Happy Birthday!

Today seems like a perfect day to talk about another one of my passions and that would be adoption. November is National Adoption Month. I'll bet you didn't know that unless you are someone who has been touched by adoption. My husband and I are very blessed to have two beautiful daughters who came to us through adoption. Today, the older one turns 10. It hardly seems possible that she can be 10 already. It seems like just yesterday that they were placing her in my arms. Happy birthday, my darling daughter! And thanks be to God and to her birthparents for the miracle of adoption!

Since I want to make this quilting related, here's a picture of the girls in front of the quilt in Minnie Mouse's sewing room at Disney World.

Time to get going

I finally read through some of my comments and I want to thank all of you for your kind words regarding my weight loss. I still have more that I want to lose, but I feel so much better. The hardest part for me, though, will be keeping it off. So keep those good thoughts coming! To those who are working on your own weight loss goals, I wish you all the best. I'll get on my soap box a little bit here. This is my own blog after all. Losing weight (like a lot of goals in life) takes a lot of commitment. Motivation is great, but it will only take you so far because it will fade over time. In March, I started a most frustrating stall that lasted for 4 months. No matter what I did (eat more, eat less, eat different things, exercise more, etc) my weight stubbornly stayed the same. But I was committed to the changes I'd made, so I stuck with it. And one day, the weight started coming off again.

Now, back to quilting. It's time for me to get started with some stash quilts. I looked through my fabrics last night and decided that I would start with a quilt for my bedroom. I actually bought fabrics for this quilt several years ago, with only a vague idea of what I'd do with them. One thought that I had was to make a rag quilt - something very simple. But has anyone ever seen a rag quilt made with regular cotton fabrics (not homespuns or flannel)? My initial plan was to make 10" blocks and do different machine quilting designs in them. This would give me some practice on machine quilting and also give me a quilt for our bed. I have 20 different fabrics (1/2 yd. of each). I'll try to post a picture of them, so you can see what they look like, but they are mostly medium values of green and mauve. I really want to make the whole quilt from these fabrics. Any thoughts?

Okay, I've added a picture of the fabrics at the top. I've also realized that I actually have a yard of each fabric. I was thumbing through the December issue of McCall's Quitling and found a quilt that might work with these fabrics. I'd have to modify it a little, but I think I could make it work. You can see a picture of the quilt I'm talking about here. So, now what do you think?

Back Home Again

Just thought I'd post a quick message to say "Happy Thanksgiving" to all. We're back from our annual trip to my in-law's in Texas. There's a quilt shop there that I visit every year. This year I found out that my sister-in-law (who's from New York) has been bitten by the quilting bug. So she went with me to visit the shop. She ended up buying a kit, but I'm happy to say that I walked out without buying any fabric. It was soooo hard to resist. They were having a 25% off sale on all fabric, and they had some new bolts that had just come in. But I promised myself that I would do something with all of the fabric I already have. I also successfully made it through the maze of Thanksgiving food. So, I'm giving myself a little pat on the back for overcoming temptation. I hope all of you had equally successful holidays!

It begins

I can't believe it. I'm a blogger. That's probably not the correct terminology, but who cares. I started this blog so I could join some people who are stash busting. If you're reading this and you're not a quilter, you won't understand. We've been doing some down-sizing at my house. I've lost 94 lbs. to date (woo hoo!!), and I've gotten rid of countless items in my home that we don't use and don't need. There's still much more to do, and one of the items on my list is to use up some of the yards and yards of fabric that keeps accumulating in my house. You see, I have this big love affair going with fabric. If I see a piece I like, I just buy a few yards. I like to pull it out just to look at it and touch it. Again, if you aren't a quilter, you won't understand. But to those quilters out there reading this, you know! Anyway, it's time to use up some of that fabric and make some quilts. So, let the games begin!