A Little of this and a Little of that...

Ros helped me pick out which blues will wind up in a small version of Merry Mayhem's Modern Mystery.  Can't wait to find time to cut and start this one!

 I trimmed up and added a border to the mug rug Jacki made me.  Found a backing...soon will quilt it.  Already someone on fb offered to buy it off me.  LOL, I referred her to Jacki!

 Kathy made progress on the borders tonight!  This looks SO awesome now!  She still plans to add another 5 inch border to the outside.  This quilt is huge too!

I made two QOV scrappy trips blocks for Alycia's collection.  I will try to make a few a more before I mail them off!  The night is no longer young, so off to bed I go!  More tomorrow!

Lazy Sunday (not so much a Morning) Mystery and February NewFo!

I had it in my head this one was called "Lazy Sunday Morning" but today I realized there is no morning in the title..which suits me find since I prefer afternoon and evening anyways!  So here is the picture of my fabrics again and below is clue one completed!  WHOOT WHOOT.  I am now ready for Bonnie's next Quiltmaker clue (in two months, plenty of time to hit some other projects or find another colorway to do this in!).

Kathy and I watched QuiltCam with Barb and Fran on Skype tonight.  Hmm, the night is still young, what should I work on next?

Linking up for the NewFo Challenge..this was my start for February.  No pressure to finish it--just start it, LOVE that!

Liebster Award :)

Kevin the Quilter and Heather of Peachy Pages were sweet enough to nominate me for the Liebster Award!  Liebster means "dearest" in German...what an honor!  In doing a little research it seems the award has been around a few years and the requirements have also changed as the award has been passed around.  In fact--I have had this honor once before when Shannon over at Nunu's Quilt World gave me the award!  This award is given by "one blogger to another for excellent, beautiful, humorous, or sparkling work."  Love that, sparkling work!  The Liebster is given to blogs that deserve to be recognized, but have less than 200 followers. The Award comes with just a few "rules", which are:

1) Post about your win on your blog.

2) Link back to the blogger who presented you with the award.

3) Copy and Paste the award to your blog.

4) Present the award to 11 (what 11, it used to be 5 blogs) that have less than 200 followers that you think deserve to be recognized.

5) List 11 random things about yourself. (that has been added since last time)

6)Answer questions posed by the blogger who nominated you. (this is also new)

7) Create 11 questions for your nominees to answer. (again, new).

And the nominees are:

Amy's Passions who I see was already nominated, but is a source of tons of inspiration for me so
I have to nominate her again! 
Ros the Quilter who is a personal friend and often times my quilt by check go to person.
Becky's Bits and Piecing another personal friend who sews amazing creations!
Angela SoScrappy who I found through Amy...she hosts the Rainbow BOM and does AMAZING tiny blocks!
Andra's Simplify and Quilt I also found through Amy...when we all jumped on the bandwagon when Jo of Jo's Country Junction started her Hawaii Sunset quilt (which was on my Bucket List) Amy invited Andra to join us and I discovered I was already reading her blog! 
While I can think of others, I think nominating five is plenty so I am going back to that..eleven seems like an awful lot to me!

Random Things About Myself:
1. I have three grown children, the oldest is high functioning autistic and has always been quite a challenge.
2. I have five dogs, a cat and a fish.
3. I am a sign langauge interpreter and teacher.  I love sign and Deaf people!
4. I went to 19 schools before I graduated high school.
5. I have graduated college four times.
6. I was married for thirteen years.  My husband didn't come home on New Year's Eve the new millenium--he went to a work party and went home with a woman from work!
7. I have always liked crafts.  When I was pregnant with my oldest I learned counted cross stitch and did it for years, I learned to sew when my daughter was born, and basket weaving with the youngest son.  Something about the pregnancies made me more domestic I think!
8.  I am Bonnie K. Hunter of Quiltville's # 1 fan (and I recently met her in person!!!) You may already know that, lol but I am just saying!  Her red spider web quilt picture made me fall in love with scrappy quilting!
9. I had eleven living grandparents when I was a kid (Great Grandpa Tony, Great Grandma Myrt, Papa DeLos, Grandma Char, GreatGrandpa Rushman, Great Grandma Rushman, Grandpa Neff, Grandma Nan, Great Grandma Pope, Grandpa George, Grandma Arlene) which was more than anyone I knew at the time.  This is because for several generations we had young moms in the family and because I could count two step grandparents.  The two in bold are still alive in their eighties.  I feel so blessed to have know them all!
10. I am dying to learn how to knit socks...I have one done and another one started and am determined to master the skill!
11. I love to read tons of blogs and have made several good friends because of our common love of quilting, reading or blogging!

