Done!

Okay, it is finished. I have it up on my design wall, that I see needs to be vacuumed. If you click on the photo you can see the bells I put on the tree and some of the other stitching detail. I certainly hope my secret sister likes it.

I have this lovely tin that is filled with buttons.








I've been throwing buttons in there for about 15 years. I knew I had some cute stuff in there and thought I would see what might work on this piece. So I grabbed the tin out of the cupboard and reached to put it on the table and well......I missed....


I will say, I probably wouldn't have found those tiny little bells if this hadn't happened!!

Now I need to finish up my gifties for my quilting friends in my small group. Last year at Christmas time I asked them what their favorite Christmas carole's were. And if they had a loved version of it. So I took my list and spent some time on iTunes and found all these lovely songs. And now there is a CD with everyones choices on it, so we can all enjoy them. Just need to do the labels and wrap them up.

Happy Wednesday!

A New Phone!

When I was away with my BQF's for the weekend (best quilting friends) I was terribly jealous when they were all doing all kinds of cool things with their phones!! So I thought, WTF (fa la la la la), and drove into town and bought myself a new phone!!!

One of the reasons was because I could download a FREE Kindle app! Eileen had it on her phone and that was the factor that made me decide. Yes, I still had to pay just under $10 for the book, but I LOVE it! My screen is showing you the book I downloaded. I had been pondering a actual Kindle ever since they came out, and they were becoming more affordable, so this at least gives me a chance to see if I would like reading a book with this format. Will let you know.

Here is my center block for the secret sister project I have been working on for my small group. The party/exchange is day after tomorrow, and I still need to create the pieced border around it. So I probably ought to get to it!!

We did put our Christmas tree in the stand and got it watered, but it will be bare until Friday at least.....maybe even Sunday.

Tomorrow evening we have a dinner to attend and Friday we are heading south for the weekend.

I'm still feeling just about 0 "Holiday Spirit" this year.....

A Look Back - Cooperstown!!

Every time I look at these photos, I remind myself that I haven't yet posted about this part of our big New York trip that we took last spring. So here it is!!

This is the Inn where we stayed for our Cooperstown visit. Last time we were on the east coast we visited this wonderful town and were thrilled to return. The first time we stayed a bit out of town so it was great to be right in the middle of it this time around. Our room was the three windows on the top right.







These pots of tulips were outside all the big buildings in town.














So beautiful I had to take two photos....













This is the top of the staircase outside our room.
















This is the staircase heading up. The desk to the left is where we checked in.













And a view looking down!!














This is the dining area where breakfast was served.











And here is a shot of the sitting room area.













This is Doubleday Field. The place they filmed A League of Their Own.















In the stands
















I loved taking this photo....a view out onto the field of play










the score board















from the right field area












Cute, cute, cute diner where we liked to get a bite.














this is the inside of the diner....really small. But good food!!













this is the library












across the street from our Inn

















and around the corner








I spotted this house that is actually built INTO the hillside on our way into town. Had to go back and get some photos of it.
















Amazing place....I sure hope you enjoyed my little tour of Cooperstown. Yes, Lynn spent another day at the Hall of Fame, is now even more grateful to get to see Dave Niehaus honor being there. If you ever get a chance to visit this spot, we highly recommend it.

Catching Up

It is well after midnight here. So much has happened in the last couple of weeks. I will be playing some catch up here, some looking back and some planning ahead.
I just had a wonderful long weekend with my three favorite quilting friends. We went to a new place in Poulsbo and spent three days visiting, laughing, eating, sewing and planning our next few get togethers. I've been having trouble using the generic battery charger for my camera, so I didn't take my camera to get any photos, but I certainly will next time. I noticed that Sony finally charged my account today for the charger I ordered, so hopefully it will arrive soon. I have a bit of charge left and will get some current photos up here soon. In the meantime, here are two of my favorites I have on my media card.

This was taken in the summer at my Uncle Robin's place way out in the back forty! My Mom is on the left and her older sister Adele is on the right. Just a couple of sisters. This is an annual gathering for the family that has been going on for about 35 years. We used to get together the Saturday before Christmas. Some of my very best memories are of the party at Adele's every December.

These two are only about 18 months apart. It was fun at this gathering hearing them talk about being "girls" and how they would test each other on trivia at night when they shared a bed.

Those of you who share Facebook with me have seen this next photo. Thought I would share it here, it's so fun.

I took this a few Sunday's ago. Lynn had spent a lot of time in the yard, raking, mowing and puttering. After a nice shower and the sun going down, he decided to lounge on the couch for a nap. Next time I checked I found that Dutch had decided to join him!! Talk about dedication.

Hope you are all well, and enjoying the Holiday Season.

Heading for School

Last night Jeff and Krista went to see a show at the Mount Baker theater so Jillian and Ethan came to spend the night, on a school night which doesn't happen very often.

