Oh if it was only true!

PUBLISHERS CLEARING HOUSE
We are please to announce to you that your email address
emerged along side 4 others as a category 2 winner in this
year's weekly Publishers Clearing House Consequently. You
have won One million dollars and therefore been approved
for a total pay out of One million dollar($1,000,000.00USD)

If only it was real... but where is the knock on the door? The balloons?
If I’m going to win I want all that too, LOL!

Guess what I'm doing this weekend

Ten Minute Table Runner

I can’t believe people are still looking for this.  I thought everyone had already made enough to cover the planet, but I guess not.  Anonymous left a new comment on the original post "Today I plan to sew!" just today asking for a correct link.  Apparently the shop that originally had posted it on-line took it down.  But I just happened to have saved it, and have now posted it on Delaware Quilts. 
http://delawarequilts.com/10-minuteTableRunner.pdf
This pattern was written by LaRae Brunnell Clark and the pattern was shared by the Utah State University Weber County Extension. 

And I have posted a whole bunch of links to other similar patterns on my new Ten Minute Table Runner Page which you can link to here. 

http://delawarequilts.blogspot.com/p/ten-minute-table-runner.html


 

Can you smell them?

I wish you could, the smell is so sweet it makes your mouth water.  And this is still no where near full bloom, I can hardly wait. 

End of another year!

Friday is the last day of Relay 2012, hard to believe.  I want to thank all of the donors who helped the Delaware Quilts East Sussex Relay For Life team raise $11,216. 

Serendipity Quilt Shop, Patchwork Angels Quilt Shop, The Pin Peddlers Inc, all the Mysteries For Relay members, and Amy Oswald, Anita Kendall, Ann Clouser, Anne Driskill, Anne Vaughan, Annette Aponte, Annie Burrell, Atlantic Auto Repair LLC, Barbara Green, Barbara Klaver, Barbara Waldrip, Beverly Barnes, Bonnie Stapleton, Candy Beardsley, Carol Divis, Carol Wright, Carole Baker, Caroline Rader, Cathie Lypowy, Colleen Renno, Curves, Deb Wood, Debra Riker, Donna Redmond, Donna Russell, Ella Taylor, Francis Pfeiffer, G. Oliphant, Gail Frenz, Gail Felin, Gail Nemcic, Geri Gaskill, Grace Bishop, Grace Thorne, Gregg Sharp, Helen Peters, Irene Paulus, Jackie Herbert, Jamee Smith, Jan Davis, Jane Smith, Janet Covey, Janet Evans, Janet Haragos, Janice Sharp, Jean Jacobs, Jerry Hacker, Joan Kehoe, JoAnne Braga, Joanne Harris, John Gordon, Joseph Woods, Julia Larson, Julie Treacy, Julie Gebauer, Karen King, Karen Rhoads, Karen Sage, Kathleen Nyman, Kathryn Miller, Kathy Hartman, Kathy Cutler, Kristine Fallon, Lawreen Murphy, Lillian VanderKuur, Luanda Reese, Lydia Pochedly, Marge Hicks, Marianne Urban, Marie Crane, Mary Jo Murray, MaryAnn Scanlon, Maureen Schneeberger, Meloney Funk, Michael Cannon, Michele Engebretson, Nancy Huffaker, Nancy Park, Nancy Hull, Nancy Brodeur, Nancy Huffaker, Nancy Park, Nancy Sue Phillips, Norm and Doris Featherston, Pam Clifton, Pam Davis, Pat Elsner, Patricia McMichael, Patricia Poppinga, Patty Stephens, Peggy Hartnett, Rita Litts, Robyn Hershey, Rose Oswald, Rosemary Heideman, Ruth's Bethany Bakery, Sandi Timmons, Sandra Rementer, Sarolyn Dawson, Sharon Gordon-Patterson, Shellie Leskinen, Sherril McGann, Sue Hoppe, Susan Rizzi, Susan Lock, Tamara Krumwiede, Tara Fairchild, Terry Wright, Terry Lee, Terry Enfield, Toddy Parkhurst, Verdena Polley, Veronica Bona, Vivian Mihalakis, Wendy Reich, William Haughey, everyone who purchased a pattern and all of the Retreaters.

Thank you all for your support and for helping people fight back against cancer.  We will win this fight!

A new year starts on Saturday!

