Balentimes..........................

"It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere."    ---Agnes Repplier.



One of the things I remember best about grade school was getting a shoebox and decorating it for Valentines Day......then getting red construction paper and lace doilies to make  "Balentimes" to give to all our friends..............

 .....and today I am still making and receiving "Balentimes"....
last week I showed you the lovely Valentine Mug Rug I received from my swap partner, Sunny, and now that she has received the one I sent to her I will show you.................

 And here is my first project made with my new embroidery machine...............

 I am having fun.................and I am headed back upstairs to play some more so Ta-Ta for now..........................

 

I have a new toy!

  

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”― C.S. Lewis

For my birthday and for Christmas my family gave me gift cards which I used to get this wonderful new toy!

 This is the Brother PE500 Embroidery Only machine.....I figured since I have 3 regular machines I really didn't need the embroidery/sewing model.

So anyway..............my first projects will be a Valentine's Day hanging kitchen towel (see the 3 hearts embroidery on the white towel above?) and I already made my first quilt label:

I

 I was really looking for a machine to do my quilt labels quickly but my first label was not that quick since I had to program each line separately.....


If anybody knows about the embroidery software that works on this model so that I can make my own digital pattern, I am all ears!  I downloaded a trial copy of the Brother software but it doesn't let me save the pattern I made nor does it let me transfer it to my machine to see if it works......(of course I am probably doing something wrong....lol)  I have found some retail sites online that sell the patterns but, again, I don't know if they will work on my machine....there isn't a lot of info that I can find yet about specifications, etc.....

But I am still having fun with it so off I go again....I will talk to you next time so Ta-Ta for now.............

 



 

 

Americana Who???

“ Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. ”― Will Rogers


You all have heard me talk often about how my Sister "Makes" me do stuff.....but here's yet another.....well, actually two more things.....but I digress..........

 Well first of all she talked me into entering the Nancy Drew Blog Hop.....and I'm all done with what I made but I can't show ya'll til March 6.........

But next......I kept talking about making a tablecloth out of the little neighborhood House Squares I showed you on my last post that I won on Beth Shibley's Neighborhood Block Party......

My Sis reminded me that I still hadn't finished my Americana Tablecloth that was in my UFO pile.......(she quickly followed that remark with a reflection of how many things she still had in her UFO pile).............well anyway.....I don't know why but I pulled the Americana Tablecloth out and actually finished it!

  

 Tada!

So now my table will be ready for all the patriotic holidays this year!

Ah....I got some nice mail this week from one of my swap partners, Sunny...............look at this adorable Valentine Mug Rug.............such pretty pinks and love the eyelet ribbon.......

 

Sunny also included some Biscotti (which didn't last long) and some pretty heart buttons and a lovely handmade card.....Sunny and I had talked about how we remember making homemade cards ("Balentimes") when we were growing up and exchanging with all our little school friends..... Thanks, Sunny I love it all and, Yes, I will be your Balentime...

Ok.....one more thing before I go.........a sneak peek of my Nancy Drew Project and then I will say Ta-Ta for now................

 BTW....if you are interested in signing up for the Nancy Drew Blog Hop just click on either of the photos above......I believe there are still openings!  Ok then....see you next time........

I have a New Neighborhood!

We have to allow ourselves to be loved by the people who really love us, the people who really matter. Too much of the time, we are blinded by our own pursuits of people to love us, people that don't even matter, while all that time we waste and the people who do love us have to stand on the sidewalk and watch us beg in the streets! It's time to put an end to this. It's time for us to let ourselves be loved.---C. JoyBell




For the last two years I have entered Beth Shibley's Neighborhood Block Party at her Love,Laugh,Quilt blog and this year I was one of the winners!

Each year Beth hosts her Neighborhood Block party and all the quilters who enter make some sort of house block and send to her.  On January 1st she picks random winners for the blocks.  The number of winners and the number of blocks they win just depends on how many quilters enter......this year there were 4 winners who each won 9 blocks each............and here are mine!
 

  They are pretty adorable, aren't they?  I don't know who won the one I made, "House by the Bay"......I showed it to you on an earlier post.

I haven't decided how I will put the blocks together but I have some ideas..........for now I'm just enjoying looking at them.......

Tomorrow I am taking a short trip to New Mexico to visit Mom and Dad.  I saw them for Christmas but with so many people around it was hard to get a good visit "just with them".  Don't get me wrong......I wouldn't trade seeing all the family at Christmastime but now I just want a quiet, calm visit......

