Christmas is almost here and it is time for me to write about this past year.

 I finally completed the jelly roll quilt, "Dreams and Wishes".  The colors were not my favorite, but I won the jelly roll and 5" squares at my quilt guild.  It took me a while to design something that I thought would show off the colors as well as making them more interesting.

 

 

 I took a class years ago with Terry Thompson and did get three 36" blocks appliqued over the years.  But I needed the fourth one to complete the set.  I have saved the fabrics over the years and it's a wonder they didn't either fade or rot, but I found them still in perfect condition and finally drafted the last block to go into the set.  It's not easy finding patterns that can be enlarged to be a 36" block.  I do hope to have the fourth one finished within 6 months and maybe by Christmas 2012 there will be a quilt hanging.


We had our children and their families meet us at Seagrove Beach in Florida in June after everyone was out of school to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary.  We had a wonderful time just watching everyone enjoy the sun, beach and sand.

Remember the tiny little kitten we got last August 2010--well she got HUGE.  Hanging over a bit on my window sill,  She likes walking on my computer and opening new programs to surprise me when I come back to work.  Georgia believes she owns the house.

We had a great trip to the Black Hills and Colorado in September.

Mount Rushmore

In October we traveled to Iowa to be with my family for our niece's daughter's wedding.  The last time we are with my family was 2010 for my oldest brother's funeral.  This was a joy to be able to be in Iowa for a happy occasion.  It was his granddaughter who was married so it was sad that he never got to enjoy the wedding.

THANKSGIVING--we had a houseful.  Our oldest son and children and our daughter's family made the trip from Texas to celebrate Thanksgiving with us, our son and his family who live about 4 miles from our home and our daughter-in-law's mother.  (yes, there is some Christmas showing.)  I decorated before Thanksgiving because the Texas families never see Christmas at our house.

With 15 people, there was not enough room at the big table.  The four youngest sat at a small table beside the rest of us.  The two blonds belong to our youngest son and the dark haired to our oldest son. 

Our three children catch up with each other.

I love the tinsel tree which is on lone from Steven who pulled it out of our neighbor's trash when he was in 2nd grade inOklahoma City.  Has our first angel topper on it which we bought in California 1964!  I refinished the old oak desk and it holds old books and my Mom's Christmas post cards she received when she was a child in 1913.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

 

 

May happenings

 May 13 was Drex and my 50th wedding anniversary.  Happened to be Friday the 13th this year but 13 has always been a lucky number for us!  This picture was taken on Mother's Day, but was only five days before our anniversary.

Our children and grandchildren gave the altar flowers at our church in honor of our anniversary.   We brought them home to enjoy after church services.  It was the nicest gift.

I began this quilt about a month ago.  It was actually a top within a week and a half after I began.  It's half top and half a quilt now.  Just lays on my sewing machine table waiting to be finished machine quilted.  Seems there have been other things happening that needed more attention.

This is taken on Mother's Day again.  The two Georgia grandchildren.  Natalie has her last day of PreK tomorrow and then she'll soon be on to kindergarten in the fall.  How the time flies!  Austin will be going into 5th grade.  Do not know how they grew so fast.  I must get pictures of the Texas grandchildren posted soon.  We'll all be celebrating our anniversary together at the beach this summer.

Remember we got a 3 week old kitten in August, so tiny I could hold her in one hand.  Guess what, she grew!  Why she ever decided that she needed to be in my in-basket I don't know, but she put herself there.  She managed to remove herself after a nap.

April is going fast

Drex and I went to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens last week to see what was blooming.  There was a beautiful array of tulips.  We were probably a week late for their full blooming, but they were still gorgeous.  The rose garden was magnificent and the bees were enjoying the feast.

We were lucky to see most of the orchid display, but it was being taken down that day.  We did come home with two beautiful plants because as they took the orchids down, they had them for sale.

We came home with this beauty for $12.

The Easter egg tree is up for Easter with my miniature Easter basket quilt under it

I am working on a red and white quilt to hang in our great room behind the new red chairs.  I started on it a week ago today and the pieces are being sewn together and hopefully by the weekend I can baste it and begin to machine quilt.

