I Feel Like THIS!

LOL! This is the little guy that was passed out next to me on one of my flights home. I know just how he felt! Red eye flights home always make me feel weird for a couple of days, but I'm doing better today.

I arrived in Charlotte around 6:45 am, and then had to drive home from there, about 100 miles. I was listening to a book on MP3 to keep me awake, but you know what? I can't remember what was going on in the story! I even left the bags in the car, and just came in, kicked off my shoes, peeled off my clothes, slid between the sheets with two kitties purring, one on either side, and slept for another 5 hours.

Needless to say, no uploading or editing got done between the show and yesterday's early morning arrival home. So I spent some time today uploading the shots from my favorite part of the Sister's show...the antique vendors area!



sisters oregon antiques 2010

There are a ton more pics than would fit in the slide show, so be sure to click through to the album and view them there. SO MUCH INSPIRATION! As much as I love the show, and I do...nothing compares to the viewing and handling of the antique quilts. NOTHING. It's just where my heart is at.

This quilt top just had to come home with me:


It is wonderfully wonky, and the fabrics in it are just terrific!




And THIS little goodie!



He was just too cute to pass up....just jumped right into my shopping bag (after paying for him of course!) What's one more vintage toy machine? It's a vice...I know..we all have them...but I like these guys! He needs a little mini quilt, don't you think?

Days 3 & 4! (and maybe 5!)

Well, this is the way it is. I have been at the sewing machine pretty much straight for the past two days, so there isn't much time for writing lengthy posts, nor was there a lot that I could show you...but....



This is my workstation.....you can see much strippy-ness is going on! Remember those umpteen million gazillion 3" 9 patches that were OVERKILL!? Let's just say that a piano key border has become mandatory to this quilt to use up the pre-sewn strip sets.



Of course...THIS BAG couldn't possibly be enough to go all the way around the outside of a quilt could it? NO INDEEDY! We must sew..MORE!! (Yes, echoes of Karen and Lisa saying "Sew Bonnie Sew!!" Are still floating through my head)



I dug into my big ole bag of oldies and oddities...1.5" strips are sewn to pairs....recycled fabrics mixed with scraps, no attention paid to color, just including as much variety as possible, and doing my best to annihilate all the shorter pieces...

Twosies were sewn into foursies....



I'm cutting the foursies into 5" subsections....but what do you do when you can't get another 5" section and there are leftovers? Cut them 1.5" of course!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these little stacks of 4-squares, but I could do 16 patches and use them as the center of stars or something...for now they are baggied up!



Sewing sewing more sewing..do I have enough yet? I'm not sure, I better sew some more, there are still strips left in the bag, keep going...get rid of the uglies...

By the time I finally stopped, and went to iron this lovely piano key border...there was more than enough to encircle TWO quilts...LOL!!!! SO..I see a Chinese Coins quilt in my future, or some strippy thing somewhere...

And there are still old ugly 1.5" strips in the bag I would like to see go away!

SO....tomorrow! (Saturday) is the BIG SHOW in Sisters. We are leaving here at 7:15 to get there early enough to be able to get decent parking for the car, and hit the antique booth first FIRST! It's a tradition. And we love to watch the quilts going up on the side of the buildings. The mornings are the best!

I'm meeting up with a bus full of Ladies from the HGTV message boards at the park at 1pm...I can't wait, it will be so fun!

After that, we'll finish seeing anything we somehow missed, and we are usually out of town by the time the heat of the day has hit it's peak.

The week is flying by..We've been taking long walks every morning..I've finished writing the directions to 4 quilts so far...it's been a good good place to be!

Sisters, Day #2!

I'm being a hard task master on myself, but having a great time doing it. I should do this EVERY year! No, not really that hard, but I've got the quilts here with me that I need to write directions for, so we've got a bit of show and tell going on.

And my goal first thing in the morning, is to write ONE PATTERN per day...however long it takes....before I am "ALLOWED" to sew at the machine on the current project! LOL!

