Click and go and sew.

If you don’t sew (or do so sew so rarely) and you are a regular reader of my blog I’d like to send you a travel-sized tissue cozy of your very own made by, you guessed it, me! Send me an email at kz@tds.net with your snail mail address and your favorite color.

Peace!

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” -Winston Churchill

Linda and I had a good day at the Sugar n’ Spice quilt shop in Morton yesterday. She had plenty of customers, I pin basted a quilt to get it ready for quilting:

And no, I won’t let you see any more of the quilt until I’m finished quilting it.

Linda and I spent the rest of the day brainstorming ideas and I showed her my latest obsession, travel tissue holders:

I have finally finished my October block for the Quilter’s Junction $5 Quilt Club, just in time for Friday’s meeting. Woo hoo! Yup, I’m pretty proud of myself.

I’m really loving the Serenity line of fabric that Evelyna chose for our blocks. Really, truly luscious, the depth of color and soft hues really call to me.

Thank you, Evelyna!

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” -Meister Eckhart

About 10 years ago, on a whim, my boys and I piled into the Suburban and headed toward the Oregon coast on Labor Day weekend. Crazy, right? No reservations, no idea where we were going or where we would end up, we just followed the road. We had a BLAST!

At least once a week I like to take just a smidgen of that Sense of Adventure and I follow a few links from my favorite blogs. I figure if I enjoy reading their blogs, then I’m likely to enjoy reading what they enjoy reading and may even find a few real jewels.

Here’s a few links to some really interesting places:

• My Parents Were Awesome! A series of pictures, some from the 1970’s, some much earlier, but ALL AWESOME! This link courtesy of the dude at DudeCraft (another great blog to follow).
• Don’t look now. DO look now! This link courtesy of Material Obsession.
• Peaceful Legacies. A thoughtful, thought provoking, thought-filled blog. This link courtesy of my favorite thoughtful, though provoking, thought-filled blogger, Diane of Contemplative Photography.

And what, you may be asking yourself, do these links have to do with the disgusting picture of slimy mushrooms in my lawn? Not a thing. I just thought the picture was cool and I couldn’t figure out how to work it in to the conversation.

My two favorite Halloween kids, Shane and Emma.

Yes, Nancy knows I have been really anxious to get to use this picture that I so shamelessly stole from her last month:

It’s a boy!

Yes, it’s a BOY! *doing the Happy Happy Grandma dance* We have a new little hunter/fisherman/baseball player on the way, due in March. My oldest son Stosh and his girlfriend Ariel will need lots of prayers and support (as ALL new parents do!), follow the link to my prayer blog and join me in prayer for the Gift that God has given to them for us to share…

http://kimprayz.wordpress.com/

“You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you.” -Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance

I spent the day at the Quilter’s Junction in Centralia yesterday teaching the X-Blocks table topper class. Judith, Barbara and Phyllis had me all to themselves, so we were able to cut and sew and talk at our own pace. How nice that was!

And can you believe that in under 4 hours Judith finished her top? Judith proved that you CAN socialize and sew at the same time (I have trouble with that myself, it must be all that blonde hair under my red dye ♥).

And here you see Phyllis and Barbara at work:

I can’t believe I didn’t get any pictures of Barbara’s table topper! She used a really cute penguin fabric that I was so crazy about that she gifted me with a half yard of it! Woo hoo! I love making friends at class.

Oh, and here is a picture of the blocks that Phyllis completed in class. She emailed me this morning and said she has all of her blocks together and will be putting the border on today or tomorrow. Yay Phyllis! Please note that my camera flash DESTROYED the beautifully elegant burgandy and green tones of her batiks, BUT you can clearly see her precisely pieced points:

It was a good day, in a good place with some good ladies. Thanks be!

We lost our resident barn owl to a falcon or hawk late in the summer. The man that picks up the owl pellets (tiny mouse skeletons he finds in our barn to sell to school science classes) told us that there are some owls that travel from place to place and don’t have a real home and that chances were pretty good that one of those transient owls would find our barn a good place to make a home. I think we have a new owl friend. I’ve seen him three times now and heard him on two evenings.

Silly me, the first time I heard him at night I was on the back porch doing laundry and I heard his call. I stuck my head out the window and said, “Mr. Owl? Is that you? Have you come to live here?” And then I waited, quietly, with my head stuck out into space, listening for an answer.

No, he didn’t answer me. Yes, I ended up feeling very silly. But, you know, I also ended up feeling rather hopeful and feeling as though I had recovered at least a small amount of childlike wonder. It felt good.

My daughter Tara and I shop hopped yesterday, hitting 5 of the 20 shops. We started in Vancouver at the Art ‘n Sewl. Tara has started a new blog, quilt.g33k (quilt geek), “Adventures of a g33k that quilts.” Love it! Follow the link to visit Tara’s blog and see Tara’s pix from our outing.

And yes, I shamelessly stole this picture from my daughter’s blog. But, in my defense, because she was carrying such a big gun (a really AWESOME camera), I didn’t feel I needed to get my little ol’ pea shooter outta the holster.

Quilting. Seriously.