B.I.N.G.O.

The Quilt Shoppe is hosting a fabulous holiday bingo on their blog.  Rush on over there now to get signed up and join in on the fun.

Iva

This, That, and the Other

Okay.  Time to get caught up, again, on the happenings in the Plain and Fancy household.  And as a result of my lack of dedication to this blog lately, you will have to suffer through many pictures.

First of all, yes, I have taken on yet another project.  Kellie of Don't Look Now fame is hosting a Jacob’s Coat Quilt Along, and when I saw her first beautiful block of pink petals I knew I just had to join in and make this one.   Even though I’ve never appliqued anything in my life!

This is the layout; however, I’ll save the pink for another time.  For now, these are the prints that will go into my quilt…

I can’t wait to get started, but I’m waiting for the arrival of one very crucial item.  Some over-achieving better organized individuals have already posted their first block on the flickr page, so you will want to head on over to Don't Look Now and check out those beauties.

In other news, my Red and Aqua Disappearing 9 Patch blocks are now in the possession of Jane who is frantically sorting and redistributing to all of her 88 participants.

And for my November A Dozen Quilters project, these two blocks were mailed to Carmen who wanted roses and shabby chic.  (She received two because these were just too darned easy :D)

In the midst of all of this, Adorable Granddaughter had a milestone birthday.  She is now the ripe old age of 5!  So Mimi had to bring her home with us after the party so that we could have a Girls’ Shopping Trip (renamed to Shopping Girls by that adorable little munchkin).

We bought clothes and shoes and glittery hair clips and a princess “umbella” and a few other odds and ends.

We also did lots of coloring in our princess coloring book, chasing the kitty, playing at the park and with the neighbor children, and playing….. “swimming balls.”  :D !!!

It took me a minute or two to figure out what she was wanting to do the first time she asked, “Mimi, can we play swimming balls again”?  Huh. Wha…ummm.  Okay?

We had great fun, but she was definitely glad to see her mama when we took her back home.

I also received my Friendship Bag… great job, Kathleen!  I love it!

Whipped out this selvage skirt for Adorable Granddaughter…

… and dropped it in the mail on Friday.

Plus made up 12 pints of Salsa Verde from all those green tomatoes left on the vines.

I think I’m caught up on all the news now.  If not, you can expect to see whatever I’ve missed in the next post.  Aren’t you lucky?!

Until then, just a few pictures of Rome….

   

 

More later….. Oh yes, there are a lot more ;)

Iva

This is the day the Lord has made,

let us rejoice and be glad in it!! (Psalm 118:24)

There is always a noticeable difference in my attitude and my day when I start off with this scripture.  Even though we have had lots of gray and gloomy days lately, just saying this verse energizes me.  Does anyone else have one that really sets the mood for your whole day?  I would be interested to know.

For the past five weeks, I have been enjoying Beth Moore’s "Stepping Up" Bible study which takes an in-depth look at the Psalms of Ascension.  It has been a fascinating journey as we ascend to closer relationship with our Lord, and one that I will miss when we climb that last step next week.

In my opinion,  last week’s session was one of the best in the series.  Beth talked about (and read some excerpts from books authored by others) how with all our opportunities for instant socializing (email, IMs, texting, etc.) many of us are still very lonely and starved for some depth. 

Can you relate?  I know I can.  I thoroughly miss the deep relationships and the face-to-face, sit-down-let’s-chat socializing that we used to engage in before we were inundated with so much technology.

So, although not completely surprising, but still eye opening, these authors went on to suggest that because we have ceased to practice deep relationship building, more and more of us are dealing with loneliness, depression, stress, and untimely health-related deaths.  Whoa!

One author stated (and none of this is verbatim) that having strong social support is a great stress buster.  The other suggested that if you have never engaged in a social group, by joining one you will have increased your chance of living another year by 50%.  50%, ladies!

We were made to be social creatures, and we were commanded to encourage and build up one another.  So might I suggest you grab your best friend or someone you would like to know better and go have a cup of coffee.  Then you can feel good that you just extended two lives :D

You never know when someone else needs this.  Your encouragement and support may be just what a weary sister traveler needs to get back up and get back on the road.  (This may be a quote; so just in case I’ll give credit to Beth Moore!)