Jen, are you listening to me? This is patterned off of seeing your kids earn "screen time" and having to pay for it with marbles. Same thing here! LOL! No machine time for Bonnie until she finishes her homework! (Aren't you proud!?!) :cD

Before heading to the airport in Redmond to go pick up Claire, we took Max for a long walk..about 3 miles I think. Yep, even the walk had to wait for me to finish my homework! But it worked. And it is so fun to see everyone biking or running or walking dogs here. It's great to be around Max. He is a HUGE golden, still in his adolescent phase...hard to believe when I came up a year ago march, he was barely 2 months old. Now? He still hasn't grown into his head or his paws!! And he is huge! (Did I tell you how big he is?!?) Sorry the pic is a bit blurry, but this dog is all about action!!



So here we are at the airport to get Claire, and I am still astounded EVERY YEAR at how beautiful it is to see snow covered mountains in JULY. Living in Idaho for more than 20 years, you'd think I'd be used to it. I never am. It sucks the breath right out of me..just look at those peaks!



Even on the drive from Redmond to Sisters..I just could not keep my eyes off the mountains....(It was a good thing I was not the one driving! *LOL*)

First up on the list of things to do in Sisters? Get lunch! We had decided to go here:



But when we arrived, we were met with THIS SIGN!?? (*@#($*&(*&!



This is the funny of the day. How can a BBQ place be out of BBQ by 1:30 in a town so small that you can spit from one end to the other? The town was not busy (YET) but maybe they are cooking cooking cooking to save it all up for Saturday, when it IS going to be a zoo? We didn't find out...we just found another little bar & grill place and sat out on a grassy back area at a picnic table, enjoyed their special of the day, the sunshine, each other, and it was great.

From there on we of course had to make our way up to the Stitchin Post.....and completed our shop hop on the way back through Bend.



Did I buy anything?? Well..yes I did! I found these yard long pre-cuts, $5.00 each! Love the red/orange piece...and the yellow blue stripe? Yes, I know it looks like a men's shirt fabric! And that's why I bought it. I thought I might want it for sashing or an inner border for a recycled shirt project, and sometimes you just have to have "ENOUGH" of something....and maybe a shirt isn't going to give you what you need, but fabric that looks like one will.. :c)

Do the two spools of YLI LIME GREEN quilting thread need an explanation?? I know I'm not the only one who buys thread just because they like the color! *LOL* I don't have a project for it yet, but I know I will. It will be just the right color, and YLI is my fave. I was hoping they'd have it on those BIG mega wooden spools, but they didn't...so two smaller ones will have to do.

What's on the docket for today? Since we road tripped all day yesterday, it's a stay in and sew day! There will be much of THIS kind of thing going on!!!


This is me and my long chain of 9 patches....yes they are ALL DONE...and for Karen and Lisa who told me to "Just keep sewing" strip sets last FRIDAY, that I possibly couldn't have enough strip sets to make these 9 patches....does the word OVER KILL mean anything to you guys? LOL Oh well, you can never have too many 3" 9 patches on hand! :cD

Hello Oregon, Day 1!

I have to tell you, there is NOTHING in this world as nice as July in Central Oregon. I am always blown away by the smell of the nature and the trees out here. The way that the sun is up and shining before 6am. The way the night is so SILENT after dark, so unlike how things are in North Carolina, where the cicadas, crickets, tree peepers and other wildlife kick up a cacaphony of sound all night long.

It is when I am here in Sun River that I sleep like I'm comatose..deep sleep where I'm sure I don't even bother to roll over in my dreaming. Would YOU bother to roll over in a bed like this?!?



You might think one would not need a bed thick with duvet in July, but it was 35 degrees at 6 am yesterday. It warms up nicely, but simply the fact that it gets so chilly at night makes it BLISSFUL for sleeping with the window open....just enough....just enough to require deep snuggling. I do think the best sleep comes when the tip of your nose is a bit cold :c)

Isn't this a great quilt? It's ALL double pinks and shirtings!



