Merry Christmas!

I hope this message finds you and your family safe and warm while enjoying this holiday season. Dan and I are spending our first Christmas in Key West. We are dry camping right now which means absolutely no hook-ups for water, electricity, or sewage. This is pretty new for us. So far, it has not been that bad. We use our generator when we need to recharge batteries and for extra juice for heat or TV. Washing dishes is a problem so we are using paper plates some of the time.  Showers are taken in a public shower house that is kept very clean. One less thing for me to clean this holiday season – the shower! More time to quilt – right? But - the days have been warm so we have been spending quite a bit of time outside taking the cats for walks.

We also visited the Key West Botanical Garden. I thought I would share this most unusual flower. The trumpet flower is larger than my hand.  Isn't it beautiful?  St. Francis had his own visitors.

Today, we will join the other winter residents on base for a potluck dinner. I am taking our favorite holiday dish – Herbed Brown Rice stuffing with roasted almonds. YUM!

Despite all the distractions of dry camping and great weather, I did finish another block and I am half way through the next one already. I still have a lot to do. I got to looking at the quilt and I realized I have some very big borders that will need quilting as well. I won’t mention the binding I have not started yet. All I can do is to keep on quilting until it is done.

“In your heart, In your soul, Did you find peace there?” ~ Full Circle by Loreena McKennitt

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

One More Block Done and Another Quilting Murder Solved!

Well, this block took a lot longer to finish considering I did not do much stitching on this block.  Can I blame it on the holidays?  Oh, and my brother came down for a visit and the weather was just perfect for being outdoors.  The cats wanted to go for walks and kayaking to do.  So, yea, lots of excuses for me not to be working on the quilt.  I guess I better stop with the excuses now the weather has turned a little colder and windier.  Time to do some serious quilting!

 

I just finish reading another Quilt-Murder-Mystery book called “Quilt As You Go” by Arlene Sachitano.  Yea, call me obsessive.  

Anyway, Arlene gave the best tip that I have ever heard.  I have often heard and read about threading a bunch of needles before you start your project to save you time. I have never tried it because I always thought I would cut a strand of thread, thread the needle, tie a knot and then……..well, where do I put the threaded needles? I would need to hide them so my cats would not tangle the thread or run off with the thread or worse – getting the needle with the thread. They have taken straight pins and needles in the past, but I have learned to hide all sharp objects while I am quilting. So I thought I would have to put the pre-threaded needles back into the pack and hide the pack. That sounds like more trouble than threading a needle as I needed it.

Here’s Arlene Sachitano: Load a whole package of needles onto the spool. Tie a knot in the end of the thread and then each time you want a new needle, you grab it and pull some thread out, then clip the thread and needle from the spool. Retie the end of the spool piece. Perfect! I can keep my needles and thread in a baggie and none of my smarty cats will be able to get to either one! HA!

Needles ready to go!

Oh, and how’s the book?  I would recommend it to anyone interested in murder mysteries and quilting.  The main character is a long-arm quilter so I have learned about the other side of the quilting business.  I’m more of a traditional quilter so I don’t know very much about the long-arm or the quilting business.  The story can be a little slow at times, but I like the characters.  I also like the story’s location which is near Sequim and Port Townsend, WA.  I spent a lot of my childhood growing up in the Puget Sound area on Whidbey Island.  This is the third one in a series of Harriet Truman/Loose Threads Mystery and I have read all three.  I hope she writes more Harriet Truman books.

Happy Holidays to All!

Finished Another Block!

Well, I can’t believe it.  I have actually finished another block and I still have over a week before the end of November!

I have my fingers crossed that I will be able to keep this pace up and finish the quilt on time.  Oh, I do uncross my fingers while quilting.  Yea, it would be hard to hold a needle with crossed-fingers. 

I need to finish the two sashings before going on to the next block.  Even though they are more detailed, they are small and don't take more than a couple of evenings to finish.

I finally broke down and bought my first Kindle Book from Amazon. It finally came in the mail from being on backorder.  I swore I would never get an electronic book because I like the way books feel while reading them. I guess I am a Traditionalist in more than one way, but I'm going to give this a try because this Kindle has a different screen that looks like paper and I can enlarge the fonts so I don’t have to wear my reading glasses all the time.  I just won't have pages to turn.  Hmm.  Well, I'll give it a try.

The best part is that I don’t have to wait to find a bookstore. This Kindle has 3G so it is independently connected to WiFi and I don't use up our limited BandWidth.  Now I can download my new books as soon as I get the urge to buy another book.  This is going to be great!

The main reason for buying the Kindle is for storage. I have a lot of books. Books I have not read  yet and books I plan to read again. I have been trying to get rid of each book after finishing it but then I buy two more!  I finally admitted that we do not have the space for a large collection of books, not to mention the weight they add to our motorhome. So what have I been doing with the extra space?   Yea, you guessed right! Fabric and projects are filling up those empty spaces. At least they are lighter. ;0)

THE ALOHA QUILT by Jennifer Chiaverini

I just finished listening to Jennifer Chiaverini’s audio-book “The Aloha Quilt”.  If you love to quilt and you love to read then this is the perfect book for you. This story follows one of the Elm Creek quilters – Bonnie to Hawaii. During her stay, she learns the about Queen Lili’uokalani, the history behind Hawaii and the U.S. and about Hawaiian quilts. The history of Hawaii was quite an eye-opener for me.

I can’t wait for the next one “The Union Quilters” to come out in February. Did I mention that I can’t wait!

Of course, if you really want to start reading Jennifer’s books, you should start at the beginning with the very first one “The Quilter’s Apprentice”.

IF You Plan to READ “The Aloha Quilt” – DO NOT CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINK: it is a spoiler. Here’s a link to Mr XStitch’s blog with some quilts and rarely heard about history.

I finished this appliqué while listening to "The Aloha Quilt"

1 Block Done! 5 Month to Go!

ONE BLOCK Done! Only 7 more to go……and 23 more sashings. But I am quilting. Thanks to my BFF – Bec’s encouraging words of “Get ‘er done!” I needed that! Only 5 months left. Rut-Ro!


I did a simple quilt design on this block by echoing triangles. Speaking of triangles…..Have you heard of Pie-on-a-Stick? Well, here in Key West, they serve Chocolate covered Key Lime Pie-on-a-stick. Ooooh! So Good! Soooooo Rich! I drank a lot of water afterwards, but it was worth every bite. YUM!

I can't think of a better way to keep my strength up.  :0)

My List of UFOs (UnFinished Objects)

I have made a list of all my unfinished projects and it is sad to so many unfinished projects. I saw a few quilters make a list on their blog and I think it is a great way to keep tabs on my projects. I definitely need it as a constant reminder and a great incentive to finish my granddaughter’s quilt.

Don’t get me wrong. I love to quilt and I really love working on this quilt. BUT, I am having the hardest time sitting down to work on my projects. Part of the problem is all the other activities I have going on and part of the problem is time – “Oh, it’s too late to pull the quilt out tonight. I’ll do it tomorrow night”. So, I thought if I put this on my blog and make it a constant reminder then I will have to finish Vi’s quilt for her birthday.

I only have 5 ½ months to quilt 8 blocks and 24 sashings, not to mention the large border! It has already been over a year since I made the top and another 6 months of sitting in the hoop.

Well, I better get moving or should that be quilting.

Picture taken a few months ago....