Day After Valentine's Day

A Belated

I hope everyone had a Happy Valentine's Day yesterday!  I came down with a bad cold last week and still wasn't feeling very well yesterday so my husband and I postponed going out to eat until I feel better.

I haven't done any sewing since the first part of last week either.  Before I got sick I completed a quilt that I haven't pictured yet so I will try to get that pictured in the next few days.  The cold weather that showed up this week sure is conducive to sewing. 

Moving from Sow to Sew

I was hostess for a Theme Garden Seed Swap this month.  1,984 packs of seeds made it my way from all over the country.  My job was to divide them according to the 5 themes that each person listed.  Very creative themes and very creative ways to link the seeds to the themes!  It was fun, but since I was trying to get them all in and back out in about 10 days, that's about all I have done lately other than the essentials.

Here was my set-up. Yes, there were so many seeds that I was sorting them into grocery bags.



Here are some of the cute themes and some examples of the kinds of seeds they included:

For Salad Bowl one sender found a variety of lettuce that was Salad Bowl Lettuce!
The Children's Garden included Fairytale Eggplant seeds.
For Little Gems there was a Marigold called 'Lemon Gem.'
Jurassic Park got Sunflower 'Mammoth', Dinosaur Kale, Chile 'Thai Dragon' and  Salvia 'Purple Volcano'
There was The Great Race with Chinese Forget Me Nots, Watermelon 'Congo', Marvel of Venice Beans, Chinese Mantanghong Radish, Chinese Lantern and many more.
It's Not Easy Being Green included Tomato 'Green Velvet', Bells of Ireland, and Giant Lime Green Zinnia

Anyway, you can see it was creative and lots of fun.  With the 23 people who participated we had 115 themes.

Now for the part about "moving from sow to sew" - there are 3 quilt projects that need to be given high priority so that's where my attention will go for the remainder of the week.

Tribute to Sugar

Today is about Sugar.  It wasn't very long ago that we had to say good-bye to our 12-year old dog, Crystal.  We suffered another loss yesterday finding my 33 year old horse Sugar dead in her stall.  Yes, she was old, but we had her for 29 years and she will be missed so much.  As those of you are who are pet lovers know, we can never have them for as long as we like.  Even though 29 years was a long time, it was not enough!
Here is a picture of Sugar from July 2011.  As you can see, she was a lovely looking old girl and stayed lively and strong to the end.

I didn't feel up to doing this yesterday, but this morning I looked to see what might be online as a tribute to a horse after its passing.  I know there are many sites for owners of dogs that pass away.  I found some lovely sites with words the have been penned in memory of horses and this is the one I chose for Sugar.

A Parting Prayer

Dear Lord, please open your gates
and call St. Francis
to come escort this beloved companion
across the Rainbow Bridge.

Assign her to a place of honor,
for she has been a faithful servant
and has always done her best to please me.

Bless the hands that send her to you,
for they are doing so in love and compassion,
freeing her from pain and suffering.

Grant me the strength not to dwell on my loss.
Help me remember the details of her life
with the love she has shown me.
And grant me the courage to honor her
by sharing those memories with others.

Let her remember me as well
and let her know that I will always love her.
And when it's my time to pass over into your paradise,
please allow her to accompany those
who will bring me home.

Thank you, Lord,
for the gift of her companionship
and for the time we've had together.

And thank you, Lord,
for granting me the strength
to give her to you now.

Amen.
- written by Kim Crenshaw

I also found a site when a candle can be lit in memory of your horse.  If anyone else visiting this site has suffered the loss of your horse, it is: http://hoofbeats-in-heaven.com/candlelighting/.

Farewell, Sugar, my long time friend.  Thank you to the veterinarians who cared for you over the years and for the special friends who came over yesterday for your burial and to offer their concern and support.

Wishing Everyone a Happy New Year

Well, it's not quite here yet, but my wishes are:  Happy New Year 2012!  I admit I found this photo online, but it seems to be a free wallpaper so I hope I interpreted that correctly and have the right to post it.  If not and the creator will just let me know, I will remove it immediately.  I am extremely careful not to violate copyrights.  It's just such a perfect representation of washing away the old year and moving into the new - so kudos to whomever created it!