My friend Randy acquired this at the Sisters Show some years back, and I love to come revisit it! Some of the baskets are "normal" just made out of two or three fabrics, but my favorites are the ones where she ran out of one thing and had to substitute another. And please notice how SMALL these cake stand blocks are!



I just love these fabrics in this quilt...some of these are the originals to which many reproductions have been made. It's always neat to see these in their "original" printed form...we are guessing somewhere between 1890 and 1900 for this quilt.



This one was quilted as a summer spread, the edges turned to the inside in what is known as a "knife edge" finish. It's simply quilted in a VERY LARGE grid with big stitch quilting....the backing is a solid cinnamon pink.




So what happened on Day One? Well, I arrived about 9pm on Sunday night, sans luggage :c( I had my carry on with my clothes, and my laptop bag...but the IMPORTANT STUFF, the suitcase with the project makings in it, and the one body bag of quilts I have to write patterns for (yes, I'm doing my writing here since I was such a slacker last week...deadlines don't move!)got left behind at one of my quick connections.

Never fear! Randy to the rescue....one of my projects involved a massive amount of blue half square triangles. Randy is NEVER short on blue, had plenty of neutrals to go with them, and so I set about working on making those until my bags got here.

We took a break to take Max the dog for a long walk on the bike paths....I love seeing everyone so active here! Riding bikes, walking, running.....what a great place, so we went a did a little power walk to for a couple miles, and came back and sewed some more.

Kat and Lori showed up a bit before lunch time, and we got all the sewing spaces arranged and set right in to working on projects!

My wandering luggage showed up about 2:30 in the afternoon and I breathed a sigh of relief! All was well!

Dinner was enjoyed out on the patio! Is there anything better than Central Oregon, when the heat of the day ebbs down, and the evening shadows grow long and cool? Sitting outside, enjoying the nature, good food good friends, lots of laughter and great conversation? I don't think so. I look forward to this all year long, and filling each other in on the happenings with our families and things that have gone on since we saw each other last.

We sewed til after 11...until I could no longer keep my eyes open!

Today, Claire comes up from California, and our 5-some will be complete! We are running into Sisters for lunch, and to check out the Stitchin Post and do some shop hopping before the crowds get crazy at the end of the week. And then we will come back here and sew and sew and sew some more!

Happy 4th!!

There is a phrase that has stuck with me since I was little. I usually think of it in times like Memorial Day, Veteran's Day, Independence Day...

FREEDOM isn't FREE

And it's true. It's not a right, it's a privilege. I mean, it SHOULD be a right yes, but it comes with a price, it isn't free. And I'm thinking a lot on this today.

My bags are packed, they are in the car waiting. I'm just sitting here downloading a couple books on my mp3 player for listening on the plane (Yes, while I hand quilt!) and then I'll be off to Charlotte to catch my flight to Oregon!

I get in to Redmond about 9pm tonight...Bend time. Which is MIDNIGHT NC time..urrgh. Still, I wonder if I'll be there in time to see any fireworks as we drive from the airport back through Bend and to Randy's house in Sun River!? That would be nice. I think I'm flying in to early to see any from the air. My flight goes from Charlotte to Phoenix to San Francisco to Redmond..and I'm lucky, no long layovers at all..just off one plane and on to the next...I like it that way.

Whatever you and your family and loved ones get up to this holiday weekend, please stay safe, enjoy the small things, take time out to appreciate all that we have!

I'll check in from Oregon when I can!

New Phrase...

I have the quilting machine humming away with Compu Quilter while I am working in the studio this morning! (that is for about the next 1/2 hour...cuz I've got to get out of here by 11 am!)

I posted THIS pic on the Quiltville friend page on facebook:



To show the quilting I am doing on this quilt. This is the one where I used one of Grandpa's shirts in the border, and the other shirt will be part of the binding.

