2 Finishes This Week!!!!

I am having sew much fun in my sewing room this week!

I finished this yesterday:

This is Weaving The Rails and is designed by Kathie Holland of Inspired By Antiques Quilts Blog !

Here's a picture of Bella again - she says to tell you all hello!

Sometimes friends come into your life by surprise.  I'm glad to have a really good internet friend who can make me smile with just a simple text, email or comment on my blog.  We've never met in person, have only talked on the phone one time - but we hope to rectify that and meet some day!    What a treasure she is to me,  she has helped me work through some dark and depressing moments, inspired me to sew, created excitement in me when I was feeling low and is just an over all kind and sweet person. This person suggested a little something to add to those blocks in this quilt that I talked about the other day - you know the ones with the same fabric located in the same position in the same row!  Here's a reminder:

Here's what she suggest via text and I jumped on the idea!

Words that mean something to me written on each of the strips!

When life gives you scraps...... make a quilt!

Family, Friends, Love and Peace - 4 words that mean a lot to me

New Beginnings 2012.  This one is important to me also, as this year will be a year of many new things for me and also getting back to what I truly love to do - designing and playing with fabrics.

I also started working on this project yesterday:

This project was inspired by Keryn of the blog titled "Quilting Twin".  She's working on her scraps and trying to bust them a little.  After working on my scrappy rail fence quilt, I realized I had a bunch of leftovers.  I trimmed all the leftover rail fence bits and pieces to 4" wide and then cut the other fabric to 6" wide strips and started going to town after I realized Keryn's project would be the perfect thing for me to do also to help finish up those extra bits and pieces! This will be a work in progress and might take me a bit to finish as I'll probably have to piece more 1 1/2" wide strips together!  Thanks Keryn!

I'm also piecing 2 1/2" strips together to work on this scrappy project:

Spider Web blocks - this should be a blast to work on and it will really put a dent in all my white, cream and red scraps!

Here's a sneak peek at an up and coming project I'm working on.  I'll be teaching in March at a retreat and I'm working on a special wool project just for them!  This weekend I'll be hand stitching this also!

Yesterday we received a whopper of a storm here.  So after trying to clean up the driveway and sidewalks a bit, we decided it was time for a little fun!

Now granted, after using the snow-blower twice yesterday and realizing that the vibration in the handles was making my hands ache a little - I decided not to play on the quad in the snow.  The vibration from the handles on that Quad machine would have probably aggravated my recovery from carpal tunnel surgeries, so I played photographer instead and baked a few Chocolate Chip Cookies for the riders when they were done playing.  I'll be back to riding my Quad this summer, now it's time for me to continue healing so I'm back to 100%!

Here's a few other snow pictures from this morning:

Picture of the snow on my deck rail.  From my measurements - we received well over the 3" to 6" predicted.  More like 8" if my calculations are correct!

A photo across the fence in our back yard - I love this neighbors shed - I really want one like this!  So old fashioned looking!  Would look great in my yard!

And now I need to get ready for our busy weekend.  We have a birthday party this evening and I am baking the cake!  A triple layer chocolate cake with strawberry filling and cream cheese frosting!  I'll take pictures to share, if I remember!

Here's a picture of my Grandma quilting.  This is the only picture that I'm aware of that exists of my Grandma at her quilt frame.  The quilt she is working on is still in my family, my dear Aunt Julie has it and sleeps under it often.

This is my Grandma, Lucille Baisden.  She was my Dad's Mom.  She left us several years back and we miss her so much. I was thinking about her a lot a couple days ago and decided to scan this photo to share.  I showed it on FaceBook and it brought on a good discussion between family and friends. According to my Aunt, the yellow fabric used in this quilt was from one of her dresses.  She's drawing out her quilt pattern here.  She used a simple string tied to a pencil.  She held the string and then drew out her baptist fans pattern on many of her quilts.  She also quilted on a quilting frame that my Grandpa made for her.  It was one of those wonderful old quilting frames that could be raised up to the ceiling when not in use and lowered when she took the notion to quilt, which was often.  The frame was stored on the ceiling of the family room when not in use. Thankfully, the quilt frame is also still in the family!