I am posting a couple of photos tonight of my good friend and former neighbor Barb. Barb and I lived on the same street for 8 years and both loved the same things. Both into sewing, shopping , similar tastes in reading and could spend all day together and never get bored. Well 2 years ago my good friend up and moved to near Greenville, SC. She has a daughter in Virginia and wanbted to be closer. I felt very bad losing such a good friend but I used to go off and leave her every summer for 6 months

Her 50th. wedding anniversery was Feb. 14th. and her and her hubby came down to Florida and spent the weekend on the gulf coast near Sarasota. After they came to our area in central Florida and spent a few days. I am posting a couple of pics my hubby took of us when we were on our way to the women's club luncheon at the clubhouse. She is the shorter blond gal. We both belonged to a sewing group for now almost 10 years. We meet every second Mon. morning at each others houses. I am the only cq gal, a couple of gals quilt and some knit, crochet but it is mainly getting together for the companionship. We arranged to get a table for 10 for the luncheon and we all met up there and Barb got to see the rest of the gals. It was very nostalgic. They are back home in SC now but assures me she will be back another year.

I was outside today and noticed that my tree rose has burst into bloom at the front of the house so I grabbed the camera and took a pic. I bought this probably 8-9 years ago and potted it into a large planter behind the hedge.

When we arrive I cut it back late Oct. - early Nov. and fertilize it and you can see the results. It will bloom like this as long as I am here and probably thru part of the summer. I use a 6 month fertilizer on it so it helps.

I also want to suggest a great blog for you to visit if she isn't already on your blog list. Cath K. who lives in Utah is having a great giveaway but it ends tonight so this may be a little late. She is giving a very generous gift celebrating her 100th. post. She is an avid crazy quilter and I met her in Omaha in 2007 and spent some time with her and her hubby at the airport while we were all waiting to see if we were going to make it home. They had cancelled many flights and I ended up getting the last single seat on a flight to Milwaukee and my husband and BIL who was visiting him both drove from Chicago to Milwaukee late Sun. night to bring me home so I wouldn't have to stay overnight there. Probably 1 1/2 hour drive each way. What a great pair of guys. My husband was my BIL's best man. They have been good friends forever.

So please stop over and say hi to Cathy" http://www.cathyscrazybydesign.blogspot.com/

I am going to stop the old squares for awhile as they get boring after awhile. If you can see them in person they are so much nicer. The one interesting thing is she used only one stitch on the entire bunch. The triple arm featherstitch in gold. One or two of the blocks are not finished and I have been carrying in my purse a little bit of the thread cut from a tail end on the back and believe it or no I have not found the same color or weight.

One of these days I will get lucky or just have to go with something close.

I am going to show pictures of a redwork wallhanging I made for my daughter's sunroom probably 8-10 years ago. It was in an American Patchwork & Quilting mag and I had never done redwork before but I gave it a try. There is something nice and easy about redwork. You really don't have to think or make any decisions like in cq. I did the hand quilting on it myself. Mainly just outlining the triangles. Well now I have had a look at the pictures I posted I did hand quilt all through the squares. Don;t do much of that anymore.

Went to the Extravaganza flea market today. They only have it 3 times a year, Nov. Jan. & Feb. at Renningers in Mt. Dora. There are over a 1000 outside dealers and people come from as far as Georgia for it. Also a lot come up from the Miami area. I bought more orchids for in and out plus some ivy to play with. I had been thinking I would like a large cone shaped container to hang on the wall in the sunroom between the windows in the middle. I found one with 2 artificial bushes stuck in it and I thought well I will take it home and paint it and throw out the flowers. Well Hubby said that color doesn't look bad and he wouldn't paint it. Do you think he just doesn't want a job? Also the more I looked at the flowers they may come in handy some time. A bunch of pink/red peonies and a boston ivy. Right now it is sitting there with 2 pots of real ivy in it waiting for me to get the ladder and tools and put a nail up. I will take a picture once all these major decisions are made.

Here are more pictures of the old quilt squares. Sorry that a couple arereal blurry.

I did trim the 3 panels that I showed in an earlier post and cut the sashings. I decided to go with pink as there was so much turquoise and gold in there that I thought it would overpower it. This is a very soft pink taffeta that believe it or not I picked up at WalMart for $1.00 a yard - 60" wide. I bought 3 yards not knowing what I would do with it. Now it will be used. Time will tell if it is the right choice.

