A bit of birthday surprises and odds and ends

Got home from dropping my mom and sister off at the airport to go back home this afternoon and look what I found when I got home! These gorgeous flowers from my friend in Canberra, Australia! Are they not just the perfect thing for sick birthday girl! Especially since it was cold and snowy/rain outside! And then to top it off, I got a phone call from her after dinner! LOVED talking to you again Jodie!

And look what I got from Wendy the other day for my birthday! Just what I needed when feeling about down from being out of sorts!

On the way home from the airport Holly and I stopped at the quilt shop to pick out fabric for her wedding quilt. I won't show her what the quilt will look like, but wanted some input to fabric colors and styles. I can't show the finished product because that would spoil her surprise since she checks in here now and then! And she loved these table runners for her new apartment when she gets married so we bought the pattern to have on hand.

And look what I did finish this week while feeling rotten! My first block for Winter Wonderland! Isn't he just too cute!

One sick bunny

I"m one sick bunny this week. I"ve had a lingering cough for about 4 weeks now. But a bit over a week ago it got better and I felt pretty good. Well Wham - it hit me this weekend. Went to the Dr today and got all kinds of meds to hopefully get me back on my feet.

My main concern is that my closest and favorite Aunt died this weekend and my mom is flying in for the funeral. She is on dyalsis and doesn't bounce back well from any kind of small sickness. So my big worry was I would get her sick and then she would end up in the hospital. Hopefully I"ll be much better by Wed night.

Needless to say I"ll be "away" for a week or so. Besides feeling crumy health wise, emotional wise I"m a bit down in the dumps.

Whats up this weekend

Wondering what is going on in my sewing room this weekend? Well, I once again started work on getting some more plaid tumblers together. I have 12 rows done! I think I need about 20 (and yes the quilt is hanging sideways right now)!

Also cut some white on whites for Winter Wonderland and traced and basted 2 blocks so I could start work on them. Tomorrow I'm going to try and trace another. I hate the tracing!

The blue and blue squares - REVEALED!

So here it is! What I was making those blue and blue squares for! Top is done and off to the quilters tomorrow!!!! I thought about hand quilting it - but then I would never get it done. So I think I"m just going to get it quilted and have it done!

So what did we do in Northern WI?

The purpose of the trip was a campus visit for my baby Emily! I can't believe we are looking at colleges for her. She is thinking of doing Outdoor Education and loves the outdoors and nature and animals. So there is an environmental college in Ashland WI that we went to look at. I think she liked it. Above is their campus wigwam! It is missing the cover right now because they are moving it to a more centrally located spot on campus. And below is the fire pit.

And what is a college campus without student art!

The highlight of the tour was the flesh eating beetles! You can just make out the skulls the beetles are feeding on in the picture. YUCK!

The campus is absolutely gorgeous and is very geared to out door activities. There is a gorgeous bridge across a ravine in the middle of campus with a creek that runs under it - of course right now it is frozen and covered in snow, but it is still gorgeous. The student who gave the tour said there are always classes and students down there enjoying nature. They also have a climbing wall, telephone pole you jump off of in a harness and ropes course farther downstream.



The college was founded 1892 and still has the original building on campus but also has wonderful new buildings. There are only about 700 students. Here is a picture of the ravine in which they used to hold a yearly tug-of-war between freshman and sophomores, look how empty the land was back in 1955! Ashland is in between 3 Indian reservations and the college ties a lot of its studies and cermonies with the Indian tribes in the area. Here is an Indian ceremony in 1981. And the setting of the cornerstone of one of the buildings back in 1926.

It was a great tour, we really enjoyed it and learned a lot about the college and surounding areas.

The great North Woods of WI

We took a short long trip to the northern woods of WI Friday and Saturday. Got home late last night. Thought I would share some pics. Now I had to snap as we whizzed by because there was no time for stopping! It is an 8 hour drive up, and then an 8 hour drive back, and like I said we went up Friday and then came home Saturday afternoon/night. So many sights I didn't get pictures of because I didn't know they were coming up! Above, woods of central WI.

