Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Healing Hands Quilt




Recently my former manager had been diagnosed with cancer. For someone as vibrant as she, this was a real blow. I work for a group that is all over the globe, so I decided to collect handprints to put on a healing hands quilt.

The goal was to have everyone trace their hands, scan and sent to me through email. I received many of the handprints and trace them to the fusible. I worked with a color of the girls from my team to pick out a color combination that would be healing for her and we selected blue/green.
What I didn't think of was how I would use the color combinations. My original intent was to use the green for the hands and the blue for the background.. but in my zeal to get the quilt finished, I used the blue for the hands. Not realizing that I created a bunch of smurf hands, I fused all the hands to the quilt. I embroidered the word "Hope" on the center block of my quilt. When I was finished with the quilt, I had to laugh at all the blue hands. Fortunately, I was the only one that thought of them as smurfs.. I sent the quilt off to my manager and she was truly touched by the gift. She was going to use it to take to her treatments. I also made her a bag of the same fabric to carry the quilt to her treatments.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Our two best friends



We have two beautiful golden retrievers that keep our lives balanced. Cody and Ariel, each have their own personalities. Cody is the quiet one - who has been described as having an old soul (for a 5 year old), Ariel is a spirited young lady of 2 years who knows how to keep things lively.

Winter 2008


Well, winter 2008 is in full swing. In fact, it has been for nearly 6 weeks. My husband measured a total of 3 feet in the yard this morning after plowing for the 5th day in a row.

The temperatures had not been too bad, until tonight. They will drop into the low digits.
Definitely, a good night to work on a quilt in the warmth of my sewing room.

The picture is how high the bankings are from the snow. We are running out of place to put it.

I started snowshoeing this year.. and can actually climb on the bankings and feel like I'm mountain climbing.

Happy New Year - 2008

Its hard to believe that it has been over 3 months since I last posted. My new years resolution is to be use the post to share what I have been working on -- and since I have been quilting up a storm - I will need to start filling in the blanks.

We all had a wonderful holiday. We have visits from both family and friends. We also had a chance to visit with family before the holidays, when my brothers and their families went to Maine for a visit. It was a wonderful time!

I made many gifts for Christmas, including tote bags, table runners. I'm already starting to work on my list for 2008 of planned projects.

1. Finish Amy and Jason's lap quilt
2. Design and quilt Ann's 50th birthday quilt
3. Design and quilt for upstairs bedroom
4. Design and quilt for downstairs bedroom
5. Tablerunner, placemat and coaster for kitchen
6. Tote bag for me
7. New aprons for Linda and myself

This is just the start.. I have some WIP to be finished as well.. and will dig them out to get started on.