Back from Somewhere

I have been in kind of an off and on fibromyalgia/arthritis adventures. Some new meds seem to be helping.
Right now I am working on two little doll quilts to enter in the Houston Quilt Festival. The requirement for an entry is that you have a bed for the quilt to be displayed on. You can enter up to ten quilts, I have been working on two little ones, different sizes, so I needed two little doll beds. My friend Michael, who is a master carpenter, made them for me. They were done today, I feel lucky because he is the busiest person in the universe. Now I just have to everything done by tomorrow morning so I can overnight a CD with pictures on it to the judges. I just have to make two little mattresses and pillows and then I can take some photos.
I bought a new memory card for my camera and then dropped my camera on a stone floor, that was the sudden death of that old friend. I have a new little camera so if I can figure it out I will post a couple pictures tomorrow.
I discovered Online Quilt Museum, a wonderful site headed up by a terrific quilter, Karen Griska. You should definitely take a peek, and be sure to look at Karen's quilt gallery. She is the author of a really fun book, Selvage Quilts, and has some amazing pictures of her selvage quilts .
Right. Back to work, the sewing studio is howling my name.....

Owlet

This is such a wonderful little adventure, do check it out...

Cheap Thrills in the night Sky

My son woke me at 2 a.m. to go sit on our balcony and watch the Perseiad meteor showers. A clear night, and a beautiful array of meteors. Usually it is foggy every time I haul myself out of bed in hopes of seeing this annual display so I really appreciated the chance to see the sky at its best.
Here's a sort of lousy picture of my entry in this year's Hoffman fabric challenge. I just learned my quilt is in good company with many other that will tour the country in trunk shows for a year. A nice surprise...
We got fresh wild blueberries today, they are such delicious morsels. All in all, a lovely day.

My latest sewing room adventure

Just because I have four unfinished projects in hand doesn't mean i can't start another one, I decided I'd like to try some pineapple blocks, haven't made any of those for many years. Hector decided he's the quality control officer so he settled in to see how well the blocks were made, and of course since they weren't connected so he was quite disappointed.
The weather keeps jumping around, confusing my bones and making me even more grouchy, I am so tired of winter, and though i know spring is creeping its way towards us, I would appreciate a bit more speed on this front. i did notice my columbines and lungwort have sent out little green bits and the daffodils and the narcissus are coming up, but in general the landscape is brown, One of my favorite colors when it comes to quilting, but I would like a huge extravaganza of GREEN now.
A neighbor's blueberry field was covered with robins yesterday, I'm always happy to see them put in an appearance.

Busy as i can be

Well, I'm not all that busy, but I am trying, I've been sewing up a storm, have four unfinished things I am quilting and so of course, I started another one. When I can't sleep at night i sew for a bit and the last couple of nights I've been working on some pineapple blocks, they are coming out a bit wonky, but i am enjoying the process of sewing, using the seam ripper and resewing. I have created quite a mess around my sewing table again. i always roll up my leftover log cabin strips into big rolls of light or dark one and a quarter inch strips. I try not to trash them right away, but I just start unrolling like mad when I am piecing things and it is a real nest of trouble at the moment. The cats are enjoying it, they love to come supervise when I am sewing.
My yard is covered with big drifts of snow drops, and now the crocus and the siberian squill are appearing as well. The blue of the scilla is just such an exquisite color, and i noticed some perennials coming up too, lungwort and columbine mostly. I have to get out there with a rake and remove the big piles of dirt the snow plow guy made, covering up one of my flowerbeds. We had torrential rain for a couple of days, transforming my driveway into a bit of a mud pit, but it was lovely today, sunny and breezy. Spring is definitely approaching, it did snow for about an hour yesterday, but just those big fluffy flakes that disappear almost instantly....

It's official, it is Hanging Season, aka The F Month

Yessiree, Hanging Season is in full swing. It has been so cold my brain refuses to function sometimes. I have started a small quilt for the Hoffman challenge and when my fingers and brain cooperate I work on that. It is nice to have a small piece to work on. I finished a mini quilt for January, and eventually I will take a picture of that, two friends and I have decided to make one quilt a month this year, and we'll swap one or two, that should be fun.
The picture of the cats is just like my backup heating source, so I couldn't resist passing it along.
In the sumer, the frequent complaint is:it's not the heat, it's the humidity, but this winter I am screaming:It's not the arctic cold, it's the fRIgging wind! My house sits up on a little knoll, so the wind makes some noise when it whips around the back. And since my storm windows keep falling off, we get gale force winds in the downstairs bathroom and the bedrooms upstairs.
The key to being able to drag yourself out of bed this winter is to layer as many items of clothing as possible, And wool blankets, thank heaven for junkstores, I have gotten some wonderful old blankets this year. Well, I'll stop this blather and get back to today's excitement : LAUNDRY

Making Progress. sort of

I have been doing some applique and embroidery on my quilt top that I will probably label Winter Flowers. It is starting to look pretty good to me, just a bit more and then I'll be ready to quilt it. The little eagle quilt was fun to do, I based the eagle on a picture of an old quilt in Sandi Fox's Small Endearments, a wonderful quilt book with lots of children's and doll quilts in it. It is about 16 inches square so I managed to finish it. Cheap thrills.
Two friends and I have decided to make one mini quilt a month for 2010. Then at some point we will exchange one quilt with each other. I'[m almost done with my January quilt, a tiny scrap quilt with a little vine border. I find hand sewing very therapeutic, especially in winter.
I fell down a couple days before Christmas and snapped a rib, well that was quite uncomfortable and I was finally feeling better and then the day before yesterday I fell and smashed my ribs on my left side. I'm going to have to be more cautious I guess. People have suggested a thick layer of bubble wrap;, which is starting to sound like a brilliant idea. Oh well.
We've had incredibly cold weather, my driveway turned into a luge run, but now it is warming up so I hope some of the ice will disappear. My car wouldn't start in the really low temps, but it is still crawling around today, so i'll try to be grateful for that....