This is the piece of Grandpa's shirt...this nice soft sage green:



Someone asked about the pattern, and I mentioned that yes, it is a pantograph by Urban Elementz called Holly's Hearts. I have unabashedly become the Princess of Pantos...which is kind of a weird thing for someone who quilted for the public for 15 years to call herself. And in a funny moment I said:

Life is just to short to spend it micro stippling!!

I think this is significant in my life.....because I've been "Sweating the Small Stuff" and really, it's all small stuff! I need to relax, I need to not be so uptight...and all that small stuff is reminiscent of too much "micro stippling" going on in my life. Right? RIGHT?!? Good analogy I think! Unless you really enjoy that nit-picky stuff. Then have at it.

So what's on tap for today? I have a chiropractor appt at 11:30....and THEN...after a run to Fed Ex, I'm headed to my friend Karen's house to do some visiting and sewing! That's Me, Karen & Lisa!

See this bag of 9 patches?



I thought I had enough of them, but I need *COUGH* 240 to do what I need to do...so the bin of 1.5" scrap strips is going to come along with me and I'm going to 9 patch the afternoon away. I'm not sure how late we'll sew, but I tell ya..I'm in the mood to stay until they kick me out!!

What's on tap for you today?

All ABOARD!!

Have YOU ever wanted to QUILT CRUISE?!!!!!

Now is your chance!

I will be teaching aboard Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's "Enchantment of the Seas" (wasn't that the name of the dance in "back to the future?!?") Along with Pat Sloan!

Set your Calendar for November 2011. It's far enough away that you can do this! You can make your reservation now with "Sew Many Places", the best quilting travel agent in the world, by calling 877-887-1188 or you can reserve your spot online HERE.

The cruise leaves out of Baltimore...and is a NINE NIGHT CRUISE! Think of how much quilting (And sight seeing!) You can get done in that amount of time! We will head toward San Juan, Puerto Rico, and SEW on the first two days days at sea....Then on to St Thomas, The Dominican Republic, and Haiti.

On the way back, we have TWO MORE DAYS of class time to sew and enjoy each other!

You are going to be hearing about this a lot over the next 17 months or so, I really hope you can join us!

Pat's last cruise went from Boston up into Canada.....they had a LOVELY time..if you want to check it out, go to Pat's Blog HERE!

I already so can not wait!!

It's Another Day...

I admit it. Yesterday was a bit of an overloaded rant!

But sometimes, voicing your frustrations (at least for me) can put things into perspective, and I can move past whatever is FREAKING ME OUT for whatever reason, and put me in a place where I can tackle whatever the obstacle is.

In this case....it brought about THIS!



Has YOUR bin of strings run amok lately? LOL! Have you paid it mind or attention? Have you considered the possibilities?! This is what mine looked like after I'd been sewing from it, pulling from it, fluffing it about to find the right pieces and sewing into the late evening hours!

I have a couple of quilts on the brain that involve string piecing, and this is the kind of variety that is hard to pack away to take for a trip. Can you see me just filling a 50lb body bag with scraps and strings?! Well I could..it would be within the weight limits!

But I don't need it all. I need the neutrals for one quilt idea, and the blues/yellows/creams for the other. I'm going to sit in front of the TV and sort out the ones I need. I'm going to get some BIG ziplocks....and take just what I need to Oregon, instead of being overloaded and overwhelmed with too much too much too much!

I think I can do the remainder of the piecing for these designs with 2.5" strips and some FQs.....and I'll just sew as far as I can go, and if I run out of something, I'll just PLAY, right? Isn't that what a retreat week with girlfriends is for anyway?

I'm off to the gym for a workout with my trainer Charlee. She is in the process of buying a house, and I know there will be a housewarming quilt in there somewhere. I've got a top that can be rather quickly quilted and should foot the bill. You know, I seem to worry LESS when the recipient is not a quilter at all? Just loves quilts? They will be happy no matter what!

And I'll be back in the studio later....dealing with more of this mess!

