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.

Three years ago I saw that Judith Baker Montano was teaching a class at the Minnesota Quilters Guild in June . I have been a fan of hers for years and have all her books. Our oldest son lives in Minneapolis so thought I could kill 2 birds with one stone as the saying goes. I signed up for her class which was a 1 day class held in St. Cloud about an hours drive from David. Her class was excellent and I also had a chance to talk to her later and she encouraged me to come to her studio in LaVeta, CO. for her very first retreat that July. I said I probably wouldn't be able to but with encouragement from my hubby plus the kids I did sign up for it and flew off to CO. Well unfortunately I flew off but my bags did not arrive. That was a Thurs. and I was told they would be sent to LaVeta by Fri. am. Well all day Fri. no bags. Whenever we would call we would get told they were on there way or something. Well finally Sat. around noon we were told they would not be there until Mon. because the airport wouldn't deliver that far and they had been turned over to Fed. Ex. Well I called them and they said the airline had put the wrong zip on the tags for Fed Ex. and they were sitting in Pueblo, CO. and they closed at one pm. Well all my stash and clothes were in those bags. Then finally after Judith getting on the phone with them said they would leave them next door at a Kinko's and Judith very kind husband Ernest drove all that way and picked up my bags.

50 miles each way. What a start to a class. Well what I am going to show you is the square I made using Judith's fabrics on that first day of class. I finished it at home and decided to frame it as my colors for what I had planned were all turquoise, pale rose, pale gold and cream colorations. On top of it all when they inspected my bag they lost the bag of rose fabrics.

By this time I was so nervous about the whole mess I had an upset system and lived on tea and toast plus immodium tablets. Well I survived and enjoyed the retreat.

For Christmas this year I put JBM's new DVD on my list and I am here to tell you that her DVD is wonderful. She covers so much in it it is like being back at her retreat .She covers color, fabrics, how she puts together a square, embellishing, the whole nine yards. If you can't get to her retreat after you have seen this DVD you will have the next best thing.

I should also add that Judith kindly lent me a nightie plus a couple of t-shirts so I at least could change my clothes.

In my previous posts I mentioned and showed pictures of blocks and wallhangings that had been made to be raffled off at the CQ conference in Omaha every July. Well Kate just posted the guidelines for this year's blocks and I have copied part of her email here:



"Welcome to the 11th annual Crazy Quilt Benevolent Society crazy quiltblock fund raiser. Every year for the past 11 years, we--the ladies on the crazy quilt list have made cq blocks. The blocks are made into quilts and raffled at the Omaha Crazy Quilt Retreat raising money for breast cancer research. Over the past ten years, we've raised over $13,000.It's just a drop in the button compared to what is truly needed, but it helps us feel like we are fighting this horrible disease too. If you would like to join our fundraiser this year, you can contact me atmailto:bomber17@mtco.com to let me know you'd like to participate. "



If anyone who reads this wants to participate just email Kate and she will give you the guidelines.



It is literally freezing here in Florida. Last week I covered a lot of plants and bushes then it turned warmer and I brought all the coverings, washed them all and they went back in the linen closet. Well I shouldn't have bothered because last night I was out there again covering up. It was actually in the lower 20's in central Florida and as far down as fort Meyers they said. It will be cold again tonight then starting a warmup and back in the 70's for the weekend. Do I wash all them again or just fold them and leave them in the garage waiting for the next freeze. This is what I hate about Florida gardening in the winter and do not do much of it. At least in the Chicago
area once it freezes usually late Oct. you are happy to put an end to the gardening and it is not a problem. I don't think I have hardly ever had to cover things up at home except maybe the impatients because they are the first to be hit even in the mid 30's. I shouldn't be complaining when I read about all the nurseries and growers down here who spend all night hosing down their ferns, plants, etc. and lose thousands of dollars in the process. They say it will hit the Valentine flower market this year. If it doesn't I am sure the economy will. Enough depressing news for one day. Stay happy and try to be optimistic about our futures.

Another rainy and cool day in Florida. Sometimes in the winter we don't have rain for weeks and this is the second good rainfall in one week. When going thru my pictures I noticed that I did not include the quilt that Kate or Mona made from the 2 purple and gold blocks. They did a marvelous job and made a great little wallhanging out of the 2 blocks. Kate did say she thought it was a woman from Oklahoma who bought it but couldn't remember her name. I will post it now. You will love the background fabric they used.

Also I am posting a pic of an applique block that I did for a charity auction that Elly Sienkiewicz did back in 03-04 sometime. I had taken a 3 day class with Ellie here in Florida. It was at a hotel down in the Keys and my hubbie came along and spent his time fishing, exploring, etc. while I sewed.

If you ever get a chance to take one of Ellie's classes or go to her retreat in Williamsburg, VA I encourage you to do so. She is a wonderful, warm person and very unassuming. I would say she is probably the top applique person in this country at least. There is a funny little story that goes with this trip. We were in class one day and I was sitting up at the front and one of the gals had gone for coffee. She comes back in with 2 men and one was Ron Howard who was Opie on the Andy Griffith show and now a world famous director. They had met on the elevator and he wanted to know what type of class she was taking. She told him and he wanted to come see what we were doing. Everyone but Ellie knew who he was. I grabbed my camera and asked if I could take a pic of him and Ellie. He said sure so I snapped one even though she wondered what all the fuss was about. This was not a digital camera but the regular old camera. I told Ellie I would send her a copy of the pic and she wrote me back with a delightful note telling me her family thought she was crazy that she did not know him. I guess when you travel and teach as much as she does you don't watch much tv. We got quite a chuckle out of it. If I can find the pic somewhere I will scan it and put it on. My guess is the pics are back in Chicago. I think they were there scouting out places but had stayed at our Hyatt. Aparently his wife was with him also but did not meet her. To get back to the charity quilt they received so many blocks from people they were able to make 3 quilts and they were auctioned on ebay. This was my first foray into applique and my block was not that great but the quilt it was put on sold for over $6,000.00. We were given the background fabric so they were all the same. There were some gorgeous blocks on there plus Ellie's name certainly helped the deal. Maybe we should have let Ron Howard know it was going to be auctioned off and got some of those Hollywood dollars. I did not have my own laptop in those days so don't know if I have any pictures of it or not. Will have to look on my hubbie's computer.

The project I did in her class I finished but it is rolled up in a drawer and I think I will have it framed this summer. Maybe some day one of the grandkids might want it. I will show it when framed. I put a lot of time into it so should frame it.

I mailed off my block for Dee's quilt on Wed. so Kate should have it by tomorrow. I thought I would show you the blocks I made for the quilts that Kate & Mona make every year to auction to benefit breast cancer and the cq scholarships. I will post the two blocks I made for 08 - they were purple and gold mainly and if I remember right I made some of the fabric on my new (at that time) embellisher machine. The 07 blocks are the silouette ones and I have a picture also of the gorgeous quilt they made with this group of blocks. As I have said before, the hard part is putting the blocks together and finishing them. Both Kate & Mona deserve a big reward someday for all the time and effort they expend on this project. I believe in "what goes around comes around" so they are due.