Moving right along...

This is a Amaryllis sprekelia, also known as an Aztec Lily. It is a native of Mexico, living in the mountains. DH has several of these blooming right now. (The white thing is a twist-tie holding up the stem.)

Today was a very productive day. I finished two book covers with embroidered OES symbols on them; a bookmark for my ritual; two OES aprons with DH's name on one and mine on the other; two reversible cushions for my Adirondack rocker; and 4 red arm-bands to honor our troops on Fridays. There is a movement going around to wear red on Fridays as a reminder of what our troops are going through, and DH wanted to have some way of wearing red without having to buy any new clothes.

I am trying to get all my sewing projects finished before the needle breaks on my machine. I tried to change it to an embroidery needle and the screw broke off in the hole! So when the needle breaks, I will have to take it to Portland to the closest Husqvarna dealer to get it fixed.

My demonstration went well at the quilt group meeting on Monday. I now have six sets of fat quarters ready to cut into half-square triangles for a project I haven't even picked out yet. I am thinking about a set of placemats, maybe in a Lady of the Lake pattern, in black and white so they will be usable for any holiday. I want to make napkins in different colors to customize them for the seasons. I saw an episode of Sewing with Nancy with Mary Mulari demonstrating how to make different types of napkins--one reversible style looked very simple to make. The funny thing is, I don't have a dining table! That's on my list of things to get within the next year. I've got lots of scraps of Warm & Natural cotton batting that are just the right size for the placemats, so I might as well use them up.

My niece and her husband and children are coming for a visit on Sunday--I haven't seen her in 5 years. I'm really looking forward to seeing her and how her children have grown. I want to get a cleaning project in the bathroom done before they get here, so I'll be doing that for the next few days. I'm scraping old mineral deposits and caulking off the bathtub and the shower doors, cleaning with bleach, and re-caulking. I've already done the outside of the tub and shower doors, but the inside is even worse. Our water here is very hard, and lots of mold and mildew grows in the high humidity of south Texas.

I've ordered the backing fabric for my quilt, 15 yards of it, from an eBay seller. It should get here any day now. It's a pattern of Christmas wreaths on a white background. It should look very nice against the red and green blocks.