Awesome Day!

This is the view from my car window this morning on the way to church. Just breath-taking -- the photo doesn't do God's handiwork justice!

What an awesome day! From the rising of the sun to the setting of the same, may the Lord be praised!

I just love my church. We have a wonderful fellowship and a gifted pastor. Pastor Ron Hindt is teaching in the book of Revelation and today was in the first part of chapter 2 concerning Ephesus the loveless church who lost their first love. A powerful message that resulted in many lives changed including several coming to know the Savior. What a new beginning! Fresh like after the rain.


I took this photo of a bowl of cherries that I washed for breakfast. Don't know why, just thought they were pretty. Again, a reminder of our Creator and how He provides for us.

This afternoon was "my time" to get to chill out and work on a few projects. I tend to take a long time to get around to something....Son #1 had asked me to make him some pillows out of bandannas for his apartment as well as use a bandanna to patch a hole in his jeans and the jeans of his roommate ...well, just to prove how long it has taken for me to accomplish this feat I found movie tickets (and two dollars) in the pocket that was dated December 2008!


Ah, but finished is good and I know he'll be glad. Pixxie liked the pillows -- I like the design of the bandannas -- wouldn't that make a great whole cloth quilt design? Maybe in a few years!

Once that was complete I figured I had enough time still left in my afternoon to put borders on a quilt that I pieced back in January. For some reason blogger has rotated my photo, but I think you can tell....LOOK MA! TWO BORDERS ON AT ONCE!


And mitered! I love doing borders this way, it's so much faster to do two at once and to cut them the exact size needed -- a technique I learned from Winnie Flemming, a local teacher at Quakertown Quilts -- and my is it accurate! Just take a look.


I tend to have fullness in the middle, not the best piecer on the planet that's for sure. But if I'll measure and take averages before cutting out my border I don't end up with wavy borders. Makes it so much easier to quilt!!


So here's the pieced top, about 68 x 77. It's adapted from a Square in a Square pattern called Peddler's Choice. Maybe next weekend I can piece the back and prepare the binding then it can go into the "quilts in waiting" pile....might be a loooong while before that gets accomplished, but I can change my totals and reduce my UFO pile by one!

Yep, an awesome day and it's not over with yet -- looking forward to a beautiful sunset as I dine on the patio with my favorite fellow....

Yes We Need A Little Christmas - right this very minute!

That right! It's December. The time we celebrate the Lord's birth.

I'm usually not one to rush the season, I really like Thanksgiving and actually bemoan that they start Christmas music on or before Thanksgiving. But the day after, well, that's another tune!

Funny, I woke up singing "and we need a little Christmas" and that's the first song I heard when I finally did turn on the radio station the day after Thanksgiving (the same station that began playing Christmas music ON Thanksgiving - I boycotted them that day because I refuse to rush my Thanksgiving). Well, now that's its officially December I'm ready to begin the festivities!

Time to pull the boxes down from the attic and decorate!!

I started with the easiest room first - add a little festivities to the bathroom with a quilted table runner and a couple of my painted treasures from days gone by. Did I mention that I used to tole paint? Mid 80's to early 90's that was my hobby and my business, Sonshine Creations - perhaps you heard of me (yeah right!). My husband cut out the wooden items and I painted them. We even sold some items in Gatlinburg Tennessee back in the day before the imported crafts took over.. I don't have too many of my projects, most were given away, but I held on to the Christmas ones...oh the memories associated with Christmas!

The quilted table runner was made before I owned my own longarm - it was done on a rented machine. I call that my "tuition" into learning the longarm. Hate to think of what it cost me back then to rent by the hour -- oh well, just one more cause to rejoice that I have my own machine now! Just reminds me that God is the giver of good things!

Since the bathroom is shared by the two fellows in my life I decided not to do too much more, not everyone gets as enthusiastic about the decorations as I do (grin). Besides we all love the sea shells so its hard to move them out. There's stories behind the sea shells too, but I'll save those for another time since they don't have anything to do with Christmas.

Added a few items around the living room to make it bright - the teddy bear with the red pants was made by one of my great aunts, Aunt Effie. It was probably made around the time I was in high school as I have another one she gave me in my school colors. We won't mention that I've been out of high school 30 years this year (grin). My mom brought the teddy to me when she came to visit for Thanksgiving. I think he looks great mingled in with the Christmas decorations don't you?

By the way, Aunt Effie was the one who taught me how to embroidery and helped me a lot with my sewing. She was always making neat things for her church bazaar. I loved her crafts. If you look really close you can see on the bottom of the wall shelf a little red cloth clown. She made that for me when I was a child. I have a few other treasures from Aunt Effie, included a couple of her beautiful quilts. She was quite a lady! And I loved her too, not just her crafts.

I have also put out a few things in the kitchen in the way of decorations and preparation for my open house this weekend - but things aren't cleaned up enough to take photos (grin). My tree is up but doesn't have the ornaments on it yet - later tonight I'm hoping! So there will be photos and more stories to come in another post. After all, why rush the season!

What I have done is finished up a project that has been in the works for three Christmases. Well, it's not really finished yet, but finished enough....