Toothy Tuesday!

Yep! It was dentist day for me today!

The dentist was great, she took care of the chipped back crown that was rubbing my tongue raw, and other than one small cavity, she sent me right on to the hygienist for my buff and polish.

Squeaky Clean and pearly white....and all I could think about while I was sitting there filling out copious amounts of paperwork (New dentist...auugh. Hate that paperwork!)was that I wanted to be back in my basement studio kitting up MORE stuff to take to Oregon!

I spent time with my friend Randy on IM this morning throwing out ideas....feeling a bit panicky...when you need your whole scrap user's system to create a project, how do you kit it up? What if you don't have enough? She assures me she will have plenty of stash there, so will Lori, Kat, and Claire. And there are the stores...oh yes, trips in to Bend are quite doable....

But STILL!

I'm just not a girl that can grab a bundle of pre-matched-by-fabric-line fat quarters and make a quilt I'm happy with! I want MY STUFF! *hands on hips*

I can't just do the jelly roll thing and be happy with it.

Not only that, I'm really really torn on what I *SHOULD* be working on, vs what I *WANT* to be working on, and those are not one in the same thing....

The first thing that comes to mind is the Mystery for November. It worked so great having last November's mystery be a limited edition, and then included in this next book upcoming, that it only makes sense to do that again, right? To give a sneak preview of the kinds of things that will be in the next book? (Yes, that's book #4! Wahhooooo!)

So I've been hot and heavy into my EQ and trying to design something that has enough units to keep it interesting, enough color to keep me (and everyone else) from getting bored) enough intricacy to make it worthwhile to spend this time piecing it and not having it look like the "same ole, been there done that" And at the same time using various parts of my burgeoning scrap stash....more than ONE area of Scrap User's System, because if we can't USE IT, what's the point of having it? A Mystery, that will also be a quilt for that next book. Two birds with one stone, should be easy right? NOT. SO. MUCH.!

I also think I have reached saturation level on just how much fabric a quilter needs to have. I'll never sew this up in my life time!

SO..this is what I've done this afternoon:



These are blue and yellow strips being cut into 1/2 square triangles, and I need about a quintizillion of them! And this is where I get pinched...because I need enough variety to do some test blocks before I pack all this to Oregon, and at the same time...just cutting for variety for ONE block, I may as well cut for 16...you KNOW?!!!!! And if this doesn't look great, what do I do with the leftovers and the wasted time (This is me on a time crunch, I know I need to relax.)

While this is going on, I'm not getting the writing time in that I need either....I need this stuff kitted up, and then I can use the rest of the time to write. I can write SOME while I am in Oregon...I have time on the plane (but that takes time from the hand quilting..lol)and time while there. I bave a blasted 3 hour layover in San Francisco before hopping that red-eye home...I could write then...right? WRITE!?

So..it's been mostly a frazzled day and I feel like I'm spinning around with my head cut off. Have you ever had one of those where you accomplished little to nothing, and the little you did, might not be what you needed to do......and if these blocks don't look right, it will be back to the drawing board!

Wonderful Weekend....

We had a girls sew day at Jen's!

We had been wanting to do this for quite a while, but well, you know my schedule...and if you throw Jen's in there too, and what she's had going on the last little while (It's always busy when you have 4 kids!)Saturday was the first day that worked for both of us. YAY!

I packed up my car....Shotgun, the Bernina belted securely in the front passenger seat. According to my GPS, Jen only lives 8.5 miles from me. This is the closest quilting friend I've found so far, just a hop and a skip really!

She's turned her dining room into her quilting room, and it is just PERFECT..3 large tables/desks are set up, and it is right there central to where she needs to be in her home, right next to the kitchen and the family room where the kids are playing. Who needs a dining room that never gets used and just needs dusted from time to time? Much better to use it as a sewing room instead of upstairs away from family activity.

