A birthday gift comes from far away!

Yesterday I received this sweet package from Cathy, an old friend in Australia. 

We met I’m think about 20 years ago on an old sewing forum. If I remember correctly, she was looking for some fabric. I sent her some and the rest is history.

We have exchanged many gifts over the years. Her sewing and machine skills are extraordinary! 

We don’t communicate as much as we use to but several weeks ago I reached out to ask if she was in danger of the fires.

We talked via email. She was safe! She asked if we still lived at the same address. 

Then yesterday this arrived

A covered journal.

She calls this a mug mat. Now who wants to take a chance getting it stained! The embroidery work is just a piece of art.

My birthday card and a crochet face cloth.

Look at the zipper pull on this pouch! Isn’t it adorable? As if the fabric wasn’t pretty enough, she machined embroidered a heart on it. 

A sweet cosmetic bag. Who thinks of adding lace to a zipper? Of course another sweet zipper pull.


Thank you Cathy, here’s to many more years of sewing and quilting friendships.

God is good.

I think I over did it on my birthday. . . .

Because that evening  the flu came to visit.

First of all I have two reasons to celebrate, it’s  not only my birthday,  but the cancer was removed on my birthday last year. Thank you God.

It was a fun day, I made a quick trip to town for groceries and stopped at Yellow Moon Antique shop.

Found this 3 lb. Old Judge coffee jar, with it’s original lid!  The white milk glass candy dish, I want to turn it into pin pin cushion. The lace around it will hold scissors! 

My bff Margie knows me well. She sent this cute embroidery and quilt piecing project to me. I’ve already started it. She also sent other things, including a chocolate candy bar that was gone way before this picture was taken. 

My bff, Diane knows I mostly  wear hoop earrings. She gave these to me. She recycled the box that I gave to her on her birthday a couple of weeks ago. Does it look familiar bff Tami?

My kids gave me some much needed storage bowl lids. Who knew there were replacements? Of course my DIL, aka Ms. amazon shopper did. They also gave me a gift card to a fairly new restaurant in town, Big Whiskey that we need to try out. 

Bff Tami gave some hand made cards to me that her daughter Shelby makes. The only problem, every card they give to me, I want to frame!

I got other adorable cards too, including a pop up one.

A blacksmith friend, Robert gave a cross to me last Saturday. It’s not really a birthday present, but I’ll count it anyway!

Before bed I noticed my orchid was ready to bloom. This morning it was smiling brightly. I bought  this at Aldi’s last May. 

For my birthday dinner we went to Tres Agaves, a new restaurant about 5 miles from our house. My go to meal is usually Taco al Pastor. Theirs did not disappoint. It’s all about the presentation, right Rita M.?

Unfortunately we ran into friends at the restaurant, who so kindly told them it was my birthday.

Before I go, I need to thank all my facebook friends who sent me messages, over 350! You guys are great.

Another year is in the books. I feel so blessed to be here.

God is good.

Same quilt, just different. . .

Three or four years ago I made Connor a super hero quilt. His whole room is decorated in super heroes. Including a print by my friend Pattie's husband, Mark Bagley. Mark is a comic artist for Marvel comics. So Connor  has a pretty cool room.

This was the first quilt I made for Connor.

Fast forward to January of this year and Connor had his tonsils and adenoids removed. He had a set back, okay 2 set backs, and in the process, his quilt was ruined. I'll spare you the details. 

Since his room was so full of the super heroes it only made sense to stick with the theme.

So I went back to Hobby Lobby and they still had the same fabric. I found a panel with the Super Heroes on it and ordered it from EBay. 

Here is one side.

This is the other side. Call me crazy but I tried  (and accomplished) my first reversible quilt!!

I would flip the quilt from front to back depending on the pattern when I machine quilted it. I did the quilting on a 1952 (that was such a great year) Singer 15-91 machine. My late friend Phil Cox, made a quilt foot for the vintage machine. The foot raises and lowers as you sew. This makes it so easy to move your fabric. I use gripper gloves to move the fabric. Most of the time I used a stippling pattern. 

It goes in the mail tomorrow.

To the give the little brother some recognition . . .here he is playing the part of a 100 year old man on the 100th day of school.

We got the new table the blacksmith made all set up with machines. I love it in the living room. Originally it was going in a spare bedroom. However, it's just too pretty to put out of sight.

It pretty easy to entertain old folks like us. These are our friends Terry and Debby after we had shopped til we almost dropped at the Amazon return store. We enjoyed craft beers and margaritas before our dinner at Bee's Knee's Brewery in Versailles, Missouri.  For the record Debby had a blueberry infused margarita, and I had a raspberry infused margarita. The blacksmith's favorite beer was Coffee Stout.

You never know what you will find at the Amazon store. This was on $2 day, everything was $2.

My new Totes rain jacket, so lightweight! $2

Almost 100 tea lights, after all we have a big celebration coming up in May. These will add to the table decorations. $2

Our Florida boys love sharks, We couldn't resist these. $2

This was so funny!  It's to drain your silverware, the water comes out the elephant's trunk. $2

I've always wanted a pie weight. $2

A super hero costume. $2

Hundreds of gold balloons. Did I tell you it was $2 day? Did  I mention a special celebration coming up in May? A golden celebration.

Back home the next day, the blacksmith made a new colonial candle holder. It was a practice run for an up coming class he is teaching in May at the state blacksmith conference. 

I got this in the mail yesterday, it's our Florida family!

God is good, tomorrow I have a lot to celebrate!  A birthday and a year since my cancer surgery.