Welcome, Bobby!

I've always heard that English bobbies ride bicycles, but lacking one the right size, I gave him an Alpaca to try. He seems to like it.

The very talented Rachel Slater has en etsy shop called Knitwish. She donated this charming knitted English policeman, affectionately known as Bobby, to the Australian bush fire relief fund. I was honored to donate to the Australian Red Cross, and in addition was thrilled to be able to buy Bobby,the proceeds of which went to aid the fire victims. Bobby is enjoying his new home, and went for a little trip to Hawaii, visiting Lisa's Happy Hula Huts.

He found the computer chair comfortable.

Thank you so much, Rachel! I promise to give Bobby a good home.

Fancy pants

David liked the looks of that dragon fabric so much he asked if I had enough to make him a pair of pants. I didn't, but fortunately the store did. He asks for things so rarely that I like to accommodate him when he does. I think these are pajama pants, but I'm not sure. Kind of wild looking, aren't they? After making the Postcards from Hawaii quilt I went to www.HawaiianFabricShop.com to see what I could find. Don't you just love this ocean scene? I'm going to have trouble cutting that one up.

I ordered some patterns from Lisa (www.lisaboyer.com) , and wanted to quick get a picture before I took the bows off. They looked so pretty, but I couldn't wait to open the patterns and read the instructions.

And look! She added some more Hawaiian fabric so I could make another postcard quilt - nice!

Thank you, Lisa.

The one on the lower right is the most stunning color - it takes my breath away it's so pretty.

Don't panic.

Jodie (www.vintagericrac.blogspot.com) gave me permission to borrow this expression from her eye chart. Don't you love it? I'm thinking of making another one in eye chart format, but this one is for my youngest nephew's birthday next month. He'll be fourteen, and when his mother says, "Benjamin, what happened to your room?" he can point to his dragon wall hanging. Please observe that I stepped way out of my comfort zone with these fabrics, and made something I thought a fourteen year old would like. Special thanks to Lady Hopwood for her good advice. I did make both bags and liked them both so much that I gave both of them to my mother-in-law for her birthday.

She liked them, too!

I hope you have a good week.

Postcards from Hawaii Lisa style

Did you see Lisa Boyer's "Postcards from Hawaii" quilt on her blog (www.lisaboyer.com)? I liked it so much that I stayed up far too late and neglected way too many household chores in order to make one like it. Mine is smaller, with 3x5 inch postcards. It's the third baby quilt I needed, and I had been waiting for inspiration to strike. Thank you, Lisa, for the inspiration! Now I have three baby quilts that all need to be quilted and bound. I've done the fun part, but I need the quilting practice, so I'd better get started. Last night when I was in the height of my sewing frenzy, my sewing machine went ..clunk..thunk.. and then started knotting the bottom threads. I am soo thankful to have my backup machine.

Four of these lovely Hawaiian prints came from Lisa. She is the reason I started blogging almost exactly a year ago. She was having a giveaway and in order to be in the drawing I had to leave a comment. In order to leave a comment I had to have a blog. I was so happy to win her drawing, and the prize was her Happy Hula Hut pattern with four half yard cuts of beautiful Hawaiian fabric. What a great prize! I'm sure you can tell which of my postcards are the genuine article. The rest are imposters, but they look pretty.

I hope you have a great weekend.

Lake Farm Park 2009 Quilt Show

Last night Larry said, "The quilt show started yesterday; we should go tomorrow, don't you think?" What a delightful idea - we had a marvelous time. They had 250 quilts, and the only problem was that they were displayed so close together that I couldn't get far enough away to get good photographs. That didn't stop me of course. I took about 100 photos of my favorites. Each one of these charming gals was appliqued by hand.

Looking through a window at a Christmas tree.

This clipper ship was my favorite, but I was trying to figure out why the artist put flowers underneath instead of fish.

This one looked so amazing - I'm sorry the photo doesn't do it justice.

Lovely workmanship.

Interesting Celtic design.

Perfect points. This was Larry's favorite.

Another one that is completely hand appliqued. Can you imagine??

I enjoyed reading the artists' stories about why they made the quilts. This one was sad. The quilter said she hated everything about making this quilt, but her friends wouldn't let her give it up.

This one was made by someone who is legally blind. I just love the stained glass window effect.

This was entirely hand pieced and hand quilted - way beyond my comprehension.

This Hawaiin quilt is so pretty. I wish I could have gotten a photo of the whole thing, but there wasn't any room to move around to get a better shot.

You don't have to tell me how lucky I am to have a husband who not only remembered the quilt show, but suggested we go!

