More time spent in Anguilla

The vacation time apparently is working. I have no idea what day it is or what time of the day it is. Is the sun shining? Is it time to eat? Is it time to sleep? These are the only concerns I have on my mind. Ahhhhhhh, the sheer bliss of it all!


We've spent time walking on the beach/es, and eating lunch at a couple of our favorite places in the last few days. Wonderful dinners, too, and time spent together laughing.

I finished A Place Called Wiregrass (Morris), and Sea Glass (Shreve) since the last posting. Sea Glass sat forgotten on the back end of my bookshelf at home so I brought it as a long overdue pleasure read. Anita Shreve always seems to weave her stories slowly and nicely bringing it all to a crescendo near the end, then smoothing out your brow for the final paragraph or two. She did this here, too. Not necessarily a literary prize winner, but a nice story to read nevertheless. I' m going to start one of my brother-in-laws books today so I can save my other books for after he leaves. I usually don't read Stephen Frey (my hubby does), so let's hope the Fourth Order holds my attention like some of the other books I've read this past week.


As promised, here's a quilt story for you. For the last several years of coming to the island, we've sought out local art galleries and we always try to support them in some small way or another. Our "souvenirs" if you will, are paintings by local artists and handmade note cards, and Christmas ornaments. Imagine my surprise when we found this artist selling quilts for $350 and more on the island. They are all wall hanging size, and come with a description of materials used and where the pattern is found. Last year, a couple in a restaurant was bubbling over with a "find" of theirs, showing a ripply Ricky Tims convergence style quilt. This particular quilt is hanging in our bedroom with the full sun shining on it all day long. I would imagine it's longevity will be somewhat limited, eh?

Brother-in-law went shopping yesterday for T-shirts (what else do Americans take home?)and this was his find of the day. Too funny not to share with you! The yellow warning is a sticker added to the T-shirt...we are wondering if it is an intended joke or an actual warning! LOL!

What I did on my Winter Vacation

So, here we are on the deck of our little piece of paradise and it's almost been a week since we left home. Hard to believe that I haven't sewn a stitch, looked at a quilting magazine or planned another project! The weather here is always moderate - usually in the high 70's, low 80's and no humidity to speak of. When it rains, it usually rains only in passing, and it's quite refreshing.

The private villa where we are is not close enough to the beach for my liking, and the swimming pool is quite a bit smaller than I thought. BUT, I am not complaining - it's not 21 degrees like at home! We HAVE been to the beach everyday, but since I can't just get up and walk there, I must wait patiently while Hubby does his "thang". He's not the beach lover that I am. His brother his here for a few days, too, so that's yet another male that has to do his "thang" before we go. Driving is on the left side of the road, so I don't even bother getting an Anguillian driver's license. We usually aren't even to the beach until close to lunch - in the hottest part of the day - so I am adjusting my expectations as we go. This is a view of the side of the villa open to the ocean side of the island.

I've already read quite a few books in the short time - some I recommend, and others I don't. The one I WON'T recommend is The Emperor's Children (Messud). It was a true waste of time, and quite disappointing. I thoroughly enjoyed In the Heart of The Sea (Philbrick) about the true story of the whaling ship Essex that inspired the story of Moby Dick. I usually leave my books here, but I am thinking that my friend Nancy might enjoy this one, so I am taking it home and will send it to her later (yes, Nancy np!). My brother-in-law brought a few with him, so I thought I would read some of his before he left (and took them with him). I enjoyed A Nail Through the Heart (Hallinan), a nice mystery set in Thailand. Last night I finished A River Town (Keneally) about a good man who seems to always be on the wrong side in Australia at the turn of the century. The author also wrote Schindler's List so he does know how to turn a phrase! Today I am on to A Place Called Wiregrass (Morris) which is just a nice read with some laughs and some tears in it. As you can tell, I have a very eclectic reading list!

This is my brother-in-law, Brett and I enjoying Caribbean crayfish at Zarah's. Brett's first crayfish couldn't have been at a better place to eat than here!
This is one of the funniest things I've ever found on the island - and it's in a new "mall". You must remember that this a 16 mile long island, 3-4 miles wide. When we first starting coming here over 20 years ago, there was one stop light that didn't work - now there are 6 of them. There were less than 2000 residents - now there are over 8000. They are both Anguilla citizens and British citizens (if they want), and everything from food to clothes is shipped here from another place.


I'll have a quilting story for you next post. Here's where we'll be tomorrow around noontime - hope to see you there!

January Aweigh!

I've been keeping pretty busy these last few days sewing up a storm. As a stretch for exercise, each time I get up, I take something down
from Christmas. So far I have all the snowmen put away from the hearth room, all the angels out of the living room, and all of the snow village packed yup and put away for next year. The Santas and poinsettias have been carried to the the top of the stairs, but the tree and the garland may have to wait.

