Hope You're Sitting Down

Cuz....*drum roll*...I have a finish!  First one of the year, isn't that sad.  But I do like it.



Haven't named it yet, haven't drawn a pattern yet, but I'm glad it's done.  I love it.

See those clouds?  I tried and tried to find a mostly white with black fabric that I liked for the background for the poppy, and couldn't.  So I made my own.  I drew them on and embroidered them with one strand of black floss.  Love the effect, but it would have been faster to find fabric I liked.  *G*  And the binding fabric wasn't that dark - I got it all put on, decided it blended into the border too much, so colored it with a black fabric marker.  All because I'm lazy, and didn't want to do a new binding!  Necessity really is the mother of invention.

I'd love to make it with Japanese prints, too, and I also want to make a bigger one with more blocks and some liberated, asymmetrical borders.  We'll see.

Now I'm relaxing with Lucy, and reading blogs.  Feels SO GOOD to have a finish!

You may notice a new linky follower on my sidebar, apparently Google has decided if it ain't broke, they have to fix it and will be canceling Google Friend Connect.  At the end of the month!  A few folks have started using Linky Follower so I thought I would try it too.  Any blogs I follow using google, I'll be looking to see if they have this, so I can follow using linky follower as well - don't want to lose anyone during the transition!  Darn google anyway.

My oldest son, John, got into a car accident yesterday, he's ok but his car is not.  It's still drive-able, but he'll probably use my car tomorrow.  First he hit a deer, and now this.  That poor car of his used to be so pretty!  I'm just so thankful he's ok.

Billie from BillieBee's Blog gave me the Versatile Blogger award, thank you so much Billie, but since I already did that post I'm not going to do it again - she's a great blogger and a great friend, go say hi!

Nothing else new here, I may be a bit quiet this week, I'm going to make a supreme effort to find a job.  If anyone has any leads, let me know!  I hope you all have a wonderful week!

An Award And A Give-Away

A bright and beautiful good morning, everyone!  There's a gorgeous sun coming up over my trees, I hope the sun is shining in your part of the world too.  I have a couple of things to tell you about today.

First, my darling friend Midge is having a give-away.

She did the cutest post with her darling pup Freya, they went to a Donkey Sanctuary and brought home this sweet little donkey to give away.  I love Midge's blog, she lives in a 17th century cottage in England...BLISS...

And the award.  Jocelyn, at Happy Cottage Quilter gave me the Versatile Blogger Award!

Wasn't that sweet of her!!  Here are the rules....[copied and pasted from Jocelyn's blog, yes I'm lazy..]

Thank the blogger who gave you the award
Add the Award badge to your blog
Create a list of seven things about yourself
Pass the Award on to 15 other bloggers and let them know by commenting on their blog

Thank you Jocelyn!!!  Let's see if I can come up with seven things, yikes.  Seven?  About ME?  *yawn*

1.  I was named after a character on Peyton Place [a very old soap opera, the character was played by Mia Farrow].

2.  The first stick shift I ever drove was a semi.

3.  I hate Valentine's Day [is that sacrilege?]

4.  I would love to live in the country, but would probably die of starvation if I had to grow my own food.

5.  I've almost drowned eight times, still don't know how to swim.

6.  Before I started quilting, I read a book a day.

7.  The beach is my favorite place in the world.

Ok, that wasn't too bad....but now I have to pick 15 bloggers to give the award to!  This is the hard part.  Only 15?????

In no particular order, here we go.....if you don't accept tags or awards, please forgive me, I'm scanning your blogs to see but might miss it!  I'm also going to try to not do the same blogs as Jocelyn, lol!

