Update

I have no excuse.I can't believe it's been almost 3 weeks since my last blog posting. Would that I could claim extreme exhaustion from sewing quilts till my sewing machine blew up, or knitting till my fingers bled. Alas, I cannot make such a claim. I have been sewing and I have been knitting...but not enough to justify not blogging.

I recenly went to the Piecemakers Quilt Show in Springfield, Missouri. I used to belong to that guild but haven't been a member for a couple of years. Two of John's sisters still belong and they were involved in the Bed Turning event this year. I went to support them both (and I had leant them one of the antique quilts we inherited from their Aunt for the show). While I was there, I took advantage of my entry fee and toured most of the show. Mary, one of the sisters, had entered one of the Challenges the guild does each year. That particular Challenge was the Black and White and One Other Color Challenge. She chose to use slime green as her other color. I LOVE THAT QUILT! She won 3rd place!!! I'm so excited for her! Congrats, Mary!

Thanks for stopping by...I'll try to post sooner than 3 weeks next time.

Wednesday Wanderings

I usually go into work late on Wednesdays cause that's my day to work till closing. So I was watching Regis and Kelly...their main guest today was Shirley MacLaine. I've always admired her...she has always been a gutsy, talented woman. I don't necessarily agree with her version of the afterlife but she inspires me to do better and try more in this life. I have a friend who lives in New England who I've always felt close to. She is a bit older than me, very talented as an actress, singer, artist, quilter, and, dare I say, even as a woman. Watching Regis and Kelly today, and especially Shirley MacLaine, it suddenly dawned on me that Carole K. is my Shirley MacLaine! She's talented, artistic, loving, accepting, nurturing, bawdy, and womanly. She radiates life to everyone and everything around her. I love her laugh - it's deep and raucous and rumbles up from deep within her like a sound wave and encompasses everyone in its wake. One can't feel bad or unloved around Carole. Carole inspires me, especially in my quilting. I want to be Carole when I grow up! Miss you, Sarge!

I spent part of Sunday finishing some quilts that came back from the quilter a couple of weeks ago. Here is the first one: John's Retirement Quilt. John retired in January 2003 after 30 years in the Navy. At his ceremony, in New England in November 2002, we had a table set up with signature squares for folks to sign and wish him a good retirement or relay some anecdote from his career. I'd also sent many sqaures out to former shipmates and commanding officers and they'd gratiously sent them back with sentiments. Those squares languished in the UFO pile till recently. Now I can reveal them:


This is the entire quilt. The squares in the 3 corners are ones from me, our son and John, himself (I had him try out the instructions I wrote to go with the out of town squares...included it in his quilt as a laugh!). The bottom left corner has a patch that is the Navy emblem and says U.S. Navy - Retired. The border fabric is a Navy fabric I found...it measures about 56" across and 49" down. Will be hung in the great room so all can see it! And the next two pictures show how folks wrote their sentiments to John. I loved doing this quilt.


While I was living in Rhode Island, my bible study group from California wanted to come back for the Foliage season. Six of them flew out, I rented a van and took them all around New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island for a week. We each made a block (well, 7 of them - one for each of us) and exchanged them and we each were to make our own quilt to commemorate that tour. I called it the 2001 Cracked Pots Leaf Peepers Tour. I finally go around to putting mine together and that is one of the ones I finished this past weekend. Here it is!


This is the entire quilt, measuring 39" by 39". My block is the center one, depicting the logo for our tour. Since there were only 7 of us, that made it hard to set the blocks so I put some of them on point, and added 2 pictures taken during the tour. One is of the 7 of us, wearing our tour shirts backwards so you can see the logo. The other is taken at All-You-Can-Eat Lobster night at the Officer's Club. Those girls sure do love John...he's their hero!


Some of the girls forgot to sign their blocks and I have no idea who did them...Janet, Janet and Fran...let me know which block is yours so I can note it on the quilt. Dee, Dawn, and Kay, you all signed yours - good girls!!!

Next time, I'll tell you the story of the Cracked Pots....remind me if I forget! Till next time, thanks for stopping by.

Camelot Monday

Have you ever awakened one morning and had a clear concise vision of a project? One you just felt you MUST complete? That was Saturday morning. Here's what it turned out to be. The colors are much darker than I usually use (noted immediately by my DH when he saw it). I used a charm pack of victorian Christmas fabrics I had from a year or so ago. It went together without a single hitch - It must have been fate! I quilted it yesterday and put the binding on...it only needs the binding tacked and it's ready for the holidays - or maybe as a gift...or maybe just because.

No rain all weekend. YEAH! Rain predicted for tonight...I wonder if I've suddenly begun living in Camelot? Hmmm, off to explore.

Happy Monday! Thanks for stopping by.

Rainy Days and Wednesdays

Hurrican Gustav came ashore on Sunday or Monday (frankly, I've spent the weekend in the studio and have no idea of what's been going on in the world. Bad, Sally!) We are in the middle of the United States - get a map - we are in the middle! However, Gustav has sent a lot of his moisture to our area....this picture is of our back deck, looking west north west into our woods...steady rain, little wind. The woods are green, green, green...and the truck is clean, clean, clean as it sits parked out behind the library while I'm here at work. They say we might get somewhere between 5 and 11 inches of rain before this is all done. I say, bring it on! We need the rain and so far it's been gentle and plentiful.


