A Wonderful Gift and Other Things

A WONDERFUL GIFT:

I went to the post office this afternoon, expecting the end of the month bills and nestled amoungst them was a package all the way from Western Australia. My dear friend Joan at Leschenault was making some really cute finger pin cushions and when I commented on them she asked me to pick one. Well I didn't just get one but TWO!!

I was doing some applique a week or so ago and thought how wonderful it would be to have one of these for those tiny applique pins. I can hardly wait to try them out :0)

Now that wasn't the only thing in the package. For those of you who do not follow Joan you are missing out on some truly amazing original quilting designs!! She sent me this mug rug:

At first glance you think, "Gee, What pretty fabric!" This is not store bought fabric friends, this is a Zen Doodle drawn by Joan!! Gosh, I wish I had a tenth of her drawing talent. I am truly honored to now own one of her pieces. Oh, notice the little Lady Bug in the lower left feather? That little lady bug is in all of her quilting designs. It's fun to look at her latest creations and try to find it :0) If only I could get her to sell her designs.......LOL.

Thank you Joan, I will cherish these and you forever and that Bob of mine better not be putting his pop can on that mug rug!!!!

OTHER THINGS:

I have been a real slacker on the quilting front lately. I still have two sides of the border quilting and those 3 house blocks to quilt on the Wonky House. I really haven't many excuses for not quilting other than giving the house a really good cleaning in anticipation of my 13yo niece and 17yo nephew's visit. They are flying out from Seattle and will be here on the 3rd. They were going to come by train but Amtrak has shut down due to the flooding from eastern Montana all the way across northern North Dakota. Lord only knows how many years it will take them to fix the damage to the tracks. Anyhoo, Peyton will stay until the 19th and if Connor can find a summer job here, he will stay until September:

P is going to be really mad at me for showing her picture and to make it even worse I called her P LOL. She has her braces off now and, if I can, I'll post a picture of her new beautiful smile.....she likes to dodge the camera but I'll have her captive for a couple of weeks >:0{ bwahaha!! Bob is really excited.....P likes to bake so she will keep him well supplied with cookies and brownies. I'm hoping that Connor can find a job, it's impossible for him to find one in Seattle. With a little job experience, he will have a better chance to find one this fall.

I did do something a little bit quilt related yesterday. I drafted all the blocks from The Farmer's Wife Sampler book into an EQ project file. In the process, I eliminated all of the extra lines. For example, Block #64 is constructed of all HSTs:

I changed some of the HSTs into triangles:

This changes the piecing order, from how it's done in the book, to constructing the block from the center on out....like a square in a square block but I'll have less seams to deal with. Also, I can print the entire block onto freezer paper, which is my prefered method.

ONE MORE THING:

I want to thank you for writing to make sure we are safe from the flooding out here. Our little town is far from any of the flooding. My heart breaks for the folks in Minot (100 miles north of us). One quarter or more of the city will be hit by the flooding. The dikes are 2-3 feet lower than the expected flood waters, that will hit on Sunday and there is no way they will get them high enough in time. Please keep sending up your prayers for all the people hit by this tragedy in both Minot & Bismarck.

Crispy