Have a great weekend, ladies; and don't forget:

"Encourage one another and build up one another..." (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

Iva

What Happened?!

Before leaving on my oh-so-wonderful vacation to Rome (will definitely share pictures later), the weather here in Doo-dah was lovely:  sunny and warm days followed by fairly brisk nights.  It was enough to give me encouragement that cold weather was possibly several weeks away.  I was even a little concerned the tomatoes still on the vine might ripen while I was away.

Ahhhh, and then the weather in Italy was just as spectacular – for 7 glorious days the temperatures ranged from the upper 70s, to low 80s.  Yes, pictures… will absolutely be sharing pictures.

But when we landed in Kansas and walked down the ramp to cross the tarmac, we were greeted by cold wind.  C.O.L.D.  

The next couple of days weren’t any better.  It was cold and rainy; and the forecast for Saturday included a freeze for that night.  Why??!!!  This isn’t supposed to happen yet!  I’M NOT READY!  (lots of drama, huh?)

So I spent Saturday morning (before it “warmed up” to 45 degrees) attempting to save my “crops.”  By the time I had finished gathering all the remaining tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, and parsley, my hands were almost numb from the cold.

The good news though is I turned all of this (and there was much more parsley than this pictures shows):

into 8 lovely pints of parsley pesto (should have taken the picture though before putting them in the freezer) using Pam’s recipe that you can find here…

We now also have 8 quart-size freezer bags of chopped, home-grown, heirloom bell peppers; and all that is left to do is turn all those green tomatoes into salsa verde.  Yum!

I know we are going to enjoy the pesto and veggies for months to come.  But I can’t help feeling bummed that we seem to be jumping straight from summer into winter.  I like autumn.  I would really like to experience autumn before having to endure the winter cold. 

But all my whining isn’t going to change anything, so…

I want to share with you two great contests that have lifted my spirits a bit, in case you need a lift too. 

The first is here at Mrs Schmenkman’s.  Scoot on over there now because you too will want to win those luscious fabrics she is giving away!

And the other is here :

In the winter, I practically live in my Uggs.  So I’m hoping to win a pair, ‘cuz it’s nice to have options, and a girl can’t have too many pairs of Uggs!  Especially when it’s looking like it could be a very long winter.

Good luck!

Iva

Okay, I’ve returned to my sewing room….

and with the days getting shorter and fewer warm ones remaining, it wasn’t easy to give up my time on the golf course! 

But we can’t always play; sometimes there is work that needs to be done and we need to be responsible individuals. 

At least that’s what I’ve taught my children. 

But they don’t need to know that I don’t always practice what I preach, so let’s keep this to ourselves.  Okay? 

Anyway, here is what I’ve managed to accomplish so far:

One outfit for Adorable Granddaughter Alexis…

Nothing like waiting until the last few weeks days of warm weather for an outfit like this, right?

A quilt block for the new virtual quilt group in which I’m participating.  

 

This one is for Becky who is the first person we are all making quilt blocks for.  She chose the colors red and aqua for her month, which is October (and I want you all to notice and be impressed that this is still September and my block is complete and will be in the mail tomorrow…see I can accomplish some things before the last minute).

Next is a cute little bag for my secret partner in the Friendship Bag Swap sponsored by Quilting Gallery…

View Full Album

I hope she likes it! (p.s. I don’t know why is says “view full album”; there is nothing else there!)

And I got really industrious and made a cute little “passport bag” (that’s what I’m calling it any way) for my sister for her to use on our trip to Italy later this week.  It’s a perfect size for carrying a passport, a small camera and a wallet, with a little bit of room to spare.  The bonus is it can be placed right in front of you, where it’s easy for you to access and prevent someone else’s stealthy hands out – very important when traveling abroad.

And that’s it for now, folks.

Now I’m returning to my sewing room because I also want to attempt to make me a passport bag, and maybe even get my red/aqua blocks made and in the mail for Jane's Disappearing 9-Patch Swap, all by tomorrow night.

