Off to a quilting class

This morning I will be going to my local quilt shop to take a class.  The picture below shows the pattern and the selected fabric.  This is a new technique using a special kind of interfacing.  That is all I know at the moment.  I will be making a wall hanging.  Tomorrow I will show you the results. Or at least how far I have gotten.

Books, Books and more Books

If you know me very well you know I love books.  I love to read.  I also like books about things I am interested in.  At the moment I seem to be adding books about quilting and paper arts.  And always new cookbooks.

I obtain books everywhere.  I get them from Library, borrowing or buying from their book sales. I get them from yard sales, flea markets, regular bookstores, places on line. AND I trade or accept gifts of books.

In our house in Maine every time we re-did a room we made sure to add bookshelves.  In this house we haven't so many places to put bookshelves.  HOWEVER that hasn't stopped me.  In one of our walk in closets we added thin shelves and that is where I store a lot of books.  In the remodeled kitchen we made sure there was a good sized bookcase.

These are all cookbooks!

And when all else fails I find places to get rid of them.  I take a lot every summer to a local flea market where I trade them for credit to buy more books.  Also I put books out in my antique shop and fortunately some of my customers find they need to buy them!

So now I have discovered Paper Back Swap on line. You list the books you are willing to trade, people ask for them.  You send them and you get credits to get some for yourself.  It isn't the cheapest thing because you have to pay for the postage to send the books.  But the ones you get back are sent free AND media mail isn't too expensive.

So I have listed quite a few books and am having success, people want my books.  And I have already ordered and received some in return.  It is fun actually and except for having to go to the post office to mail them, not so bad.

Speaking of Post Offices, our little local post office just closed.  I loved going there.  It was just up the road, no parking problems and easy in and out.  Now I have to go down town, worry about a place to park, which I have to pay for,  and then wait in line inside.   I am presently not a happy camper about that.

But back to the mailing, here is today's load of outgoing books.  They provide you with the pdf to print out with address etc.  You just wrap and mail.

 Almost all of our snow is gone except a couple of places in deep shade.  So I went out to check out the daffodils.  There are three clumps of them in one of our beds that are doing nicely.  Looking forward to seeing their cheery yellow faces.  Here is one closeup.

       While I was out looking at my gardens to see if anything else was happening I found some Sedum just starting.

     And when I checked on my azalea bushes I found a few blossoms.  They have quite a ways to go but these are all hopeful signs of spring.

Hope to have more spring like pictures soon.

Catching up

How is it  that we have such great intentions when starting a blog. But then life keeps getting in the way.  Have been fairly busy this week but not much exciting.

We did start of the week on Sunday by attending the annual Daytona Watching Party at out neighbors.  We figure we have been going for 11 years now.

We always take a cake to contribute, though this year we also took some of my yummy onion clusters.
My husbands favorite driver is Kyle Busch (probably my least favorite one) so when he ordered the cake this year he had them feature Kyle's M and Ms car.

The race was pretty boring actually until the last couple of minutes when very young Trevor Bayne won.  He is just turned 20!    The good news was that my favorite driver, Carl Edwards, came in second!

We got another blast of winter Sunday night.  About 6 inches this time.  The scenes outside were pretty but it was sort of sad since we had finally gotten to bare ground.

 So now we just sit and wait for Spring, or our trip to the Nascar Race in Bristol, TN.  depending on which comes first.   Hope we don't have to dig the camper out of the snow so we can get it ready.  We have had to do that in the past unfortunately.  But it is so worth it to us.

Spring may be Springing?????

We still have a LOT of snow on the ground but it seems like it may doin some melting this week.  My husband was looking around the property today and took these two pictures.  They make it seem like Spring may be on its way. If you at the pointed end of the arrow you can see the little daffodils popping up.  Notice where the snow is melting away.

 And below is a close up.  I think there is now hope for spring.  The temps are supposed to be getting better this coming week so I am hopeful we will see more little hints of spring.

But doesn't that look great.

Yellow

Today I am posting some ATCs that I just completed and mailed off.  The theme was Yellow.  I decided, since I seem to be doing a lot of wishing for Spring lately, that I would add to that thought.  Yellow is the color of Spring.....

Here are my ATCs for this swap.  I sent off two of them and kept one for myself as I usually do.  The next color we must do is Orange.  Have to start collecting up little bits and bobs for that one.

