Mystic Nights Quilt

I have been working on this quilt a little bit each day that I can and it still isn't all pieced. It will really be pretty when it is finished with the strips around for the border. I got the pattern and fabrics from Keepsake Quilting. Derek Lockwood designed the quilt. I like his quilts and have quilted several of them. I usually change the background fabric. He uses a lot of blacks. I have cataracts and cannot see black very well when I am quilting/sewing. So I change a lot of his black background to white. I did not change anything on this quilt thought. It will have a dark green border and then a black border on the outside. The strips are sewed together in the order he gave. Then they are cut at different sizes and the strips sewed together. I have sewed it together using one fourth of the quilt. I then sewed the two one-fourths together. I have the last fourth of it nearly finished. Just lack about 4 strips. Then I will sew the third fourth to the fourth fourth and then the two halves together. The quilt is too heavy to sew each strip to the whole each time I get one strip made.

Two views of the quilt.

Teddy Bear Quilt

This is the Teddy Bear baby quilt that I just finished. I ordered the kit from Keepsake Quilting. They sent all the fabrics for this quilt. In the kit were the teddy bears already cut out. They sent 80 bears but I only needed 24, so I have more bears to make quilts in the future. I think it is a really nice baby quilt.

My Many Hits Today and Yesterday

I linked up with Amanda (?) and her dashboard posts Friday. And look what it did to my blog!! Sixty-nine hits yesterday and fifty-nine so far today. Makes me really humble. Now I'll have to put another post on soon. Am nearly finished with a baby quilt. Have a bargello quilt nearly pieced. It was be a dilly to quilt. Anyone have any experience with hand quilting one like that? The directions say to stitch in the ditch on every seam. Some of those strips are only 3/4 inch wide. I'll come up with something. I know I'll have to get out the full quilt quilting frames for it. No quilting hoop will work. Thank you all for reading my humble blog!

Civil War Quilt

This is the Civl War quilt that I pieced and quilted. I had joined a block of the month club from Keepsake Quilting. They sent me a block each month. Of course each month you pieced all the blocks of that design. The border is small blocks. I don't remember how many of those there were, but a lot. I got a really heavy batting. Actually it was too  heavy, but I used it anyway. Just made the quilt heavier and more difficult to manipulate on the hoop quilting frame I use. This quilt has a lot of brown/beige shades of color in it. So I was happy when a square had some green, blue, purple in it. I don't think I will ever attempt a block of the month quilt again. This one came as it should have and had all the fabrics and instructions needed. But another block of the month quilt I did after this one, was purely disgusting, but that is another story.
Love this quilt.

The Quilter is Given a Quilt

Back in September 2012 my husband was invited to a congregation where we worked back in the early part of our marriage. The congregation was having their 100th anniversary. We really wanted to go and told them we would come. But they were not definite on the date, just some time in October. We told them we were already obligated for a week in West Virginia in October. So when they called back with a definite date, it was 3 days after we would have been in West Virginia for a week already. We did not want to have to stay 3-4 days in a hotel, nor did we want to bum around on relatives as we had done that on the way to West Virginia. We hinted around and thought they would take the hint and invite us to come on and stay with some of the members, but they didn't. So we had to drop out of the festivities. We would really have liked to have gone. We asked them to send us a brochure of their anniversary day. So a few weeks after their big day, our doorbell rang. When we went to the door, it was a mail delivery truck. He had the biggest box I about ever saw in his arms. When my husband took the box, his arms went up, you know, like it was not heavy at all. It was very light when I picked it up. We could not imagine what on earth it was. On opening it, it was a quilt!

It is a simple pattern. It was tacked and not quilted. I felt that the tacking was not going to hold that well, so I am quilting it. I am almost finished. On the back of it is this inscription:

I am really proud of this quilt. It is not every day that a quilter is given a quilt!
I have been negligent in keeping up my blog. Hopefully I can get back to blogging regularly now.

The New Year

To me New Years Day is a day for reflection. I like to reflect on what I had planned to do this past year. I don't make a lot of plans or resolutions. Resolutions are usually just broken after a few weeks. I did have some plans that I carried out through the year.

