I was very surprised recently to find a package in my mailbox. It was from my friend Karen, who blogs at Quilts A Lot! and is a very talented traditional quilter and is also a very accomplished hand-quilter.

Karen made this needle keep and enclosed a pair of her favorite brand of scissors as well. I added needles and a spool of thread and packed it in my bag to use that very day while waiting through Tom's tests at the clinic. I sewed the binding on a little postage stamp quilt - you know those appointments can take a while. Until now I didn't own a needle keep! This really is nice to have.
Thank you, Karen! I'll think of you each time I pop it in the quilting to-go bag.

I'll Leave You With This...

It's time for me to get back to work here, there's a lot to get done around the house. More fixing, painting and arranging ahead. This time I'm working on painting some furniture, the bathrooms will be torn apart and hopefully put back together again...we'll see how that goes, I may need a bucket. I'll be absent from posting and visiting friends in blogland again for a while, hopefully not for months and months, but for a while.

Until next time. Happy Quilting!

Hand knits by D' Marie and a very large chicken

D' knit this cozy soft wool hat and pair of double mittens for Tom. Here's Tom modeling them and waving hello. :-Oh my, he really should come in from the cold.

Deputy Chicken

D' knits for us and I quilt for her. She wanted this rather large Country Threads chicken (Deputy Chicken because of it's star badge) quilt so this is my latest finish for her. It's been on the list of to dos for a long time. Some quilters have UFOs. I have USOs. Unstarted Objects.

Many of you can probably relate to this USO thing, it comes in the form of kits, patterns and fabric purchases that are all tucked away and in some cases for years at a time. I figure that I have enough supplies to keep me busy for a while longer and will require very little shopping in order to finish a project. Typically I need to buy fabric for backing or binding and quilting thread in order to finish things up. Here's an idea, if you need a book of great ideas for using up your stash you might like to follow along with Kim Brackett's Scrap-Basket Sensations Blog Tour. Leave a comment at each blog and you might win your very own signed copy. This is a very special book as it contains the work of a few of quilter friends of mine who helped Kim bring the contents of this book together. I hope you'll follow along.

D' is knitting me a pretty red hat and mittens, but she knits things up so quickly! I can't keep up with this bartering of knitting for quilting thing we've started! Oh well, a happy problem to have.

Happy Quilting!