Oh So Pretty!

I work in an insurance office and one of our clients was bought out by another company do we won't be their broker anymore. As a token of "wonderfulness", the former owner of the company sent me and my boss each a bouquet of petite roses. They came FedEx today and they are beautiful. I've never gotten flowers via the FedEx man! lol At first, they looked like they might not last too long but they came with a little booklet on how to take for them and they've perked up nicely. It says they're from the plateaus of Central America. Dang, that's a long way to deliver roses!! I guess we don't grow roses in California?? lol Then it says that there are outter "guard" petals left on to protect the flowers during shipping and that you should pull those off. Well, once I made a fresh cut on the stem, put them in a vase of water and pulled off one or two "guard" petals, they are fabulous! Don't you just love flowers? Me too! lol

I've been working on projects for my retreat I'm leaving for in a couple of weeks. We're doing a mini quilt swap. It has to measure 8-12". Some of the girls who are in the swap might see this blog so I'm just posting a little piece of my quilt. I don't want to ruin any surprises. :o) I think I'm done with the top but I'm going to play with the borders a little bit when I get home. I might add a little more. Then I'll need to quilt it. How can something so tiny can be so time consuming? lol

One down, 15 to go!

I'm going to a retreat in Indiana in a few weeks. California to Indiana....kind of a long way for a retreat huh? Well, it's a great group of ladies and very much worth the trip. Some ladies I've met in person and the woman organizing it is a doll. One of those people you feel lucky to have met and fortunate to have her as a friend. (In case she's reading this, her name is Doris!) LOL Just kidding Ange. Some of us met at prior retreats and the ladies are a hoot and a lot of fun to hang out with and sew into the wee hours. Other ladies have just chatted online but we feel like long-time friends. It'll be fun to finally meet some of them in person. Sheesh....I ramble, don't I? lol
We are swapping these cute little double pinwheel blocks in 30's fabrics. They measure 4 1/2" and are too cute. They're paper pieced and this one went pretty quick. I'll be working on these for the next few days. For now, I'm off to bed to get some zzzz's so I can keep from nodding off at my desk tomorrow. My boss hates hearing that thud! ;o)

Bread & Butter

I'm hostessing a couple of swaps on Backporch Friends. This one is called Bread & Butter and I needed to make up some samples to see if the paper piece pattern was right. It was. Whew. The block is called kaleidescope. I worked this one up at 9 1/2" in EQ6. Now back to working on some projects for a retreat I'm going to in May. It's coming so fast. Man, does time fly when you get O-L-D!!! :o)

Sewing Night

Yummmmy! What's better then sewing night? Dessert on sewing night. lol This week we were at my friend Sherrie's house. She made this deeeeelicious strawberry pie for dessert. She said she got it out of a Jello recipe book. Man, was it yummy. Between getting a buzz off that java and eating dessert, I was working on some bowtie blocks for a swap. What else? Another swap. If I ever get any of these blasted blocks into a quilt, it'll be a miracle!!! lol
Sherrie invited two other ladies to join us this week. Marianne came over. She is from our local sewing machine store, Moore's. She is from Denmark and has been in CA for two years. I can't believe how many times we had to translate something we said. They teach English in Denmark but obviously, we don't speak English. LOL We speak something that needs it's own translation! Marianne was making the most adorable Christmas items (yup, I said Christmas) to sell to a shop in Solvang. She was making heart ornaments and stockings. They were adorablve. The other lady who joined us was a newbie quilter, Teresa. She is the mom of one of Sherrie's daughters friends. (Is that too many plurals? lol) She is like us and has the gift of gab and talked with us into the wee hours of the night.
The other regulars are our friends Neena and Debbie. Neena didn't feel good so she stayed home and Debbie came but didn't bring a project to work on. Shortly after she settled in, Sherrie handed Debbie her wall hanging and said, "How are you at handwork?" lol She got her a needle and thread and had her stitch up the bottom edge of her quilt sleeve. Man, don't sit idle around here. And she calls "me" the quilt police!!!!

Spring Fling

This weekend seven local quilts shops in Orange County (CA) had a mini shop hop called a Spring Fling. They each gave out a fat quarter and pattern and if you went to all seven shops, you qualified for some give aways. I've got my fingers crossed that I win "something". lol My daughter went with me and gave me a couple of her fq's. In turn, I'm going to give the purple one to my friend Neena who just LOVES "poiple". hehe
Then on Sunday, my friend Sherrie had a Stampin' Up party and we made these goodies. The little turtle card is so darned cute. Today is my nieces birthday so I think I'll mail it to her even though it will be a little late. I hope to get some sewing done tonight. So much to do, so little time!!!

Among the Missing

I should change the name of my blog to "Among the Missing". I don't know what's kept me so busy. Just life I guess. Kids coming over, sewing blocks, that 4 letter word WORK! One of the things I've been doing is making stars out of homepun fabric and muslin. They're for a swap on the Yahoo group I help with, Backporch Friends. I used Triangulations for the quarter square triangles. I LOVE the program. I bought it at Road to CA and it has been worth every penny I paid, which I think was just over $20. I like that it's on my computer and I can print off any size I need, day or night, whenever I get the whim to sew. :o) And this is an OLD ufo that should be finished already. These blocks are from a swap I did a few years ago called Thrifty Thimbleberries. The Thrifty block using only TB fabrics. Well, it had been a top for a really long time. A couple of months ago, I sandwiched it to quilt it on my Juki. I could've asked my friend Sherrie if I could've gone over and used her longarm but that would've been too easy! So I thought I would just grid quilt it and look at it. Pins still there. Untouched by human hands. Good grief....I need to stop being a starter and start being a finisher! If you hear anything that sounds like a sonic boom, maybe it will be the earth coming to a screaching halt from shock.....that maybe I started quilting this quilt!