Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty..........

I finished up this sweet little kitty cat quilt today for Maryanne.

Each cat is made of a different cat fabric.

I've been collecting cat fabrics for awhile now, intending

to make a quilt similar to this one.

Here is a detail shot of some of the quilting that I did.

This little kitty was quilted in, along with some swirls

to represent curling cat tails.

I even quilted in some MICE!

Each kitty was "stitched in the ditch" and received

a heart.

I"m on to my next book.

This time it is Jodi Picoult's

"My Sister's Keeper"

This writer has such a compelling way with words.

I just hate to put the book down.

The story starts with a family of 4.....a dad, mom, boy and girl.

Thier family is complete!

Until the girl develops lukemia at the tender age of 2,

so the mom and dad decide to have another child,

basically to "save" the first little girl.

In each chapter the story changes voices............so you get to see

the story unfold from each person's perspective.

At the age of 13, the second girl, Anna,

has had enough of being "harvasted" and

decides to sue her parents for the rights to her own body!

I'm only on chapter 5 and I can tell you this...........

it is a powerful

and emotionally charged book.

I"ve found that I can "walk" on the gazelle and read at the same time,

kinda makes me want to go out and exercise!

Just so I can read!!!

So I think I will..............

I'll be skinny before you know it!

lol!

Hmmmmmmmmmm?

I'm trying to figure this out.


I joined a facebook group called Quilting Bloggers.


Man! There are a ton of quilter who blog! Who Knew?





What I am trying to figure out is why alot of the quilting bloggers


offer give-away prizes to people who comment on thier site.


The only thing I can think of is to increase traffic on thier site,


because they have a business or something to promote.


Or maybe they just like to interact with people who are reading their blog.





Well, at any rate, I commented on this quilting bloggers site:


http://highwaycottage.wordpress.com/


Her name is Viv and she lives in New Zealand and she is giving away


a beautiful little quilt that she made for the Spring Blooms Mini Quilt swap.

The colors in this quilt are so bright and cheerful!



The giveaway will take place this Friday...........wish me luck!

Monday, Monday

It's a new day and a new week bursting with

amazing possibilities and opportunities!

Like maybe this will be the week that I get my sewing room organized.

Or maybe I'll get my house clean from top to bottom!

Or maybe I"ll lose 10 pounds!

HEY! It all starts with a dream and a desire to do it!

I DID finish with the paint in Jenny's old bedroom

AND Mike got the bed set back up.

This room contains the furniture that I grew up with.

My parents bought me this furniture from Sears and Roebuck

(whatever happened to Roebuck I wonder?) when I was 8 years old

and I've had it ever since.

Isn't it great? I love it.

Someday I want to restore it since it has alot of nicks and stains

on the surface, but I just don't think I could match the beauty

of the original paint.

I finished the quilting on this quilt for Liz.

I used a rose stencil for the first time and I really like how

it turned out.

My friend Linda and I have entered an apron contest.

You can go to this website to add a comment on our aprons.

Gallery Link: http://my.allpeoplequilt.com/photos/quilts-and-more-quarterly-challenge/challenge-2/876800057/

I guess how it goes is that they have a panel of

judges that will select finalists and after that it

goes to the website and viewers can

vote for thier favorite.

I'll certainly let you know if we make the finalists!

Because if we do I'll be asking for VOTES!

I chose to make my apron out of Alexander Henry

FIREMEN fabric. I thought that this would be appropriate

for me since I used to set the fire alarm off every time I cooked!

It would be handy to have fireman in the kitchen! LOL!

I embroidered this cute apron for my friend Kathy's birthday.

Carole and Christina were over on Friday and they

always teach me alot about my embroidery machine!

Love to Paint!

As I have mentioned we now have an empty nest.
We've had one before, but quite a few birds flew back in.
They have all flown back out now, but thankfully come back to visit often!


So in light of that I"ve started trying to get my house back into some sort of order.
I painted Brian's room and
it now houses the desk and computer.
In the last couple of days I've been working
on painting Jenny's room.

