Charity Quilts

I belong to a quilting club and they require that I do a charity project each year. I just finished these two crib quilts. They are made of flannel. I collected flannel scraps from my daughter, Mary and from Sue, the wife of a fellow Lion, along with my own leftovers. I quilted it with Pearle cotton (yes, by hand). The quilts will go to abused women and children.

Baby Quilt

I finished the quilt for Avery Scout today. She is my great niece. She lives down in Orlando so the only reason she would need a quilt is to cover the floor or grass so she can lay on it. I used a different quilting pattern called twining vine and kissing leaves on the border. I did it in blue and pink in case their next child is a boy.

Night at the Academy

Last night I went to an Academy award party. It was lots of fun. Our hostess had televisions in three rooms and lots of food and wine. It was an all ladies party and we spent most of the time gabbing and only stopping when an award was presented. We had score sheets to record our guesses and the winner got a trophy. I made 9 correct guesses out of 24 awards which is surprising because I saw none of the movies. The winner had 16 correct guesses. We all oohed and aahed at the beautiful gowns and we all wished we could dress like that just once in our lives. However, we wouldn't look that good in the gowns anyway.

Needlework

Some people have said that I have ADD. I hyper focus. Whatever, when I start a project I usually finish it. (with the exception of a leisure suit I started for my first husband and it was turning out so badly I scrapped it.) Not only do I finish it , but I work on it every available minute. I make spread sheets to keep me on track. I have been working on Fish City. I am on a five year plan. There were 15 pages of directions and I do three a year. After completing the 13th page I decided I needed a break from Counted Cross stitch and did some pillowcases. I think the embroidered pillow cases look good with a quilt although I make people take them off of the bed when they sleep so they don't get used as much as the regular pillow cases. At any rate I always have a needle in my hand. It isn't that I am not interested in other things but ... I like to read but never in the daytime. I get all groggy like when I do.(Sort of like playing solitaire on the computer, but that doesn't stop me from doing that.) In the summer I like to garden and Hubby has stopped saying I always have a broom in my hand. What other hobbies are there? I won't do scrap booking.

EZ-Pass

We take the Ohio and Pennsylvania turnpikes an awful lot. We need to in order to visit four of our children. Last weekend we drove around the city of Chicago. That is when an EZ-Pass is really super. You don't even realize there is a toll booth. It used to be just the convenience of not having to find the correct change, but now it even pays. There is an annual fee but there is also a discount of the tolls. So if you use the toll way a lot EZ-Pass pays for itself and if you only use it occasionally it is still so much more convenient.

Fond Memories

Last night as I was snuggled in bed under my quilt with the blizzard wind blowing outside I was thinking about my friend Dorothy. We went to school together. She lived in a house that had been remodeled and added on to from a very small house. Her room was in the attic. The stairway came down the side of the kitchen and you had to crawl over the side to get on it. There was no heat upstairs but since the family had originally been from Germany, they had these wonderful feather beds. (Like sleeping under a giant pillow) She also had several cats who slept on top of the feather beds. Dorothy's room was decorated with horse statues.(was it Breyer or Beyer?) Dorothy's Mom was a fantastic cook and could make the best apple pies. Whenever I came over she would say "Eat, Margaret, Eat!" and I did.

My New Project

My brother, Michael and his wife will be married 40 years in June of 2013. Since Michael is an avid bird watcher I decided to make a special quilt for him. My idea was to make a tree and put many different kind of birds in it. I have plenty of time. I dyed the blue fabric to get the sky the right color. It would not have bothered me if it came out a little uneven after all the sky is, but it dyed really well. I got the tree pattern from the Master Gardener Tree Pruning Handbook and now I am busy appliqueing the tree to the top when that is done I will start on the birds.



Here is a picture of what I have done so far. Also there is a picture of my cat wall hanging.