Fire in our neighborhood

One of the benefits of living on a golf course is seeing some awesome sunrises. I took this picture on Friday morning. We had some fog rolling around as the sun was coming up. The picture doesn't really do it justice. As I watched, it became more awesome by the minute as it rose in all its glory!

Yesterday, we had a grass fire in our neighborhood on the golf course. Thankfully it was not near enough to us to cause us to leave our home. We live on "Hole #5". The fire was near hole #14. We are in a drought here in NC. Normally this is our rainy season. The fire was started by someone carelessly tossing a cigarette out. The grass here is very dry right now and it was windy yesterday. It didn't take much to start the fire. I don't have any pictures of the actual fire, as you can well imagine, it was blocked off so the fire crew could put it out. They actually asked some people to leave there homes. 3 houses had siding damage. All totaled there were between 25 and 35 acres burned before they were able to get it under control! That's quite a bit!

Well, on a much happier note, I have started my college bound daughter's quilt! Here are 12 of the blocks so far. I have 7 more to go. ( I finished one more while I was uploading all these pictures!) There are 20 blocks total I need to do. My goal is to get all the rest of the blocks done today so my daughter can place them where she likes before I sew them together. Gotta get her involved in her quilt somehow! :0)
I have not gotten to go to IKEA yet. :( My books are still on the floor in boxes. One of these days I will get there so I can finally have a place to store my books! I think I told you that it takes 2 hours to get there from here. By the time you drive there, do your shopping and drive back. Its a full day.
The next pictures are from my quilt bee's show and tell. I hosted the meeting this past Wednesday. Above you see some cute little triangle bags or pouches. Perfect size for lots of things!
Here is a bright table topper.
A table runner.
A Cheerful little quilt!
This is kinda fun! I've never seen this pattern before. It is a four patch turned into a gingerbread man! It's appliqued onto the background or blanket stitched.
This is a raffle quilt.
There are three of us in the group doing the Civil War quilt along from Barbara Brackman's blog.
I'll try to remember to show you mine next time I post.
This is another fun quilt! Something that is dear to my heart. Recycling! This quilt is made all from Men's 100% cotton shirts purchased from "GoodWill"! The maker added a couple of fun bright scraps which adds just the perfect punch. Wonderful! I think she said she spent only $6.oo for all the shirts she bought. I'm not sure how many she got. ( It might have been 6 shirts at a $1.00 a piece?)
Oh darn! I thought I had a picture of the back also. Sorry. Let me tell you this though. The blocks on the front were the sleeves of the shirts. The back was made totally from the larger pieces of the back of the shirts!! What a bargain!!!
Last but not least, is a baby quilt made from all left over scraps from other quilts. Who would have thought that you could put pink and orange together??? Not me... But I really love it!! :0)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

I made some chocolate chip cookies today and added some festive colored M & M's! Chocolate Chip cookies are my husbands all time favorite cookie. I've made lots of different types of cookies over the years. If you ask my husband what kind of cookies he would like, he ALWAYS chooses chocolate chip!! So I have made his favorite cookies for Valentine's Day. What's that saying... To win a man's heart is through his stomach. LOL! :0)
I thought I would show you two quilts that I have hanging in my "Dining" room. This is an applique basket quilt I did. It is fairly formal. Although I will tell you a secret. One I can't hide if you ever came to my home. I gave up my dining room so my daughter could have a piano. It was a gift from her Great Grandfather. And she does play! I told her if we got the piano she would have to take lessons and use the piano! It is way too big a piece of furniture to never be used. I am very proud to say that I rarely if ever had to remind her to practice. So... it was well worth giving up my dining room so she could have a piano. :0)
Here is the other quilt I have hanging in the dining room / piano room. I believe this was a Thimbleberries pattern.
As you can see here I have started my piano playing daughter's college quilt. It is still a work in progress. In the last post I showed you the pattern she had picked out. I am actually liking how the fabrics are playing together so far. Let's keep our fingers crossed that they will continue to do so. :0)
Block # 4 from the Civil War quilt along. I was having some problems piecing this one. The center square was fine. It was trying to add the outer triangles. I had to take it all apart and redo it.

My husband daughter and I went out to dinner on Saturday evening to celebrate out Valentine Day! Who says you can't celebrate a couple of days early with the family you love! (I miss my other daughter and wish she could have been with us. She will be home in about 3 weeks to celebrate her 21st birthday which happens to fall during her Spring break.) :0)

What am I up to?!

Hello, friends! I hadn't realized that it has been a whole month since I last made a post! Where did the time go!

Well, let me show you what I've been doing. I started Barbara Brackman's Civil War quilt along. She has been posting a new block once a week on Saturday's. I am only on week 3 since I did not start it right away. I have 2 more to go in order to catch up. I am hand piecing the blocks. Just like my ancestors would have done. :0)

This is a project that I have not begun yet. My youngest daughter will be going to college next year and has asked me to make her a special quilt to bring to school with her. How could I refuse! This is the pattern she chose. I now have everything I need to make it and hope to start it soon.
Here is the Fall 1 1/2 inch strip exchange quilt that I have been working on. ( The top is all together, finally, except for the border) I'm not finished yet so you only get to see a peek of the borders I have been auditioning to see what might work. I think I'm going to go with all three you see in the picture. I hope I have enough fabric to do the last border. If not I will have to devise a plan "B". Stay tuned!
:0) This is something I just whipped up from someone else's caste off! My quilt bee occasionally has a meeting where you bring what you don't want anymore. A sort of "my trash is someone else's treasure"Day. I had picked up three baggies of pre-cut rail fences. It was really easy! I just had to sew the pre-cut strips and ended up with this small lap quilt! I am thinking about adding a border and then finishing it up to give to my daughter who is now living in a college apartment. It will be a perfect throw for her sofa!!
Another baggie I picked up!! Pre cut pyramids! I have been playing around with the pieces on my design wall. This is what I have so far. There were plenty of darks in the baggie but I did have to cut more lights for the background. I'm still moving pieces around yet, so I haven't sewn it together.
Well, here's my story of the day. I have had a book shelf in my sewing room which was made of press board. The bookshelf had been mine as a child. So it was weak and wobbly but I was using it anyway. It had had enough. I have a lot of quilting books. I love my books! I often use them as references for my projects. I think I have more books then fabric.... Uh maybe not. But it sure is close! :0)

Anyway, My bookshelf Kaput! So..... I have two new shelf units that I bought from IKEA called Expedit. I love them! I only bought two to see how I liked them. I will be purchasing another one. Only this time instead of only the four cubes, I will get the bigger one with (I think) it had 12 cubes! I can't wait! My books are currently on the floor in boxes. Our nearest Ikea is about 2 hours away. So it needs to be a planned trip. Maybe I can convince my husband we should go this weekend. ;0)
And last but certainly not least! I did make the little quilt into a pillow!! I am just loving it! I took the two old pillows I had on the sofa, which were falling apart at the seams literally, and cut them open. I reused the poly fill stuffing in them to stuff this one. I love it when I can recycle stuff!!

Have a great day everyone!! :0)