun visit. She is now a college professor. What an accomplished young woman! Fall colors at her work place are quite pretty. She said that once on her way to work she had to stop and wait for six deer to get out of the road. Isn't that kind of romantic?





There was a quilt show going on in her town, and we kind of "ran" through it. (On account of my hubby waiting outside in the ucky, hot, humid weather, I had promised not to spend too much time inside. Oh, and yes, you are correct, it wouldn't have killed him to go to the quilt show with us! But he doesn't really "get" quilts, so why bring a downer along??) One thing I noticed was that they had a good number of large quilts. Sometimes a show can seem almost too focused on small wall hangings and/or art quilts. This one had plenty of large ones, which I enjoyed seeing. I took a few photos. As you know, quilts always look so much better in person, but I hope you enjoy these few photos.












I have to tell you about this last quilt. Holy buckets! It is huge! My niece is tall (maybe 5'10") so you can see how tall the quilt is... and it must be 12 feet or more long! AND the kicker is.... the design? It is all made with TINY 1/2-inch squares! Even the solid blue background is all tiny 1/2-inch squares! I tried to take a close-up photo, but it turned out too blurry. I couldn't even conceive of designing such a quilt, much less attempting to make it!!! I wonder where this quilt will end up.. it needs a LARGE wall in some church to really show it off. My photo just does not do this quilt justice. Wish you all could see it in person!

Marjorie & Frances

Remember the book that Tracey sent me?

I read it this week and am convinced that Marjorie (the main character in the book) knew my grandmother, Frances. They lived in the same small town during the same time period, lived just a few blocks apart (from what I can surmise), went to the same church, and were both active in what was then called the Ladies' Aid. Here's a picture of my grandma, taken in 1962. We had just returned from a trip out to Washington state, and we brought Grandma a box of candy from there. That's what she is holding. She is standing in front of her little brown house. You know what happened to that house? They tore it down and put a parking lot there! Sad!



Now that I have figured out that Marjorie and Grandma knew each other, I wish I could ask them some questions! I maybe even SAW Marjorie, because I remember attending church sometimes with my grandma. It would be fun to let them know that their granddaughters crossed paths and enjoy the same hobby. (Ann, the author of the book, once spoke at my quilt guild, and I talked to her about the possibility that our grandmothers knew each other.)

Thanks for sharing this book with me, Tracey! I have decided that it is going to go on a little train ride of its own. Maybe some day you'll see what I mean.