I Could Get Used to This. . .

Oh, how I love a Monday off from school! I am hoping for a sewing day, but it's 9 a.m. and so far I've cooked breakfast, packed Larry's lunch (he reminds me that most jobs do not close for a holiday such as President's Day- gee, sorry Dad - not really *vbg*), washed and put away the dishes (okay, so the dishwasher did the biggest part of that!), and read and commented on a few hundred blogs (oh, how I love that!). I still need to get to the thrift store, (if I get what I waited to go on teacher discount for, I'll share later), go to the grocery store and then...I'll sew.

I did take these photos to share today. This is a rocker that Happy brought to me from the Virginia homestead. We grew up in the Air Force, which is to say, we lived in many places, and our Dad traveled to even more.

The small picture shows both rockers.

Happy took one on with him to his home.

I cannot help but think of him when I look at mine :-}

This was one of two rockers that Daddy purchased on an extended trip to Peru. He said he watched these "monks" spin the wood with a bike pedal style lathe, and they would hold a string with their hands and teeth, and spin the ribbed designs into the wood.

Is it true? I do not know. You'd have to know my Dad, I grew up with stories from him like, "...When I was a little girl...", or, "...Back when I rode horses on the open range with Tex Ritter..." ...no kidding, Daddy had the best stories.

Both chairs are in good condition, probably because there are other chairs more comfortable, lol. In our folks home in Anchorage, Momma had stylishly decorated with one of the rockers on display on top of a closet in a tall foyer entryway.

My photos were actually waiting on me giving the wood a good cleaning and conditioning, which happened this Saturday (finally!). My chair is now sitting in our computer room. I think this makes seven rockers in our house. WOW. Yea, I love rockers.

No one is sitting on one right now, does that make us off our rocker...? Okay, moving on....



While outside in the beautiful morning sun, I took advantage of the setting to take pictures of this latest project.

I was trying without success to make a fancy border, but I think I'll go with simplicity, and that way I'll have a finish, and not another UFO.

Oh, and February has been good to me in the giveaways, I'm so tickled! Big thank yous to ~

Cyndi of Blue Bird Swing ~ or, wait, is it Blue Bird's Wing? I'm gonna have to ask that question!
Cyndi did my prize with a cute presentation, she only showed the empty basket, and then she filled it daily. Look closely, and you'll see her doggy Noah in the chair ~

Doris from Threads of Conversation gave away a charm pack ~ Woo, Hoo! Oh, and go see her first quilt, it's a whole cloth quilted by her, from her teen day, it is an incredible accomplishment.

I and a few 1000 blogging quilters out there was entering the blogs giving away Kim Brackett's newest book, Scrap Basket Sensations. I love her projects, I knew I would save up to buy one, but I entered each day at each blog participating in the wonderful projects of Kim. Thank you, I won from Karen of Nana Girl Quilts! Karen made several of the projects in Kim's book, and displayed them around her own home, just lovely. You remember Larry's Blue Kitchen Sink was from Kim's last book....

Well, can you believe I've been at this for more than an hour, I'd better get moving, and I hope you can make the most of your day, too. Happy Quilting!

Sewing on a Sick Day or Two

I'm home from school, this is going on week three of "asthmatic bronchitis" stuff, no fun. I've finally given in, and am staying home from school a couple of days (mostly due to not having a voice to teach, and the frequent 2-3 minutes of coughing fits.)

So, the positives ~ there are positives, people ~

• I've read and commented on a LOT of blogs,
  
• even entered a few giveaways, oh yes!
• all caught up on the 1000+ posts right now
• laundry, and most of the cleaning is done (between rests!)
• afternoon naps oh, I could put that into each day
• a bit of creativity too, yea!

For Ginny, this was an easy quilt idea for her grandson #2.



I was at school playing with teacher stuff, can you tell, lol.
We had already decided "easy" had to be the theme, and had cut her four prints into 5 inches by WOF. Yawn. This was too boring to me. (maybe it was the stamps...)

So, these came from a couple hours of play time, and about 4 more fabric selections. That meant pulling out one of the original pieces, we all do that, though, right? These are 12 inch squares, I think she'll like how quickly that size block works into a quilt. We picked a royal blue for sashing, I think that will be best in a boy's room, but the white looks nice....

I also got some of the string hearts done for the Block Lotto. I think they are a bit of a challenge, but I'm glad for the try. I entered only 2, I've a plan for these four.

Today, I'm going to see about using the leftovers of the string hearts.

Did you see the cute metal stamping at Karen's? Well, Larry is helping me with stamping some washers for my second graders for Valentine's Day. These are our washers, but her bookmark, I don't have one done that far yet. (you may need to click to enlarge, the washers say "LOVE")

And lastly, a new arrival from a sale at Fabric. com, this Amy Butler is going to be teaming up with the gray below it...well, dreaming about them together for now, anyway.
Hope I'm not sharing it too early, I may go ADD and jump to something else...
because you notice I haven't slipped it out of it's ribbon yet-yikes!

See ya'll soon!

This is a pincushion I made for Momma years ago, and have it back now.
Do any of you remember this tiny patchwork strawberry print
some 20 years ago? I loved it, and added the
strawberry emery onto the basket.