A cold but sunny morning...

Good morning! The sun is shining and it look beautiful outside -- only 37 deg (F) however, so the sweats are on our bodies and the furnace is on at the house!

I just looked at my visitor location map -- I find it so interesting that people visit my blog from all around the world. Sometimes I try to picture where they live but it is difficult. That is why House Hunters International is one of my favorite shows. It is great to see how and where people live in other countries.

I remember many years ago when we were visiting in Mexico, at a lodge on the edge of the Canon del Cobre (Copper Canyon.) We met a family from the interior of Mexico and the young daughter, after hearing that we were from Texas, wanted me to tell her about our horses. You see, her vision of the US was a product of grade B western movies and she thought we all rode horses in Texas. She had also seen some of the OLD zombie movies (Grade C or D) and said she would be afraid to visit the US because she was afraid the zombies would get her.

I tried to tell her that we didn't all have horses in Texas -- that we drove cars to work just as her father (a doctor) did in Mexico. Nope, she had it firmly fixed in her mind that we all rode horses in Texas! (Hummm, this seems familiar -- perhaps I've blogged about this before. Oh, well.)
(Yep, I looked back and I blog-talked about House Hunters Int. in Jan of 09.)

After we visited Alaska we saw a town that is so buried in snow during the winter that the people live in large apartment buildings where the stores and schools are located inside the same building and the residents can travel from building to building via underground tunnels. Interesting.

How do you picture Texas, USA? How does your home differ from what you think about ours?

Thanksgiving Day 2010

Good morning to all in blogland! Happy Thanksgiving Day to all who celebrate this holiday and a wonderful day to all the rest! I know we have much to be thankful for as we are truly blessed in so many ways. I hope you all feel the same way. Take a minute to count your blessings!

My pies are made, watergate salad made, turkey will go in the oven soon. Company will start arriving about noon and our feast will be around 1:30 - 2:00 pm. We will have turkey, squash dressing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes with butter, watergate salad, and pumpkin pie. We decided not to have the traditional cornbread dressing and possibly no gravy. Sweetie has always stuffed the bird with his family recipe stuffing but will try something new this year. I'm sure it will be wonderful.

We are having very warm weather -- the high is supposed to be 85 (F)today. I know not all of you share our lovely temps -- my nephew has a foot of snow, my niece and brother-in-law have icicles on the grill -- but here on the gulf coast it is lovely and we have been running the a/c to keep the muggy air out of the house. Tomorrow will be another story, however, as the cold is on its way!

What are your plans for today?

Thought for today...

"I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:18 NIV)

Make up your mind to stay focused on the PRIZE. Greek athletes who won received a garland that eventually wilted. . . but, "You will receive the crown of glory that will never fade."
(1 Peter 5:4)

Isn't that worth running the race for?

New Thoughts

Cactus flowers -- just for fun!

Recently Sweetie and I were discussing our "retirement" during lunch. (Sweetie retired 7-1/2 months ago.) He said that his retirement wasn't happening exactly the way he had envisioned it. I asked what was missing. "Well," he said, "I thought I'd be playing golf sometimes and I haven't played at all. I also thought I might be exercising more, and I'm not doing that, either."

"True," I said, "what do you think is standing in your way?"

"Just myself, I guess," he said, "I'm just not doing it."

"Well, we have been out of town for several weeks and that has slowed us down somewhat." He agreed.

"I thought I'd be able to sew more," I added to the conversation, "...and I'm not doing it. And, worse of all, I have no one but myself to blame -- I'm just not doing it."

After this little conversation, I have decided to JUST DO IT! So, I disappear into the sewing room from time to time and I've starting cutting pieces for a new quilt. This one has been in the back of my mind for a while and I am happy to finally work on it. I'm using scraps left over from the quilt I made for my Mom about 3 years ago so it is not requiring a immediate outlay of money, always a nice thing.

I'm using a pattern called "Just Can't Cut It" which alternates large pieces with four patch blocks. The large pieces are from a fabric with a large floral design that really doesn't lend itself to being cut into small pieces. The four patch blocks are from the scraps that I used in Mom's quilt which can be viewed in my side-bar. Right now I'm cutting the 3.5 in blocks for the four-patch blocks. I'll cut the large (6.5 in) blocks last.

Do you ever have more than one project going at the same time? I have one quilt in the sandwiched and quilting stage and also the applique quilt I recently posted about, both from the quilting group. I also have three quilt tops in the partially cut stage and one top that has been pieced but the applique hasn't been started on it.

My good friend purchased a GO at the quilt show and I'm sure hoping that she has a block the size I need for the large quilt I'm making for my own personal use. It would be nice to just crank those many, many pieces out.

So, that's what is going on at my house -- what is happening at yours?

RE: post from November 1

On Nov. 1 I posted about one of the quilts that my group sent to Cambodia. I just received a picture of the young boy who received the quilt and who then spoke for the first time since he had arrived at the home. I wanted to share that photo with you.

A Change of Subject

I've been posting about the Quilt Show but now I want to share something that my quilting group is working on. Back when we first started we did shared activities -- if we made a quilt with ducks each of us made one or two squares and then we put the quilt together. (Sometimes we had some very funny looking ducks, too!) But, after a while, we ended up with each of us doing our own quilts all by ourselves.

I thought we needed to do some of the shared activities again and, in our group, if you have an idea you have a job. So, I found a quilt in a Fons and Porter magazine and I proposed it to the group. We had all learned to do the 'pineapple' square so we decided to use that square and then to applique the flowers in the center. I told everyone that they could choose their own fabric, either from our stash or from their own, and make their square. Then I would give them the applique pattern and they would put the applique on with black embroidery thread using the blanket stitch.

I'm sure that is what I said.

