Is it STILL winter????

Just a quick post of the fall/winter quilt on my office wall - hopefully he will come down soon and Easter will go up!!

I am going to HE _ _ !!!

If the road to perdition is paved with good intentions then this blog is definitely proof of where I am going.

I find nothing more annoying than finding a really interesting blogspot and then finding it has not been updated in ages!! and here I am guilty of the same - though I hesitate to infer my blogspot is anything more than a place to share my life and loves with family and friends.

Life has been incredibly busy aka stressful lately. Work is a rush and home and community just doesn't let up. Mark and I kept thinking it would quiet down after the holidays but it's just not happening! We are already planning what Lions conventions we will be attending this year, (I think we're limiting it to one night at District and two days at State but commuting from home for a change)then we want to fly out to Texas to see Thomas run a track meet, then back out to DFW the end of May for his graduation, so right now we are in the deciding on college and how to pay for it phase, Stephen is in college and on track, but he needs a part-time job since he has a GF that likes to eat but doesn't cook, and then there's the Legion activities - Spring Brunch, barbecue at North Chicago, Bags Tourney, Fish Fries, Steak Fry at the VA, and Lion's meeting and events like Senior picnic, Casino Night, Rose Festival, Taste of Roselle, on and on....

I've been to Boston again this month for work, just two days, but it was on warm days, so I got to enjoy a brisk walk along the river one night and a great seafood dinner at Legal Seafood in Cambridge.

My old mini-van finally bit the dust this weekend, the transmission went just 2.5 years after having a rebuild put in and just two weeks after another pricey repair to the transmission that in retrospect was not the problem after all!! So I got a new car this weekend - straight off the dealers lot a 2009 Hyundai Sonata Limited. It is beautiful!! Hyundai put in some new fuel efficiencies so hopefully it will perform better than our 2003 Sonata on gas. The 2009 is ranked higher than the Camry and Accord across the board, maintenance, fuel, size and features. I am loving the satellite radio, getting to listen to music from the BBC, and the steering wheel controls are fun! I have to stop looking at the odometer though I drive at least 60 miles a day so the miles are going on quickly!

I have been sewing but not finishing anything! I'll have to get a quilt done for my SIL for her new color scheme for her birthday this weekend, and I have one waiting to be quilted for my brother's living room, and this weekend I located the black batting to finally finish the Celtic quilt for Stephen. I'll try to get pictures as I finish them!

I did sign up for the Annual Scraps to Treasures challenge (picture of last entry below) so I will be pulling fabric from stash for that challenge soon though the quilt is not 'due' until September.

Raffle tickets are on sale for the Crayola Quilts - there were so many quilts and ticket sales have been slow so the odds are good of winning! Tickets will be on sale until end of June, so let me know if you are interested I can send you the link to the whole gallery of quilts that will be raffled.

That's it for today! More soon!

RMHC Crayola quilt

There is an annual challenge on the HGTV quilt BB that challenges the quilters to try something new and results in the donation of quilts or wallhangings to be raffled for the benefit of Ronald McDonald House Charities. This year the recipient house is in Dallas. They are building a new wing and our fund-raising will go to that project. The challenge part for the quilters this year is that we were given three Crayola colors picked at random by the host's DH and those were the only colors we were to use in the quilt. You could go up and down the range of the color but not out of it. So I took the three crayons and colored on white paper, hard, medium, and soft and took that paper to the fabric shop. I made a traditional Amish block, which usually has one solid black half and the other half in colored stripes, but laid it out in a non-traditional setting to create the kaleidoscope effect in the centers and the burgundy star. It is a twin size quilt with the center quilted in burgundy thread in a simple meander and the outer border in a pale blue thread on top and burgundy on the back. I really enjoyed making this quilt and plan to make another larger one.

Vacation is over!

Well - back at work - in the snow - seems very anticlimactic after 8 days in Seattle!

The trip was great - we went to lots of cool places, Downtown Seattle of course with Pike's Market, Undercover Quilts, Ivar's seafood, Ye Olde Curiosity Shop and the underground tour. Another day we went to the Expereince Music Project and the Sci-Fi Museum - many thanks Paul Allen!! - and really enjoyed those venues, took the monorail into town and ate some great Thai food.

We also visited Snoqualmie Falls, and Roslyn the town made famous in "Northern Exposure" the TV series. It's a very old coal town, all the buildings look like a western town, very cool - they also had a new quilt shop in town "Crazy Quilts' with wonderful,inspirational quilts and many fabric collections including batiks! I did not pocket any coal from the display to put in someone's stocking this year!

Another day we drove (and drove and drove) over to the Olympic Peninsula, taking the van on a ferry from Edmunds WA to Kingston WA to go to the town of Forks, which was the town Bella and Edward live in from the book/movie Twilight. Twilight (the movie) just opened two or three weeks ago so the town is ready for the marketing of twilight merchandise - and it was interesting! We went into the little corner drug store and I discovered they have a wonderful fabric department featuring many quilting lines, moda, etc.. at good prices! I was able to get a piece from the Jim Shore Noah's Ark collection that the Roslyn store was sold out of - and I found an incredible piece for my brother's quilt that I can't tell about yet! (just in case he visits this site!)

I was able to use my new/old sewing machine the last day I was there to sew privacy panels for my brother's french doors to the den, but that was about it! We were on the go or hanging out the rest of the time.

