January 12 Comments

Romona, the fairies are by Maria vanScharrenburg and you can see both of them at the following link on page 2 www.needleworkshoppe.com/lanarte . By the way, my friends are very down to earth and just plain wonderful people. I am so lucky to have them both in my life. For instance, my DH does not buy me a mother's day present because he says "I am not his mother", and my kids, up until recently never seemed to hold a job long enough to buy anybody any presents. So, several years ago Amy and Rob started buying me a mother's day present. Well, needless to say, that almost brought me to tears. I think the first year was a miniature rose bush that still blooms every year in my garden. That is just the kind of folks they are.
Judi A, your comment "you must be a wonderful friend to deserve such a lovely gift!", really touched me. I had never looked at it that way...I always thought what great friends they were to make that for me. I never thought of myself being a wonderful friend to deserve it. Thank you for that revelation and one doesn't diminish the other.

January 12 Photo

This is my best friend Amy and her hubby Rob. The picture above is my Christmas present from them and hubby is the one that stitched the picture. Isn't she just a beautiful fairy? I just love this picture and Rob does beautiful cross stitch. There is a companion piece to go with this one and I told him he would have to stitch that one too, since every cross stitcher has their own style. He just laughed. This is one of the nicest Christmas presents I have ever received and I can really appreciate all the time he had in stitching this for me.

Also, to everyone who says my quilt is "lookin good", a big THANK YOU.

January 11 Photo

I had a great relaxing day today. Even tho I had to babysit 2 of the grandkids they were quiet today and I watched movies all day and worked on my current project. I think in a post not long ago I talked about the cathedral window quilt I am working on. The top picture is "a block". It takes four 9-1/2" muslin squares to create that block alone. The second picture is just a close up and the bottom is all the blocks I have done so far. They aren't sewn together, I just placed them so you could get an idea of the overall look of the quilt. It takes a LOT of muslin to make one of any size at all. The muslin is all sewn by machine, but the inserts are set in by hand. I find it really relaxing when I am sitting watching TV. I am sure, just like most of you, I need to do something when I am sitting and watching TV or riding in the car etc. I hate to have idle hands. The first time I saw a cathedral window quilt was at a friends house, about 15 years ago. I think her grandmother had made it and I spent a lot of time looking at it trying to figure out how it was done. I never could figure it out, but went to the library to learn how to do it. At that time, I only found 1 reference to cathedral window quilts and some really brief instructions. I am not on any timetable with this thing, just work on it whenever and put it aside if I want to work on other things. Have a great week everyone, since tomorrow starts a new one.

January 10 Photo

Saturday, SNOW DAY!! The first picture is just to show you how much snow we got and I took it at 9pm so it is a bit dark. The next picture is my crazy neighbor who is outside grilling tonight, cold, snow, dark. He does this ALL WINTER LONG. I tell him he is crazy all the time. But, when I went over to take his picture, it really smelled good. He is grilling deer meat hamburgers. I have never eaten deer meat hamburgers and they smelled really really good. I kind of like how the camera picked up the snow flurries in the air. The next couple of pictures are of my son and 2 granddaughters who we took sled riding today. We had great fun even tho we weren't very good at steering the sled. Came home from that and DS made meatloaf and mashed potatoes for supper then we took the kids out for ice cream. Perfect day, time with family and good friends. What more can you ask for?

January 9 Photo

Today's pictures are some items I have picked up at garage sales and antique stores. The pic of the girl is pottery and I got her at a garage sale for a quarter I think. The hanger on the back is gone but otherwise she is perfect. There is something about her that I just love. She sits in my sewing room watching me work.

The quilt was found in an antique store and is just the quilt top and is done with just two different fabrics. It is completely hand sewn. I have visions of finishing it at some point. I really like the double pattern you see in it especially with just two fabrics and I do not piece circles. The piecing isn't perfect but it is pretty close. I wish it had had some other info or a signature, but it did not.

The braids I found in a box that I thought was a box of cards in an antique store. I opened the box and there was a note inside that it was found in an attic at an estate sale with the braids inside. Makes me think about the girl that had them cut off...who she was, how old she might have been when she cut them off. I plan to use them as hair on one of my dolls at some point.

I did not see any of my birds today, must not have been looking at the right time. But, I will keep trying.

P.S. The bird looks much better, even blurry, if you supersize the picture.

January 8 Photo A Day

Yes, I know this is not a great picture but I still like being able to see this bird just taking flight and how well you can see his wing. So his face is a bit blurry....maybe he is Amish and doesn't really like his face in a picture anyway. This pic came from me trying to get at least one good pic of one of the 4 cardinal mr and mrs I have at my feeder throughout the day. I got some decent pictures, but a red cardinal with a red barn birdfeeder behind him just doesn't really do it. Darn things would not go sit and pose somewhere with snow as their backdrop. This is day 2 of trying to catch their picture. Maybe tomorrow. I think cardinals mate for life and I love to sit and watch them in gloomy or snow laden winter because the males look so magnificent against that backdrop. The poor females are just kind of blah and it is fun to watch them because the male will eat and the female is sitting nearby in a tree or bush patiently waiting till he leaves, then she eats. Guess she hasn't heard about women's lib....course I think we bit off our nose to spite our face a bit on the women's lib thing. I mean, I don't have any desire to go off to war, I never really felt like I had to have a career even tho I did, I LIKE having my door opened for me and for hubby to do "man" things. (that loosely translates to anything I don't really want to do....lol) Like when I get hubby in the kitchen chopping up stuff he reminds me that being in the kitchen is "woman things" and I let him know that when you wield a knife like a chef, then it falls under "man things". Along with car washing and cleaning, trash, mowing......etc. Yes I am spoiled and I do not mind one bit, but I do appreciate him for it. Well, who would think a dumb conversation about birds would go here, but there you are. Till tomorrow........