Crazy, Beautiful Life

     I have had quilt tops piling up a bit and decided to give each of my sister in laws a quilt for their birthday this year.  How hard could it be? I asked myself. I started early and gave my November SIL hers and patted myself on the back for having such a good idea, etc. WELL, I should have realized by pretty much ALL of the rest of the birthdays are before July 3! And there are 7 of them, counting my wonderful Mother-in-Law! Yikes, it's a little hectic around here. Add in that I was finishing a quilt for  my son's birthday in March and doing one for my granddaughter's baptism in May, and two nieces expecting beautiful babies - well, you get the picture!  I travel quite a bit in the spring, visiting my children and their families who live from coast to coast and in between too!  Good thing I work well with deadlines!

    Am loving my new "Little Red" Bernina that I can easily use upstairs, while hanging out with Mr. Handsome, it is helping meet my fun deadlines. I got this wild quilt done this weekend, ready for delivery tonight before we head out of town for an exciting little trip.  

     I am also working on a "Farm Girl Vintage" (Lori Holt) quilt with some friends and we met this past week and I worked on a few blocks. We are doing the 6" size - they are adorable, too bad we need like 59,000 to make a quilt since they are so small and cute!

I got a fun, new cook book "The Pioneer Woman" "Dinnertime" and we made these Hawaiian burgers last week and they were to die for!!!!

 And, last, but not least, I got an "old lady" pillowcase!  I LOVE it. I have curly hair, which is losing some (okay a LOT) of it's thickness and loveliness, I was tired of waking up with frizzy/straight hair, so I ordered this baby up on Amazon (I LOVE Amazon, but that is a post for another day) for $8 and now when I wake up in the morning, I don't despair quite as much. It's supposedly good for wrinkles too, but since I'm on the chubby side, wrinkles aren't coming on too quickly, so I don't worry too much.

Hope you're having a great, quilty life!

Little Red, Eyebrows and More

So I've made a goal to do a post at least once a week. Very exciting news, I got a new little Bernina today! Her name is "Little Red"

I LOVE my trusty Bernina 1130 (1989) , but it is SOOO heavy to haul up the stairs for quilt retreats and sew days. I have a little Singer Featherweight (1938), which I can take, but it's just a little lacking in speed and options. So, Mr. Handsome and I went down and picked this little cutie up this afternoon. I've promised to sell the Featherweight to offset the cost...

I'm in charge of a quilt challenge at my local guild this year and we are doing a "Gradated Quilt". I whipped this baby quilt up so I could show it at the meeting last month, to illustrate the challenge:

But I am working on this bad boy for my big finish in November:

This gorgeous quilt is from Melissa Corry's Book "Irish Chain Quilts"

Onto other news:

2 of my kids and their families are done with school this summer! One family will be moving from Kansas to Wisconsin this summer with their 5 beautiful children. The other will be moving either to Minnesota OR Arizona - they are still deciding which offer to accept. They are currently in Florida with 2 more of our exceptional grandchildren!  I am sure I will continue to spend much of my time flying around the US to visit them. (I will still have one family in Florida, one in California and one in Utah)

Finally - Eyebrows:

Eyebrows - now that mine are pretty much non-existent, I am obsessed with eyebrows! I am especially envious of gals with full, thick ones. I myself had super thick eyebrows for most of my life, in Jr. High, my friend begged me to pluck them - practically a uni-brow, but alas, those days are gone - over- plucking, age, etc. has resulted in their demise.  I know there is that micro-dermabrasion procedure that can last awhile, but I'm a chicken and I've already spent my pennies on Little Red. I am using "Wunderbrow" currently and I like it okay, except when my eyebrows look totally unrelated when I put it on - some days are just fine, they match, but other days, I just don't know!!! Now that I notice everyone's eyebrows, I do notice that some gals paint them on, others have very pale ones, others are blessed and I guess it really doesn't matter, so I should just calm down. Maybe if I spent more than 5 minutes putting on make up, I'd be happier with the result, but I'm pretty tired of putting make up on the same face that I've been doing for the past 40 years - oh well, I'm off to sew!!!!