Answers to Kevin's Questions:
1. Who is the person most responsible for introducing you to quilting?  While my friend Sheri taught me to sew in 1990 and I made a few easy quilts, I will have to credit Bonnie Hunter for really showing me that step by step I can sew any quilt (well pieced anyways!).

2. What is the first quilting project you ever made, and how old were you when you made it?  I bought a set of five inch squares in calicos in 1990 (long before charm squares) and sewed them together for a small back of the couch quilt.  I also made a huge irish chain quilt that was cut without rotary cutters and sewed with cheap thread because I didn't know better.  It started to fall apart by the second washing and I think that little lesson had alot to do with why I didn't really take off on quilting at the time.  I was so heartbroken by all that work falling apart!  I sewed while the kids were growing up but really didn't become addicted to quilting until much later!

3. Who is your most favorite quilt designer? Ummmm duh!  Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville of course! I also love Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr for my modern quilt inspiration!  Guess I should say I love Eleanor Burns for her simple step by step directions too.

4. How many quilting projects have you made to date?  I number my quilts, though they include wall hangings and tablerunners, etc.  I just passed the 200 mark!

5. What is your most favorite breed of dog? Entlebuch Mountain Dog.  We had one and she was awesome!  Someday I would like to find another one...right now my favorite is Bug.

6. What color is the shell on the eggs you eat? White

7. What is the longest flight you have ever been on, and where were you going?  Longest flight was to Seoul, Korea and back.  Was even longer because oldest was four and youngest was one and my hubby hadn't clued me in to how long the flight was.  I was twenty and apparently thought all flights took around 3 hours (Phoenix to MSP was my plane flying experience!).  Add to that we drove to St. Louis (from Wisconsin) to take a MAC flight, didn't get one, then flew, when we got there we had to ride about three buses and a cab in the pouring rain before we got to Camp Essayons Korea.  Seriously hope to never travel like that (and with young kids) again!

8. Which is your most favorite city to visit?  Gonna have to go with Solvorn, Norway where my great grandfather grew up before moving to Wisconsin.  It is a gorgeous little town on a mountain where my family members still own the house he grew up in and my great greats are buried.

9. Where is the best Quilt Shop you have ever been to, and what is it’s name?  Busy Bobbin in Rice Lake, Wisconsin comes to mind!

10. Do you have a large or small family? Average

11. Have you ever gone fishing?  Yes...I never really liked it or had much luck til one family vacation in Wisconsin near Spooner (on a preserve) where the water was SO clear you could see the fish and they pretty much jumped in the boat.  The kids were young and LOVED it.  It was the best fishing ever.  I do however love Walleye fried in beer batter from Long Lake, Wisc!

and here are Heather's quesitons:

1 What's your favorite LQS or crafty store? see above

2. What types of things spark your creative inspiration?  Seeing other people's quilts or patterns...I am more of a follower than a creative person!

3. What are some of your favorite blogs any why?  See above and I told you why too!

4. What are the top 3 things on your creative to do list this year?  I want to make more modern quilts, I want to learn some hand embroidery and yep, knit socks!

5. Where would you go on your dream vacation?  Somewhere with Bonnie Hunter!

6. What has been your favorite travel experience?  I really enjoyed visiting Norway!

7. What's playing on your TV and iPod lately? I have no ipod, I love Downton Abbey.

8. Do you feel you "give back" and how so?  I am the secretary of the PHXMQG and have given plenty of hours to getting that up and going, lol and I donate to Quilts of Valor and other causes as they come up.  Occasionally I volunteer interpret for free causes I want to support too.

9. What 5 sites do you like for shopping online?  Fat Quarter Shop, Green Fairy Quilts, 5bucksayard.com, Connecting Threads and ebay!

10. What was your favorite class/lecture you ever attended? I took a quilt history class at a local shop and the gal running it was FANTASTIC and a wealth of information.  I really learned alot of quilting and women's history from her.