We even had the opportunity to influence a "Quilter In Training" aka Ashley, Jen's 8 yr old daughter! She wanted to sew too, and it was just so precious watching her get all excited about the "Baby Janome"...and finding a project for her to work on. We thought if we cut some 6.5" foundations from a white fabric, she could easily learn to sew some string blocks. The machine was very small, and that is why we thought smaller blocks would be easier to work on since the area between the needle and the inside of the machine wouldn't really handle a large block without a whole lot of rolling up and shifting around.

Just look at her go!



She's got it down just like a pro!



Look: Here is her first block all trimmed up!



At one point I overheard conversation something like "Mom, can I use THIS fabric?" "Yes, you can use any of the pieces in that laundry basket" "ANY OF THE PIECES?!? ALL OF THE PIECES!?" I think Ashley has quite the makings of a fabricaholic already!! LOL!

Later that evening, I got an email saying that Ashley's brother had come to the "dark side" too!

The kids ended up sewing together until after 10 p.m. They shared her little machine and while one was ironing the other was stitching....then they would switch. I suggested that they let their blocks work together to make a quilt and they were so excited about that. Andrew wanted to get in on the action too last night. Since he's staying home from church this morning, I told him that I would teach him while the others are at church. I fear that soon I'm going to be kicked off of my own machine! :^)

All in all it was a great day and MUCH greatly needed!

I've finished the blocks for the last quilt for the book...will post more about that later. I've gotta get some book orders out and ready to mail. I've been to the gym, the bank, have showered, scheduled a guild 3 years in advance ((!!!!!)) Do any of YOU know what you will be doing 3 years from now? This is just so brain blowing to me! And I've got a Chiropractor appt at 4pm....

I'm headed to Oregon on SUNDAY! I can hardly wait! I have it in my mind, to finish designing the next mystery quilt and have that be my project while I'm there..then I don't have to CRAM in November....I just need to do all this other stuff first.. :c/

I'm going to SEW!!!

I'm headed over to Kernersville to go sew with Jen today! whoowhoo!! It's just the push I need to work on the blocks to finish the LAST QUILT for the book! I've been dragging on this one because it's pretty monotonous, or is that duotonous because it's TWO COLORS? I really have a hard time wanting to stick with quilts that only use two colors, even if they use a gazillion fabrics...I'm much more drawn to scrappy EVERYTHING...But..I like how this is turning out, so I can't wait to get it to the point where I can sew the top together and start thinking on borders..Maybe just plain ones on this one? Not EVERYTHING has to have a complex border, does it?

I wanted to share with you a lovely Spiderweb picture that came my way via Kat! Isn't it great?!



I love the yellow centers, and she used buttons to tie it, using her machine to sew them down. Great use of all those shirt buttons, don't you think?

We had quite an exciting day yesterday. About 8:30am I got a call from DH saying he needed to be taken to the emergency room. ((!!!!)) Turns out that he thought his hernia had ruptured. He was in a cold sweat and about to pass out from a lot of pain when I got to the office to pick him up. I had been on the phone with him and said "Are you sure you don't want an ambulance?" He said..just get me there. So we did.

After he was able to lay down in my car, the pain seemed to subside a bit. After they put him on a gurney and left us to ourselves (for a huge amount of time) in a small cubby hole at the ER....He felt quite a bit better.

After the exam, the doc said...well...seems as if a loop of intestine had poked through the abdominal wall, but since you were able to relax, it's corrected itself and gone back where it should. We are releasing you. ((!!!))

There wasn't anything they could do, luckily it wasn't strangulated and cutting off blood supply, and it HAD seemed to have corrected itself. But it doesn't solve the problem. DH has an appt with a surgeon to make another appt to GET IT FIXED! I was terrified mind you...having to drive him, in so much pain, sweaty, clammy, shocky...down the interstate? What would I have done if he HAD passed out?

I can't tell you how weird it was for me to just drop him back off at work like nothing had happened. And how "UNBELIEVEABLE!!!" I felt when he told me he was going GOLFING after work. :::SHAKING HEAD::: MEN! I just don't get them AT. ALL.