Carson is a doll when he sits still. The problem being he rarely sits still. Golden retrievers are known for their "Everyday's a party and everyone's invited" attitidue. Carson lives up to the standard!!! He hates hot weather, though, and spends those really hot days lying spreadeagled on the tile floor...he's no dummy! Today must be a hot day to him...this is how I found him this morning before I left for work.

I spent the entire Labor Day weekend, plus my day off (yesterday) quilting. I finished 3 quilts and 2 of them are already at the quilter! My plan is to get another one done tomorrow and have that one and the other one from this past weekend ready for the quilter on Friday. I simply love marking UFO's off of my list. Since the list started on January 1st had 35 items on it, I'm seeing the list go done considerably this year. I plan on starting a couple of items for Christmas so the finishing of older UFO's will slow till after those are done. But, all-in-all, I'm proud of the progress so far.

Well, work calls! More later. Thanks for stopping by.

Come back, Time!

A blink...just one tiny blink...and it's been an entire week since I last blogged. I'm starting to sound like a cliche when I say, "Where has the time gone?". Summer is waning, autumn is knocking at the door, and soon, we'll be thinking of holiday trees and snowflakes. I'll admit, I've already started to think about gifts for the holidays.

I had the day off yesterday and John needed to use the truck since his car was in the shop. That left me without wheels. I usually spend my day off at the yarn shop, knitting and talking and thinking up more things to knit. Yesterday, however, I spent sewing. Yes, my dear Son - Mom quilted all day! I finished piecing a BOM from last year. The top is done, the binding is made, and all I need to do is make the backing and get it to the quilter...one more flimsy DONE! No, I don't have any pictures yet...you'll just have to wait till it's finally finished. I checked my database and I've completed 15 items this year - and only started 2...that's a net FINISHED count of 13 so far. I'd love to finish everything on the UFO list...in my dreams I am able to do that but I think it will take another year to get them done. I can't remember a time when I didn't have many, many, MANY UFO's. Maybe 2009 is the year!

Thanks for stopping by. More later.

Wednseday Randomness

I entered a program this summer called Summer of Socks 2008. It began on June 21st and goes till September 1st. No contest, per se. Just a way to track how many pairs of socks one can knit in a given span of time. Some folks are finished with pair #20.....yes, that's right, 20 - Twenty! I, on the other hand, have finished pair #4 - above. Sport weight yarn, size 3 needles, Spunky Eclectic yarn in Watermelon Fields colorway. A really fast knit.



Saturday I went with a friend to teach a workshop in Mountain Grove (the workshop was a total bust cause no one came...we packed up and left at 10:30 in the morning. ) This is the sunrise - the sun was soooo big! And it was foggy and overcast a bit so the sun shone thru and didn't blind you.



I participated in another fabric postcard swap this summer. There were a total of 10 of us. Here are the 9 postcards I received from the other swappers. Incredibly creative and artistic...fun to make and send and receive. Have plans for another one this fall....my favorite season of all time! In the past, I've used the embroidery machine for the fronts...this time I might just use a quilting technique...that will be a nice change.

Rainy and drizzly today...the dogs are in the laundry room while I'm at work...too wet for them to be outside. John will probably get home before I do...they will be so happy to see him, I'm sure.

Happy Wednesday...and thanks for stopping by.

Another Random Wednesday

Every spring, our son and his family come to Missouri to visit. And every time they visit, they plant beautiful flowers and bushes in the front garden. And every winter those same plantings die. Especially this past winter when we had those ice storms. So this spring when they came to visit, they did NOT plant anything in the front garden. John put tomato plants there instead. Imagine my surprise when I saw a lone vinca right there in the garden, shaded from the sun by those enormous tomato plants. And right in front of the tomato plants is the rock harvest...John has been trying to get most of the rocks out of this little patch so he can put topsoil down and plant a tree in front of the porch. They seem to re=grow overnight...

My dryer broke on Sunday night, before I was able to finish the laundry. Of course, I'd already washed the last 2 loads and they were just waiting to dry...John worked on it Sunday night and figured out that it blew a thermal fuse. I took those two loads to the laundromat on Monday after work. And John was able to get the fuse and repair the dryer last night. But in the meantime, while he was trying to figure out what was wrong, Gilligan staked his usual claim to anything that resembled a box or a container!

Yarn Smackdown 2008 started on Friday, the same day as the Olympics. I entered 3 events: The Advanced Sock, The Lace Bookmark, and a mystery event called Food Fight. Here is my advanced Sock becgun on Friday - my target lives in southern San Diego.

Next is my Lace Bookmark - pretty, huh? I've never done a bookmark and this one was a snap to knit. I mailed it off to my target in Georgia on Monday afternoon. And finally, the Food Fight entry. It was called Toast - yep, a 4 inch square of knitted fabric to represent toast and mailed to your target! Mine was a brown rye with a crocheted round of orange marmalade...mailed on Monday to my target in upstate New York. So far, I've not been killed by any of my assassins. I've just turned the heel on the sock and hope to at least get one done before I get killed and have to send the unfinished portion off to my assassin to finish.

Well, enough randomness for today. Have a wonderful week and thanks for dropping by.