What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 It's always exciting to have a finish.  Even a small one.  I've been making easy small blocks this year in RSC colours each month, for a small baby quilt.  It all started when I decided to use up some donated strips of white fabric  printed with tiny blue flowers.  There was just enough to cut 25 five inch squares from the strips, so that was what I worked with.   Each month I added two strips of the nominated colour, starting with blue.

I stitched a few easy blocks each month

Last month I got the top completed, pinned ...

Let me introduce you to Bernita, seated, in this photo; here she is with her quilting buddies yesterday. Bernita is a resident in a local care facility, a lifelong seamstress and crafter who was bitten by the quilting bug in 1961 when she was gifted a Sunbonnet Sue baby quilt at a baby shower for her soon-to-be-born daughter.                    &

Let me introduce you to Bernita, seated, in this photo; here she is with her quilting buddies yesterday. Bernita is a resident in a local care facility, a lifelong seamstress and crafter who was bitten by the quilting bug in 1961 when she was gifted a Sunbonnet Sue baby quilt at a baby shower for her soon-to-be-born daughter.                    &

This morning, Patrick and I slept in. It was nice. 

We went to meet Kim and Jim at Sweet Inspirations in Chehalis for lunch. On the way into town, we saw a fire cloud. 

We were trying to figure out where it was, till we realized it was close to Patrick's Cabinets in Chehalis. On S Market Street. 

We were hoping there wasn't anyone in the house! 

It was a good and busy month.

 I fell off the wagon …

The fabric-buying wagon, that is. When I had a few minutes to spare the day before we left Nashville, I mentioned visiting a shop in Murfreesboro. I checked their website the day before and found this adorable panel:

I bought two of them and also purchased a couple of fabrics (a Christmas green grunge and a black and white fabric that could pass for snow flakes). These will make great Christmas quilts that can hang in a doorway (and one will possibly stay here at our home on top of the ridge).

Christmas panel and ...

This morning, Patrick went golfing and I got up to get ready for company to work on our QOV projects. 

I went downstairs and was getting things ready for sewing. Everyone arrived around 10 am and we worked all the way to 3:30 pm. Mary stayed a bit longer to help me with the panel quilt 

We had about 3 or 4 quilts going at once. They were all ones that were started but not finished. We did get one finished that needed a border to it. This quilt, we were able to get 9 of the 11 rows ...

Our Daylight Saving has come to an end here in New Zealand, so it was time to turn the clocks back one hour.  The clever lap top, tablet, and cell phone can all do it magically themselves. That left the kitchen clock, and the clock on the stove for me to do, I had a bit of tuition last year so knew exactly what to do.  My bedside clock is a bit of a problem, so I just take the battery out and wait for the time to catch up, then reinsert it.  There must be an easier way, so ...

Today, I was ready to do something. I tend to walk around trying to find something to do. Patrick went to get blood work, and I played on the tablet for a while. Then I got laundry going. Once that was going, I started cleaning up a bit. Got the cat litter, since I forgot yesterday. Then I decided to back some bread. 

I found a Sourdough bread book when I was cleaning out my cookbooks. I wanted to do a Sourdough French Bread, and it came out really good! I decided to do a "twist" to the French bread ...

Even I still can't believe it's done, and it's been almost a year since it was completed.

Patti packing up her office, and unpacking the quilt

That's MaryBeth holding it up so Patti could see everything on ...

 This morning, I slept in again. I'm surprised I'm sleeping so late. Patrick said I snored all night. lol Poor guy. Allergies are back. UGH

I got moving this morning. Didn't play games but did get a few things done before meeting Sandy at the British Tea shop in Centralia. We had lunch there. Talked a good 2 1/2 hours since we haven't seen each other in over 6 months. Please we talked about her heart issues that she's dealing with now. Also talked about everything under the sun. 

Came home around 2:30 ...

And there is always the chaos factor.

Case in point: a few weekends ago I went to Marshall Dry Goods with one of the besties. I purchased flannel to make two receiving blankets for our great-grandson that's due to arrive in April. I was thinking I had plenty of time to make them. But two weeks ago, darling granddaughter landed in the ER, was admitted to the hospital due to complications, was told she would stay two weeks to allow little man to grow a bit more, then told it would be three weeks, and he was born a ...

 I've certainly been out and about lately, meeting up with friends.  Firstly with Louise and Robert who came down this way in their motor home to attend a country and music festival in Marton.  Then they had people to see, family to catch up with, and arranged to meet me for lunch too.  There was a communication breakdown about where we were meeting, as my text message didn't get sent, for whatever reason.  After a bit of telephone tag later in the morning, everything was smoothed out, and arrangements confirmed.   We went to a favourite of mine, Salt ...

 I awoke to rain, rain and more rain today.  It's the middle of summer so why so much rain?  But as everyone says, it's got to be good for the farmers, and the home gardeners too.  It was raining so hard that the rain drops were running down the window, and Gemma was fascinated with the movement.  Perhaps she can catch one of these things, whatever they are.  But try as she might, those little critters, as she thought, just kept rolling down the window, oblivious to her paw batting away, trying to catch them.  

She can't ...

Azsia is a special young lady heading off to college this week.

Azsia and her mother lived in the apartment above ours. These two delightful ladies brought a lot of joy to us while we were sheltering in place during the pandemic. Since I was working from home, I was able to take Azsia to school every day (she was in the 9th grade at the time), and it was fun talking with a teenager during the early morning drives.

Fast forward to 2025--she graduated from high school, and was accepted into (at last count) 26 different colleges and universities ...

"You are exactly the kind of loud-mouthed, wise-ass, brown woman who will be made an example of."

Paul's fear for my safety was obvious. Partly at his urging and partly out of caution, my blog focused on "just quilting" in 2025. As articulate and courageous I may have appeared to you,  I was chilled into silence.

I kept my head down. A new job meant I had plenty to occupy my time. A long commute gives me time to meditate.

Not my most productive, but here are a few of my favorite projects of 2025.

1. Honi - A modern ...

December has been a busy month for us. It’s that living in the moment thing again. 

One of our nieces contacted the Hubs a few weeks ago and told him that while she apologized for the late notice, she was graduating from nursing school in a couple of weeks and that since she was our favorite niece (her words), she knew we’d come anyway! And we did. It has been many years since we visited Hubs’ hometown and we squeezed in all the visiting we could along with attending Lauren’s graduation ceremony and celebration party. We played ...

…or holy cow, it’s December! Keeping it real…

Lighter decorating happened this year for Christmas