home again, and exhausted. who knew that waiting 5 hours in a hospital waiting room could be so tiring? and those chairs are NOT made for comfort! while I was waiting for my roomie to get through his tests, I got a phone call from my mechanic, letting me know that the transmission in my car is indeed shot, and the bill will be just under $2000. thankfully, I've been able to save up that much, fearing the worst. I will have my car back either Tuesday or Wednesday. okay, enough of my griping tirade. I'll post again tomorrow in a better mood. I did want to say though that Michelle's 8 blocks arrived today, and they are simply beautiful. It was like receiving a bouquet in the mail... thank you Michelle! Michelle appliqued flowers onto her blocks, and they've inspired me to try my hand at it sometime during this extended vacation. as santa would say... peace to all, and to all a good night.

I'm back in the sewing room a few hours at a time, finishing up on putting my quilting fabric back in order. I'm tired of fishing through bins with odd-shaped small pieces in it and decided to do something about it. I've stack upon stack of 3.5" squares now and a bag of strips and the larger pieces have been run through the mangle and folded. I'm halfway through the stacks of naturals and whites now. It was fun at first. ;-) The New Year Mystery quilt top lays draped over my small quilting frame and I've no desire to tackle it until later. Today the showers held off long enough to do some scaffold pruning on young peach trees, and get the grapes pruned. It went from too cold and frozen to almost too late in two day's time. Still awaiting inspiration for the next quilting project, but am thinking to do a new quilted purse, instead of tearing into another larger quilt yet. Linda, looks like it's showering g'kids at your place. Happy for you.......aren't they fun?

I have mine done and will try and get a picture of it taken and then figure out how to get it posted. I have the instructions but even my DD had some trouble with it last time. This will be fun to see the next block assignment. Deanna

IDEAS: You could piece it (easy or hard, depending on how long your name it!); you could show off your best applique skills; you could do machine or by-hand embroidery; you could cut out letters and fuse them on; you could do a big initial; you could use a fabric pen and write in your formal name, your nickname(s), and any other pet names that family members have for you; you could write your name in a sandy beach, take a picture of it and print that onto fabric; you could write your name with ribbon stitched onto the block.