Quilting Bee Swap - January

I joined the 2010 Quilting Bee - one block per month swap on the Quilters' Message Board. The concept is pretty neat - I pick a theme for the whole year, but each month a different person makes me a block with my theme. I then get 12 different partners for whom I make a block with each one's chosen theme. My partner for January - and we've already sent and received - was Mary. Her chosen theme was snowmen/women, so I paper-pieced her one of each for her block.




My theme for the year is the out-of-doors (mountains, desert, etc.) so Mary did me a moon over mountain block. Isn't it pretty? Thanks, Mary!

Happy Birthday, John Denver!

He would have been 66 today.

Christmas 1973

My senior year of high school. I'm the one in the middle with the cool shag haircut. Eileen was a sophomore, and Toi Lynn was in the 4th grade. I was reading "The Night Before Christmas," a Floyd family and then a Holman family tradition for Christmas Eve.




I was so proud of this brown corduroy pantsuit! Brown and pink - great colors for 1973!

Ten in 10 - I'm Taking the Challenge

After choosing to just skim past the posts about this on recipe girl's blog, I slapped myself upside my head and realized that I really need to do this.

My goals:

1. Lower my blood sugar.
2. Lose a little weight.
3. Eat and cook "healthy" - which for me, means low carb.

I'm going to have to make Kenny and Don finish the holiday treats, right? Well, I know they were good.

If you're interested in joining in, go HERE.

November STUD swap

This adorable little mini was from Kimmie, my partner for the November swap on STUD.




Included in the package were some post-it notes, chocolate, and some green rick-rack (which I forgot to put in the picture).


This is what I sent to Kimmie - it's Donna's Block by Carol Doak - all paper-pieced.

At least I remembered to put a border on it. Have you ever gotten into a series of mistakes - like forgetting to put borders on your minis before you quilted them? I did 5 in a row - finished the block, then made the sandwich, then quilted it, and THEN realized that it would really look a whole lot better with a border. I think that I've done it enough times now that I won't forget any more. But now I have 5 little unbordered minis that would make great potholders!

Paper-pieced bookmarks

America the Beautiful - finished quilt

I finished the binding on this last week, and got it mailed off to _?_ for Christmas. (I'll put their names in after Christmas!)

Why I didn't go to work this morning

This is what happens when a) it snows all day; b) it rains for an hour; c) the temps go down to 15˚ during the night; d) two inches of ice are created under the snow; and e) the snowplow scrapes off the snow.

We watched the gal up the street try to get down - she slid all the way. She couldn't stop at the bottom, where our road hits the main road through town, and slid all the way across into the garage on the other side. Our neighbor Tom C has a small bulldozer - he put the chains on it, and then tried to get going. He got no traction, even with a bulldozer, and gave up.






We put heavy plastic sheeting over the bedroom windows with duct tape - even our heavy duty thermal curtains couldn't keep out the cold.



Don worked for two hours to clear the berm from behind my Jeep - so that later, if the cinder truck makes it up our street, I can try to get down. I need to go to the school board meeting tonight. But first, it will take an hour to scrape the thick layer of ice off the Jeep - I'm going to have to try to break it just to get the door open to get in.

This is southern California, believe it or not!

More Handmade Ornaments

These three little ornaments are also paper-pieced, and the patterns are from the same old Quiltmaker magazine as the Santa in the previous post. I plan to make more of these as they'll make wonderful gifts.

This little stocking is 3 inches tall.


This little one is only 3 1/2 inches tall - see those teeny weeny triangles?






The tree is about 4 inches tall.

Ornament Swap

I signed up for the Handmade Christmas Ornament Swap hosted by Robyn on Daisy Quilts. My partner was Cheryl, who sent me a cute tree made with felt. She said it was the first time she'd done something in felt - she did fabulous job, don't you think? She has a great blog, The Stitchin' Chicken - and does wonderful work!




This is the little Santa I paper-pieced for her. The pattern was from a very old Quiltmaker magazine. I used a teeny gold jingle bell for the pompom on his hat, and a scrapbooking brad for his belt buckle.

I signed up fr