Photo shoots a few years ago

Several years ago photographer Perry Strause and Jennifer Keltner from American Patchwork & Quilting magazine came to Atlanta.  I thought you might find it interesting how a photographer gets just the right shot.  This picture was taken at my next door neighbor's home, it's my little stepladder that Perry used to get on the banister for the right angle.  The quilt was designed and made by a good friend of mine, Alice Berg of Little Quilts.  It was on the cover of American Patchwork & Quilting June 2003.

This photo was taken when a firetruck came and used their tall ladder on the truck.  One of the firemen climbed up the ladder and took the picture.  Little Quilts received over 2,200 small quilts that were delivered to families of firemen killed in the 911 tragedy.  I wish the picture could show each of those small quilts better.  It was a beautiful site as we laid them all over the parking lot.

March is soon going to be over.

It's a beautiful day in Georgia.  Spring came earlier this year after a really cold (for Georgia) winter.  The daffodils are in full bloom, the flowering trees are beautiful, the birds are happy too.  However, with the coming of Spring, the work in the yard and garden has begun.  I'll take some pictures and post tomorrow.  Today was spent emptying pots and refilling them with some new potting soil along with the old soil.  I'm hoping for giant elephant ears this year, they multiply easily and had to get more pots for the new bulbs.

We took our grandchildren to Calloway Gardens in February during winter break and found this beautiful snapdragon display.

The waterfall was lovely and sounded great.

We found this beauty at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens

A very creative friend, Lana sent me this beautiful "post card".  I have enjoyed looking at it on my mobile in my studio.  It actually came without an envelope, safe and unharmed through the USPS.  Amazing.

This quilt has found a home in the powder room.  I made it using antique silk Japanese kimono fabrics.  I drew out the design that I wanted onto thin interfacing.

My granddaughter, Shelby entered an art contest at her school and it was chosen to be entered into another contest.  I think I can see a quilt pattern in her collage.  She called it "Ships".

February 20, 2011

February is almost done, how can that happen so fast.  I guess it is a short month since there is no 29th this year.  We will have been in our house 15 years February 28th.  We just had some painting done and the bathroom and powder rooms remodeled.  Time moves on and I suppose we have to keep everything updated, but the good thing (after all the dust was gone and stuff back where it belonged) is that now it smells like a new house again.  We have moved so many times in our married life that this is the first time we have ever been in the same house 15 years.  We made it to almost 11years in Oklahoma City.  We moved to Marietta (Atlanta) in 1988 and after 7 years it seemed like it was time to move, so we built a house directly across the street from the subdivision where we lived.  A new street was cut and it was to have 14 houses, we thought this would be great, new house, new street, and only a block from our house we were living in.  The really nice thing was being able to come and watch the house being built several times a day.  We had never been able to select everything that went into our previous houses because we were moving from out of town and had to find a house immediately.  Drex retired in 2008 so now if we ever move again it will be by choice, not because he was transferred.

This is our remodeled powder room, I found a home for one of my latest quilts.

I scanned our daughter's family Christmas card, at least they are all in the same picture.  They live in Burleson, TX, south of Ft. Worth

Our two grandchildren who live in Marietta with our youngest son and wife.

If you look back at earlier posts, you'll see the other three grandchildren who live in Plano, TX

These are our oldest son's children who live in Texas.  We saw them over Thanksgiving week.  I will find a picture of all three of our daughter's children.  It is difficult finding them all in the same picture.

My unfinshed applique blocks.  I've been trying to get four finished in my lifetime.  They are 36" squares and without that fourth block they will never be a quilt.  Sometimes I put them out so it will remind me I need to pick the fourth pattern and get with it.  I took a class taught by Terry Thompson quite a few years ago, can you tell applique is not my favorite thing to do?

Another unfinished, after putting these together I got interested in making the blocks in a different color and they became a Halloween quilt.  But I need to add a border to the blue quilt top so it's off my shelf.

I like the colors so much better in the Halloween quilt.  This quilt was October in the 2009 American Patchwork & Quilting calendar.