Sunshine and Pink Flamingoes...

arrived in my mailbox today...and certainly brightened up this dreary Monday! Cheryl was my swap partner and she sent this adorable summer quilt, complete with embroidered flamingoes and a palm tree on a hand dyed background...it's beautiful, thanks Cheryl!







Last week I received this package in the mail from Little Quilts. After admiring the Jo Morton Little Women quilts on so many blogs, I decided to join myself. I'm looking forward to making these...

I did get to participate in Judy's Quiltathon this weekend and sewed up blocks for half of a quilt. The other half is in pieces on my sewing table. It's coming together nicely, but the colors just don't photograph well! This is for my son's girlfriend.

I'd hoped to have the whole thing finished last night, but storms rolled through and we lost power at 8pm. We spent a few hours sitting around the fireplace, talking, but eventually we went to bed. When the power came back on at 12:40am, it scared the daylights out of us...the lights came on, the TV was blaring...and we had been sound asleep. Talk about a rude awakening!

I did discover something last night...it's really hard to knit by candlelight!

Canoe Carnival 2008

Canoe Carnival is now a great memory and we had a wonderful time. We had amazing shirts this year....

An incredible background...


A great crew of people who worked on the float...(and their families during our annual pre-launch champagne toast!)


Some fabulous music...We had "Tommy can you hear me" by the Who redubbed as "Horton can you hear me"...wish I knew how to get music onto the blog!

And a fun float...from what we've been told it was a crowd favorite. I've had people stop me on the street to tell me how much they loved it!


The judges didn't like it quite as much though...we came in second in our division (sounds better than it is...there were only 3 in our division and one got Grand Prize, so that left 2!) But...it was probably the MOST fun we've had at Canoe Carnival ever!

Now it's time to get back to real life....I haven't picked up my guitar or done much of anything but build the float for the last 2 weeks!

It's that time of year...

with only a few days left until Canoe Carnival we'll be working furiously all week to finish our float. I'll be back next week with pictures...

This and That...

If you are interested in Cross Stitch, I've put some vintage (late 80's, early 90's) magazines and books in my Etsy Store...take a look!


Viv finally allowed her daddy to take a picture of her with her quilt...I think she likes it!



I received a wonderful Pay It Forward gift from Tami at Getting Started. Thanks Tami, I love it!

I've spent the last week creating a few friends to be part of our Canoe Carnival float...see anyone you know?

And I've joined the Stitchers' Angel Swap, you can read about it here, or by clicking on the picture in my sidebar.

Too bad I didn't mention any quilting going on here! Maybe next week...

Thank you!

A few weeks ago, Peg from Happy In Quilting had a giveaway, and I was the lucky winner! The prize was this gorgeous quilt that she had made. It arrived here a few days ago and it's just beautiful. I have a lot of quilts that I've made, but none are as special as those that have been made for me. There is just something wonderful about a quilt that is made just for you, given as a gift. So thank you, Peg...I will always treasure this quilt!


Peg also included a few treats with the quilt. There was a package of eucalyptus candies, which I'd show you, but Grace has really enjoyed them! There was also a tube of Vegemite. I had no idea what it was, I only knew it from the old Men at Work song. I haven't tried it yet, maybe for lunch today?

We've been out of school for a week now. Why is it the last 3 days of school seemed to take a year, but the first week out of school flew by? We've been busy, but things are starting to settle down for the summer. I've had time to quilt some customer quilts and do a little sewing. It's also time to start building this year's Canoe Carnival float. Our design this year is simple, so it should be an easy build. I designed this year's float, so I hope it turns out! The boss is happy...he can use power tools. As he always says about Canoe Carnival...You combine beer, electricity, power tools and water...what's not to love?

If I get something done, I'll be back later with a peek at the latest quilt I'm working on. I need to add some pink to it!

Monday Evening...

and I'm still here! I'm fully recovered from my bout with strep, thanks for all the well wishes! It's been crazy busy here, preparing for all of the graduation events for our girls...Ellen is graduating high school and Grace is graduating 8th grade in the next few weeks. One of the graduation quilts is bound....the binding is made for the other, but not on yet. I pulled a two yard piece of fabric from the stash to make binding and for some reason decided that I needed ALL of it to bind these two quilts. After doing one, I'm quite certain I'll be able to bind 4 or 5 more quilts with this binding...two yards goes a long way!

I decided to clean out some scraps for the back of these quilts, so here's the back for quilt #1. Quilt #2 is equally busy!
After busting all this stash, it was time to buy a few things to brighten up my collection. Pictures of those soon...I washed them and need to iron them.

On Saturday we had our first work meeting for Canoe Carnival...August 2nd is the date this year and it will come quickly. Our theme is decided, construction is planned and we'll actually start building on Saturday. This year the boss is the group captain. Our other fearless leader will be heading to Iraq in August, but leaves for training on June 10th. He'll be deployed to Iraq for 400 days. His son will also be deployed to Iraq in the fall. If you can, please say a prayer for their safety and for the safe return of all of our soldiers.

Still here...

And working on the float every day. Here's a sneak peek...more pictures after Saturday!

It's that time of year!

It's time to start building our float for the annual Canoe Carnival. Usually we start in May, but this year our float is of a simpler design and we haven't had to put in as much detail work. The elements of the float are being built at different houses, but this weekend we got together to get the canoes on the water and build the platform. Every year it is our tradition to do a "float around" where we all sit on the platform, bring a cooler of beer and float around the lake to make sure the platform will hold the weight of the float. Of course, at this point we know it will...it's just fun to do it! It's one of my favorite parts. So, tonight was the night and since someone stole my camera to take a picture of me, I figured I'd post it...it was a glorious night to be on the water and the picture isn't too bad...

Of course, I couldn't have considered going out on the lake unless I had finished reading the new Harry Potter book! I started reading at 8 last night, read until 11:30pm, got up and started reading at 8 this morning and finished by 11:30am. It was incredible! Now I need to read it again to find all the little details I missed!