Rest In Peace, Margaret.

If any of you are Detroit Red Wings Fans, you may have at one time or another seen The Knitting Lady in the stands....at least that is what I always called her. Well, The Knitting Lady was named Margaret, and the television announcer just reported that Margaret passed away.
Seeing Margaret there, knitting away, always made me smile.
I'll miss her.

19 Degrees Fahrenheit

Baby! It's Cold Outside!

My girls are driving on snow and ice encrusted freeways to get to East Lansing, and I'm trying to keep myself occupied in an effort to keep my mind off all the terrible things that could happen between here and there. There are cars in the ditches and medians and the going is slow, but they are checking in from time to time to let us know that they are ok.

So.....I thought I'd work on something to keep my mind off all that.

I started off with my Christmas Presence charm squares. I turned a pack or two of them into 1/2 square triangles sometime last year and then put them away. Pulled those out and started playing around with them.....

And decided that I'm still not that fond of them and I'm going to put them away again.

Then I read an email from Nancy, and she mentioned looking forward to starting a new prorject and I thought that sounded like a great idea...until I pulled out a mound of future projects and found this one underneath them all:

And I decided that I would rather finish this one and send it off to the quilter before I start on anything else. I discovered that I have 5 blocks finished, with 4 in various stages of preparation. I'm pleased to say that I still like this one, and I'm looking forward to working on it again. All I need to do now is pack up all those other WIP's so that they don't distract me and get to work.

Hope you Michigan chicks are warm and safely ensconced in your sewing rooms....and for those of you in warmer climates....you should thank your lucky stars that you are not here!

It Just Keeps Comming!

We're getting quite a bit more than an inch an hour here. It took me 40 minutes to clear the driveway and by the time I got to the end of it there was more than an inch of new snow waiting for me at the top!
The predictions are for 6 to 10 inches before this is over. Thank goodness it's light and fluffy.

Oops! I Did It Again

You know, it wasn't all that long ago that The Spouse complimented me on the patience I was showing with my knitting. The compliment came after I knitted 2 right gloves from my nifty green wool from Skeins on Main....gloves that I started in August. When I discovered my error I was bummed, but I frogged that 2nd right and got to work on it again. Of course, other projects interrupted the finishing of that glove, but last night I sat down with the intention to finish it and post it on the blog this morning. Well, I didn't finish it last night, but when I got up this morning I picked it up and noticed something. I did it again. I knitted a 2nd right hand. Again. I shit you not.

So here is proof of my stupidity.

Recognition for Faye!

This is my friend Faye's quilt that she entered in a contest at AQS. She's a winner!!! Not only did she get alot of nifty prizes for her fantastic work, but her quilt will be hanging at Paducah this spring. Congratulations, Faye!

Another gift completed!

Here's a quick post. Just showing you another finished Christmas gift. Really, really working hard on this hand made Christmas plan!

Also, I should take this opportunity to show my pile of gifts from The Quilty Chick's Christmas Get-Together. Such beautiful things! I feel spoiled!

That's all for now, chicks. Hope to be back soon with more!!!

The Armada Christmas Parade

I'm a little late sharing this with you chicks. Here are some photos of the Armada Christmas Parade. It's a perfect snap shot of small-town life....complete with carroling middle school students, a tree donated by a local family, decorated by the school children, with Jesus being mentioned more than once or twice. Here are some photos I took with my frozen stiff fingers:

. Thanks you to Faye and Mike for braving the cold and snowy roads to hang out with us for a couple of hours!

A Quilty Chicks Get Together

Today The Material Girls, aka The Quilty Chicks, had their Christmas Get-Together which was hosted by Nancy. Nancy has been under the weather lately, but still managed to have her home beautifully decorated and was able to make us some delightful olive burgers.

Our fourth member Vicki couldn't be with us due to her move to The Sunshine State, and we hope she was enjoying her day as much as we were.

This sideways photo is of a hawaiian block that Faye needle-turned & hand quilted, and is giving to her friend for Christmas. The photo doesn't do it justice. She does beautiful work.

This is a horrendous photo of a darling little love cover, a tiny quilt made by Faye for one of her chairities.
And here is Nancy's grandaughter Kaitlyns quilt. Either a very bad camera or a bad photographer failed to capture the darling loopy quilting on the back, done by Karen the Quilter.
This is for Nancy's other granddaughter Samantha. Again Karen did some darling quilting, and that together with Nancy's eye for color and pattern made for a very pretty quilt .

Lastly, there is Peters Summer Quilt. This one has the most awesome backing!

Here are the chicks showing off their new gloves, and there is also a pic that I couldn't post before now of the make up bags I made them:

And here is Faye and I with our gorgeous paper stacks and fat quarters.

We had such a nice afternoon. Thanks to both of you, Nancy and Faye, for the lovely gifts and company.

An Emily Update

The boss needed his favorite yogurt with honey...and the cafe in the building is out of it. So the New Emily is heading to the deli to get him some.
Good Job, Emily!

In crafting news, I'm still working on projects that I cannot post, as well as working to patch the woobie of the the youngest child....
I'm heading out to the farm this afternoon to do a little pre-parade cleaning, and take stock of the kitchen to see what I need for the post-parade warm-up and snack. I might just take some knitting with me, start a fire and sit in the leather recliner (thanks to Dan, again) and knit away while the snow falls.......

Meet the New Emily

You chicks have seen The Devil Wears Prada, right? Ann Hathaway's character gets the job at the magazine, and Meryl Streep's character always calls her Emily. Emily...the girl who had the job before Ann H.'s character....

Well, guess what? D is the New Emily at her job with The Famous Handbag Company. She is reponsible for getting the boss's tea from Starbucks in the morning on her way in to work. One of her assignments today was to pick up the boss's perscriptions from Duane Reed, a drugstore as common on the streets of NYC as Starbucks is......and she was to take a cab to his building and leave them with his doorman, after which she could take the cab home, paid for on the company card.

Real life and fiction.....not so far apart, are they?