Jenny of Elefantz

Caroll at Attic Window Quilt Shop

Cheryl at Polka Dots & Rick Rack

Karen at Log Cabin Quilter

Martha at Q Is For Quilter

Midge at Soggibottom

Wendy at Sugarlane Quilts

Cathy at Big Lake Quilter

Wendy at The Crafter's Apprentice

Debbie at WoolenSails

Michelle at The Raspberry Rabbits

Melody at The House On The Side Of The Hill

Dolores at True Blue Canadian

Terry at Terry's Treasures

Paulette at Sweet P Quilting and Creations

I must tell you, that was difficult.  I love every single one of you and if left up to me, every blog I read would go on that list.  There's a reason you're all in my reader!

Now I'd better get up from here and go sew something - hope you all have a wonderful day!!

Spread The Word, Share The Love

My dear friend Midge did a post on her blog that I simply have to share.  Her friend Judith, who lives in Crete, found two pups sitting by the side of the road, patiently waiting for their owners to return - they never did.  The dogs were abandoned.  Judith and her hubby took them home.    And then Judith found out the pups were about to become parents....

Judith has the most adorable pics on her blog.  Judith and her hubby already have a dog, Lucky, who they also rescued [what beautiful hearts they have] and are looking for forever homes for these pups.  Can you help?  One has already been adopted and will be going to Holland.  Spread the word and let's help these babies find someone to love them!  These pics are from Judith's blog, please help if you can.

UPDATE:  The puppies have all been adopted - now they're looking for forever homes for the mum and dad.  Let's get busy and see if we can find these darlings a good home!!

Settling In

Well, I think I've managed to settle down.  I'm back to work on a few projects, but not much to show today.  I did find an old project that I had promised would be a free download here, and forgotten about....



I had started hand-quilting it, with RAYON embroidery thread, what a mess that was.  And it was extremely difficult to see unless I was quilting in direct sunlight.  The thread tangled something awful.  I picked it up, decided to heck with it, and tore out the hand-quilting.  Then yesterday, I tried to quilt it by machine, which was also a disaster, so I tore THAT out, and started hand-quilting again.  This time, with cotton hand quilting thread.  That is going nicely, so as soon as I'm done, it will be a free download!  It's a very large table runner, but you can put the appliques closer if you like to make it smaller.  I just hope I can remember all I did with it to make the pattern.

Last night, we ordered new glasses from Zenni Optical.  Glasses start at $6.95!  The one thing you want your optometrist to do when you get an eye exam is to measure the pupil distance, as it can be difficult to do on your own.  They have a neat feature - you can upload a pic of yourself and try on glasses!  This is the pic I took of Sam for that purpose, I thought it turned out pretty nice - the one pic I have of him not making a face.



Just wish I had that nice hair.  *G*

A Give-Away!

One of my favorite designers,  Val Laird, is hosting a give-away for reaching 500 followers - if you aren't a follower yet, you'll want to be!  She's got the loveliest BOM going, and is just so talented and sweet....a truly lovely lady!

Just Settle Down!

Did you ever tell your kids that?  My boys were 2 years apart, and that was heard with great frequency around here.  Now I'm saying it to myself!

I'm having a lot of trouble settling down to a project lately.  I threw away two projects this morning!  Don't worry, I didn't waste a lot - they were small, but very deserving of their fate.  I worked on them both this morning, and ruined them!  ARGH!

This is another project I'm trying to work on, it's fighting me tooth and nail.  Just a sneak peek for now.



I cleaned my sewing room the other day, in the hopes I could get organized and find something to settle down with.  Boy, did I find things.  I have so many stitcheries started!  Trouble is, I put them away to work on something else, and forget I have them.  And with all the gorgeous BOM's out there right now, I want to start more!

Remember my friend Shirley's pillow she made?  She made two more little wallhangings of the same design.



She's putting me to shame.  I love those things.  January is gone, and I have not one finish!  Here's another pillow she made, a number of years ago.



See why she inspires me?

I think I'll go plug in Lucy, and pick up one of those stitchery projects I found before they take my quilting license away!

By the way - I'm still rising at 5am, still loving it, now if the rest of the family would just get up so I can turn on my sewing machine that early!