Number 1: I planned to read my Bible through on a Bible reading schedule. My son in Scotland has a three year Bible reading plan that he puts in their church bulletin every month. I decided that this would be my plan for the next three years. I am happy to say I have kept up with my Bible reading through this plan. I ended the year still on schedule. I like this plan because you only read 5 days a week. You read Old Testament and New Testament every day. He has it scheduled so you read about 55 verses total from both Testaments each day of those 5 days. And there is 2 free weeks worked in for those who get behind to catch up. I did not have to use the catch up weeks this year. I stayed on schedule. This was a first for me. While I read and study my Bible about everyday especially when I am teaching a class, I would fall behind on my scheduled reading. I am already into the second year of this reading plan.

Number 2: We planned to go to Scotland to visit our family there. We did that the last of August and first half of September. We did several days of sightseeing with our family. The highlight of the trip for me was being able to attend the annual ladies' day on the East Kilbride Church of Christ. I had wanted to do this for a long time, but it just never worked out until this year. Really enjoyed it. Got to see some old friends that I would not have seen otherwise. The lady who spoke is an acquaintance for many years. She did just a good job presenting a lesson to the ladies. Met some people from America who are working in Scotland now. This is always a plus. You get to compare people you each know and usually can pinpoint someone who both know.

Number 3: We planned to get our front porch and walk redone. That happened at the end of the summer. Our porch steps were sinking into the ground and one step was really high. The porch was pulling away from the house. So the contractor bricked around the porch, poured a new concrete pad, make brick steps up the the porch. He also poured concrete steps down to the driveway. He put cedar banisters around the porch and down the steps to the driveway. We got a painter to come and stain the banisters and they really pop now. We also had to get a new roof. With our house being added on to even before us, the roof went into so many angles and valleys that a shingle roof was difficult to repair. We had had several leaks over the years and they had been patched until there was no patching to be done. So we decided to get the Amish people to put us a metal roof on. They did that just before we went to Scotland. We have been well satisfied with the roof and with their work. It is so nice to hear the rain falling on the roof now.

Plans for this year: I will continue reading my scheduled Bible reading plan.

I want to get a better schedule for the chores I have to do daily, weekly, monthly. I have fallen behind on that.

I want to get some sorting out, cleaning out of closets, drawers, etc. I did some of this last year, but not to the extend I wanted to. Most of our things we have kept, just put back, or whatever, I started sorted through. But after a while it got mundane and I lost interest and stopped. This year I need to do better there.

I plan to teach the ladies' class at church again starting  in March. The elders have not asked me yet, but that was the plan last August when another teacher took over the class. We'll see. By the time March gets here I may not want to teach again.

I plan to finish the quilt I am quilting. I plan to finish piecing the detailed quilt I am working on now. Pictures will be forthcoming of both of these projects.

Hopefully this year we will not have any major repairs to do to the house.

My plan last year was to read 50 books during the year. I surpassed that and read 53. I plan to continue reading books. Maybe I can read 60 in 2013.

These are my plans for 2013. Not much really, but still I plan to do a little each day.

Happy New Year, 2013

I must admit I have failed to keep up with my blog the last part of this year. Hopefully I can do better in 2013.

We had a good year. We were able to make another trip to Scotland to visit family and friends. Really enjoyed that. Hubby had a problem with his back while we were there and had to relent to using a cane when we were out walking and site seeing. He is used to getting up and walking around often here at home. On an eight hour plane flight you are not able to do that so often. He did pay several trips to the bathroom just to be able to move around. If you go back on this blog you can read more about our trip.

One big change in our family's lives is that our next to youngest grandson joined the army. Guess he had been toying with that idea for a while. So he finally made the plunge. We hated to see him go in the Army, but we are so proud of him for wanting to serve his country. He did his Basic Training at Fort Jackson, SC and graduated the first of December. He was then sent to Fort Gordon, GA for his advanced training in radio operator/maintainer. He was allowed to go home for two weeks for the holidays. We went down and had Christmas with them. He is currently visiting his girlfriend in Maryland.

I was really amazed at the comaradary of the families of the recruits. There were at least three pages on FB  for family and friends of the recruits at Basic Training. You got to feel like you knew the families. We did not get to go to the graduation, but our daughter was anxious to meet some of the families face to face.

Our work here with the TV program and Bible Correspondence Courses continues. We had to change TV stations due to their programming change this year. But we came out the best for that. We continue to be thankful for the C Street Church of Christ in Elizabethton, TN for the use of their studio for recording the programs. We are continually thankful to Jim Southerland who works as our production manager in recording the programs. donating his time.

Hopefully this  year we can continue our work here. I hope to continue quilting and cooking, while I love. I will be getting some pictures on the blog soon of the Civil War quilt that I am quilting.

Hope your New Year is prosperous and happy.