A Flimsy Finish

The Pie in the Sky quilt top is finished. This top was started at the annual October 2102 retreat. A wonderful quilting weekend filled with lots of friends, sewing and good food, something I look forward to every year! 

 I started this quilt at the retreat starting with cutting, a lot of cutting,organizing and a little sewing. Then my master's pursuit got in the way. 

I started to put some blocks together a couple of weeks ago and was able to finish it today just before I go back to work! One of my goals during this winter break was to finish this top, and that is exactly what I did!  With out further ado here is my most recent flimsy..

                                    The lighting wasn't the greatest but you get the idea.

I'll get better pictures latter. Boy it feels great to be able to spend my free time sewing again!

New Day, New Day...

Birds flying high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Breeze driftin' on by you know how I feel

It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good
( sung by Nina Simone)

Hello again, I know it's been a long time, almost two years! never meant to away for so long but life just sort of happened.  Many things have happened in my life, most for the good and some just rather mundane.  No, I haven't been sick, and I'm  still married to the same guy, praise God! 

As you may know I am a teacher, teaching has always been something I've wanted to do and planned on it when I went off to college, but I had a terrible experience with a teacher in one of my first education classes  that left me humiliated and reeling and chased me away from education.  But  life's journey has a way of bringing you back to where you are meant to be, and I ended up doing what  I was suppose to be doing  all along.  So over the past two years  I'm been completing my  Master degree in education.  I'm finally done and  graduated on December 20, 2013!  Wouldn't you know it, just  when I thought I was done with classes for while, my state is requiring all teachers to become proficient  teaching English language Learners, which naturally meant taking another intense, time consuming and class this past fall. Don't get me wrong it was a very valuable class and made me more aware of the obstacles that ELLs  face daily, it just took a lot of time outside of work and kept me from my other passion, quilting.  

I'm back now ... I came across Cheryl's blog recently, she does a Friday Night with Friends on the first Friday of the month that I thought I would join. What a wonderful way to jump back into the blogging world!  Sew last night I pulled out a project that I've been working on off and on. It a project from Kim Diehl's  Simple Graces, called Pie in the Sky. 

Here are a few blocks that I worked on.

 

 It's a scrappy quilt that involves a lot of sorting. The trouble is that every time I sit down to work on it I have to resort stuff again! Unfortunately the first time I put this project away I was very careless about how i stored it. Because I've been preoccupied with other things, my sewing room became a bit of a dumping ground which is pretty discouraging when you want to sew. Especially when you have to move a gazillion things to get to the sewing machine!  It's getting better I've shifted things around a bit and now I'm ready to sew!

 I'm just 6 blocks  away from the 48 I need then just need to add the sashing and I'll have another finish!

Thanks  to Cheryl for helping me get my feet wet again!

 

Thankful for Our Freedom

Hope everyone takes a moment to remember those to have given all, so we may live in freedom.

Spring Wall hanging and a Mini

My contribution to a swap. My partner hasn't posted it yet, but I'm sure she's received it so I don't think I'm ruining any surprises. What was good about this swap is that you could make anything you wanted, the bad thing was that my partner, Abby, didn't want any blues or greens. I found that this was a real challenge for me. I guess I use a lot of blues and greens in my quilts.
The first thing I made was this cute little mini pin wheel quilt. Yup, that's a spot of turquoise,after I finished I decided that technically it is in the blue family so on to my next choice.

A spring daisy wall hanging cute but still a hint of green.

So I guess I failed my challenge.
I sure hope Abby can live with them. I threw in a quilt pattern,and sent them off to live in Indiana.
I haven't participated in a swap for a while I've had mixed results, the last one I was in I didn't get anything.The very first one I was ever in well, let's just say left a lot to be desired...
I was part of the Dozen Quilter's blog for two years and was pleased  with all the blocks I got from the first year, it took a while to get some of the blocks but eventually I did .
You know I really should put those blocks together.  They're on my list..really!

The second year we each picked a charity, mine was comfort pillows for breast cancer patients and the girls made some beautiful pillows.

This really  has nothing to do with quilts, just thought I'd share.
 

A picture of some Lilies of the Valley growing in my yard.
So pretty, and the smell is simply wonderful.