Oh, my, what a variety of squares! Different colors, different fabrics, and...different colored embroidery thread. But, this was to be done "their" way so that was ok. I even ended up doing one of my applique with colored thread, and I put some stitches in the center. (The original quilt had buttons in the center but since we make quilts for children we don't add embellishments like buttons.)

I've taken three pictures to show you just a sample of what we have done. Several of the squares are still out so I don't know how many have been done, but I do know that it will be a really interesting quilt when we get it finished!

Beautiful!

We saw many beautiful quilts made in Japan by Japanese quilters!

I thought the stitching detail on this one was really unusual. Can't imagine sitting and sewing all those little circles!

The colors in this quilt were just beautiful -- the pictures don't do it justice.

More Quilts...

Detail - nice hexies!

Flower Song

This beautiful quilt was done by an Australian quilter -- she is pictured here with her quilt.

I love irises so I especially liked it.

A Winner!

Loved this winning quilt! It was really well done -- lots and lots of attention to details. It was entitled Tea with Miss D. (hoping I remembered right.)

Enlarge the strawberry picture and look at how the design is all in the stitching -- not pieced, but stitched to resemble weaving and the cake, etc.

More from the quilt show

I liked this quilt -- a traditional nine-patch. I especially liked the way the squares were matched to form arrows. I think this took some planning, time and effort to create this effect.





This quilt showed many small pictures of watermelons - lots of watermelons - real photos of different melons printed on cloth and then sewn together with fabric that had a pattern of words and lines. It made a really interesting quilt.

This quilt was absolutely beautiful. The flowers are all embroidered. I don't know if it was done by hand or by machine but the whole effect was wonderful!

Cancer Angels

Today eight members of my quilting group (The King's Quilters) drove to Bellville, Texas, to meet the Cancer Angels. This group of older women (some in their 90's) meets every Wednesday to quilt and/or make craft items to benefit the American Cancer Society.

This Wed the ladies were working on a huge (104+ inches) double wedding ring quilt using a large quilting frame. A group of 12 or 14 ladies were sitting around the quilt/frame and were quilting by hand. They do beautiful work! (I didn't have a camera with me so I was unable to get pictures.)

I noticed that this double wedding ring quilt was being made in squares and then when the four squares were set together they made the complete double ring and block. Each square contained two rows of pieces sewn together like this () but on the diagonal. Every pattern I've ever seen before had a center that was one piece but this one was four squares that joined to make the center when sewn together. The way they were set reminded me of a fan quilt. Does this make sense? Around the outside was flowers and leaves appliqued in place.

This group also knits, crochets, and make dolls, ornaments, floral arrangements, aprons, (and many other items) all of which are sold with the proceeds going to cancer research. They make as much as $30,000 each year.

What an interesting group! We had a great outing.

This was a beautiful quilt -- made a great visual impact!

Guess what!

Something new is coming to Texas.

The Texas Quilt Museum will debut in the fall of 2011, during the 175th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of Texas. It will be the showpiece of a major celebration of Texas quilt art. The Houston International Quilt Festival will host bus tours to the Museum's grand opening.

The museum will be located in La Grange, Texas. This is just 1-1/2 hours from where I live so I am rather excited about it. I'll try to keep everyone up to date on the progress on getting it up and running.

Beautiful fall foliage in Arkansas.....
and beautiful fall foliage on a quilt!

Another winner

The Album quilts are not my favorites but this was beautiful. Lots and lots of tedious work went in to this to create all the applique.

In a special exhibit of album quilts I did see one that I just loved! Unfortunately, it was in an area where photography is forbidden so I didn't get to take a picture. It was different in that the "blocks" were different sizes and there was gold and cording included. It was awesome!

Stash still growing!

I didn't spend much money at the quilt show this year but I just couldn't resist a few pieces of fabric. These are what I added to my stash -- I have a purpose in mind for the yellow and the green but the fabric with the words and the measuring tape fabric are just for fun!

Special Techniques ....

This year I took time to look closely at the quilts to see just what made them so good. This quilt, viewed from a distance, looked like it might be a watercolor quilt. However, a closer look showed that the child's face was made with yoyo's.

Fancy, colorful stitching made this quilt special!

I don't think I would know where to begin to make a quilt like this one.

And the winner was...

The big winner was ....Sharon Schamber with her quilt named MYSTIQUE. I'm sorry that the picture of Sharon wasn't better but there was a huge crowd around her and I was lucky to get pictures at all!

As Promised...Quilt Show Pictures

This is Sarah McLaren showing her quilt. Sarah is a delightful person and we enjoyed getting to talk to her. She lives in British Columbia, Canada, but is originally from England. The village scene shows her home village in England. This little quilt/wall hanging won "Best of Show" in British Columbia.

I can't imagine living in a small village like the one shown.

Sarah can be reached at sarah.mclaren@shaw.ca

Quilt Show

First trip to the Quilt Show -- what fun! Some really beautiful quilts. Met some of the quilters -- one from Australia, one from Canada/England -- Interesting to talk to them.

It is my observation that the really outstanding quilts look that way not because of the piecing. The quilting -- the stitching -- is the secret of it all. Lots and lots of stitching! I know what I'm missing in my plain quilts!

Pat, went to the AccuQuilt booth to see the "baby." The young man who demonstrated it knows you!

Rain

It is raining in Katy! I think we got a slow rain most all night -- what a blessing -- we need all we can get right now. Weather is still doing the see-saw -- temps up and then down. Should be cool for the Quilt Show.

Thank You

Today was quilting day -- we got information about one of the child-sized quilts that we sent to Cambodia. The quilt was given to a child who NEVER speaks (the home had never heard him speak.) However, when he was given a quilt he said "Thank You!" Praise the Lord. Makes it all worthwhile.