  (Those D9P blocks aren’t due until November 2; so if I do get this accomplished between now and tomorrow night, you can really be impressed then.)

Ciao!

Iva

Quilty people are the greatest!

This has been a great week with packages arriving in the mail from a couple of quilty/crafty gals.  I LOVE receiving goodies like these in the mail, don’t you?

One came from Melissa as a thank you to all of us who are participating a virtual quilting group she is hosting.  This will be my first VQG experience and I’m very excited about it.  Thank you Melissa for this sweet gift. 

That butterfly fabric was an exciting bonus since it will work perfectly in a swap project that I can now get to work on.  You saved me some time in my already busy schedule…thank you, thank you, thank you!

The second package came from one of my MIL’s neighbors.

A couple of months ago, this sweet lady came knocking on MIL’s door with a bed skirt in hand.  A customer of hers had contracted her to make the bed skirt.  But after the project was finished, the customer decided she didn’t want it after all (good thing she paid in advance). 

Not having a need for it and knowing what a philanthropist my MIL is, friendly neighbor gave the bed skirt to her to donate to someone in need.

Well, MIL was very excited indeed.  She had been keeping an eye out for a bed skirt (because yours truly had not yet gotten around to making her one) to match the quilt I had made for her a couple of Christmases ago.

After a (very) brief moment of feeling guilty about wanting to keep the bed skirt for herself, she told friendly neighbor that it would be a perfect match for the quilt on her bed and invited her in to see it.

Friendly neighbor fell in love with the quilt, and when she learned that the quilt pattern was called “Four Sisters” (from Eleanor Burns’ “Still Stripping…”) she too became very excited.  Like MIL, friendly neighbor is one of four sisters, and she declared that she just had to have the pattern to make a quilt for each of her sisters.

Knowing that friendly neighbor, being of a certain age, was probably on a fixed income, I decided to just send her my copy.

The grateful and happy friendly neighbor in turn sent a nice note and enclosed an adorable hot pad made from…

Mary Engelbriet’s Recipe for Friendship fabrics! 

 

Truly, it was a sweet gesture and I am proud to be it’s recipient.  However, it is pretty ironic (recall a previous post on these fabrics?) :-D  So funny!

Life is just full of ironies, and sweet quilty friends. 

How fun!

Iva

What a storm we had during the night!

You know how sounds filter into your subconscious while you are sleeping and affect your dreams?  That’s how the middle-of-the-night storm started out.  Just enough sound to penetrate my REM sleep and help to create some bizarre dream… that I don’t recall any details of; just that it was bizarre.

Then there was a bright white flash of lighting, soon followed by a loud boom of thunder that sent Lucy and Buzz scurrying to get under the bed.  Then it sounded like the skies opened up and water just poured forth, with strong winds whipping the rain first one direction then another.

This went on for what seemed like several minutes, but was probably just a very few, as I lay there in bed listening for the sound of tornado sirens.  But alas, soon the noise subsided, all became calm again, and I was drifting off to dreamland again.

Then BOOOOMMM!  The house shook, the windows rattled and it started all over again with more lightning, thunder, wind and rain.  Maybe even some hail peppered into the mix from the sounds of it all.

This scenario occurred at least three more times when, in the midst of my last conscious awareness of the storms, my brain said “Enough!  Let’s get some sleep” and it shut down for the remainder of the night. 

Seriously. 

I grew up in tornado alley.  Have always loved listening to the rumble of a good storm.  And once I feel there is no threat of imminent danger, these sounds can lull me into a peaceful sleep.

But I also enjoy the glorious sights that a storm brings with it – coming and going.  The beautiful sunsets and rainbows, the trees in their various shades of green against the backdrop of a bruised-looking sky, the richer colors of grasses and flowers and shrubs after a good soaking rain.

However, this storm has been a bit more than soaking.  Since whatever time it began in the wee early morning hours, there has been very little let-up.  Here it is noon and, though there is currently no rain, the thunder and gray skies make us aware that it’s not over yet.

That’s okay.  We needed some rain, and the rumbling sound of the thunder, in my imagination, is like the voice of God speaking to me.

 

So soothing.

Iva