One Whole Year!

Feb 5th - my one year anniversary of blogging! Wow, what a great year it's been. I've met so many nice people and learned so much! The quilt blog community is such a great group of people...so sharing, generous, kind, understanding and very, very talented! And I love reading everyone else's blogs...to the point that, I have so many I enjoy, I have trouble getting into the quilt studio! Thank you to all who read my blog and thank you for all the wonderful comments. You brighten my days.

We had a great weekend with my sister. We had a nice trip to Bellingham. I really liked it there. And we stopped in Mount Vernon to buy some wine. The Pasek Cellars winery has the best cranberry wine! I don't usually drink wine, but I really like this one. Their raspberry and blackberry wines are great too. These wines don't have any grape wine in them, just the fruit in the name. Wonderful wines! So, we bought a few bottles. We had a good time with our niece...went to lunch, did some shopping and some sightseeing. It was a good day.

The photo above is my Christmas present from my sister. We didn't get together over the holidays because she was stuck in So. California and couldn't get home due to the bad weather here. So, this was our first opportunity to do our Christmas present exchange. Anyway, when my sister was visiting in August, I shared bags and bags of wool fabric with her. I have so much wool - more than I will probably use in my lifetime. And she was using her wool...and even buying wool! So, I thought I would share with her. Well, she made me these wonderful hand-hooked wool flowers! Aren't they cute? They're each attached to a stick from her yard. Very rustic-looking. And I have the perfect hand-made pottery pitcher to display them in. I just have to get some foam or something to help them stand up. Thus, no picture of them in the pitcher yet. I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but my sister has tied a strip of green plaid wool fabric around each stem for a leaf. I just love these!

Here's individual pictures of each one:

I love the hand-dyed lilac in the center of this one. And that chartreuse green is a kick with the purples.

I love the long loops on this one.

This one reminds me of a sunflower.

It's a really tough call, but I think this one is my favorite, because I love these colors. That's a dark purple in the center. Yum!

I love the outside strips on this one!

And I love that zing of hot pink on this one.

I just love wool. I guess because of growing up with it, in Michigan. We wore lots of wool. I love the smell of it.

Here is the latest Color Book page. That square in the upper right is a funny grayed-brown. It didn't photograph well. It looks better in person, so to speak. The button reminds me of wood-burning and was the first element I picked for this page. I'm kind of stalled on the other pages right now. I have 4 more pages to do. And I'm still working on my Witch's Pantry project. I haven't touched it since last Saturday and need to get back to it.

Here is Shade and Dunkel on Wed. It was almost 60* and I opened all the windows for some fresh air. The cats were watching another cat go across our yard, and they were kind of worked up about it. I think they were enjoying the fresh air too! It was a beautiful day.

We've been seeing on TV and hearing on the radio the most hysterical commercials. Pemco Insurance Co. has a great ad campaign about the people of the Northwest. You can go here to see their Helpful Guide to the People of the Northwest. My favorites are "Goat Renter Guy", "Sandals and Socks Guy", and I think the best one is "Blue Tarp Camper". Take a look and get your laugh for the day!