See I have this place in my living room where I've hung a good size quilt that matched my curtains - problem is, I've changed curtains (grin) Yep! This weekend while my mom was here she helped me finish up my "new" curtains that have been in the works since summer (before Ike). Well, the wall quilt doesn't match these curtains -- I went from blue to gold tones...but there's a wall quilt in the works to replace this that DOES match the curtains, alas, it's still not finished -- it's my border quilt from my class this summer with Winnie Fleming...it needs two more borders and to be quilted (I've run out of Sundays - the rest of the year is spoken for)...so in the meantime I really have come to dislike the blue quilt on the wall...and with open house coming up....well, you see my predicament don't you?

And since I piece for myself on Sundays......and yesterday was Sunday....

Yep, you guessed it. I pulled out a Christmas quilt that I planned three years ago to take the place of the blue quilt each year around this time...problem is...it was still in blocks and needed 14 more 8 inch blocks to be pieced....add to this that my quarter inch isn't the same since I now have a different machine that the one I originally used....oh me...it's not the best pieced quilt in the world, but the fabrics do hold precious memories -- leftovers from the two other Christmas quilts I've managed to piece AND quilt through the years...well, I just had to finish it and cover up that blue quilt....

As I said, it's not really finished, it is suppose to have a top and bottom border but I'm hanging it up anyway! (it's pinned to the bluje quilt) Here's the cover from the book "Christmas Heart Light" by Susie M. Robbins, Peddlars of Danville. I purchased it at the Houston Festival 2006. You can see how the pieced border is suppose to look. I changed up the blocks, but that's what makes it uniquely mine right? Maybe by next year it will be finished and quilted.

In the meantime, it's time to go warm up some Thanksgiving leftovers -- hubby smoked a brisket that we have been enjoying all weekend (true confession, I did call out for a Domino's Pizza for lunch today) and I think this will be the final meal of "mustgoes." Perphaps we can get the empty boxes back in the attic and things straighten up to our new normal after dinner.

I think we've worn out the puppy...

Quilters are the Best People

Today was guild day - I belong to several, but the third Thursday is Mainland Morning in Texas City, which meets in the morning, and Island Quilters of Galveston which meets in the evening. So today was a very fun filled quilting day!

Our guest speaker tonight in Galveston was Winnie Fleming. Winnie is a "local gal" coming from Friendswood, just a hop, skip and a jump north on I45. Winnie has been quilting for 26-27 years, has been teaching probably 20+ years, is a pattern designer, author, and scrap exchange queen of the Bay Area Quilt Guild (which I'm also a member of). And she's just plain talented!

I had the privilege of taking a "Borders" class from Winnie this past summer, I can tell you from experience that she's a master precision peicer and a gifted teacher. I was really looking forward to her trunk show tonight! It's always an extra treat when the guest speakers are local and are not limited to baggage weight! I'm not sure exactly how many quilts Winnie shared tonight, but I do know I took over 50 photos!

Her talk was actually two-fold encompassing pieced borders and sharing about scrap exchanges.

A lot of her quilts were made from exchange blocks. She shared that these "exchanges" can be addicting. Winnie enjoys the challenge of coming up with a special setting that is unique to her quilt and stated that she loved seeing what everyone else did with the same blocks. In fact, the Bay Area Guild participates so faithfully to these scrap exchanges that there is even a special category in the quilt show to include these works of wonder.

Winnie also demonstrated how to take an element from the quilt body and incorporate it into a pieced border. She gave several examples of different types of borders, sawtooth, delectable mountains, flying geese, arrows, strips, etc. And she explained the "floater" border that was the math key to making things all fit together.

I think we were all amazed that the quilt above was from block exchanges. She certainly has a talent for taking different blocks and turning them into pieced borders that have so much interest and character. Personally I love scrap quilts and I am in awe of her talent for making things work!

This quilt is the basic pattern she teaches in her Borders Class -- the class had several sessions spread out with a couple of weeks in between so you had time for the "homework" We concentrated on 2 borders each session and learned the ins and outs of construction -- two of my "classmates" (Cristine and Judy) from this summer shared their work in progress. I hope to have mine finished by the spring Bay Area Quilt Show...by the way, did I mention that Winnie teaches this class each quarter at Quakertown Quilts in Friendswood.

All in all it was a most enjoyable evening. I truly believe that everyone was mesmerized by Winnie's talent displayed in her trunk show. She had something for everyone -- there was a churn dash scrappy 1930's quilt, a beautiful black, white and red round robin quilt she had made for her husband, quilts with bright fun funky fabrics, plaids and stars with tenny-tiny little 9 patches, wonderful feathered star medallion quilts, and on and on and on. I could have sat there all night!

I've always been impressed by Winnie's talent, her way of organizing (such as the scrap exchange for her guild), her beautiful patterns (she has authored several block of the month patterns for Quakertown Quilts), I've found her to be a wonderful teacher who really knew how to impart her wisdom to her students, and I think she's an all around great gal...but tonight, she was elevated even higher in my book of heroes -- at the conclusion of her trunk show she shared how she knew the gals from the island had been so harshly effected by Ike that she wanted to share a bit of encouragement by offering to each guild member, whether they lost things in the storm or not, a copy of her book Simple Blocks Make Sensational Quilts. I have to admit this random act of kindness brought tears to my eyes. Way to go Winnie ~ you are an unsung hero girlfriend. Thank you sooooo much for your book, and for autographing it too (grin)

Yep, quilters are the best people. And quilters have a way of making light the burden of others by their generosity and random acts of kindness. Pass it forward!