We have lots of visits from the little gold finches in our garden and I can always tell when Spring is approaching because their feathers begin to turn yellow.  Unfortunately no such turning yet.  We have a finch feeder right outside the window where I sit to do a lot of my work.

Yesterday was a fun day.  We went up to Wilkes Barre, our nearest big city for SHOPPING.  I was happy to be able to get to Barnes and Nobel and to JoAnn fabrics.  Found all of  the items on my "need" list at JoAnn's.  I didn't even go to Michaels cause I had found everything  at JoAnns.


Now I have no excuses to not finish a couple of planned projects.

Where or where does the time go.

Does that seem like a theme.  I get going good on blogging and then I get sidetracked.  Actually that is true about many things in my life.  I am easily side tracked.

     For those who were following my quilt making adventure......  I took the quilt top to my local quilt shop and my friend Rita is going to machine quilt it for me in the next couple of weeks (I hope.)  While there I signed up to take a quilting class to make a pretty wall hanging.  That will be early in March so don't hold your breath for any pictures just yet.

     I spent some time "reorganizing" up in my studio.  Didn't get a while lot done but did throw out a big trash bag of junk.  Even for a saver like me this was junk and needed to be gone.  While doing that
I did find a box full of stuff to "share" in a sense.....  I am now in a swap with my friends at Belle Papier (a yahoo group of paper artists.) and another swap with friends from a group called Remains of the Day.  It is a yahoo group formed by the leader of a Class in journal making.  We make journals out of "junk" mail, stray papers and what ever comes along.  So I filled 6 gallon size baggies full for the Belle Papier Swap and 10  quart size baggies for the ROD swap.  Of course it feels good to send them off but the other side is that I will be getting that many in return. At least it will be different stuff. 
Here is a picture I took of the baggies going to the Belle Papier swap.  You can't see much but you will get the ideas.  I forgot to take a picture of the ones for the ROD swap.

 Here are a couple of links back to when I first joined the Remains of the Day Group.  I didn't blog much after the first bit of work.  But you will get the idea of the cover anyway.  Maybe someday I will do a blog just on it. Again, just don't hold your breath.
http://agardenersart.blogspot.com/2009/12/altered-art-and-christmas.html
 http://agardenersart.blogspot.com/2009/12/continuing-with-remains-of-day-project.html
 In another area of my life, I have been doing a lot of sending and receiving of postcards from the Post Crossing swap group. And some from SwapBot as well.  I have been getting cards from all over the world:  China, Belarus, Netherlands, Germany, Scotland, Sweden and Australia among the many.  It is fun to find the cards in the mail every couple of days.
   When I was taking an   on-line class for decorative box making which I talked about in an earlier blog I made a box to hold the post cards.  Here is the box. It is covered with hand made paper and the graphics include logos from the two groups.  Maybe not so easy to see.  There is also a picture of a few of the cards I have received

And that is a bit of why I keep getting side tracked, going from one hobby to the next.

So I have been missing..............

I had every intention of posting here a number of days ago but obviously good intentions aren't always carried through.

I did finish the quilt, at least the piecing part.  I am going to have someone else do machine quilting.  I just don't have the space or ability really.  Here is a quick picture I took.  It looks like of messy, can't spread it out anywhere so you will have to wait until I get it machine quilted to see the final project I suppose.
It does seem a bit of a jumble but I supposed that it part of it.  Anyway, I love all the colors as they remind me of my teenage years.

Since I have finished the quilt top, I have put the sewing machine away (I donated the old one to the Salvation Army)  Now I am spending time working on various art type products.

I belong to a group called ATC-Art Dolls where we create and swap paper dolls.  All are "artsy" none are tradtional.  Sometimes they are done full size, other times they must be the size of Artist Trading Cards which at always to be 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches.  The dolls can be bigger but must fold up to fit the size and to be able to be put into a holder.
Here are two I just finished and mailed off today.  The theme was clocks and clock parts.  As I said, not traditional.  I used graphics, not actual clock or watch parts but I suppose I could have if I had the parts and they were small enough.  The arms and legs are "clock hands" and are attached by tiny little brads so they can move.  The head is as well.

I made a clockman and a clockwoman.

They are different but I think they are fun.