An Award

Earlier this week I was surprised to find that I'd been awarded a Kreativ Blog Award for my blog. I'm honored to receive it. Thanks go to my quilting friend Susan for this honor. If you get a chance, check out her blogs - I love them. =) Almost as good as being with her.

The Rules of the Award are:

1. The winner may put the logo on her blog.

2. Put a link to the person you got the award from.

3. Nominate 5 blogs

4. Put links to the blogs.

5. Leave a message for your nominees.

Took me awhile to decide what blogs I wanted to honor, so I'm just now getting to Steps 3-4 now. I love reading blogs and the ideas that come from them, but it's something that I don't have time for every day........ So here are the ones I've chosen:

Quiltville's Quips & Snips - I love reading Bonnie's blog and seeing the quilts she's making. Her scrap quilts inspire some of the work that I do.

Thoroughbreds and Threads - Diane is someone I've known on various quilt lists for almost 10 yrs. And we don't live that far away from each other in real life - one of these days we gotta get together! I have some of her great work in a round robin from several yrs ago.

msjanquilts - another friend for yrs from a couple of different quilt lists. We've also been in many online swaps. Love to read all that she posts about.

Quiltgranny's Shoe - Another quilting friend whose work in artquilts always challenges me to expand my horizons!

and last, but definately not least -

Daddy's Girl - Bekah is my niece and I love her dearly. And always love to see what she has posted. And hopefully one day soon I'll get the quilt I'm makin for her done.

Quilter's ADD?

I've come to realize that I have a short attention span with my quilting - Is there such a think as Quilter's ADD? I start quilts, and then I'll see another pile of blocks or scraps and I stop working on the first project and I'm off and running on the next one and so it goes and goes...... I do eventually get things done, but I almost always have many things going on at the same time. As a result I've got the center panels for two quilts for American Heroes finished. Haven't a clue what I want to do yet for borders, so they have been set aside so that ideas may germinate..... Pics of the two tops are below. Any suggestions for borders?

I'm making progress on my pineapple quilt and only have 7 more blocks to sew together (the fabric is all prepped. My thanks go to my friends Susan and to Gabriele for making blocks for me. Had designed a tuck panel, but then realized that something happened somewhere along the way when I sewed the strip sets together, phoeey..........so the design for that has morphed and shrunk a wee bit............Such is life. Will post a picture of the blocks and tuck panel when I've got them all done - hopefully by the end of this week. =)

Have finally found a 'background' fabric to use in the borders of Bekah's quilt. And I think that I've got a plan for what to do. I probably won't post another picture of the quilt until after she gets is so that she is surprised by the finished quilt. =)

Finally bought my plane ticket last week for the quilt retreat I'm going to in 2 weeks.....woohoo....I'm soooooooooo looking forward to it. Lots of time to quilt and lots of fun with my friends there in Wisconsin.

Encouragement...........

The last few weeks have been stressful to put it mildly due to the project I'm assigned to at the present time. And this week it has been going from bad to rotten to worse yet with regards to the project and how it is going. As was said of Casey when he struck out - there is no joy in Mudville tonite. =P

And on top of that has been the lack of any success with the resumes that have been submitted over the last 11 months. And that is enough to make me really start to doubt myself and wonder if I'm ever going to have a fulltime contract, much less a perm position, ever again. It's very hard to remain positive and upbeat when nothing happens.

As I go through my days though, I try to keep reminding myself that God is the one who is stitching the pieces of my life together according to His master plan. In addition to quilting, I also cross-stitch and occassionally needlepoint as well. And in spite of my best intentions, the back of those pieces are not a think of beauty. Instead they are a mess of knots, thread changes, loose threads, thread tangles, and generally unlovely. But when you turn them over you see how all of the unlovely work of the back becomes lovely when you look at it from the front and you see the finished work.

So too our lives are seen only from the "back side" when we look at them. We see the problems, the things that are ugly in our lives, what we are missing, what is hurtful, and so on. We don't see how everything is working together in our lives to shape us and our lives according to God's plan for us. But God sees our lives as they will be when his will is perfected in us, and there will be a day in our lives when the children of God will see their lives from His perspective. It is then that we (I!) will see our lives for the beautiful picture of God's work in our lives that they are.

And so, it is that I hold fast to one of the bible verses that has most encouraged me -

Jer 29:11 (NIV) "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

And God truly does provide encouragement when it is needed most - yesterday I received a card and book from some very dear friends in Phoenix. The card had notes of encouragement from everyone just when I needed it most. Thank you Lord for good friends!

Pineapple Blocks in Progress

Several years ago I started a pineapple quilt for myself, and then because I didn't like the fabric I chose for that first block just let the quilt lanquish for several years. But this year I've been making a real effort to finish up some of my UFO's and this is one of them that I've pulled out to get finished up. I have an appt to have this quilted the end of October, so I've been working like a mad woman to get the blocks done.

I had figured that I needed 56 blocks total for the quilt, and after laying them out on my bed tonite to take a picture of the blocks completed so far I'm really looking forward to seeing what this will be when finished. All of the blocks will be a different fabric combination and all of the fabrics have come out of my stash - and nope, it hasn't made a dent in the amount of batiks that I have in my stash. There will be 2 inch wide sashing made from the same black kona cotton. And cornerstones cut from the left over batiks used in the blocks. Finally there will be a triple border of the black, a batik, and finally black. The binding will be another batik, also from my stash.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me get this going by making blocks for me!

Peaceful Saturday

This week has been productive quilt-wise for me, partially due to the fact that when things get stressful I quilt – and usually a lot! I’ve finished up a quilted postcard for a monthly swap that I'm in. For the theme this round, everyone picks a "holiday" or "day of" to design a postcard for. For September, I chose September 3rd - Skyscraper Day. As I was doing my postcard, I was thinking of Boston and the view of the skyscrapers in downtown from the Boston Commons. A view that I really miss a lot. This will go in the mail on Monday and will wing it's way to SC.

Today I spent several hours working to straighten up my cutting table so that I could actually see the top of it again and use it. Now what most people don't know is that I have what would normally be a kitchen island for my cutting table in my sewing room. It is 6 feet long by 40 inches wide or there abouts.........and I had managed to cover it almost totally. After all my work I can actually see the top of it......and no, I didn't manage to get it totally cleared off but at least there's a little bit of room now. Still to come is figuring out what projects I'm going to be taking with me to the quilt retreat that I'm going to in October. The only thing I know of at this point is the fabric for two sets of swap blocks and maybe a queen-size quilt for American Heros.

One of the other projects that I worked on today was putting together the center part of a quilt I'm making my niece Bekah. I've still got the borders to go yet but it's getting there. I'm happy with the way it is turning out even though it has driven me crazy at times........... I'm turning over ideas on how to quilt it in my mind, so if you've got ideas let me know in a comment. =)

Next week I'll start working on the CQ block that I've received for the round robin that I'm in. I've got some ideas in my head for what I want to do and am looking forward to working on it. =)

As for my pineapple quilt that is in the works, I've now finished 31 blocks and 2 more finished blocks will be heading my way before long. That means I've only got about 23 more blocks to get made before the end of September. Am trying to get at least one per day made, and aiming for 2 or 3.....now if only I don't get too distracted I can make it.