Whew!

I am so glad that Christmas is finally over! I get so stressed out this time of year. I finally feel that I can breathe again. The holidays are sad because I think about my mother, too--she died on Christmas Eve 27 years ago and I still miss her, especially around the holidays.

We had a nice, quiet Christmas with just DH and myself, DS and DDIL, and my dear MIL. Oh, and Monty, of course.

Monty likes his "Bobo" toy we got him for Christmas, although he doesn't play with it, he just snuggles up to it. When he was a puppy our other dog would not allow him to play with any of her toys (and all toys were HER toys) so he never learned to play with things. Now she is gone but he doesn't know what to do with a toy. Poor baby! He also got a brand new "shirt" which is what we call his harness. Here he is guarding Bobo and DH from the evil photographer (me.)


This squirrel frequents our yard. His right eye is permanently damaged, but he seems to do just fine with one eye, although he didn't see my son and I sneak up on him and take his picture several times. We were only about six feet away. He dodges traffic all right (so far!)


DH grew this Double Dancing Queen Amaryllis. It has three blooms open, and each has three layers of petals. Isn't it gorgeous? The stem is only about six inches long.

I had to put away all my sewing stuff so that we could use the dining table for Christmas dinner. I just finished getting everything back out this afternoon, so I plan on sewing this evening and over the weekend. I am working on a couple of fabric postcard swaps, I'll post pictures later.

DH and I went to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets on Wednesday. I enjoyed it, but I didn't think it was quite as good as the first movie. This was less believable, and showed less detail regarding how they accomplished some of their capers, like breaking into Buckingham Palace (would it really be that easy??) But it was good fun. DH is going to see Charlie Wilson's War tonight (not my cup of tea.)

Off to the sewing machine!

Still here...

I'm still here, although I've been too busy getting ready for Christmas to post for awhile. The photo above shows six of the twelve blocks I have made to put together into a baby quilt for my gift stash. I like the secondary pattern they create. I found the pattern in the latest issue of McCall's Quilting magazine.


I received this Snowman postcard from Priscilla in Minnesota--I wish my camera could take a better photo of it.


This Snowman card is from Beth in New Jersey and is hand-painted. Again, too much flash.


This one is from Chris in Great Britain. I love the icicle stitching around the edges.


This is a card from Roslyn in Australia, for a "My Favorite Color" swap.


...and this one from Maureen in the U.K.....


This from Sarah in the U.K.--lots of special stitches here.


A bright yellow card from Jackie in Texas.



...and a bright pink one with silk flowers from Monica in Texas. The butterfly is machine embroidered.

Other than the baby quilt blocks, I haven't done much sewing. I still have three quilt tops to quilt, but they can wait. I have to have some tests done by the cardiologist next week, and I probably won't get much chance to sew until after New Year's Day.

This gorgeous amaryllis is an Orange Sovereign. The bloom is 7" across! My DH grows these beauties, and I just have to show it off. His website is www.sotexplants.com.

Keeping busy!

I made 6 of these postcards for a Snowman swap. I used glitter glue, beads, and spangles to glam these up, but the fabric was so cute I had to use it. I mailed them in plastic sleeves to preserve the beads. I only mailed 4 of them out--the others I kept for my own use. I always make at least one extra for myself--you never know when one will go astray in the mail.




I just finished binding this small quilt this afternoon. I made the center medallion of a UFO with stars and planets several years ago, then used it in a Round Robin in my quilt group. I loved the result--especially the appliqued space monsters someone added in round two. I quilted rocket ships into the navy blue corners, and landing craft and stars in the last round, the teal triangles. The back is a fabric of space creatures tossed on a red background. I intend to use it as a table topper, so I removed one round to make it the right size. The round I removed was simple yellow triangles to take it off pointe. Since it was square, it wouldn't have made a bed quilt, and was really too large for a wallhanging, anyway.

Tomorrow there is a potluck at Eastern Star, and I'm taking corn pudding and some fresh-from-the-bakery bread. Then on Thanksgiving we'll all go out to eat at Luby's. I just don't have the energy to cook a big meal this year. I'd rather just have a quiet day.

The wait is over!

