Will it ever get to be Spring?

I wore black to Church today to honor the newest snowstorm we have had. I noticed several other ladies did the same thing. One jokester went so far as to wear her black snowflake sweater. She claims it will be the last time we see it on her this year. Not sure I would go that far since where I live, it could very easily snow in July and she might have to wear it then. We were all hoping that the white stuff was gone for good this season and we could start thinking about our gardens. I am in charge of a gardening enrichment night on the 15th and the women are starting to think that we will have to use snowplows to just find our gardens this year! Of course we can't complain too much. We need the water the snow provides and it has been a good year for that. It's just sad that yesterday I was looking out this same window at my lawn. Today I see a good 3-4" of fresh snow.

The Ongoing Dilemma

I decided that I should take time to organize my fabrics better so I would know what I had in my cabinet. You know the reasoning. "If I organize and make it all pretty, then I will use it." It really is very pretty to look at when it's all grouped together and I tie my lil' fabric ribbon around each set. Of course I do have to shove it all back into the cabinet that seems to be shrinking in size daily. I love to ooh and aah over each piece. There are a few pieces I have to wonder about though. Why did I buy THAT? And WHAT was I thinking? But it is getting organized and each piece looks good. My current thought pattern is that I will now see each fabric grouping more clearly with all the fabric ribbons tied around them and then I will be sure to get creative and start using it. I have visions of using it all! Which reminds me.........our LQS is having a huge sale today.........might need to get down there to see what's new. You know. Now that the fabric cabinet is organized all pretty.

Orange Crush

Bonnie Hunter is starting another mystery quilt on April 1st. I decided to follow the leader on this one and chose basically the same color scheme as Bonnie. Here are my main fabric choices and some of my scraps that will be put into the quilt. Bonnie's last mystery, Carolina Crossroads was gorgeous so I am excited to begin this new one next week! The picture below shows another fabric option for the quilt. Do I dare use my orientals and shiny stuff?

The Honey

I really am blessed by having a husband who loves me. He treats me very well. This week is Spring Break but Lil' Sis has to work most days so we ran to Utah for a visit with Middle Child for 2 1/2 days. When Honey came home from work last night he had these in his hands for me. I had to break the news to him though that he also loved and missed me so much that he bought me another Bernina.

I love him.

Yippee for me!

Lookee what I got! I have been visiting the Middle Child (what she calls herself, not me!) for the past few days in Utah and while there shopped the fabric stores. I just happened to ask the owner of one of the stores if they ever got trade-ins. He told me that in fact he just got this machine 2 days ago and would sell it to me for what he gave the owner! He hadn't serviced it yet, but told me to stop by this a.m. for me to pick it up on my way home. When I came back in, he told me that it didn't have the table extension with it so he would either subtract $35 from the total or get me a new one. I already have another table that will fit so I took the lower price. Yea for me! I really got a deal! I am so excited to start playing with it. Now that I live where there is a quilt store, I hope to take more classes. It has always been a pain to take my machine out of the cabinet then make sure I have all the cords, etc. to take to a class. Now I can leave one in my cabinet and take the other with me!

Red Poppies

I have been buying jelly rolls lately. Either on ebay or from sales I find with internet quilt shops. Instead of just hanging onto the rolls and oohing and aahing over the beautiful colors, I am making some new wall hangings. Shocking I know that I would actually use them! This one will hang in my family room after I varnish my new quilt rack I got from ebay. The pattern is called Red Poppies and comes from the book "Strip Delight" by Suzanne McNeill. I used Moda's Madeira jelly roll. It's on sale at http://www.homespunhearth.com/detail.asp?product_id=ZFjr-MD100&src=LeftColumnBestSellers

I have also found the greatest site for looking at quilt books! http://www.softexpressions.com/software/books/4K10944.php This should take you straight to the page where you can find the Strip Delight book. There are only 10 patterns in the book but look on this page and see how many of the patterns you can actually see!!! I found that most books I looked at were just like this page. Very detailed with pictures of what you would find in the book you are interested in. So now I head to amazon.com to see their prices, then back to this softexpressions.com site to see more of the book before I buy it.

Cabin Fever Insanity!

This quilt came about from a challenge from Pat Sloan a few weeks ago. On her yahoo group, she was talking about how we needed a challenge to get us out of the winter blues. I was up to the challenge since winter here has seemed to linger on and on. I also had a few days where I could actually work on my blocks without too much interuption from the Honey and Lil' Sis. I had a great time! At first I was going to use just scraps of fabric that I didn't like anymore but then I found my stash of browns and pinks and decided to change the look. I love how it turned out! Maybe next time I will use the ugly stuff......I do need to get rid of it somehow......even if it's just so I can buy more fabric to hold on to......not that I do that.