I'm up to date with blog reading!

Now no one post anything else for a day or two! It's taken me 3 days of reading off and on to catch up with all the ones I have listed in Google reader. You people are way too productive! :)

Another day, another stitch.........

I only had 2 signups for my PIF challenge - Ruth and Sherry. I am so glad to have you on board! I have left comments on your blogs to please send me your snail mail address and I will start thinking on what to stitch for you. Should be fun! If anyone else still wants to get in just let me know. Next up on my list is getting my Halloween exchange done and my pre-stitching for a Merry Cox class in November at my LNS. I don't know where the time goes. This weekend I got started on my second list of UFO's this year. In January I promised myself I would make 2007 "the year of the UFO". I decided to tackle 10 things at a time. I finished my first list of 10 and now starting my second list. I've added the list to my blog instead of just keeping it in Word. The list is a mix of unfinished quilts, stitching, and miscellaneous things I've started and not finished. My goal eventually is to get down to having only a few outstanding projects but I've still got a long way to go.

This weekend I worked on machine-quilting an old quilting project I last worked on about 5 years ago (pictured below) . Five years! How pitiful is that?? It's a quilt in all patriotic fabrics - some friends and I pooled all our patriotic fabrics and we all made similar quilts. The blocks were easy and fun and I got so carried away making blocks that I had enough for 3 quilts. Two of the quilts I finished and gave away to friends and the third (mine) never got done. Isn't that the way it goes so often - we get our gifts done but not our own projects. I'm hoping to finish it up this week and be able to scratch another one off the list. Having so many UFO's was starting to stress me out and I couldn't enjoy starting new ones with so much left undone and making me feel guilty.


I'm certainly getting anxious for a stash binge. I've been pretty good all summer while my DH was out of work. He's working now and I'm looking forward to my birthday discount next month and a self-indulgent trip to the LNS!

P.S. the book I had been searching for is "Race the Wild Wind" by Amelia Elizabeth Walden. Probably no one else has ever heard of it but it sure was bugging me. There's nothing like a mystery solved!

Back from vacation!

Well I'm back from 5 days on beautiful Coronado Island near San Diego. We had a wonderful trip - went to the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, ate breakfast every morning with a view of the ocean, walked the beach every evening and ate many wonderful meals. All in all, it was just great. Here are a few pictures from our trip. I really enjoyed seeing the panda bears for my first time.








I also have to share a little story today because I'm so thrilled. Have any of you ever tried to find a favorite book from childhood? It’s amazing to me that sometimes you can recall books you read as a child or teenager so clearly yet you forget a book you read a month ago. Well I had such a book I read when I was probably about 15 or 16. It’s not that the book was so tremendous – it was a typical teenage story about a young girl conquering her lack of self-confidence and dealing with the usual adolescent issues of popularity and high school. For some reason, all the details of the story stayed with me but I haven’t been able to recall the title or author of the book in the past 30+ years. It was driving me crazy! Years ago I even made my sister go to my hometown public library and search the shelves in the young adult section because I thought I had a glimmer of the author’s name. That proved fruitless.

Then a couple months ago I ran across a website run by a woman in Ohio who specializes in selling used books for children and juveniles. It’s called Loganberry Books. She got so many requests asking for information about childhood books that she started a “book stumper” service. For $2 you can send in your request and she posts it to see if she or any of her customers can identify the book. I sent my query in trying not to get my hopes up but I got an answer shortly with the name of the book and the author. The person had the book and checked out all the details I had provided about the story so I know the answer is correct. I am absolutely thrilled! There are used copies available very cheap on Amazon and other places. Some of you booklovers may understand how I feel. I told my husband how excited I was but as he’s not a reader I suspect he just thinks I’m kooky. :) On days like this, I am thankful for the power of the internet!! It’s like a piece of unfinished business I can now lay to rest.

Looking for Pay It Forward signups!

I forgot to post about my PIF challenge last week. I have signed up for Patti's (Tapestry of Dreams) PIF challenge group. I haven't been involved in a PIF before and I thought it would be fun because I love making gifts for people. For those of you who might not know already, usually a PIF agreement is for making gifts for 5 other people. Therefore, once you're chosen, I agree to send you a stitched gift sometime in the next year. I don't really think it will take me that long, however, that is the general rule. You in turn, agree to "pay it forward" by yourself making 5 gifts for some other stitchers of your choosing. I realize many of you have already been in PIF challenges, so if you don't feel like you want to commit for 5 gifts for others, I think 2 or 3 is just fine. I think it's a fun way to get to know more stitchers and be involved in the online stitching community. I'm looking for 5 people that I will stitch for and will agree to pay it forward for some other stitchers. Please leave a comment on this post if you're interested. If I get more than 5 people interested, I will draw names. Remember, your stitched PIF gift can be something small like a scissor fob, just something fun to share with another stitcher.

This weekend I finished my second Prairie Schooler Christmas ornament. Six more to go for my grapevine wreath!