I did go Black Friday shopping about 1 am at the local outlet mall with my SIL Sharon and scooped some good deals for me - no christmas gifts! Oh Well!

We had turkey at my SIL's home on Mercer Island and really enjoyed having everyone together - not to mention all the good food and desserts!

The weather was about 20 degrees warmer than at home so it was a nice change, and of course landing in snow after midnight was not fun - so we are ready to go back at any time!

That's all for today - but I am on Facebook last now - if you'd like to be my friend there please send an invite to Toby Bobbitt! Ciao!!!!!

No picture today

Just an update as I get ready to leave on vacation. At long last our trip to Seattle starts in just 38 more hours. I am very excited to go out and spend some time with my brother and behave like a tourist in Seattle and the area. Not to mention we had snowflakes this morning as I came in to work and it's about 20 degrees warmer in Seattle this week!

I have been working on several sewing projects but not making a lot of headway. I am taking out a homespun quilt for my brother's new house and will have to get pictures of it somewhere along the way, right now it's in a suitcase! I purchased a vintage sewing machine in an oak desk (yeah Craigslist!!) and had it delivered to my brother's house so I am taking out a huge suitcase full of home dec fabrics to do some window treatments and other stuff while I am out there! I sure do hope he likes what I'm bringing!

My quilt for the Ronald McDonald House Crayola challenge is sandwiched and just waiting quilting when I get back from Seattle. I love this quilt and can't wait to share it with you! The colors are so unique and not what one would choose but that was the challenge!!

This past weekend I had the absolute joyous experience of dinner with a childhood friend who was in town for a conference. We had not seen each other in 30+ years, so a lot of catching up - but it seemed like the years just melted away. I am really looking forward to staying in touch and getting together in the future. I should have a high school reunion in 2 more years - maybe then we can make it happen again!

Well that's about all the news. Work is great -busy at year end - but I do thrive on that so I am happy and the family is all well so what more could I ask for? Stephen will be joining us in Seattle for Thanksgiving and Thomas will be flying to NC to participate in a regional cross country run, which he is hoping will get him noticed for some collegiate scholarships.

As soon as we return from Seattle the Christmas season will be upon us with decorating and gifting and entertaining in addition to the work we do through Lions Club and American Legion. Someday our lives will calm down, we hope.

Hope you have a wonderful warm safe holiday and I'll be back!!

2008 Scrap Challenge

The Scraps to Treasures challenge is over for 2008 so I can finally post my quilt. This is an annual challenge that quilters sign up to participate in on the HGTV bulletin board. As many quilters as sign up is how many quilts get donated back to community organization or individuals. This year it was 54 - so quite an impact. Every quilter must send in 2 6" squares of fabric for every participant. Then depending on your previous year's performance you can also be allotted additional fabrics to add in. Each quilter makes their quilt, sends in pictures, then waits!

My quilt this year was donated once again to be raffled to benefit the activities of the American Legion. I called it "Loose Change" . The shape of the blocks are called 'coins' and loose change is what the legion membres collect at various times of the year for fundraising, through Poppy Days if you are in the Auxiliary or GTTYWG (Gifts to the Yanks that Gave) if you are a legion member.

So here's my quilt - it measured about 75 " square - so it was large enough for a double bed. It is backed in a tiny all over flag print. Sorry for the fuzzy pic - it was taken with the phone!

Enjoy! Now home to start the Crayola quilt for Ronald McDonald House Charities!!

Another oldie that I loved

I write this title and am not sure if I am referring to the quilt picture or the person I gave it to many years ago.

I found the cat fabric made by Red Rooster and outer border by Moda in a small shop in Phoenix AZ when I was out there working one summer. The antique stuffed cats reminded me of the mother of a friend of mine when I was a child. Pauline had a wonderful house filled with antiques and collectibles and one of the things she collected was stuffed tabby cats made from fabric panels. I don't know when the panels were originally printed, but they were reprinted in... I believe the 60's. Anyway, Pauline would find the cats at sales, then people would bring her cats they found at sales and she ended up with many many stuffed tabby cats. About 7 years ago I went back to my hometown in Western New York, reunited with Laurie my childhood friend and when we went to visit Pauline she had all the cats lined up on the stairs to the second floor of her house (now unused). They were looking like they had all been coming downstairs and stopped for a short sit and then you walked in!

So when I saw this fabric I had to buy it and make Pauline a quilt. I bought all there was of the cat panel and it was just enough to make this quilt. But once I got it made, I loved the quilt so much I searched for months on ebay until I found more of the cat fabric. The seller had a large quantity and was selling it whole piece. So I now have 9 yards of the cat fabric in my stash!

I mailed the quilt to Pauline that Christmas and do I have to tell you she loved it? I visited the following summer with my son Stephen, we road tripped the day after school ended from Illinois back to Western New York and of course visited with Pauline and saw the quilt spread over the couch in her home. We were there to shop the 100 mile yard sale and Pauline and Laurie and Stephen and I really did most of the miles! Well, don't you know Pauline gave me a couple of her stuffed cats to bring home. I was so touched. Seeing them justtakes me right back to being a kid.

Pauline passed away early this year. I regret I didn't get back again to see her. But she was a wonderful woman and mother, who never failed to make me feel as special and cared for as her own kids. Some day I'm going to have to make that other quilt for myself and put it on the bed with Pauline's cats and enjoy the many happy memories of my youth and Pauline.