Of course I have quilting goals for 2012 and many others as well.  In fact, 2012 is going to start out with a long list of the most ambitious resolutions I have ever created. There are 10 things on the list and each one in itself would be a major achievement.  Rather than list them here (and maybe have to admit publicly that I didn't achieve them), I am going to wait until the end of each month and post which of them I have achieved for the month.  Some are monthly goals, some are bi-monthly goals, and some are things that I simply hope to complete by the end of the year.  I guess my thought is that the things I want to do are moving along at too slow of a pace to suit me, so I am stepping up to the plate this year!
Health, happiness, and a year of achievement are wished to each one of you.

After Christmas

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  We did!  The weather has been so warm though that it really doesn't feel much like Christmas temperature-wise.  I have some azaleas in bloom and they are not even the reblooming kind!

I have been waiting until after Christmas to post some pictures of things that I made in December.  The first is a lighthouse quilt that turned out so pretty.  I began to wish that I had a display rack so I could have gotten a better picture of it.  The pattern is my own creation.

I also made some cloth napkins for a swap that I do with some of my crafty friends.  A member of my quilt guild taught us how to make these.  Hopefully I can make more of them next year for other friends.  Here is one of the napkins pictured below.  They fold up so they look like a Christmas Tree.

The New Year will be here before we know it.  It's time to ponder what to put on my New Year's Resolution List.

Embroidery Completed!

I decided to embroider bibs for my triplet grandsons as one of their Christmas presents and got those done this afternoon.  Wouldn't you know I forgot to take a picture of them!  They are all wrapped and boxed up now and waiting to be shipped to CA so this will have to do.

I bought the bibs at Kohl's and they happened to have a picture of them on their web site.  What you see here is the part that is already embroidered on the bibs when you buy them.  Underneath that I embroidered the name of each boy and then on the fourth one I just labeled it "Triplet."  The sayings will appeal to my daughter and son-in-law:
www.changemydiaper.me
www.iloveyou.me
www.imsocute.me
www.idonteatpeas.me

What I especially liked was that there was such a nice large space at the bottom to add their names.

I am still working on hand stitching the binding on a quilt that is to be a Christmas gift so I need to get back to work on it.  I hope everyone is getting closer and closer to being ready for Christmas!  The days have flown by this month.

Christmas Stocking

Here is the Christmas stocking that I made recently.  I have had this crocheted pattern for ages and made some like these for my husband and me when we first got married.  I added to them as more family members came along.  The stocking pictured below is one of a set that I made for my younger daughter and her husband so they could have stockings at their house.  (It was already given to her so I can post the picture - Gamecock colors!)  Other things I have been working on still need to be a secret so that's all I can say.

I was ready to go to a Christmas luncheon with some quilting friends today and our automatic garage door opener quit working with my car inside so needless to say I was stuck here waiting for a repair person to get here and get it repaired.  I'm all set now - Freedom!  (It was a major thing with the big spring breaking so it wasn't something I could have handled myself.  Don't you hate it when someone comes out and it was something really simple?  I know that happens to people.)

Here's a little update on Sydney.  We were convinced she didn't know how to ask to go outside when she needed a bathroom break so we tried hanging bells on the door.  She will touch them on command to ring them before we go out the door, but I'm not sure she has put 2 and 2 together to understand that she needs to ring them to alert us when she needs to go out.  Oh, well, no accidents since the bells went up so I guess that is the main thing.  I think she will soon qualify to be a holiday bell ringer in front of one of the stores!

Is there some new secret to posting comments here?  I have tried several times in the last few weeks to post comments when friends add pictures, information, etc. and it asks me to log in again and then I don't seem to be able to add the comment anyway.  If you haven't heard from me that why.  I sure would like to figure out what the problem is.  I can add my posts just fine.

Well, good luck with the holiday preparations.  It's a wonderful time of the year, but a very busy time, too!