So all this upset pretty much wiped out my day. I couldn't accomplish much of anything, I had to run back into town to go to Sam's to pick up my own prescriptions I dropped off the other day...and I was SO stressed out, I *DID* treat myself to that Sam's club berry sundae! And I ate the whole thing myself. So THERE!

Later in the evening, after the sun had gone down, Sadie and I did our 3 mile trek, so I'm sure I burned it all off again.

So today, I'm putting the home stuff behind me, and going to sew with Jen, and work on blocks! I need a personal sew day!

What are you doing today?

Doubly Blessed

If you are of "my age" you might find that phrase "Doubly Blessed" taking you back to about 1980 and a certain song by Meatloaf! "Ain't no doubt about it, they were doubly blessed...for they were barely 17 and they were barely..." Nevermind, that's enough for you to know as far as lyrics go! *LOL*

I feed DOUBLY and even TRIPLY blessed this morning.

You aren't going to believe this...I was out walking my dog Sadie (we do about 3 miles) and guess who I found in some bushes about 1/2 mile or more from my house on the OTHER side of the creek?

I was walking past these bushes and I heard meowing...I took my head phones out and meowed back...it was Emmy Lou, my missing cat!! She was in the bushes and she had heard my voice. But this OTHER dog came and heard her too, and chased her across a yard and into some other bushes...

I had to shoo the dog away - - I actually whipped it on the behind with Sadie's leash and then had to follow Emmy back into these people's yard where she jumped up on a picnic table and meowed to me the whole time until I picked her up.

She was purring to beat the band...and oh so skinny :c( She's been gone for 2 months. I guess the other pissy cat Chloe DID scare her away enough to keep her from coming home.

I carried her the whole 1/2 mile home, and she didn't even fight me. She came in, went right to her food, and then up to her favorite perch on top of the bedroom TV armoir...silly cat!

While this was all going on, Fed Ex pulled into my driveway and delivered a box...I guess I wasn't paying it too much mind, excited as I was about getting Emmy back, but this morning (After my doc appt) I saw that it is from my quilting bud Mickey in IL! What's in it?



Look see!!

Definition of True Friend: One who sends you 22 lbs of fabulous fabric in the MAIL! I'm really excited about some of these pieces. Lots of fun novelties which I don't have very many of, I've never been drawn to novelties, but I know I can do some fun things with them.



There are also lots of florals..these are going to be so great for so many things! I can hardly wait to really sort through and see what there is here.



Thanks Mickey!

The other good thing...I went to the doc this morning. My A1c for my blood sugar was 5.6. Diabetic range is 6 and above. Normal range is 4 up to 6. So...yes, I'm kind of in the high range of normal, but I'm still good. However, because of my age, and heredity, I need to watch my sugar and carb intake. I'm revamping my diet with the help from the doc's office, and we are going to keep this from getting to where it does reach diabetic levels. It's still important to get it checked over time. Without the exercise I've been doing the past 2 years, and without watching what I eat and losing 25 lbs in the past 2 years, I could have been well above that 6 level.

So all in all it's a good day! A great day! And I've cleaned my two drawers.....the undies/bras drawer is slimmed WAY DOWN, and the sock drawer....well..not so much to get rid of there, but did some, and I feel good about it. Tshirt drawer is next....and it seems like several of you are committing to one drawer a day too!

On the way back from the Docs I stopped at Target and bought a new book shelf...the old one...someone (his name shall remain unnamed, but his initials are DH!) stepped on the bottom shelf to reach something at the top, and of course the shelf gave way. It was one of those pressboard kind of units, so not that expensive to replace, but it is for my quilt books. This time around, I'm taking the shelves from the first unit (the broken one) and using them to double the strength of the shelves of the new one...hopefully to keep the shelves from bending. Books are HEAVY!! Warped shelves don't like to stay in the brackets either. So that's on tap for today as well.