So getting up with two kids to get ready to go to school also doesn't happen very often!!! As you all know by now, I was blessed with birthing only boys, so I never had the little girl prep stuff as a young mother. So Jillian, bless her heart, let me play with her hair!

We did four fairly tight braids last night before she went to bed, and unfortunately they didn't dry all the way this morning, so we whipped out a curling iron and had fun creating some curls!! She has a cute little barrette clipped onto her headband.

Jeff likes to keep Ethan's hair cut pretty close. He is so darling any which way, I was just beginning to enjoy him having some hair until his Daddy took the shears to him yesterday!!

Once we looked at the first photo we decided to try again. I got a couple of smiles this time, but oh my, does Jillian look like ME in this one!!

Wednesday is my day to get my fall quilts down and put up the Christmas decorations. Will probably put up the trees this weekend.

End of the Holiday Weekend

It was a very different one for us around here. It was great having all my boys and their families here for Thanksgiving dinner festivities, but on Sunday. This allowed for Kyle, Genie Carter and Henry to drive up on Saturday and spend a little bit more time. My sister Nancy and her husband Terry came as well, along with my niece Kelli. Traditional food, I forgot to put out the cranberries, and nobody even noticed.

I know I've been away from my dear blog quite a bit lately, always with a promise to return more regularly. Funny how life doesn't seem to want to remain in any kind of regular pattern.

But I do think about you, dear blog, nearly everyday and write such wonderful posts in my head. I'll probably have quite a few postings in the next several days, as I clean out my media card from my camera, and prepare for holidays and a great quilting retreat coming up in two weeks.

For now, I'll leave you with more photo, of the dear Grands, then head off to bed.

Kids are here overnight, and I'll be up at the crack of dawn getting them ready and off to school.

Rainy Night in Lynden

Boy, does Rocco know how to relax!!! I actually had to watch for a minute to make sure he was actually breathing....

I did get the family room, hallway and master bedroom carpets all cleaned today. It's amazing that as old as this carpet is ( I think about 17 years old and it is beige) it sure cleans well.

While watching another UW Husky debacle on TV. It's so hard to watch this team continue to suffer with transitions.


It was a perfect day for making some chicken soup with dumplings. Here is my chicken in the pot with it's veggie friends and some fresh herbs from the garden. It makes me feel so "Martha" like to snip fresh herbs.

I'm surely missing my daily contacts with sister Carol. Her cruise ship is on it's way back to Fort Lauderdale and she will be back home on Monday I think. I was hoping she would have better access to internet updates, but that didn't seem to happen.

Looking forward to a nice long day of sewing tomorrow. Lynn has a rotary event all day. I downloaded a couple of new books onto my iPod so will have a grand time of it. What are You planning to do?

Happy Halloween!

Krista did such a great job making these costumes for Jillian and Ethan this year. Jillian is Amy Hedgehog and Ethan is Sonic. They go into Bellingham and trick or treat with some other little friends and this was taken after that so they were pretty wiped out.



I live in a small town that is extremely right wing/conservative and with Halloween falling on Sunday that was virtually no trick or treaters that night, we only had one other than Jillian and Ethan. On Saturday night we had about a dozen.

Thankfully Lynn took the leftover candy into work and got rid of it there.

Preparing to Runaway!

I'm so excited to be preparing to Runaway with some quilting friends next week. I haven't been to a retreat since April, and my stack of things to get quilted surely shows that. I just got another quilt back from Carol, here is a photo.

This was a top I made many years ago. I wanted something that would have "wintery" feel to it, and with my love of blocks and scraps this is what developed.

The border is actually made of nine patch blocks that are cut on the diagonal.

This was a pretty low priority top to get quilted, and now that it is done I really, really like it. I washed it, as I always do, and can you believe that some blue ran!!! I've only had a bleeding problem once before, and thankfully I still had my nice bottle of Synthapol, so I washed it again with that and the bleed off disappeared and left my quilt as you see it.

I am so NOT a prewasher!

Will be posting as I prep for my retreat. Hope you are all well.

More quilts back

My dear friend Carol, who does my long arm quilting has given me back three quilts in the last week. So more to add to my pile for binding!
It is amazing that I have almost nothing left ready to give her. I've gotten so many quilted this year, it must be time to finish up some more projects. I've only attended one retreat this year and I'm sure that is why stuff isn't done. So I'm so glad to be finally planning another retreat for the first week of November!! Only a handful of us going, but we are heading back to the very first retreat site I attended.
Tomorrow a few of us are taking a road trip to visit an online quilting store. She runs it from a huge barn on her property. A bit of a challenge shopping through bolts that way, but we always find good treasures, and a wonderful time being away together.
Off to bed, early!!