Passports

Thought I fell off the plant didn’t ‘cha? Well, I could offer a ton of excuses but they probably wouldn’t be worth the pixels they would be written in so lets just say a lot of water has gone under the bridge and a lot of quilts have been started – some have even been finished! Flylady says jump in where you are but the one thing I want to fill you in on would be that I bought a Bernina!! My LQS had a great sale this summer so I bought an Aurora 430.

Soooo…passports….
I thought I would (re)start by sharing our International Mystery Series class this past Monday. Every month or so, my LQS has a 3 hour mystery quilt class based on a country. So far we have had Egypt, Scotland and this month, Germany. The kits have color choices based on the country (Oktoberfest and Red Baron this month) and sometimes the pattern even fits. We also have a passport and get stamps for “taking a tour” (the class), “crossing the border” and “come back” (buying borders and backings) at which point we are eligible for “homeward bound” (free binding fabric). They’re easy quilts and everyone’s turns out so different even though we only have 2 color choices. To the left are my German braids. The Geishas will be strips between the braids, the first 1” border will be the bright red (part of the kit) and hopefully the Asian text will be the outer border.

What other passports do I have? There’s the Penny Passport for my elongated pennies – I just can’t leave them laying around can I? I have pennies from San Fran, Ponce Inlet lighthouse and even Miami Seaquarium when we took my nephew, plus other places in between. Wish I could find the rest of my pennies to put in the passport…

I also gave in and bought the US Lighthouse Passport. It seems like I should have bought one some time ago but I just hadn’t and now I’ll have to visit a lot of lighthouses again. Darn, I just dread that chore! When this passport is filled it can be turned in for a commemorative patch.

Of course, then there’s the best passport of all – my US passport. OK, so I’m on my second one and neither is very full but it’s fun to plan the next trip and that would be to visit Angela in Argentina with a possible side trip to Machu Pichu. Can’t wait! Oh, you didn’t think I would share my passport picture did you? Harharhar!

Red sky at night…sailor’s delight

That was what my grandmother would say when “predicting” the weather for the next day. Of course, the opposite phrase was “red sky in the morning…sailors take warning.” I’m pleased as punch to say that today was a delight and if the phrase holds true so will tomorrow.

This morning I rose early to a brisk 39 degrees – not so bad in February, given the storms racking the northeast BUT I don’t live anywhere near the north. Miamians can't handle this yummy turn of the weather: I stopped at Einstein’s this morning and saw people with 3 or 4 layers of clothes compared to my one layered uniform shirt and jeans – yipper, I’m a Yankee thru and thru. Now this is not to say that the patio door was closed nor will it be closed tonight when we expect the same temperatures. As I was saying…the clear skies and vibrant sunset predict another cool night followed by a Sunday.

Sorry, no photos – I spent too much time enjoying the cats curled up on quilts this morning or watching tonight’s sunset to even think of grabbing a camera.

Happy Valentines Day!!!

This is the mini quilt I made while learning paper foundation piecing. I was also practicing free motion quilting while I finished this pink beauty so you might be able to see the hearts stitched into the border. OK - I'll admit it, I'm still working on my free motion but I can do ivy leaves very well!




I just started the Pineapples Plus class at QuiltUniversity.com. This is my homework for week 1. I plan to make at least 3 more for a wall hanging or pillow.