Whew! Finally :-)
I’ve practically been stalking my postman! Why? Well, Nadine – Friendship Threads sent a package on December 11 and it had not arrived. Needless to say, we were starting to worry. Poor Nadine was beside herself and my DH was chatting with the postman on a daily basis. Where’s the box? Well, the box finally has arrived and my goodness it was worth the wait. What a delightful package with so many wonderful goodies! A beautiful needle book, a small zippered bag for my handwork necessities, a beautiful red scarf (oh no I forgot to include it in the picture) and Nadine’s adorable first stitchery project. Wait, I almost forgot the wonderful box of chocolates for my DH and I - YUMMY!!!!! I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying Nadine’s friendship and I hope that we will be long distance friends for many, many years!

Sluggish Days

I'm finally starting to feel a bit human - this nasty cold has just hung on a bit too long. Haven't felt like doing much - sleeping, watching TV and a bit of handapplique. I've been visiting blogs but sadly have not left many comments. I have a long list of e-mails to respond to and will get to those today. If I owe you a response please bear with me :-) I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that your days have been full of comfort and joy. We had a very nice Christmas Eve with my daughter and her family - it's so much fun to watch the faces of my grandsons, Seth and Eli, as they tear into their packages. Of course, I had fun tearing into mine, too. My wonderful daughter gave us a four Fiestaware placesettings, and a set of adorable salt and pepper shakers to match; my SIL gave me a "touch can-opener" (he and I have a thing about can openers LOL) and my wonderful DH gave me a Tutto bag to use to take my sewing machine when I go sewing with my friends. We had a wonderful prime rib dinner with friends on Christmas Day. All in all great days! And, since then I've truly been a SLUG! I had prepped quite a bit of "Celebrate January" by Lori Smith and you see the results of my hand applique in the picture! And, I've been contemplating my quilty plans for 2007 - trying to settle on realistic goals and projects.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
I hope that you and yours have a wonderful holiday season.

I've been laying low for the past three days while fighting a nasty cold - coughing and blowing my nose is not my idea of a fun Christmas! Ugh! We're planning to spend Christmas Eve with my daughter and her family and then a quiet Christmas Day at home.

Moved to "Beta" Blogger. Looks like everything has moved OK. I'll be back later to attempt to add pictures and a much longer post!

FRUSTRATION!!!!!!

I'm so frustrated this morning! Sigh! If you've left a comment on my blog and I haven't responded, it's because it's coming to me as "anonymous"- I'm sorry! And, now this morning I've found that if you've switched to the BETA (aka TEST) version of blogger then I can't leave a comment on your blog. I'm a bit concerned about switching to that version cuz I keep reading pros and cons. So, please know that I do read most and all blogs on both rings I belong to however I can't always leave a comment!

Projects, Projects, Projects!

I'm making a list and checking it twice. Gonna find out who's naughty....wait, wait, wait...wrong list!

Actually I'm working on my list(s) of projects for 2007. Last night I went to sew with my friends, like we do a couple of times a month, and came away feeling very, very uninspired. And, we were sewing at one of the local quilt stores. Sigh!!!! As you well know I have not done much sewing in a couple of months - just don't have the urge. This is incredibly strange for me but rather than fight it I'm just hoping it'll pass soon. I did decide a couple of weeks ago that in 2007 I'd like to work on hand projects i.e. hand applique, stitchery, etc.

Nadine and I have been commiserating about future projects. She has been inspired by May Britt to work on "Applique Delights" by Faye Anderson; so she has challenged me to work on it with them. The challenge is to make one block a week in 2007 and by this time next year we will hopefully have all the blocks completed. I believe that May Britt has 11 blocks done and Nadine already has one done. I got my book last week and have been thinking about my color scheme and I believe I have finally decided. So, I need to start getting prepared so I can meet this challenge. LOL Actually I'm very excited about working on this project with Nadine and May Britt - should be lot of fun!

Next on the long list! I've been collecting "A Quilt of the Month Series" by Lori Smith - there's a project for every month (Celebrate January is pictured). These monthly projects are 28" by 36" and are really calling my name. It's time to prep Celebrate January and get busy - can I keep this monthly project going throughout 2007?? We'll see. LOL

I've been collecting applique patterns and projects for a couple of years and if you read my blog you know that I started doing hand applique with a vengence last June and then came to a "dead stop". It's time to pull out all those projects and start the prepping.

I've got to get back to Country Cousins Meets Baltimore Album and I have the following on the list, too:

Snowman Country by Bunny Hill Designs(Anne Sutton); Rabbits Prefer Chocolate by Bunny Hill Designs (Anne Sutton); Vintage Valentine by The Vintage Spool (Verna Mosquera). And, others that I need to go revisit and think about pulling out to work on. Sigh!

It's time to get busy and stop fretting about no desire to piece on my sewing machine and enjoy a ton of handwork!!! Wouldn't you agree??????? :-)

"The Civil War Diary Quilt"

One of the girls I sew with gave me a gift certificate for my birthday in July and I used it to buy this cute book. I love the small blocks but I have been especially enjoying the stories. It's just a sweet book to have in my library of quilt books and such. Someday I might be inspired to work on the blocks.

Now it's time to get busy. I hope to have something to show at the end of this day. Wish me luck!

Edit: Susan says that I say I'm uninspired and yet I've listed a plethora of projects. My first love in quilting is to sit and piece for hours at my machine - my friends refer to me as a "power piecer" - however in recent months I've had very little inspiration for machine piecing. I have always enjoyed hand work so, even though I have not felt like doing that either I've decided to push myself to at least work on hand projects rather than push myself to work on my machine. I hope this makes better sense!