Happy Birthday to Me!

Well I want to thank all my friends and especially my husband for making my Birthday a special day. One of my friends sent me a surprise gift to work, the delivery person was another friend from work. The surprise gift was Ghiradelli's dark chocolate squares with raspberries in the center. Very Very Very GOOD!!, some Linder raspberry truffles, and a Cold Stone Cookies & Cream ice cream cakes. Some of the other gifts I received were potpourri, a picture frame holder, a guardian angel pin, a pink rose, a CD of women’s' songs from church. I received a ton of email greetings with fun wishes included, many phone messages and calls.
A dear friend took me out to dinner on Wednesday evening and we had a delightful time visiting and sharing our thoughts and feelings.

Of course I made some of my own fun also, I wore my Birthday pins.


The funniest part was my sweet husband brought me flowers and a balloon. The balloon plays music, the song is How Sweet it is. My honey out did himself. We also went to Outback Steak House for dinner. I'm very full and content.

Snow on our Mountains

Tuesday night while driving to have dinner with Kierra & Will for dinner. I noticed there was snow on the mountains to the East of us. I did whip out my camera and took two pictures but they were very poor quality. So on Wednesday I took my camera to work and took pictures out of the 5th story window. It is a real treat for me to see the snow on the mountains. There wasn't a lot but I enjoyed it. See for your self!

I know for you folks who live in the land of lots of snow, don't think much of this but remember I'm in Mesa AZ.

Boy Have I Been Busy

Busy doing what I'm not sure. No I know. Besides sewing I prepared a talk for church over the last two weeks and gave it on Sunday. It went very well and my husband did a great job also, even if I didn't leave him enough time. I was tired after church and after dinner I just sat and watched a movie, PS I Love You and I cried through most of it. So I didn't do my usual Sunday Night update. I was too drained.

I did some sewing last week not my usual wild flurry of activity. I made six Square in a Square blocks. After seeing the demo the weekend before I just had to try it. I'm using some my stash. I think I'm just going to make a sampler of these blocks. I also sewed one more strip of wedges for my One Block Wonder but didn't add it to the other part.

I did some more quilting on my Mystery Quilt and marked the last row of blocks, so I'm ready to start making more feathers. They are improving but they still have a long way to go. See the bottom borders are starting to show.
Friday Night I started a new class from QuiltUniversity.Com, called Math for Quilters. I have already learned a few good pointers and I'm sure I will learn more. It has a good review of fractions, decimals, ration & proportion.

I went out to lunch with my friend Christina and started celebrating my Birthday which is on the 12th. Christina and I had a great visit, we went to Olive Garden, soup, bread sticks and salad, very good company & food.
Last night I took my two great nieces out for dinner, Amy & Heather. We have been going out to eat for our birthdays for about 7 years now. Amy's is in January, Heather's is the 5th of Feb & mine is the 12th. We had a grand time and they both talked about the previous times we went out to eat. I enjoy these two girls. I use to teach them how to quilt and they told me last night they both still have their quilts. I was so bummed when I got home I realized I forgot to get a picture of us all together. And I carried my camera around with me all day to do that. You can see pictures of this adorable girls on my webshots link on the right, look for sewing with Amy & Heather. Also my Thanksgiving slideshow has recent pictures of them.
I'm also reading These Is My Words by Nancy Turner, it is about an AZ women pioneer. Very interesting and the trials she had are hard. Talk about hard work every day, Indians and all kinds of stuff. I am enjoying the story.

Another Hit!

Friday night my work team from all over the valley had a get together in Phoenix. The crew from the East valley rode the new light rail down to the Spaghetti Factory, I'm in the East valley. We had dinner and a gift exchange. We did the exchange like a White Elephant. Two of the gifts I picked were stolen from me. The gift I brought was pasted over and past over. So it was the last gift to be taken. I had secret hopes of it being picked early and stolen lots of times. When Kris picked up the package she said, "There is nothing in here." Well here are a couple of pictures of Kris and the little wall hanging, she was so excited.

She told me she has it hanging on her cubical at work to add some color to the area. It makes me happen when people like my quilts. Kris was really thrilled to have the last gift, "it was the best", she said.

Here is a picture of the rest of my co-workers who went to the dinner. There are five who didn't attend. We work across the Phoenix area.

Sunday Quilting Upate, Part 2

After I was in bed last night I realized I had forgotten to report on my other quilting actives of the week. I did spend some time quilting on my Mystery Quilt that I started over New Years. Big mistake to not work on it for so long. I'm not sure what has gotten into my machine, but she would suddenly feel like she was running away from me. I still can't make great feathers, actually I think my feathers are ugly and I'm very glad they don't show any more than they do. It is a learning experience, so why do I expect a great looking results. I have also learned some more about my machine and working with it, so that is a good thing. I finished the bottom half of the top row of blocks and more of each side border. Of course since I had not watched my video since the New Years I did some of my side feathers in the wrong direction, but that's OK at least mine will be original.
I took a break from the Mystery quilt because I wanted to focus on the One Block Wonder. I'm teaching it as a class in Feb and I wanted to have it fresh in my mind. Plus the three parts are going to be curtains for my new bedroom window and french doors, so I want to get them done.
Saturday morning and part of the afternoon I went to the Phoenix Quilt, Sew & Craft Festival with one of my friends. We walked for hours and saw every quilting related booth. I quilted on every mid arm quilting set up there was. I hope to upgrade some day from my short arm. I even attended on lecture by Jody Barrows of Square in a Square. It sure is an interesting technique and she does amazing things with her ruler technique. She is also writing novels about her family history with quilt to go with the stories. The quilts are based on what her grandmothers & great grandmothers did make. She uses fictional people to tell the family stories. It was very interesting. I like to learn and see new things and the keeping of family histories is a great thing. I had purchased the ruler a couple of years ago but ran into issue so never really used it a lot. So I had her show me how to do it again and one of these days I might give it a try.
Well now it is time to get ready to go work.

Sunday Quilting Upate

Well only 2 people saw the misplaced half hexagons out of 7 votes. First I thought there was only two, then I saw a third one when I downloaded the pictures last Wednesday. Tonight as I started ripping I found two more for a total of five. So here is a picture with four of them out lined, so you can see them. Double click on the picture to enlarge it.


Here is a picture with them pined in their right place. Look for colored flower head pins.

So this evening I spent time riping them out and sewing them back together. I only have one seam left to do!! Then it will be time for borders. Here it is waiting for that last seam to be sewn. Maybe tomorrow or Tuesday.

My Lost Quilt

While checking the blogs I follow for new posting, I saw a very helpful one on Caron Mosey's Blog, her site is also on my side bar. She was writing about copyrighting quilts, than she added a link to the Lost Quilts website. I remembered I have a picture of my lost quilt on that site.
I do miss my quilt, especially when I see the one I still have that is similar. That's a funny thing, I don't miss quilts I give as gifts, I guess because I gave them a home, but this one I miss.
So since one great idea encourage another great idea. I decided to post a picture and a link to my lost quilt, see my side bar. Maybe it will find it's way home again. If not I hope it is happy where she is now living. Thanks Caron for giving me the idea.
I made the quilt as a class sample for Stain Glass paper piecing. The last time I remember having it was one of two times. That's bad isn't it. I can't remember the last time I really had it. Anyway I had it down at the shop where I teach and never got it back or I took it to a trunk show I did at Cactus Patchers meeting and lost it at the Tempe Adult center.