I am probably going to be a bad girl again with One Flower Wednesday and not have anything to show you this week but promise I will get back with it soon................

So I will say TaTa for now.....see you next time............
 

More Christmas Pics........

 You've got to take the good with the bad, smile with the sad, love what you've got, and remember what you had. Always forgive, but never forget. Learn from mistakes, but never regret. ---Unknown


Ok, as I promised................a post to show you "Hurricane Grandson" (I had already told my Son and DIL about the Christmas village and not to worry about him messing anything up because it was there for everyone to enjoy)

.....we started out "just looking".....

 But some things just weren't in the right place.......

and after he left...................here's what we had........lol......

He had lots of fun and things got rearranged a bit but he didn't break a thing!

Our Christmases have been spent in New Mexico for as long as I can remember........all my siblings (and their children too) try to meet there at Mom and Dad's house each year.  This year the snow started coming down on Christmas Eve.  This is the tree outside my brother's house.....

 

One of the Christmas projects I worked on this year was something I couldn't show you because "Somebody's Sister" is one of my best followers and I didn't want to ruin the surprise.....When Irene and I were in grade school we learned to read with Dick and Jane................Irene had really liked the pattern for one of the totes I made earlier in the year so I adapted the same pattern and made it taller for her........

 I also made her a little matching coin purse......

I think she likes it...............

Ok, I am writing this on Friday night as I get ready to start my work week so I am going to sign off for now and post this after midnight so it will be posted tomorrow............I will see you next time....so TaTa for now.......

Back to Normal???

 Hope is the destination that we seek. Love is the road that leads to hope. Courage is the motor that drives us. We travel out of darkness into faith   ---Dean Koontz


Gosh I haven't posted since before Christmas and I have a lot to show you but I have been trying to get back to "Normal".  When I said that to my Sis, she said, "Normal?  What is Normal?"
I'll have to think about that one.....
Anyway, with all I have to show you, I think I will put it on a couple of posts so you don't get bored overwhelmed.....lol.................
First off I have to show you the photos of my son opening his State Bird Dresden Quilt!

He loved it and I kept telling him I wanted to get a photo of him holding it up but we never got a chance so he promised to send me a photo when he got home:

 He says it is "so warm!" ......and looks great in his room....
I think I agree:

 
And I got some Quilty Goodness for Christmas too! My Sis made me this lovely sewing machine cover with beautiful paper-pieced lettering and additional personalized embroidery......

 See my name at the bottom!

 And it is pretty on the inside too....look at the lining!
 I love this cover so much and I was afraid I would be using my machine so often that I wouldn't get to use it so I opened up my Old Rockford and put it over Rocky! Now I will always have two machines ready to go and I get to use my machine cover all the time.  Thanks Irene.....I love it and I love you.....

Wait!  there's more............my beautiful DIL and her Mom gave me some more stuff!  I got this cool quilt tote and calendar from my DIL.  The tote also came with a traveling coffee mug....which I am already using.....so it isn't in the photo....lol

 Her Mom, Janice, sent these little quilted coasters......well, she called them "coasters" but they are the neatest little pouches that open up....I think they would make great jewelry travel bags!  thanks Sabrina and Janice....I love all my Quilty goodies!

Ok this post is getting a bit long so I will save some stuff to show you next time.......TaTa for now............. 







 

Merry Christmas! I'm Ready!

"The way to happiness:  keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry.  Live simply, expect little, give much.  Fill your life with love.  Scatter sunshine.  Forget self, think of others.  Do as you would be done by.  Try this for a week and you will be surprised".  -----Norman Vincent Peale


Some of you will remember the Dresden Plate State Bird/Flower quilt that I started earlier in the year to give to my son, Patrick, for Christmas........Today it is COMPLETELY done, wrapped and under the tree!  Yay!  The quilt has 20 plates, each of which has a center circle with a State Bird and State flower motif of one of the States in the USA.  There are 30 additional State Bird/Flower circles appliqued over a diamond which are placed in the corners of the blocks so that, in total, all the 50 USA States are represented.....