I took on another barter...sewing together a king quilt top in exchange for machine quilting a king top of mine from this past fall. When I said yes, I don't think I realized how many half square triangles would be involved! At last count, there are 720 of them - and I couldn't just make a gagillion at a time, either. Since the shading varied from the top of the block to the bottom of the block, and keeping the central friendship star the same required a little thinking on my part. Hurt my brain, I gotta tell you! LOL!

Here's the friendship star on my design that just needs to be sewn together and I'll call it good. 81" x 90"

Speaking of barters, I am loving my last barter of socks for a sweatshirt jacket. Here they are in all their glory! Thank you Linda!


I've also been reading up a storm, too. A book that really made an impression on me (which was a surprise) was Rising Tide, The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed the World. It was extremely enlightening about everything from the Corps of Engineers, the Mississippi River, politics in the Delta, the rise of Herbert Hoover and Huey Long, as well as the levy system for the river. I highly recommend it!

Another book that was great was March, by Geraldine Brooks, the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner. It is written from the point of view of Mr. March, the father of the Little Women from Louisa May Alcott. The author modeled him after Bronson Alcott, Louisa's father - a fascinating man in his own right. It seemed as if I had just put down Little Women for a moment, and the next chapter was March. Mrs. March (Marmee) is also portrayed as a real person underneath all the humility and quiet goodness she shows in Alcott's story. It's a pleasant story, with some well written action stories based on diaries of the time during the Civil War. I can see why it won the prize.

Movies have been a big thing on our list, too, lately. We've had the grandchildren for a couple of days/nights, so we saw Water Horse today. A delightful movie that might have been a little bit over the top for the three year old, but he enjoyed it nevertheless. The kids also like Alvin and the Chipmunks, and so did Opa (Hubby) even though the ratings have been less than stellar. I didn't get to see that one, but wish I had. Hubby and I also saw Kite Runner (my choice) which was great, and No Country for Old Men which was also done very well. Both were unsettling, but followed the books fairly closely and filmed wonderfully.

This will be my last post from home until we return on the 22nd. I am still trying to figure out how to load pictures onto the PC from our digital. If I'm successful, I can share photos from our island trip as we go rather than waiting until we return. You can see where we are going (and have gone for the last 20+ years) here. This year we are renting a private villa with it's own pool, so I will probably feel less intimidated to swim each morning without people watching me.

Have a happy sewing time while I'm gone. Me? No sewing, no hand work. Just walks on the beach, reading and eating a lot of fresh fish! So, I'll leave with pictures from last year, just to whet your appetite while I'm gone:

This is the air view of the West End of Anguilla where we stay:


One of my favorite meals at Oliver's is crayfish (Caribbean lobster)

You can tell that the beaches are really crowded, right? We love it here!

Happy 2008!

The last few days have found me putting the bigger items away from Christmas, and while I am anxious to have it all in it's proper place, I am still enjoying the tree and many of the snowmen that are still out. I'd like to have everything away by the 7th, since that when Hubby and I go to Anguilla, a small island in the Caribbean.

Today I had all kinds of plans to sew and to clean, but a phone call changed all that. My "tween" grand-daughters needed party dresses for a family New Year's Eve party at the Radison Hotel. Their mom, my daughter, has had the flu and just couldn't get out. So, Oma got the special treat of shopping with these delightful girls! They each knew exactly what they wanted, and even though we tried on every single thing, they still walked out of Macy's with the original ones they had chosen.


The shrug was the hardest thing to find, but find it we did! It's hard to believe that this young lady is the little girl I used to hold in my arms 12 years ago!

This is the first dress she tried that she liked, and I liked the price, too! It was 50% off the original price, then an additional 30% off on the special sale today, and THEN another 15% off by using my Macy's card. It has little silver sparklies on it, and the satin trim at the neck and hem make it a special dress that's not too prissy for this conservative 10 year old.

It must be true that the older you get, the shorter you get. It can't be that these little girls are growing up so fast! Since the 10 year old's first dress was so inexpensive, we also got the second choice, too. Now, she just has to decide which one to wear tonight!

Ballet slipper type shoes finished off the outfits, and we did all this from about 11:00 am to 3:30 pm - which also included a quick burger at the mall. Then we went back to my house for a little bit of alteration on the straps of the champagne colored "gown", some pictures and some hugs. Opa whisked them off back to their home so they could get started on their manicures. Hopefully their mom will be able to go to the party tonight. They've taken a hotel room, so I don't have to worry about them being out with all the crazy drivers, and she can rest if she needs to, when she needs to.

This old lady? She's staying home, snug and cozy with Hubby, a pizza and a glass of bubbly at Midnight.

