Happy Halloween!!!
I think we've had too much candy corn here.

halloween 2 1/2

I wanted to join in on the candy corn contest that Lera over at www.theskyispink.blogspot.com and Amandajean at Crazy Mom Quilts are having. But -
today was the deadline and I only got a top done. Think this one may have to wait to get quilted - Halloween has snuck up on me . So here's a picture of just the top. It was fun and very easy to do. I'm really looking forward to quilting it, then washing it to see the raggedy goodness

halloween #2

This is a table runner I made last year. I finished the quilting on it this summer. I quilted the word "boo" using free motion quilting. It was my first time using free motion quilting --- successfully. My own "pattern" - basically I just cut out circles and started playing!

Halloween #1

I saw the cottage block swap on Nanette's blog http://www.fredashive.blogspot.com/. I was sorry I didn't sign up for it and thought I would just make one to try it out. The first one was so much fun I got out my halloween scraps and kept going. These blocks are addictive! I probably won't get it quilted in time for Halloween but I'm really happy with what I have so far. Thanks Nanette for the directions for this block - I may not be able to stop making them!

My strawberry swap partner received the swap I sent her yesterday - so it's time for me to post what I sent to her!

I received my strawberry swap from my partner yesterday -
Missy at http://fairychildheirlooms.wordpress.com Missy had her original partner disappear on her - so I stepped in late in the swap. I'll post what I sent to her after she gets my package. But for now this is what she sent me. I LOVE the apron and the matching potholder. Look at the pocket on the apron - with the eyelet - so pretty - Thanks Missy! If you get a chance take a look at her blog - she does so many fun swaps and has some beautiful sewing there too!

Alice Grace who has a wonderful blog (http://hartdolls.blogspot.com/) mentioned that many of the quilts from the quilt show I posted seemed difficult for a beginner. I agree with Alice. I took some pictures while at my quilt show that were for me - not to post . Easy patterns that I can do: star blocks, snowball/9patch. After I got her comment I thought I should post those pictures too. I think the simpler quilts are more inspiration for most of us quilters than the show quilts. Which is why a quilt shop with those shop samples can be such a dangerous place to your wallet. I am coming to the realization that simpler is best. When I do more complicated patterns the quilts don't get finished!

Quilt Show

I went to the Durham-Orange Quilters Guild Show yesterday. It was held in the American Tobacco Campus in Durham, NC. It's a great place to have quilt show and hang out for a little while. There are restaurants, a man-made river running through the middle and it's adjacent to the Durham Bulls baseball park. It was very nice quilt show - I got lots of ideas and enjoyed all the beautiful patterns. There were some that were spectacularly quilted. With the promise of a nice lunch out DD#2 came along and took some pictures for me.

I mailed 2 swaps off today - I don't think I can show either of them yet. I found the cottage blocks that have been showing up on blogs. I decided to do some of them and they are addictive. I've got some halloween cottages coming along. I'll post these once I get them into a top of some sort. I took a trip to my local quilt shop - with the gift certificate that I'd won this summer and bought some fat quarters and this pattern. The patterns are for the doll quilt 5 swap - for someone who likes brown and pink. I also got a bunch of freebie magazines - that's just like Christmas for me.

Other than quilting ( I also love reading)

I saw this on Carin's bloghttp://mcmawblog.blogspot.com/ and thought it was fun.


"The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six."

Here’s what you are supposed to do:
Look at the list and bold those we have read.
Italicize those we intend to read.
*Star the books we LOVE.


1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen*
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte*
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling**
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (my favorite ever - I reread it once a year)
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte*
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcot*
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare most of it not all
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier *
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger*
19. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger*
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams**
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh*
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck *
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy*
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens*
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis*
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis*
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne*
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery**
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy*
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility- Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez*
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold*
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett*
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker*
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle*
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl*
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Do how do you fair?

I've been working on several projects this week. There are a couple of swaps that I can't show and once unfinished project that I won't show until it's finished. I did play around with these scrappy circle blocks today. They came from a Karolina Kwilter's swap. I've laid them out and now they are all ready to go into blocks. I'm just trying to decide if I should put sashing around each circle or not. I also wanted to show this little guy my husband found the other day while cutting the grass. He now lives in our garden (the turtle - not my husband).

Now I know why my thread is always on the floor

I've been trying to figure out why my thread is always on the floor and here's the reason. This is our first cat - so I'm not use to their ways - and I don't like him on the furniture. He (Jinx) must have heard me coming and tried to get off my sewing table - but didn't make it in time.

For vintage thingies thursday I am showing this pincushion that my Aunt Lee made many years ago. I've used it since I was a girl and first learned to sew. She did beautiful crewel work, embroidery, sewed dresses for us and taught me to sew. She took me to my first fabric shop - which I still remember as a wonderful experience - but isn't all fabric shopping?

My angel swap is on it's way!

I finished my angel swap items and have sent them off today. I had so much fun making all these things. I really enjoyed checking the designer blogs every Monday for a new project. So they are on their way - to a place that is very, very far from me about 4820 miles (7760km). I may have to give some other hints as to where this is going over the next several days. My knowledge of geography is really improving thanks to these swaps. If you look closely there may be another hint in the picture which direction this is headed in.

My angel swap is here!

My angel swap arrived from New Zealand! Look at the beautiful things that Jenny made for me. I love the bag - I mean look at that angel on it and the little sewing machine and scissors. My scissors keeper is beautiful with some lovely cross stitching. And that pinkeeper - I think I have a new favorite pincushion - she'll live on my sewing table and keep me company - not sure I want to stick pins in her though - she's too cute.
Thank you so much Jenny.