And I have been wondering why my

muscles are aching this morning!!!!!

duh......think it might have been the painting?

I chose this purple paint to match a quilt that

I want to put on the bed.

This is a quilt that I made from fabrics that Mike brought me back from Kentucky. He was on a work trip and walked right by a quilt store on his way to the job. He went in one day and those ladies really enjoyed helping him pick out fabrics! He brought me home a whole bunch of purple and green fat quarters AND one little special square of Kentucky Derby fabric that the ladies rummaged around in the back of the store to find.

Anyway, it is a special quilt so I wanted to paint the room to match it.

I"m looking forward to getting my furniture

set back up, but I've still got

a few paint touch-ups

that need to be done!

I love to read

Really..........I LOVE to read!

Reading takes you away from wherever you are

and plunks you down somewhere else.

You can be in Forks, Seattle one week

and then in Cape Cod the next.

Currently I'm reading a book called

High Season

by Jon Loomis

Murder mysteries are usually not my choice of reading material,

but I picked this book up because it was written by

a classmate whom I attended school with back in Athens, Ohio.

How Cool Is That?

So far I'm enjoying the book.

Basically I'd like to just read the rest of the day

and finish it, but alas, I still have a room to paint

and quilting to do today!

I did find out today that I can get on my Tony Little

exercise machine and read at the same time!

I suppose I could exercise AND read all day.............hum???????

Weekend Fun

We have been so blessed with

wonderfully cool weather this past week.

It has been downright nice here.......

even in the middle of the day!

Okay...it's still been in the 90's,

but has cooled down in the evening,

making it so enjoyable to be outside!

This past weekend I did a little practice embroidery

and made this towel hanger.

With the towel added it looks like this:

I also quilted this New York Beauty for Carole:

Here is a picture of the back:

And a couple of detail shots:

Cruisin' on a Sunday afternoon

Phew! I just organized my May picture file on the computer and I discovered that May was an extremely busy month!

1. Made and quilted a quilt for my garden area

2. Quilted 7 client quilts

3. Embroidered 5 t-shirts

4. Made covers for 2 outside chaise longues, 3 tables, 4 chairs & 3 pillows

5. Made one toaster cover

6. Attended 2 college graduations

7. Celebrated Mother's Day

8. Attended one surprise party (FOR ME!)

9. Went on a cruise

10. Bought a new car!

11. Hosted Bunko

12. Hosted Sip n Sew

Phew! I'm glad that June is here!

As promised here are some highlights of our recent

Carnival cruise:

This is a picture of the ship from the tender boat that was

taking us to Catalina Island.

Mike and I took an Inland tour of Catalina Island

and this is a picture of the city of Avalon with the cruise ship

in the distance.

The inland tour was pretty boring.........I wouldn't recommend it.

However the views that we got from the top of the hill were stunning!

Jenny and Rafael dancing in the streets of Avalon.

Avalon was a bustling little touristy city.

It was fun to walk around.

Jenny and Rafael chose to go para-sailing here

and had a ton of fun. One of the couples on this boat

got engaged while in the air on the sail!

Here we are on our last night at dinner.

We ate in the formal dining room each night of the cruise.

The food was pretty good!

Our friends Terry and Jo Powell were picked to go up

on stage to play the Marriage game!

The last night of the cruise Mike was chosen out of the audience

at the Vegas Style show to come up on stage and dance.

He did a great job!

Another cool thing about the cruise is that Jenny and Rafael won

a piece of art at the art auction! Earlier in the auction they had given away a piece of art AFTER the auction had taken place. Jenny and Rafael thought that it was going to happen again according to what the auctioneer was saying. They bid up to $240 and "won" the art fully expecting it to really be a give-away. It was a very tense 30-60 seconds before the auctioneer actually said that it was a prize!

On of the most fun activities we attended on the ship was the Dance Party held on the Lido deck. This is a video I took of the very last dance.