Quiet Night

It has been a fairly quiet day and night tonight. I haven't got much sewing done. Yesterday I spent the day working on Hippology (study of horses) for our meeting last night. I am taking 8 kids down to Columbus in April for a competition and we meet every week to study about horses. Then today I met my mom at Jo-Ann's and came home. I have been pretty much reading Lonesome Dove all day and am loving it. I have about 200 pages to go and just stopped for a bit. Rich is playing XBox and the boys are at their mom's tonight. Tomorrow it is suppposed to be in the low 40's and rain. Just what we need with all this snow, rain so we get some mud!

Hopefully tomorrow I will get some sewing in, I am sure I will so I will show my progress either tomorrow night or Sunday. Have a good weekend!

BTT, an award and a question

This morning it was -17 when Rich got to work. Why did we have school? Those poor kids out waiting for the bus (including mine, since I didn't realize it was so cold outside!)

Have you ever been put off an author’s books after reading a biography of them? Or the reverse - a biography has made you love an author more?

I don't recall ever being turned off of an author or more into an author because of their biography. I love to read biographys but they don't usually influence me in one way or another. I just like to find out more about their lives and their experiences.




I recieved this lovely award from Lola at and Sew On:

It means: "This blog invests and believes in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are extremely charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Thanks so much LOLA!!! I appreciate it! I have to pass it on and I can't decide who to pass it on too so I pass it on to everyone who reads my blog!

And a question, some of you read my sister's blog and have seen this, My grandma is going to Australia and New Zealand. So the question we all have is are there any great magazines, quilt shops in Sydney/New Zealand, special fabric that is only available in Australia, yarn??? What do you recommend for her to bring us home? We really (mom, sister and I) DO NOT want to get a t-shirt or something that we aren't going to use! LOL! We have to be specific (grandma is 82 or some years young. (If you ask her she is 29!) so help - give us suggestions! We need a detailed as possible list by next weekend! Thanks so much all you Australian/New Zealand bloggers!

Stay warm!

4 blocks and a start

So much for not starting something new....

I found a material last year that had neon guitars on it and picked up some for T to use in his quilt. He decided he wanted a basic 9 patch type quilt, so I am actually making a 12-patch. Same concept, just bigger. So I made these blocks yesterday:

and am going to turn these fat quarters (plus a blue and pink) into the same...they will all have the black, just different colors. I have most of the strips sewn together and am getting ready to cut them to sew into squares. I need to find a blue and pink to go with these.

I also want to do the sashing in the blue so I need to find something on a bolt, not just fat quarters. I also made 4 more blocks for my Sylvia's Bridal Sampler. They are getting easier, but they are not coming out at 6.5" but more like 6" and I am a bit confused as to what size they are supposed to be. Some papers say 6" and some say 6.5" is that finished or unfinished? I figure though as long as they come out the same size, why worry??

And lastly, a picuture from last night's basketball game. We lost, 24-22 in OT. One of our guys scored a 3-pointer right at the buzzer to tie it up. Very exciting, since we were losing 19-7 at the half!

Oh, and it is snow....AGAIN!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Dad!!

Stop by mom's blog to wish my dad a Happy Birthday!

I Love you!

New Project

This morning J had a quartet performance at a local high school. Its a competition but not against other students, they are only scored on their performance. They did good, but had a few tempo issues so they received a 2 for a score. 1 being the highest. So that was good. I was really proud that he got up there and did it. He played the French Horn and has only been playing the French Horn for about 3 months so it was nice to see him have that kind of confidence. I was going to record it on my camera, it was only about 2 minutes long, but they didn't allow recording devices or cameras so that was out!

Then when we came home I couldn't decide what I wanted to work on. I need to pick up some thread to quilt several of my WIP's and there were a few other things I could work on, butI started a new project instead. Several years ago I printed the patters for Sylvia's Bridal Sample from the Elm Creek Quilt series (one of my favorites!) and decided to check it out. I went to my stash and dug out some fabric:

And accomplished 4 blocks today. Not much, but something. I certainly have a lot of blue in my stash. Need to get more greens, reds and browns. But it will do to start with! The thing is I am not a paper piecer. I just have a really hard time with it. So these are all going to be kinda trial and error, but so far I'm happy with them. I haven't evened them up yet, but I figure with like 142 blocks or something I have time!

I also finished up my book "The Last Run" an NF about an Alaskan Rescue in the Gulf of Alaska. I was really surprised at how good it was. I just picked it up because it sounded good and really liked it. So now it is onto either:

or

for my one challenge shown in my sidebar. Hope everyone is staying warm. Its only about 11 here and is supposed to get up to 40 tomorrow (yeah right) and then we are supposed to have another winter storm either Monday or Tuesday.

BTT, Basketball and New Kitty

Booking Through Thursday this week is a discussion on an article found here. The discussion actually takes place on the BTT website, and I have yet to figure out what I think of the article.


Tonight was an away basketball game with Wellington. Our 7th grade boys team did a great job. 8th grade, not so much. At the half they were down 23 to 7 or something horrible like that. They just could not get it together! I know nothing and I knew they were playing bad. Just not on their guys, bad shots...But T did a fairly okay game, not his best though. He is number 50.

And at Hippology on Monday I was given this beautiful tortise shell kitty. Her name is now Kylie and she wants to live in the house, but dad won't let her. So she is in the barn with CC and Bob. She seems to doing just fine and comes when you call her. I was a little concerned since she had been in a house for a few weeks and wasn't eating when we first brought her home, but this morning and tonight she climbed right into the tub we keep the food in. Now J and I have our own kitties so we no longer have to debate who's it is.

Kylie

CC and Kylie (she is so small!)

Tee, munching his hay

Also, Thanks so much for all your warm thoughts and prayers for Holly. She has had the transplant, her numbers are going up like they should and she should be coming off the machines by the end of the weekend. They have her open because of swelling so they have to close that before they can wake her up. But she made it and I am so thrilled!!!

Winter Storm Warning

That was the news last night. There was a winter storm coming our way. It was supposed to hit at about 1:00 pm and then it was moved back to 4ish and then later. Well, it hit about midnight. There was no school today because of all the snow. At 1 today the yahoo weather for our area said 2-4 inches. It is more like 6-8 at that time and it was still snowing. I would have to guess there is a good 8 inches of snow out there. Drifting is worse. Our road (and the main one by us) didn't get plowed till at least 2!!! Wonderful winter weather. Perfect night to be inside with a good book, cup of cocoa and a warm quilt!!

Part of the drive with the

trees in the background

My half of a 55 gallon drum

covering my rose bush

The barn