Emily checking me out in the mirror while getting driving hours for her license. She is counting down the days. Only 2 weeks to wait now after 9 long months of waiting.

A Kame in central WI. You will see lots of these in Wisconsin from melting glaciers. This is just a small one I happened to catch as we drove by.


My favorite thing to see in central WI are the rock and limestone formations in the Dells area. I just love looking at these.

Another thing you will see a lot of in Wisconsin are large plastic animals. I saw so many but never had the camera out. I did capture this cow on a pole! But I missed many large plastic fish, an orange moose, 2 bears climbing a billboard pole and even a giant plastic boy!I wish we would have had time to stop in northern WI once we got up there so I could share personal pictures of the fishing hall of fame. I"ve visited here before and stood in the mouth of the large plastic muskie's mouth! I've got some old fun pictures of the kids hauling in "big ones".

Once north the woods/forests change in look. In winter things are bare, but still beautiful. You travel through the Chequamegon National Forest. One of the fun things about northern WI is all the great names of things from the Indians. I'm glad I don't have to pronounce them for you - I would fail miserably! Things like Chequamegon or one of my favorite lakes to stay on - Lake Namakagon.


Finally we reach our destination, Ashland, WI on the shores of Lake Superior. Things are quiet in winter! This is looking off our porch at the hotel. I wanted to sit out and watch the sun set. But I didn't get any takers - I wonder why not!!!! More tomorrow.

Meet Tessie - My new Quilting Buddy

Meet Tessie! She is my new quilting buddy! Isn't she adorable! She is an early birthday present for myself! I just had to have her when Nicole put her on sale and my birthday is later this month. I've been eyeing her forever now, and figured that must be a sign. When I got her she immediately just spoke to me and said - my name is Tess. So Tessie she is!

I also got 2 more "secret" blocks done. 3 more to go, and I got those all cut out tonight!

Might not be until next week when you see it all together, I've got a busy end of week/weekend coming up so this may be it until next week! Hope you all have a good weekend! Mine is sure to be fun.

Do you ever have one of those nights/days

Well tonight was it. Above are the new blocks I did yesterday, things went fine. Well tonight my goal was 2 new ones. The one is a bit more complicated and odd shapes, so I figured I would freezer paper piece it. For as much as I hate paper piecing, I love freezer paper piecing. If you don't know what that is, check out my side bar - I have a tutorial I did awhile ago on it. Anyway, how bad could it be doing it with the freezer paper. Hmmm, it was just one of those nights! I never ripped out so many seams in one block! Anyway - thank goodness these are low contrast blocks! So don't look too carefully, but I ended up deciding it was staying as it is! (Heck I couldn't even sew the stupid 9 patch tonight!)

And here are all of them so far! 7 done - 5 more to go!

Take 2..

I got the first 2 blocks done and they were cute, but I hated having to paper piece them and found out they were just a tad to small for what I need them for. So I started over again tonight. The above ones are 5" unfinished size, and my new ones are 5.5" unfinished size. That extra 1/2 inch is making a big difference. 2 done, 10 more to go!

What is she doing now?

Yup, here is a clue as to what I"m working on now! I know you are saying - What is she doing now?! Well wait and see. This isn't going to be a fast finish, but by tomorrow you'll see some more concrete results!

And here is my Rosie the Quilter Top! I appreciated all the suggestions. Someone suggested piping or a flange and then the border and I thought - Why didn't I think of that! I didn't have any yellow fabric left, so yellow was out, but I did a small flange of red and then put on the blue border!

And this is the back. Used up some small pieces and even used up misc white muslins from various projects!

Oh and don't forget to go check out Julie's Inauguration Quilt On Tonya's site. I got to see the quilt last night and it is so fun to see all the signatures on it and is even more wonderful in real life!

Almost Done

I"m almost done with a project I worked on at Miss Mary's. I had everything done but the 4 corner stars. I finished those up today and got it all together. This was a challenge with my Monday night sewing group with Joan (no blog), Julie and Nann. I think I"ll just add a plain border and finish it off. What do you think - red or blue?