I had entered it earlier in the year in a Dresden linkup but wasn't really happy with it so ripped out the quilted areas that had puckered....un-sewed some of the  seams.... undid borders...re-did seams and borders...ripped out and repositioned some of the corner appliques and then re-quilted... sewed on a label...did the binding and finally decided I was happy with the way it looked.....phew!  I was pretty much hating this quilt a couple of days ago but I'm loving it now!

 

Tomorrow I work for part of the day then my son and I will be on the road to New Mexico to spend Christmas with my parents and siblings and their families and my children and grandchildren.
 I want to wish you all a safe and beautiful Christmas and I will talk to you again when I get back......so TTFN!

No Flower Wednesday but Lots of Sugar Plum Visions

"Every tomorrow has two handles.  We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or with the handle of faith."  ---Henry Ward Beecher



Still not able to linkup with Karen's One Flower Wednesday page because I am still working on the last of my Christmas gift projects. This is the State Bird Dresden quilt I started earlier in the year for my son.  Last night I finished the pillow shams.....

 The quilt already includes all 50 states so I used the birds from our two home states, Texas and New Mexico, on the shams...

I wasn't happy with the quilting in some areas so I am doing a little ripping before I finish and get it wrapped and under the tree but I was starting to get bug-eyed so I had to take a little break.  While I was on my "break" I managed to do a little Christmas baking ......

Got some lemon bars and some chocolate chip cookies done.........

I thought I might be able to get the beef tamales made today to add to the pork ones I made last week but the quilt calls first.....but here is a peek at what I made last week.....

There are about 4 dozen pork tamales in the freezer right now.....I made about 5 dozen but one dozen sort of disappeared.....lol.....

Ok then....time to get back to the quilt.....hopefully the next time you hear from me I will be done!  Ta-Ta For now.....talk to you next time....
 

Done with Re-arranging and Onward to Tamale-land!

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."  ― Bill Cosby    I got the changes done on my sewing room and so far it is working out beautifully...............  Now I can to see and find the fabric in my stash that I use most often.  I was able to just move my magazines to the bottom shelves and I still left my large backing pieces in the storage cabinets behind doors.  My Christmas stash and layer cakes are still in the cabinets and so is the fabric that is earmarked for WIPs...........  About once every 5-10 years I decide to make sure that my Mexican heritage is still alive and well so I decide it is time to make some tamales for Christmas..........the last time I made them was when my first Grandson was born.......he will be 6 years old on Christmas Day.....:)    ........so the meat is in the cooker and the other stuff is waiting patiently.......I probably won't actually put them together til next week since I have to go back to work tonight but I can get the meat ready and throw it in the freezer where it will be ready.............Right now I have to go back upstairs and do some sewing!   Talk to you next time..............TTFN!

Peaceful Co-Existence and ROCKY is back!

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.    ---Maria Robinson

I know this is One Flower Wednesday but I don't have a flower to show you today.....too many Christmas projects to work on my flower this week so... instead....I will show you some changes to my sewing room............

I have been using my new Singer (which really isn't new anymore) since I bought it about 3 years ago and my poor Rockford has sat patiently waiting in the spare bedroom all this time.......

   I have owned my "Rocky" since I was a teenager and it has faithfully sewn practically everything I asked it to from denim to doubleknit to upholstery material and just kept right on going.......
 and I told you all the story of the beautiful vintage cabinet it sits in on another post which you can read about here if you wish......
Last week I was lamenting that I didn't know how to use the buttonhole foot on the "new" Singer and I started wishing then that my Rockford was upstairs in the sewing room.......well today my son brought it up for me.......I had to give up my large top computer table to make room for it but look how happy it looks up here!

 doesn't that look like a smile on Rocky's face?????

And since Rocky took the space where I had my antique Singer parked (see below), I made a couple of adjustments...  








As I mentioned....I had to give up my big topped computer table in order to make room for the change but I moved the antique Singer over to the spot where I had the computer table and put a larger table top over it and so now the two Singers are being very obliging........happy to help each other.......

I like all the drawers in the antique Singer for all my thread, etc since I lost the "thread drawer" I had in the computer table........

The next change I think I will make is to move all the magazines in the shelves behind the Singers to make room for my stash......right now my stash is all "hidden" behind doors and inside drawers and when I'm looking for something I forget about some of the fabric I have......

I am hoping that if it is all out in the open it will be easier to find what I'm looking for.....

and I also think I can mount a design wall in front of the shelves since my wall space is limited..............stay tuned and I will post some photos of my finished project...............TTFN............