Randomness. . .

Don't have any quilty pictures today - though I did discover the project I will be making for a graduation presents next year, so time to start collecting fabric - but I found some summer pictures that were on my computer.

My family on the 4th of July:



My friend -Betty's sunflowers



New home of my sunflower quilt - notice the hexagon quilt on sofa, made by my grandma



A summer rainbow last week

New beginnings. . .

over the past year, I personally have had to deal with a lot of emotions and self growth.  Normally self growth comes when you think you can't handle it, when it's so challenging you want to give up and just fall back into the "safe" old routines/habits that were easier even though they might have been unhealthy.

Yet, I prevailed.  I became stronger and happier about who I am and where I'm going.  I've become a better mom and wife.  Got lost and found my way.

In this year long process I have decided to move to Tennessee with my girls to embark our new lives with happiness, hope, love and family.

Saying goodbyes was the one of the hardest things I have ever done.  I have never moved from a place of my own free will - while it was very empowering, it was sad at the same time.  My friends in Maryland (and one traveling friend) have been the best support system I have encountered in my lifetime and I know they will remain that way as I travel on.

I was surprised over and over the past month as I say my goodbyes with hugs and gifts from people.  I am humbled and blessed to have such beautiful people in my life and I never realized how I touched their lives as well.

I want to share (show off) my gifts and the talents of my friends to do these things totally obvious to me knowing....I'm still dumbfounded how "they" did this and I knew nothing!

Today's gifts sharing is the quilt from Patches Quilting, where I have been employed for over 3 1/2 years (and continue to work via computer here in Tennessee).  Each block was done by one of my co-workers, the top was pieced by my boss -Jackie, it was quilted by Eleonore (the shop's longarm quilter) who put everyone's name in their block, it was designed by Sharon and bound by Carolyn.  Needless to say, when it was presented to me, I bust into tears.

(click on images to see detailed)

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My goals are simple, work, play and enjoy life - - oh yeah, get back into quilting and blogging - - I have missed my online friends as well!

My indoor gardening

I originally purchased my first Aerogarden over 2 years ago on the glowing review from Lynn.  Since then I have grown many herbs at ease.  Well this year, I've expanded a little.

I decided to try my hand at some lettuce and mix it in with my herbs in my 7-pod original Aerogarden.  Let me say WOW, lettuce grows like a weed and took over the Aerogarden.  So, I've had to rethink how I want to grow both crops.

Then for Valentine's day, I purchase a 3 pod Aerogarden to bring spring early into my home.  The colors and smell now are wonderful and just make my living room more cheery.  These flowers should remind blooming for the next 2 months, then I'll replant more just for my living room.

Last week they had a clearance sale on a 6 pod Aerogarden for $50!  Well, that is how much I paid for the 3 pod, so I jumped on the opportunity and now will use it as the herb garden and my 7 pod for my lettuce garden!  One day I might do tomatoes too, but being I'm the only one that eats them, it might be over kill.

Here are my 3 gardens.  The top one is the 7 pod, which I'm about to replant once I move my herbs into real pots later this weekend.  Next is my newly acquired 6 pod, it's started with herbs and lastly my 3 pod blooming beautifully:







I swear by the ease and production of these great investments.  It's a fun thing to watch grow and you have fresh herbs at your finger tips!  Just wish I had more space for a few more :)

Spring has arrived!!

And let me say, I for one WELCOME IT WITH OPEN ARMS!!!  I need the sunshine and this is the first time in 5 years where I didn't make a trip down to Florida, which adds to my depressed state of mind.  I'm getting there though.

With spring and a few warm days we have had in the past few weeks, I have been planting and clearing our yard.  It's soo bad, we have let it go.  Another sign showing me how sad our little family was.  So, this spring we are working together as a family to redo our entire yard with new flower beds and future backyard parties!

Here's my first flowers that opened:



Here's my assorted pots of flowers - I have hyacinths, pansies/violets, tulips, thyme, basil, lavender, mint and a strawberry (which I had to bring in this past weekend because it got REALLY cold here):







And I learned a lesson, do not start seeds outside....squirrels love to dig up empty fresh pots....ugh...and it was more herbs, guess I'll just buy plants:



Now waiting for temps to go back up in the high 50's to low 60's at the end of this week to do more outside gardening.

Snow, snow, and wait...more snow...

and it's only the 2nd week in February, we normally get our biggest snow at the end of the month....le sigh.

But snow takes beautiful pictures.....here's a few from the past week of blizzards...my yard has seen over 46" of snow since Friday and rumor more is coming on Monday.....







I have been sewing my strips together for my bargello and just love how the fabrics are working together:





I need to move myself away from the computer and focus on clearing out snow!

Merry Christmas!

I know a day late and a dollar (or few) short....but I have to share all my spoils because I have great friends and awsome new gifts.

First and far mostest is my awsome new digital camera ---and it has a shutter button too :)



It's a Fuji Finepix J38 and I love it.  It does panoramic pictures too!  I have to play more with that feature but I've been taking lots of "make-up" images of my quilting things and gifts.

I participated in a quickie Christmas Swap through Pat Sloan's group and my swap partner was Ms. Nancy.   I wasn't able to take pictures of what I sent her, but I opened her present to me on Christmas morning and found wonderful surprises.  Inside her package was a beautiful table runner, a snowman embroidered card, some godiva chocolate, 2 fat quarters and the coolest new ornament---a pirate santa!  I now have 2, looks like a new thing I will be collecting:







Then from my friend Betsy in Florida, she sent me this AWSOME Catherdral Windows.....I already have it hanging and it will remain hanging in my sewing area:



I didn't get a lot of quilty things from family and close friends....they know I just get what I want at work, so I got some great useful items, like a new frying pan, a covered ice scraper, stationary with my name, lotion and chocolate.  One other gift my hubby and I got together for us was a single cup coffee maker, Keurig.  OMG....we love it love it.  (Thanks to Jane getting me hooked on one)  We are probably drinking way too much coffee the past 2 days, but it's fun to try the variety of flavors.