May there be light and peace for all of in this coming special New Year!

Happy Holidays

Our Holiday Open House has come and gone. Because it was also our 27th wedding anniversary, Hubby ordered these flowers for the table centerpiece as a surprise. They are STILL beautiful today!

We had about 100 people here (give or take 2o or so) in the course of 5 hours Sunday. I had planned on taking pictures, but then got too busy to get them done! We had a chocolate fountain that was a big hit, and we went through a flat of fresh strawberries, four fresh pineapples, 2 bags of marshmallows and a lot of pretzel logs! Besides the fun stuff, here's what else was offered:

8 lbs brisket (none left)
5 lbs sliced turkey (1 lb left)
8 lbs meatballs in spaghetti sauce (8 balls left)
8 lbs cocktail weiners in BBQ sauce (none left)
Paula Deen's Nutty cheese ball (none left)
White Chocolate Raspberry Cheese ball (1/2 left)
hot artichoke dip (1/2 left)
Apple chips and dip (all gone)
Sweet pepper dip (all gone)
4 large jars Olives with Garlic (none left)
4 cans black olives (1 can left)
7 dozen Christmas cookies (none left)
6 gallons of cranberry juice and 3 gallons of apple cider all gone
9 bottles of wine

My dining room is all nativity scenes and angels. This is the Hallmark nativity I received last year and it's on the sideboard. The top of the china hutch is filled with angels nestled in the green garland that has ribbons and lights.


This is my favorite nativity scene which is about 30 years old. It sits upon my Granny's Martha Washington Sewing Cabinet.


This nativity was purchased in Dresden Germany in 1971. I added the angel this year for balance. It's remarkable that the pieces are still in perfect condition, considering how fragile they are and how many times they've been moved! The glass trees are from Murano, Italy and are about the same age as the Dresden nativity. I ran out of room in the dining room, so this scene is set up in the living room along with all my other angels.
The hearth room is all snowmen. There's about 50 more snowmen sitting in the bookcases on either side of the fireplace, and on top of the TV armoire.Even the Christmas quilt on the wall (about 80" square) has snowmen in the center of Terry Atkinson's Lucky Star pattern. I love this pattern, and I especially love how happy this quilt makes the room!I miss my mother a lot. She was always yakking away, full of ideas and hints. The last picture I have for today is one of her best hints of all times. This silver punch bowl was purchased in Germany in 1970. It's very large, and the edges of it and the tray are very intricate - translated to very hard to clean. After the second time I asked my mom to help me polish it, she suggested this trick. Wrap every inch of the silver in Saran wrap very tightly. Leave nothing exposed. Then put the item in a dark plastic bag - I just used a navy blue laundry bag. It actually does work. Absolutely NO tarnish to clean!!!!! Now, it's all packed and ready to go the next time with no cleaning!!


I hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday, safe, with family near, and many pieceful blessings for the New Year!

Winter Wonderland

I had every good intention of cleaning the old stewdio (formerly my mother's apartment downstairs) today. Instead, I've spent most of the day getting all the Christmas cards addressed and ready to be mailed tomorrow (if we can get out). The reason? Alas, we were woken at 4:30 this morning with our automatic generator starting up, which means only one thing in Kansas this time of year: no power. For once, the weather guessers had it right, and the rain, sleet, and freezing stuff started right on time yesterday afternoon and kept going through the night. It's still coming down now, and if the temperatures stay where they are, we won't get much more than rain. All it will take is one or two degrees lower and we'll have a bigger icy mess than this morning. By the way, the power to the neighborhood grid came back on around 1PM, so they won't be calling us to camp out tonight, I guess:)

Here's what it looked like outside at my bird feeders. Poor babies! You can click on the pictures for close ups if you'd like. And don' t those poor cardinals look cold?

This is my husband's attempt at keeping the squirrels out of the premium food. If you look closely in the platform feeder, you'll see that the squirrel is smarter than hubby thinks he is. We had 11 cardinals at the feeder at one time today plus all the other birds of winter: woodpeckers, nuthatches, juncos, wrens, and chickadees.

All the white stuff on the ground is ice, not snow - and here's how thick the ice was at about 2 PM today. This is the view to my right as I sit at the computer.
And as I looked out while waiting for the pictures to load, this is what I saw. I guess we have a day crew AND a night crew at the feeders:


I thought you might like to see the transformation in my stewdio . I've put away the sewing machines, the books and the fabrics away for now, and I've replaced them with our snow village, the tree and some other decorations. All this has to be done, including the downstairs organization before this Sunday when we have our big Open House. We've decided to do all the food ourselves, too - what were we thinking? All these photos were taken without flash so you can see the details a bit better. More decorations another time.

The Christmas tree

The snow village - the snowflakes on the window glow in the dark!

