Driving in Style

At the end of July I bought myself a new car. It's the first car I have ever picked out all by myself and was able to buy exactly what I wanted.

Then, with the help of my best friend Lorinda and a company called PrimoWrap in Dubuque, we decorated my new car.

I have gotten loads of great comments from people, including being told my car was "sexy".

Pictures were taken by Joan T. on a fun trip to Galena.

And, yes, the quilts are actual quilts that I have made/own.

Pineapple Chunks

I have been feeling very overwhelmed lately, so I did what I do best, I started another project!

A couple of months ago I saw an ad for Gyleen Fitzgerald's book, "Trash to Treasure Pineapple quilts". It sounded intriguing and it had a scrappy pineapple block on the front. So I bought the book and the special ruler.

Now you must understand that I already own 10-12 specialty rulers that I have never used, so I am asking myself, "why am I buying another one!"

Then I joined Gyleen's facebook page. Then she said she was having a Pineapple Chunk Challenge. 

Here are my first 9 blocks. And it may be the last 9 blocks.

Hexagon Black Diamond Quilt

For those of you going to the AQS Show in Des Moines, Iowa. Stop by and say "Hi" to my Hexagon quilt. The show opens on Wednesday, September 28 and closes on Saturday, October 1.

Each full diamond is made with 49 scrappy hexagons, all just leftovers from other projects or cut from my stash. The exact number of hexagons are written on the quilt label, as I recall it is in the vicinity of 4,900 and some. When I started this, I didn't think that it would ever get finished, it was just something to work on when I was visiting my mother in the nursing home, or at guild meetings, or waiting at the doctors office. Start to finish, the hand piecing took about 7 years, then it got set aside for a while. The hand quilting took about 10 months. I named the quilt, "Why do people think I'm crazy?" Do you agree?

New Roof

I was thoroughly entertained for a couple of weeks by watching a new roof being put on the gazebo across the street. They were putting on wooden shingles, that's what had been on it before. And yes, you could see there feet slipping at times as they walked across it. Mostly they were careful.

What I was really looking forward to was watching them put the tin and wooden topper back on.

Then I got distracted for 15 minutes. Next time I looked the topper was on and the guys were packing up to leave.