I need advice!

My mother in law is having a birthday, and I want to make something for her. She likes blue, so I quilted this lovely fabric for her, in the hopes of making a bag. After I finished it I decided it looks just right. . . for a diaper bag, which is NOT what I had in mind for her. I bought the pre-quilted fabric below when the quilt shop was having a Super Bowl sale last year. It would make a nice bag, but it's not blue.

Advice welcome!

This is what we eat on days when I don't cook. I really do prepare food, just not on the stove.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Let's do what we can to help.

I've been fortunate to make good friends in Australia through blogging. My heart aches for those suffering from the fires and floods. We can help by sending a donation to the Australian Red Cross. www.redcross.org.au

Blessings,
Diana

Save the words!

This is such fun - give it a try! I found out about www.savethewords.org from Daisy. Stop by to see the enormous selection of words being dropped from modern usage by the Oxford Dictionary. You, too, can adopt a word to put back in circulation. The first word I chose was pocket handkerchief, but then it disappeared before I could register it. It's probably there somewhere, but after searching I decided to adopt it without registering! Pocket handkerchiefs and I go way back. My dad always carried one, and my sister and I learned how to iron by practicing on Dad's pocket handkerchiefs. If we were out somewhere with Dad and needed to wipe our sticky ice cream cone hands, there was Dad's pocket handkerchief ready to help. The modern concept of going green may bring pocket handkerchiefs back into fashion. Carrying a pocket handkerchief is much less wasteful than using paper tissues that get thrown away. (We won't think about the germs that sit around in your pocket after using your pocket handerchief half a dozen times when you have a cold. :>})

Being a lover or words, I chose two more to adopt. Namelings are persons bearing the same name. We encounter a bit of confusion at the doctors' office where I work with namelings. We have to ask the nameling's date of birth so we get the correct chart for the patient.

A cecograph is a writing device for the blind. I need to look into getting a cecograph for my mom. She has extremely limited vision, and can no longer see what she has written. It makes it difficult for her to sign documents, and a cecograph would be helpful.

Ladybugs, cats, and the short list

This is the most recently transformed sweatshirt. The shirt is as black as our cat, but look what happened in the photo. It turned quite gray. Odd.

How do you teach a cat to scratch on his own scratching post? We wrapped a mat around the piano leg and tied it with an enticing looking string, hoping to interest the cat in his new scratching post. Larry demonstrated while Hallie watched.

He used to scratch the couch, and he spent the whole hour I spent patching his damage, watching.

This is what it looked like before.

Since I had to work yesterday, I just had a short to do list this weekend. Clean the closet (Definitely can't show you that, you'd say, "and she thinks she's finished the job?" cut my hair (can't photograph that, I already need three hands to cut my hair) make a scratching post and fix the couch.

My mom has a very useful saying I employ with many household projects. "It's not perfect, but it's better than it was." I rarely have time to do anything perfectly, but the couch certainly looks better. Same with the closet. Who needs perfection?

Thank you, Chile!

Thank you, Chile, for sharing your delicious blueberries with us! Just when I was thinking that winter doesn't have much to recommend it, our favorite grocery store has blueberries from Chile. What says "summer" more than blueberries? Okay, I know, a lot of things do, like beaches and peaches and swimming. But in February we take what we can get around here, and I am thankful for these tasty berries that traveled such a long way to get here. I don't actually know anyone in Chile, but it's awfully nice of them to share with us. When Larry sees my bowl of cereal with berries, he often says, "Is there any cereal in there?" or perhaps, "Have a little cereal with your blueberries."

See - there really is cereal in there. All Bran bran buds to be specific.

A Good Read

Winter is a great time for reading (as are spring, summer and fall :>}). I highly recommend "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society". It's a marvelous book, written in the form of letters. The story takes place just after World War II, and the main characters live in Guernsey, one of the Channel islands, which had been occupied by Nazi soldiers for five years. The Occupation is over and the islanders are putting their lives back together. Did you ever see a snowman with a beard before?

Once the newness wears off, snow isn't quite so pretty.

Just so Ginny knows I've been cooking while she was gone!

A limerick and snow projects

A lovely Aussie named Sue
sent me a charming kangaroo.
In return I send snow,
the warm kind you know,
not the kind that makes you turn blue. While I was making Suzanne's project inside, Daniel had an outside snow project.

One man with one shovel did an awful lot of work this week.

He's running out of places to put it.

We appreciate all his hard work so much. What a blessing to come home from work and drive right up the driveway that was clearer than most of the roads I had been on. Thank you, Daniel!