My friend Barb from SC was visiting over the weekend and she looked at the blocks and thought the pink was good with it and I trust her judgement so off I go. Will post once I have it together. I think I will buy some white cording and dye it variegated turquoise if I can and put it around like an inner frame.

I am currently working on some small motifs for the moif swap so will wait until I finish all before showing them. A few Christmases ago I told my husband he had just bought me something for Christmas. I had bid on some old crazy quilt squares on ebay. Of course he was happy not to have to worry about what to buy me. I think it was only Nov. so I had the gal ship them to my daughter's house so I wouldn't be tempted. Well when I opened them Christmas day I was so excited and my hubby said "thats what you wanted"? Another CQer would appreciate what the age and workmanship means to us. I did take pictures of the squares and have had the best intentions every summer when we go home to get them out and do something with them. I am promising (threatening) myself that this will be the summer. The interesting thing about these blocks were the number and dates of all the ribbons. I think the squares were made by someone in North or South Dakota because a lot of the ribbons were from there and most are dated in the 1880 and 1890s. The Daughters of Rebecca and the International Order of Oddfellows are represented mainly. I took the pictures quite awhile ago and they were on my desktop. I cannot remember which pics go with which square but you may enjoy looking at them. There were a number of silk painted flowers that are lovely. Hope I have a few of those on here.

Happy Valentines Day to all of you who may stop at my blog. We are celebrating our usual quiet way. Saturday night is usually pizza and ice cream night while we watch tv or I sew and listen to tv. I am at that age where I can only eat ice cream once a week due to high cholesterol.

I also wanted to say how horrifying it has been to sit and watch our Australian friends try and cope with the horrible fires and loss of life. I have been lucky enough to have been to Australia and New Zealand twice and my favorite city in Australia is Melbourne. I loved the architecture of the city and the surrounding areas. We were made very welcome wherever we went. As a young gal growing up in Toronto I met a lot of young Australian guys who were just seeing the world. They would arrive, find work for a couple of months then move on to the next place they wanted to see. I always thought they were the most carefree group. Some had already been around the world just about. I haven't heard any news yet today so hope the fires have been contained by now. Will watch the 6.30 world news and find out.

I am posting pics of the third panel today. There is a bare white spot above the fan on the left corner that I dyed a piece of tatting for yesterday and sewed on last night. Tomorrow I will take a pic of the 3 panels together and see how they look.

The weather here in Florida has been beautiful the last couple of days. The sky at night is all shades of pink and blues. Must take a few pics. Pat Winter showed a pretty pic the other day of a beautiful sunrise all pink and blue sky but I am never up early enough to see the sun rise. Just the sun setting.

Hug your loved ones today.

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Today I am posting the second panel with the fan on it. It was a cloudy day until mid afternoon and I had a Dr's. appt. and by the time I got home it was too late to re-take the pictures. It is just the colors are so much prettier in person but you still can get the idea of the squares.

I just added one more pic of the fan because the first pic turned out sideways. I don't know how this happens when it shows right side up on the desktop. Any ideas?

I mentioned doing the butterfly quilt this year but have been re-thinking this project. I don't have anywhere to hang the one I am showing you when finished never mind another larger one. My children have various ones I have made and the grandchildren are too young to apreciate them. Then again I do this for the love of it so I may change my mind again. I guess once you are bitten by the crazy quilt bug it doesn't seem to go away. I do try my hand at other things but they always seem to end up on a cq.

In the last post I showed you the block I had made using Judith's fabrics when mine had not arrived. I did start eventually with my fabrics and I believe I made the first two blocks and sewed them together plus started embellishing them in the rest of the class. I continued when I went home to make 2 more panels. The second one was made as one large one because I wanted to put a fan in the middle and the third one was again 2 squares sewn together. They are roughly 12 x 24 each panel. So will end up as a 24 wide by 36 wallhanging plus borders.

I am at a point where I am trying to figure out what kind of border or borders, what color, should they be plain because the panels are so embellished? I bought some pink taffeta and have laid it over that but don't know if I like it and also where will this hang. I will show pics of the first panel today. I also added a couple of closeups of 2 areas. I see the colors are not very good. I did them outside but at the end of the day. Maybe inside with the flash might be better. May try that with the rest of them tomorrow.