11. Why do you blog?  I have always loved to document things...I wish that I had diaries or letters from family members lives...we do have some on my dad's side, but not much from mom's side.  I hope one day my kids, grandkids, or great grandkids get a chance to read about my crazy life.  Other than for that, I do it to connect with other people who live to quilt as I do!

Sewing with Friends!



Kathy and I headed to New River Saturday night for Ros' surprise 70th birthday party!  It was fun to suprise her--the wool was pulled over her eyes and that doesn't happen often!  It was nice to meet the rest of her family and some friends too.  After that we spent the night with my mom and dad (conveniently 5 min from Ros' son's house!) and stayed up late chatting wtih mom and watching Paranormal Activity 4.  Then Sunday morning we got up, gabbed with Dad and headed two minutes down the road to Jacki's.  I gotta say I loved the short ride there to sew (instead of the hour it is from here).  Jacki gifted BJ with a mug rug with a cute little dog paw on it, which I didn't take a picture of...and she made me this paper pieced I love you hand so I can complete a mug rug for me!  PHXMQG is exchanging mug rugs in February and some folks have set up private exchanges in additon or instead of exchanging at the meeting.  So I have the meeting swap, a private swap with Jill, a swap with Jacki...that is it for now, lol...but I will have a cool collection of mug rugs finally!  I brought the granny square I made to work with me and use it for my coffee mug each day I am interpreting in my station.  I love having something quilty at work!

Here is my semi done mug rug from Jacki!

Here we are sewing away at Jacki's on Superbowl Sunday.

Jacki worked on the ily hand for me and then on her 35th Ave BOM, Ros did a binding for her Anita's Arrowhead quilt, BJ worked on her NYE Mystery quilt in brights, Kathy worked on a kit I started a long time ago at quilt camp that hasn't seen the light of day in almost two years and I did almost all of step number one of Bonnie Hunter's Lazy Sunday Morning!

]

It was a relaxing weekend and I can't wait for the next one!

Lazy Sunday Morning Mystery

 I have been hemming and hawing about what fabrics to use for Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery for several days!  I love Bonnie's colors, but know that I also love it when I pick different colors and get a happy surprise when they come out into one of her gorgeous creations!  Tonight Kathy and I had the house to ourselves (rare event, the guys went to see a comedian!) and we watched Taken 2   and I did a little cleaning, biking and catching up on magazines so I could give them to Megan.  In the Better Homes and Gardens I found the picture on the right above and viola..I knew those were my colors!

I pulled some fabrics and strips to see if I had enough to at least get me started, and I do.  I am sure I will add to the palate, and maybe subtract a few I am ify about, but at least I have a bunch of fabric collected in my mystery bin again!  I am looking forward to starting the mystery!  The first clue is just barely out (March/April '13 Quiltmaker) and the next clue won't be out for two months so come join the fun!  

NewFo January...

I had no problem starting new projects for January!  I made two Streak of Sunshine quilts..one is already quilted and one is waiting on quilting.

 I also made two Braid in a Day Gnome Couch Quilts.  Also waiting to be quilted!

 I started the Kaleidoscope of Kolor BOM at 35th Ave.  So this one will take a good year to complete.

 I also started a Scrappy Trip Around the World and got four blocks done.

February is PURPLE!

 Angela's BOM Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for February is purple!  Kathy got busy on her block--Scrap Jar Stars above, and I did two more Jack in the Box blocks too.

 I was telling my friend Barb about how Randy does stained glass and he made me this Attic Windows block when we lived in Wisconsin.  I tried to find her a picture on my blog only to discover that I got it before I had a blog!  So I never showed it off.  Here it is below.  It hangs in my front window.  It was a rainy day when we took this picture, not your usual Arizona day, but you get the idea.  I love this thing and would love him to make me another one, or two, lol!

I have the day off of work today and just got back from my massage.  I am happy to report that I have lost a total of eight pounds since I started using myfitnesspal and riding my bike!  Really excited to get in some sewing this weekend..we will be heading up North this weekend to sew with Jacki, BJ, Ros and I am not sure who else on Sunday.  May try to do my free motion quilting on the Skillbuilder BOM up there, or hope one of them does theirs so I can see it in action.  I watched all the video from Alyssa's blog last night and feel like I will never be a quilter..just a piecer ..lol.