A Few Things....

How sad is this?   This is what the purse that I am currently carrying looks like, pretty tired and extremely over loved...

I loved this purse, I loved the color, I loved the shape, I loved the size, I loved the pockets...But now it's time to say goodbye. When I first made it I was so proud, but now, I hide it.  I don't want anyone to look at it, because it's so tired...  But, just look at what came in today's mail....

Isn't it beautiful? You can click on it for a closer look. 

 And take a peek at the inside.....

It's got pockets everywhere!!  I really love the pocket on the outside, just perfect for the cell phone!  You will never believe where I got this!  Brandy!  Yep, she's making them.  I saw her first purse on facebook and just had to have one for myself.  Take a look at this one.....

Isn't it just the girliest thing you ever did see??  LOVE IT!!  Brandy can make one for you if you'd like, just let me know and I can get you her info.  She's working on another quilt, so I'm hoping to see another quilt come my direction.

I'm also pluggin' away at a couple of BOM's.  Here's the first one from my favorite little quilt shop Four Pines in Claremont....

Here's another one that I'm doing with my friend Lynn, it's from Quilted Threads....

Well, that's it for today.  Got to scoot, need to look at tile and paint-shoot me!!

Thanks for checking on me,

hugs,

joanne

love to hear what you've got to say............

Allie's Christmas!

Remember these cute little things??  Well, here they are again.  I needed to re-post for Allie and her Christmas through the year program.   After I posted these Marcy (dd) had the brilliant idea to make a few for the gals in her dorm.  I've got some left-over Purdue fabric that would be just perfect. 

Hop on over to Allie's place to read all about this Christmas Through the Year program.  Maybe you all should stay tuned, I think I see a giveaway in here somewhere.....

Thanks for checking on me,

hugs,

joanne

love to hear what you've got to say............

Cute little girl quilt....

Here's a quilt I got from Frances in New York.  It's an adorable quilt for a special little girl.  Frances worked with a simple nine patch and alternating squares for this treasure.  I've posted a couple more pictures at the other blog.

When I was young the "old people" would say "I'm so far behind I'm about to catch up with myself".  That never made any sense to me, I thought it was the most ridiculous statement I'd ever heard!  NOW  I get it...lol!!  Things have kept me hopping, and I've been pretty busy. So, just a quick post, and a wish for you all to have a super fun, productive weekend. 

Thanks for checking on me,

hugs,

joanne

love to hear what you've got to say........

Baby it's cold outside....

It's a chilly morning today here in New Hampshire.  We woke up to a wintry -25 degrees below zero as the outside temp.  Fortunately there were no winds to add to the chill factor.  I've been busy indoors working on some quilts that I'll be showing soon.

 But for today we have another beauty from Brandy.  Here's a peek....

Brandy tells me this is her Valentines quilt that will hang in her dining room.  See a couple more pictures on the other blog.  Brandy also makes purses!  This talented young gal is making one for me, can't wait to share the pictures when I get it.  I am in desperate need of a new purse, I'll show you how desperate when the new one arrives.

Thanks for checking on me,
hugs,
joanne

love to hear what you've got to say...........

Ironing Woman Blog

Mentioned this last week in a blog posting, here's my entry for the month of January.

I really needed a new Wonder Wallet, I carry all of those pesky but oh so needed store discount cards and such in this so my wallet is not so bulky.

Find out all of the detail at:

Ironing Woman Blog

I'll have another post very, very soon!!  See ya then...

thanks for checking on me,

hugs,

joanne

love to hear what you've got to say......

A Must Read! Quilting Takes Over Life....

This is too cute to pass up.  Thanks to Selvage Blog for posting this link.  Oliver Willms gives us a look at what his life was like growing up with Quilters.   Now I have an idea of how my boys may have felt growing up with a Mom who is/was dragging them through all of my interest.  Here's the link:

Quilting Has Taken Over My Family by Oliver Willms

thanks for checking on me,

hugs,

joanne

love to hear what you've got to say...........

Bloggers & Finished pantry

I love reading blogs.  Some are funny, some are helpful and some just make me think about life. Read this one written by Kat - Playing in the Studio.   Her comment "It is one of my prized fabrics... as I was looking at it the thought hit me...I wish I could make things that no matter what they look like on the outside the intention would show perfectly clear...LOVE."    just really hit home hard.  Isn't this exactly what we are trying to do, just extending our love with our creations?  You need to hit her blog and read her  next paragraph to see where she goes and what she does.  Kat is one extremely insightful and talented. 

Allie, Allie, Allie!!  Most of you gals already know Allie at allie-oops sweet happy life.  She is challenging us to finish Christmas projects before the 15th of December.  Can you imagine that??  Why, now that is a novel idea.....get started on them now, one per month and we should have a nice little stash of fun things by December.  Allie is linking us to plenty of fun things to make, and on that note I want to show you this....

I finished these cute little puppies Friday night.  One is for me and the other will be filled with some of that Auriful thread that I showed you earlier and given to the guild for their basket and bowls raffle at the next quilt show.  You can find the tutorial at Sew Mama Sew.  (another name we all know well)  If I were doing these again, I would add something in the bottom to stabilize the shape. You can see one has stitching on the bottom in my attempt to keep it square.  They really are darling little things....head on over to Allies and join in on the fun!!

There is a new kid on the blog block.  You can find Michelle here at Ironing Woman blog.  Michelle is a member of the Northern Lights Sewing Guild, that's how I met her.  She is super sweet and coordinates all kinds of fun activities for the guild. Each month Michelle will name a  "theme"  (this month is hearts) and you will make something, anything, doesn't have to be quilting related but it must have the theme that she gives us.  Little clue, I've already got my project cut out now just to get it stitched together.

