Visiting Huntsville

We came to visit our daughter in Huntsville, AL, on Friday afternoon. It is a 7 1/2 hour drive (with several stops). Friday was Kim's birthday so we went to dinner at TGIFridays. Today we went shopping over at a new mall on the other side of Redstone Arsenal. Whenever we get on the interstate to go anywhere, we always pass the US Space and Rocket Center. You can see this huge rocket with the American flag flying beside it from the interstate.

I call this shopping in the mountains. Indiana is so flat that anything that even remotely sticks up in the air looks like a mountain to me.

Do the mountains look more impressive from a distance???????

Before we went to this mall, we stopped and did a little shopping at Yarn Expressions. Kim bought me this gorgeous Koigu yarn for Mother's Day. There is enough for two pair of socks.

Then I bought a few skeins for another project that I have been working on. More on that later. The skein on the right is Malibrigo sock yarn so that will be used for a pair of socks. Storms are rolling in over Lady Ann Lake here by the apartment.

We head home tomorrow around noon. Happy Mother's Day to everyone.

Dear Jane Retreat

I've been away most of last week to the Dear Jane Quilt Retreat in Shipshewana, Indiana. It is always a fun time to see old friends and to make new ones. On the way to the retreat, I stopped at a quilt exhibit by 3 friends at Goshen College in Goshen, IN.

The exhibit was a nice mixture of old quilts:

And new quilts:

There was definitely a lot of talent displayed in that room.

As you can see, it says we were at a conference. It sort of makes it sound like we were actually doing something constructive, doesn't it?

We shopped at Yoders.
We shopped at Lollys. Downstairs there was more fabric and fishing for fat quarters in the boat.


After all of the shopping, eating, and sewing we packed up and headed for home making plans to do it all over again next time. I'll upload more photos on my webshots page soon.

My Best Friend is Sick

This is my best friend, Mr. Kitty. He has been sneezing and generally not feeling well, so I took him to the vet last Wednesday. He was dehydrated and had a 104.5 fever which is pretty high for a cat. He has also lost a little over 4 pounds since last year's visit. So my options were to take him home with oral antibiotics or to leave him there at the animal hospital until they could hydrate him intravenously and give him iv antibiotics. I decided it would be best to leave him there. The vet ran blood tests and found that he has an overactive thyroid. He was there for 2 days, and he came home on Friday morning. He seems to be doing a lot better, but it has been a trick to get him to eat. His nose is still pretty stuffed up, and the food has to be really stinky for him to show interest in it.

These are blankets I've made to donate to Project Linus. I say that I made these blankets, but they are fleece that I've bought, and used my trusty new rotary cutter tool to perforate the edges of the fleece, and then I crochet a border around the edges. I've found some really cute kid prints, and the crocheting around the edge is great TV work. I love knitting, but I've crocheted for about 40 years, and I can do that a lot faster.

These are preemie hats that I make and donate to Newborns in Need. There are about 200 preemies born in this county every month. I have a tiny circular needle that I knit these hats on, and I usually carry it in my purse with some yarn.

Time for Mr. Kitty's medicine. More tomorrow.

Genealogy, Crochet and Some Quilting

I've been working on some genealogy lately. I've met a lot of people on line over the years that are researching the same lines that I am. Several of us are putting together a website and compiling our info into one place. Here is my contribution - the family Fracktur. Fracktur is a piece of Pennsylvania German folk art created sometime between 1740 and 1860. This one was probably created sometime around 1811 after the last child was born. I am the 6th generation, and since I have no brothers (or sisters), the Mason line is broken with me. So I really want to put my research into writing.

There is artwork inside on the left side of each page. The right side of the page has the name of each child on it as well as the birth date. All of the artwork and writing has been done by pencil of some sort. I'm also crocheting around the edge of fleece to make blankets to donate to Project Linus to distribute to children. This is easy TV work in the evenings.We have a 3" block exchange at our next Dear Jane retreat up in Shipshewana. I can't show photos right now because those little blocks are always a surprise when we have our exchange. More photos later.

Hope you find some time for stitching.

A Tisket a Tasket Block of the Month

I've finished appliqueing the January Block of the Month over at Bunny Hill Designs. These baskets are so cute and lots of fun to applique.

You all know how much we all love our gadgets. I ordered this rotary cutting blade from the Project Linus web site store. The "teeth" that stick out are really sharp. When you run this blade along the edge of a piece of fleece, it perforates holes in the fleece so that you can get a crochet hook through the hole and crochet a nice edging on it to make a blanket with a nice finished look. For right now this is my new favorite gadget!!!!!! This is my first finished fleece blanket with crocheted edging. I bought a couple more pieces of fleece today because I'm enjoying the crocheting in the evenings. Hope you are all taking some time to stitch a bit. Have a nice day.

Quilt Show Road Trip

Yesterday I drove down to Bloomington, Indiana, to the Indiana Hoosier Heritage Quilt Show. I met friends for lunch and dinner after the show. The weather was gorgeous yesterday, and the temperature was right around 70 - a perfect day for a drive. I have posted photos that I took at the show in my webshots (link over in my sidebar). I'm going to post a few photos here of ones that I really liked.

Looking at this quilt was like looking out of a window back in the late 60s. There is the hippy sitting by the tree with his Uncle Sam protest sign and the van all decorated up. This one actually made me laugh. It didn't win any ribbons but was a favorite of mine.

This quilt is a miniature. The circular quilting in the solid setting squares are the size of a nickle. That gives you an idea of how tiny those little nine patches are.

This quit won best of show. The applique was just gorgeous.

Vendors???? Ok. Yes, there were vendors. I was pretty well behaved. I bought these two charm packs of Moda's Fresh line and a honey bun of the same line.

And, the Aurifil thread booth always calls to me. We can all use thread, right????

In one corner of a booth there was a lady knitting this beautiful hand dyed yarn. The picture just doesn't do it justice.

More later on. Hope you are all out enjoying your weekend.

A Trip and Some Quilting

This is what I've been sewing on the past few days. I have the first three rows of my Dear Jane quilt put together. Now that I've started it I'm anxious to get it all put together. I've been working on these blocks for several years. This is supposed to be a trip around the world setting. Right now I don't see it, but I'll post another photo after I finish a few more rows.

This is the mystery quilt that one of our local quilt shops did last year. They pass out a clue every month starting in January and ending in June. I just put the border on last week. I need to add another border or maybe two in order for it to fit on the twin bed in the guest room.

We took a trip to Huntsville, AL, this past weekend to visit our daughter. We took a walk around the lake, and I saw these flowers in bloom in a little clump all by themselves. It was 60 degrees when we got there on Friday, and it snowed Sunday morning before we left.

There are always pansies in bloom in Huntsville even when it is winter here in the midwest. You probably think I'm easily amused, but those of you that live in the midwest know that we have lots and lots of days that are cloudy and the grass and trees are brown.

More in a few days. Thanks for reading. Have a nice day.