This is the first Christmas wall hanging I ever made.

Time Warp

My goodness! Where has the time gone? Last time I was writing about Thanksgiving, and now it's almost Christmas. Would someone please stop the clock for a couple of days so I can get caught up?

The most exciting news is that one of my pieces, Phenomenal Woman/Inside Out was selected as one of ten pieces to hang in the State of Kansas Governor's office until April. AND mine hangs right beside the desk where she works.


You can see the all the pieces that were selected at the Kansas Art Quilters Web Site. I am quite honored to be sharing space with these talented artists!

I've been busy meeting some commitments I made a while back. I managed to get TWO sweatshirt jackets completed. The first jacket was for Linda, who is making a pair of merino wool hand knit socks for me as a trade. She doesn't like to sew, and I don't like to knit so this is a good trade, I think! I know she looked pretty happy with it on when I gave it to her on Monday!


The other was for some Christmas $$, and it was sent out yesterday to Texas for a Christmas gift from a daughter to her mother. I hope they like it as much as I do!


Of course, I couldn't sew these successfully without my little helper elf, Stephen. He thought he and and his alligator were going to sew, and he was so proud of himself! He loves the straight pins, and he tells me there is just a certain way they should be aligned in the pin cushion. He is quite good at handing me the pins I need, and he loved putting them back in the cushion as I was sewing, too. Now, whenever I sew by myself, I feel there is something magical missing!

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for a wonderful husband who takes me to Las Vegas to get away from it all! Here are a few views of the Bellagio Hotel from a different angle. The first two are from the balcony overlooking the Conservatory that is by the Spa. I spent most of my free time in the spa with specialized services that were fabulous!


And this picture is the high skylight just outside Sensei Restaurant where we had a tasty lunch.

We went to the Venetian to see the Phantom of the Opera. It was done so well, and we even had front row seats. The scenery, visual effects, the beautiful voices and great dancing made us both feel as if we had experienced something pretty special!

Last, this is a quilt I machine pieced using Judy Dales' methods in 2001. I call it Joy. It's a pretty good time to share it, I think!

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood`

It was a glorious, beautiful day today in the Midwest! We decided that we would get Christmas decorations outside, and move the last of the summer garden stuff inside the shed. We managed to get all but one tree lit, along with 12 wreaths hung along our walkway. Our neighbors add their identical wreaths along our shared fence, and when it snows, it looks like a lovely lane with the greenery and the red bows.

We're taking off in the morning for a quick trip to Las Vegas. I'm missing my mom a lot these days. Her birthday was a few days ago, and Thanksgiving was always *her*day to gather us all together. Instead of trying to duplicate that for the rest of the family, Hubby decided that I should be whisked off for a spa day at the Bellagio, and dinner at our favorite restaurant, Picasso's. We'll also see Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian, and probably walk the Strip if the weather is decent just to people-watch. We're hoping the winter storm that has been mentioned by the weather-guessers will hold off until we return. We actually should be home on Wednesday night, and have a nice quiet day of football on T-Day. You know we'll be glued to the TV for the KU/MU game here, too!

I've been helping a new friend do a memory quilt for one of her daughters. She was here on Thursday, and this is what we got accomplished. She has one more section to add to the bottom that has another large star in it, but that will wait until after Thanksgiving. I'm liking the looks of it a lot!

Hopefully, the Bellagio will have a beautiful Thanksgiving display in the Conservatory while we are there. I'll post pictures when I return. Stay safe!

Moving right along!

I've been running along side myself as I wind up the year's projects and wanna-dos! Today was a good day, I think!

Here's my soon to be 9 year old grand daughter's little quilt 50" X 60" kitty quilt. She really, really, really wanted to Crazy Dogz quilt, and since I didn't have time to do another one of those, this one will be her surprise on December 13th. The label has her picture on it with her birthday cake from last year, and I added "Kaitlyn's Kitties" on the cake in Photoshop. It really is straight, just crooked photography!

You can double click for a larger, closer picture of it to see the purple chenille squares and binding. If anyone ever hears me talking or even thinking about working with chenille again, please remind me how much I diskliked working with it. It took two vacuum cleaner containers to get the fuzz and shreds up. And my fingers are almost bleeding from using it on the binding. Yuck!

But all in all, I really like it, and I know she will, too!

Here's my little round robin 4" block that was sent to TX for it's first round of 15. My theme is Garden Thyme, and I've asked for batiks to be used. I also included a picture of my garden with the wind sculpture in it that looks like this (sort of!).

Now, I am going to work on a sweatshirt jacket for my friend, Linda. She makes the most beautiful socks, so we decided to barter a jacket for socks. She chose the fabric, and I chose the yarn, so I am certain we will both be pleased with the outcome.