Good Monday Morning!!
It is another fantastic day!
The sun is shining.

The sky is baby blue and the trees are quiet. Robins are searching the grass and the sprinklers are running. We did get a small shower last night but not enough to really do the grass enough good. So Don is just stubborn enough to water anyway. heehee

I have my front door open to let in the outside and the temp is cool.

I slept well last night and woke up fairly early so I'm ready to start my new week.

Before I do though, I think I'll show the baby quilt top I did get finished before I left a couple of weeks ago.
Yeah it tuned out cute I think.

I have decided I need to get back to my Fly Lady routines. I've let them slip these last couple of years and even though my house is still kinda under control....and I really do try to keep my Hot Spots put out ..... I do feel it slipping away.
So this morning I'm planning to pull out my lists and restart.
Ummmm I'll let you know how that goes. heehee

More of my sewing accomplishments for this last week..... 3 pajama pants for Jess.
She hates Hates HATES fleece or flannel pants. She says it makes her teeth hurt if she puts them on and they stick to her legs. The only fabric she does like is pure plain and simple cotton.
Well .... any more cotton is not that easy to find in pajama pants.....
So I bought a pattern from Sew Thankful and she picked out some fabric and I stitched them up.
Super easy.
Super fast!
And the best part.... Jess loves them. All three of them.
Of course her very favorite is the orange one. Of course!

They are all on their way back home this morning.
All is quiet here in the house once again. ;(

The sky is clear blue and the wind is calm.
The temp is a mild 63 degrees right now.
Sounds like a good day to take my blackwork and a cuppa out to the patio and enjoy the birds this morning.
Have a GREAT day!!

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I wanted to edit this post and add a link to a great blog give-away. Jackie (not Jacquie heehee) is having a birthday and giving away several things. I decided to let you know if you're interested.

Also.... A little update on my morning. I didn't make it to the patio after all. Don & I worked on the ice maker in the frig. It had frozen up and stopped working and I can't go very long without my ice. So the handy-man himself got out the trusted hair blower and melted the ice so I could clean it all out of the tray. Turned it back on and .... TADA.... We have ice again!

Back to bloging....

I know it's been a long time since I've posted but these last two weeks have been busy with my family. Going there and them coming here. And me enjoying every single minute of it. They head home tomorrow so we'll be getting back to our quiet life.

I have done a bit of sewing while the girls were here this week. Deb wanted some "pretty" green bags so she bought some fabric when we were at her house last week and this week I sewed up 8 bags for her.
Gotta admit.... these pretty bags are much nicer than my ugly ones.
But oh well!
I can carry just as much as she can.
In fact .... I was pleasantly surprised how much the bag boy could put in my bags when we went to the grocery store.
And the best part.... our store allows 15 cents per each bag off our total if we bring in our bags. Gotta love that!

Lately I've been thinking about simplifying my blog a bit. I really like the pretty backgrounds but I am just a bit tired of waiting for them to load. So I dumped mine and went back to a plain blogger layout.
I like plain.
Plain is good.
Kinda like vanilla.

Disapearing 9-Patch...

Monday night at our guilt meeting and we had a gal do the presentation for making the Disappearing 9-Patch.
She had several examples in various sizes so we could all see what each finished block looked like.
We all brought our chosen fabric and I decided to cut my blocks at 4" for a finished 11" block.
Most everyone chose this size too.

After deciding on which size our block would be we proceeded to sew and cut.

and sew back together again.
Ta-Da.... My block!









And here are the blocks I've put together for a baby quilt to donate to our hospital nursery.
It's still on my design wall waiting for me to decide on which fabric I want to use for the border.
I think I'll add a small yellow stop border then the outside border.

And....I'm pretty sure I know which one I like the best.... but I'm curious to see what you all think.
Which fabric would you use for the final border?

Homespun top ....

I finally finished sewing the rows together the other day and I've also added the borders.
I used every bit of homespun I have except one piece (about 1.5 yard).
But that will just have to go back on my shelf because it's a bright red, white and blue and I just couldn't bring myself to add it to this quilt.
In fact I was short about 6" on the last border. So I grabbed a small piece of the last of the grey and used it to finish the corner. I think you can barely see in the bottom right corner.
Just makes it unique.
All in all...I'm really pleased with the way this turned out. It's about 80"x90".
But oh my goodness the loose strings just about drove me to drink.
I'll probably fold it up for now and wait until I get the next two family quilts finished before I put it on the frame to quilt.

A couple of days ago I took my camera out and got pics of my roses. They were just beautiful. Before the heat cooks them or the wind shreds them.
So I thought I'd share.
Enjoy

Is this a GREAT DAY or what?

TAGGED ..... Delete it!!

Yep! I got one too.
I usually DO NOT open any email that I don't know the sender.
But this one came through my G-mail account. And I only use that account for my quilting blogs. And I did -- kinda -- recognize the name of the sender.
Sooooo I fell for it and opened the email.
Then when I saw that page open that told me to click Yes or No to view the pictures .... my quiet voice screamed at me!!
I know better!!!
I know, I know! I should have listened to my 'voice' that told me to be careful before I opened that dang thing.
I clicked out of that page fast!!
I ran a virus scan and hoped for the best.
This morning, after reading Crispy's blog and then Michale's I went to Snopes to check it out further.
So just in case I didn't back out quick enough.... If you get an email from me *Tagging* you.... Delete it!!


Now .... that the housekeeping is done .... Let me show you all the bags I got sewn yesterday. It feels good to have that fabric off the shelves and put to good use.

Then I started refolding some of the black and white fabrics to make better use of the shelf space. Because I've got an order coming and I need room for all the new B/Ws.

Hummmm In the process I found a couple of yards of something that I don't even remember buying!!
Surely I didn't!!
Maybe I'll save it for strip piecing.
I have more folding to do but now I'm afraid of what else I may find. heehee

The clematis is really setting on the blooms and just starting to open up.
I love this one. It is so hardy.
Of course it has to be to live in my yard.
DH works so hard to train the tendrils to spread out and along the fence and this year he did a mighty fine job.
See.
Aren't they pretty?

Here's what I've been cutting today.
I pulled some of my really ugly fabric and decided to get it ready to make some more of the 'green' bags.
I looked at a lot of sites with all kids of patterns for bags and I settled on this one because they are really sturdy bags and the handle isn't separate. So it can't pull loose.
Plus... they do use up a lot of that fabric that I'm more than glad to get off my shelves.
Each bag takes 2 pieces of lining and 2 pieces for the outside fabric. So I have 4 bags ready to sew up.

I did enlarge the pattern like I said I wanted to do. I added about 2.5" to the length of the handles and 2.5" to the width of the bag.

This is much better.

So tomorrow I'll cut the rest of the fabric I have pulled and sew some more bags.
Sometimes it's fun to just do mindless stuff.


I still haven't sewn all my rows together for that homespun that I've started. It's still waiting patiently for me to get back to it. :)

And I do need to get started on Scott's t-shirt quilt. I'll stop at Quilters Delight when we go to the Dr on Monday and pick up some different fabric. I thought I had what I wanted but .... you just never know. I'd better check.

I've been having fun with my Macro camera setting ....
so I'll leave you with this little beauty....