Well, now I've got a new camera I am going to pre-post for this week.  I have lots of new pictures to share and organinzing my sewing studio to set myself on weekly goals this coming year.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, blessed with family and friends and love.  I know I'm grateful for all you who participate in my blog and make me feel special.

Snow....

well, we tried our video camera but can't figure out how to get it on our computer...so we pulled out that broken camera and using a fine point pencil took a few pictures yesterday and today of our 20" of snow.

At 2 pm (yard stick reads 12"):









At 7pm:





This morning (notice my car with more snow on top of it):





Yep, we got snow and rumor is it we'll have rain on top of snow on Christmas day....crazy, crazy weather.  Our average snowfall during the entire winter is 18".....well, we are over 26" as of now and winter doesn't start until Wednesday....going to be a long productive sewing quilting kinda of winter!!

Random stuff

It is still Renaissance Faire season here and I've been going almost every weekend.  We even camped in the rain 2 weekends ago.  Here are some of my favorite pictures so far this season:

Hubby and me



My dear friend Stacie & Me



My Jingle Ho friends (one is missing) L-R: Sam, JoJo, Cheri (new ho), Mish, Marty, Bottom: Me, Sati, Vicki



My dear friend Sati with Vikie's daughter



Daddy and Daughter (Kendra's birthday trip to faire)



Kendra and mom

Girly kinda of weekend....

My oldest daughter celebrated her 16th birthday last Friday and we spent the day being girly, which continued over the weekend.

She got her first pedicure--well, I needed one too:



Her toes are the red ones :)  Lime green are mine (of course)!

Then her dad surprised her Saturday morning with her first riding lesson.  She loves horses but has never been on one:



We also colored her hair this weekend for the first time....DOH, her hair is soo thick and long I wasn't thinking and only go one box of color realizing after that bottle was empty, we needed more.  Luckily it blended well with her natural blonde tones, it looks acceptable for school...whew.

Then Sunday we made more salsa....mmmmmm...salsa:



What a fun weekend...

Weekend Stuff...

well, most of this doesn't have to do with quilting, but there are pictures involved!

Hubby and I made date night a traveling show!  We picked up my car, dropped off stuff to the mission, got both cars emissions done, then we window shopped at Bass Pro Shop, then Dicks and finally we ended up at the Howard County Fair!  Whew....just rethinking about it is crazy...we are nonstop!!

I took a few fun shots of the fair and only one quilt, mainly because all the quilts are covered with plastic and it's really hard to get a good image.  The one I did capture was incredible!  It won a ribbon and was hand quilt, the design mimicked the bias work.  And to top it off it was done in Raven's fabric!





Then driving home yesterday from picking up my girls, we got to enjoy a hot air balloon:



This weekend is a whirl wind.....whooshhhhhhhh....and we are off again today.  Spending morning/early afternoon at a Stitch and Bitch, then coming spending time with family, then off to hit golf balls with my new golf set...oh did I mention we purchase clubs at Dicks?? :)

TGIF!

It's date night here!  Unsure what our plans are, but I think it's going to involve hitting little white balls.  I'll be sure to bring a camera.  I know you all want to see me "trying" to golf.

On the sewing front....I've been invited to a Sunday Stitch n' Bitch.  Granted most of the ladies are making garb (aka costuming clothing for the rennissance faire, which opens here in 2 weekends), I think I'm going to bring some quilting projects that just need to be put together fast.  I have 2 almost completed tops I need to whip together!

Pat Sloan asked me to show her my stuff!!  Ok, so I purchase the really cool new project bag from her at Hershey...I had no idea it was limited and special.  She now sells them on her site, but I'm one of the first--how cool is that?  I just love my bag!  So, what's inside?  Let's see....

Outside of bag....opening it from left to right...



First set of pockets, lets see what I have in them.  Again, l-r, I have a pair of reading glasses (I currently only need them for hand work...my eyes are getting bad fast through), my licky grip (stuff to put on my fingers to keep them dry), my HandEzee glove (great for sore wrists), then some of my packets of hexagons to do where ever.



Next set of pockets, are the center ones.  The two pocket pieces in center are snapable!  Which means you can easily remove them.  More hexagons, just in case I need to share/teach my obsession with someone else (and I have), my reading book light (PERFECT for hand working in poor lighting areas), my Margaritaville lanyard with my purple embroidery scissors attached to it.



Last set of pockets. LOTS of stuff!!  My needle threaders (I have two different styles), pencil sharpner (I just realize my silver pencil is missing...mmm to find that), my basting threads, glue stick, a tape measure, tons o needles pocket with a needle holder that I was given, my newest love-my gel yellow thimble (I LOVE THIS!), my Thread Heaven (swear by this stuff when doing bindings), seam ripper, thimblettes (well, that is what i call them), open thimble by clover (I use this for bindings) and my tweezers.



Lots of stuff to pick up and go.  I actually have duplicates of each of these items in my sewing stuff, but this is perfect for traveling even to the living room from the sewing room :)

Wow...that was a lot of stuff...sorry for a long post!  But I have to share one more image with you.  I was clearing out my husband's dresser yesterday and I swear, I walked away for less than 2 minutes and came back to my assistant taking a break....



Ms. Glory was tired of getting up and down from the bed as I was folding clothes, so I guess she though resting here was ok.

Off to do some house work!