I finally finished the red and green quilt! I got the binding done today. As you can probably tell, it is HUGE!! 132" square. I really like the way it turned out. Although it is just draped over the bed in these pictures, when the pillows are tucked in and covered, the quilt goes from floor to floor on three sides on our king sized bed. It is also very heavy, even though a light-weight cotton batting was used. The quilter (Heirloom Elegance in Corpus Christi) did a great job on it. This quilt is for DH and myself, and I am very pleased with it. Each block is different, and it took me almost a year from start to finish. I still have four quilt tops to quilt and bind, all are wall-hanging size. I also still have two postcard swaps to do this year as well.

This week a handyman is supposed to put up the bead-board panels on our bathroom ceiling, then it will be time to strip off the wallpaper and repaint the walls and vanity. Why anyone painted the bathroom orange is beyond me, but why we lived with it for another 18 years is truly unfathomable. It will be a nice soothing pastel blue when I get done with it.

Amaryllis "Green Goddess"

Amaryllis "Yellow Goddess"

Amaryllis "Apple Blossom"

DH has been putting his plants to bed for the winter, although several of them are still blooming and will continue throughout the winter. These amaryllis are setting three to four blooms per stalk, and have more flower stalks ready to shoot up in each pot. They really are gorgeous.

The Halloween party went well. My friend had lots of fun foods, and we played some games and socialized. There were only 13 of us there, so I had several goodie bags left over. I sent some to my grandchildren, and DH took the rest to work and passed them out there.

We had a lot of trick-or-treaters this year, and many of them commented on how cool it was that we gave them Play-Doh. I even had one teenage boy tell me that on a scale of one-to-ten our house was a ten! No tricks played here.

DH brought me this rose yesterday. Isn't it pretty, with the striped petals? Unfortunately, it has no scent. I think I would pick scent over color where flowers are concerned; DH says that most of the roses that are unusual colors have no scent.

I just finished making 12 postcards like this one for a swap called My Favorite Color. My color preferences change with the seasons, so right now I definitely prefer orange. The cards are supposed to use no other colors. The background fabric is medium orange with red-orange flowers and yellow-orange circles, I used orange thread to couch down orange fibers and sew decorative stitches on it, attached orange felt squares with either an orange button or a decorative bar-tack stitch, then added orange spangles and beads. The rick-rack in the upper left corner is actually a bright neon-orange color as well, although the flash makes it look yellow. I have to mail these to the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Turkey as well as to several locations in the US. I am mailing them in clear plastic sleeves. I only hope the beads make it through okay, especially the long bugle beads. They usually do, but the bugle beads are more brittle than most beads, being glass beads, and have sharp edges that can cut through the thread. I'll just keep my fingers crossed!

I'm signed up for two other swaps, snowman cards in December and the Letter M in January.
I'll show those when I get them finished.

Parties, pyracantha, and politics

I have been busy this week, and felt like I accomplished a lot.

The goodie bags are complete for Wednesday's party, I have prizes for the games, and the gift bag for the Witches' Gift Exchange is ready. Thank goodness all that is left is the party itself!

I finished machine quilting this lap-quilt which was started several years ago. It is bound and complete except for the label. What appears to be pink in this photo is actually a rust color. I really like the way it turned out.

We had a cold front go through last night and this morning. This tree is the only pine tree in the neighborhood, and is in our front yard. It lost a lot of small branches and pine cones.

The pyracantha is just loaded with berries this year. I plan on using some of them for decoration this fall and winter.

My Halloween decorations are ready for next week, such as they are--although I haven't bought enough candy yet. We're also giving out small cans of Play-Doh to kids that are the right age to use it.


The caladiums and the coleus plants are doing well, but soon they will start their downward slide towards winter, if you can call it that here in South Texas. The temperature will only get into the low 50's except for one or two colder days.

I need to start the next quilt, but I haven't figured out how I want to quilt it. I guess just getting it done any old way would be better than not doing it at all. Maybe I'm over-analyzing the problem.

We learned this week that my elder son will be going to Iraq at the end of March. I'm not happy about it, but I don't get any say in the matter. I think the best way to deal with the anxiety is just to pretend that he is home in Virginia with his wife and kids. I don't hear from him very often as it is, so hopefully it will be easy to pretend. I hate this war and wish it would be over soon. I don't think any one in the government has any idea of what this war does to people on a personal level. The best joke I have heard recently has someone telling the president that three Brazilian soldiers have been killed in Iraq, at which the president puts his head in his hands in despair for a few moments, only to lift his head and ask, "Just how many is a brazillion?"

When election time comes around, the only politicians to get my vote will be the ones that want us out of the Middle East. Reacting to a threat is one thing; creating and sustaining an artificial threat is totally different.