 Here is the prize for January. 

My wonderful Hubbie got the closet finished and I unpacked a few boxes!!  Here's a picture of the closet from this morning.....

If you click on the picture you can see how he notched the boards so I can adjust the shelves.  We had planned on doing this, then plans changed not to do this, and ended up doing it anyway.  lol!!  Best made plans do change!!  He is working on the window woodwork next, he is such a perfectionist and being an engineer doesn't help.  There is a saying "shoot the engineer and go into production"  yep, I know that feeling!  Love him to death though!!

I've got to finish the quilt on the frame, got quilts coming my way.  Time to get in gear.

thanks for checking on me,

hugs,

joanne

love to hear what you've got to say.......

Whoopie Pies and China and Giveaways!!

Just take a look at this....

This came home yesterday in the hands of my 16 year old son.  This delicious, wonderful, chocolaty, creamy treat made a 30 minute bus ride, sat in his locker (I don't like to think about this part, thank goodness it's wrapped) for 4 hours and was handed to me when I picked him up from the bus stop.  Isn't he wonderful?? We are total into these little chocolate pies!!  There were no Whoopie Pies in Indiana, but here....yum!!!  This kid has tried to talk the recipe out of the lady that sells them, but no deal.  She isn't allowed to share the school's secrets for making these wonderful little bits (they are pretty large actually, and probably a ga-zillion calories, but I don't like to think about that either) of goodness.  We've tried pies outside of the school, you can find these treats everywhere, but the school's pie has a whipped cream-I'm thinking Cool Whip-middle!!!  Anyone have secrets they'd like to share???

I needed that sugar rush this morning.  I'm looking at this.....

It's the new closet/pantry in my kitchen.  It's a blank slate and I need to figure out where to put the shelves.  No problem, right.  Think about it, if you could make a closet how exactly would you BEST fit it all together?  It's not that easy to try to get all of the shelves in the BEST location.  See why I'm the Empress (female Emperor) of Blocks??  It's hard for me to permanently place things!!  UGH!

I'm reading Barb's blog and laughing my head off remember the high that I had when I purchased China off of Craigslist.  Now, I swore that I'd never own "good china".  I LOVE my Corelle. LOVE IT!!  But when we were selling our house in Indy I needed to stage the dining room.  HA!!!  Not a good idea to stage with Corelle, and if I did what we we be eating off of??  Sooooo.....off to Craigslist to see if I could find some reasonably priced China.  I did okay...my first set (notice I said my "FIRST" set) was $30.  My second set was about $150, and the last set I think was about the same price.  The last set that I purchased was in boxes marked Grandma T's China, sad.  Poor Grandma T, some stranger has her china!!  But I love it.  Here's a picture of my China (so I'm not outdone by Barb).

Isn't it lovely????  lol!!  Remember the blank kitchen pantry??  Kitchen is not done therefore half of my stuff is still in boxes from when we moved from Indy!!  I have boxes that I actually marked "kitchen second move" which means when kitchen is done.  Now, I'm still cooking and stuff.  I occasionally have to go digging through the boxes in the basement where the kids hang out. (it will be family room someday...) It looks like this.  The boxes in the far right are the ones that I am constantly digging through.  I am rolling my eyes as I write this....yep, pretty pathetic!!  But see that big silver thing?  That's part of the new furnace, we've already installed two of those and heat came before kitchen since it gets pretty cold here in New Hampshire!

Okay to keep this somewhat about quilting here is my latest purchase.....

SCORE!!!!!!  These little puppies cost me $6 each!!  Fantastic!!!!  I'm set for a while.  Next time I find a fabulous deal like this I'll share, promise.  I found this deal about 3 hours before the end of the sale!!  Cool Beans!!

Before I sign off.....don't forget to check out all of the links on my sidebar, I list all of the giveaways that I find.  If you are having one and would like to be placed on my sidebar just let me know!!

Have a fabulous day!!

Thanks for checking on me,

hugs,

joanne

love to hear what you've got to say.......

We are still wrapping things up around here. Life is still in holiday mode. Joey's friend hit the road this morning headed back to Indy, and Marcy will fly back tomorrow. I think at that point, we will get back into our routine. The decorations are all put away and the returns were completed yesterday. I have always waited until everyone is back at work and school to deal with the returns that need to be dealt with.

I have managed to get some stitching done during the holidays. Here's a picture of some paper piecing ornaments that I did. There was one of a Christmas tree but I gave it away in an ornament swap. I thought it was really cool, I used some glittery fabric for the green of the tree and the background was white glittery fabric that gave it a snowy feeling. I placed these on my cutting mat so you could see how small they are, they were easier that I thought they would have been.

I managed to finally finish this one. It is the first set of blocks that I completed when I started quilting. The blocks were made during a techniques class about 3 years ago. I just love the backing fabric on this quilt.  I did use Warm and Natural's Soft and Bright.  It is a poly batting, but I think it makes a warmer quilt.  This poly batting is different from the old stuff.  It has a softer feel to it, and quilting it was easy.

The batting is thicker and gives more dept to the quilting. Here's a close up of the quilting on the borders....

And I also had the pleasure of working with this beautiful quilt......

I love the orange centers with the blue as the main focus of color! This quilt was made by Sue for her daughter Sara that currently lives in Indy.  Sue's selection of fabrics were wonderful!  They were just fun and happy colors!  As always, I've posted a couple more pictures at the other blog, click here.

Marcy and I have had a joint project and she's made a couple of cute wallets, along with about a dozen tissue holders.  She's spent a few hours at the sewing machine so I've got more pictures to share very soon.

Thanks for checking on me,

hugs,

joanne

love to hear what you've got to say.............