Did you miss me?

I’ve been away, very unexpectedly, but am home now.  I hope to resume normalcy sometime soon, wish me luck!

Almost time

Yes, it’s almost time for our sweet autumn clematis to bloom and spread it’s fragrance.  This is a weed commonly seen all over lower slower Delaware, but when kept under control like we have, it’s beautiful.  Well it’s beautiful as a weed too, but it climbs and covers everything, telephone poles, fences, stop signs (whoops!)  No not ours, ours is kept under control on the deck and fence, and I can’t wait for it to be in full bloom!

And I noticed it was almost blooming when I went out to take this picture, another strings quilt for Bob’sBlankie Brigade

I was going to….

I was going to run some errands this afternoon, but after the morning I’ve had I’m not leaving the house.  It all started with one of those phone calls you hate to get… I was barely out of bed, hadn’t even had my morning coffee when the phone rang… it was my credit card company asking me if I had charged something on a web site.

Well… lets see.  In the last few days I’ve probably charged six things on different web sites, plus my web site itself was due for payment which went automatically on my credit card every year and… well yes, I had used my credit card on line.  However I did not charge that amount anywhere and I had no idea what the company was. 

I called John real quick to make sure he hadn’t, and he hadn’t, so we cancelled the credit card.  A new one will come by overnight and I should get it tomorrow. No problem

…. now all those charges I’ve done in the past few days… if they hadn’t run them through yet they would be declined.  Problem was, I had a lady coming to get a sewing lesson and I couldn’t take time to check the web site and see what charges had gone through and which ones hadn’t.  She arrived, we started our lesson, and the phone started ringing. 

First a well known quilter who I had purchased from calls; quick explanation and I get her number to call her back when I have a new card. 

 

Lesson over, my friend went home... 

Phone rings, such-n-such company, yes my credit card has been compromised and the number I gave you isn’t good anymore and I can’t give you a new number until tomorrow sometime. 

Then another company just letting me know that my charge had been denied.  I said I would mail them a check. 

I sit down to check the account on line… it’s not there.  Of course not, we cancelled the card, they took it down and it won’t be back for four days. 

Sigh…     

Little bit of everything day

Little bit of laundry, little bit of sewing, some reading, short visit from a friend and some other work, busy day, but a lot accomplished.  Now to decide what’s for dinner, I’m hungry! 

I'm so out of it

I have a confession, I am so far out of it I can’t understand what people are saying anymore.  Last night my daughter-in-law posted on facebook “While I've been praying to meet Donnie from NKOTB this weekend, I end up meeting Gary from Teen Mom in line for ice cream”  I didn’t know what NKOTB was or who she was talking about.  I wonder if my son, her husband, knows about these things?   I was slightly concerned.  This morning she says “Just watching nkotb and bsb play some softball of course”.  

This concerns me… I don’t know what she is talking about.  But it happens a lot. 

The other day I got a text from a friend saying..  “I want macaron and rum raisin”  I returned the text with “?”  It took her a while to get back to me, so long I’d forgotten she never answered me and when her reply came a day later saying “pops” I had to reply back with “?”

Then I get this text “ruon?” from someone else. 

I wish my cell phone had a feature to translate what people are texting me.  Or people kindly translated, like back in the good old days when I was a DW to the CO of the CBPO in the USAF…. 

"Show Us Where You Live"

I was blog hopping and happened across Barbara’s Blog Cat Patches and her "Show Us Where You Live" as her Friday Foto Finish, at least I guess they are on Friday.  I thought it was a clever idea, so I’m joining in, this week at least. 

Most of my followers…  OK hold it right there… my followers.  According to Google I have a total of 13 followers on my blog.  I know I have more, because so many people email me personally their comments on blog posts, or in several cases the lack of blog posts.  I have five ladies who email me when I don’t blog, and not one of them is a follower.  So if I add up the ladies who email me, and the people who tell me they read such and such on my blog, and the actual followers, I think I have at least 40… not that it matters to me.  I’m not writing for anyone but myself, and if you all want to follow and comment on my blog, go right ahead, I appreciate your feedback on my life. 

SO back to where I live.  Most of my friends and I guess some of my followers know I live in Lewes Delaware, the first town in the first state and I’m quite proud of it.  I am five miles as the crow flies from the Delaware River and the Atlantic Ocean.  We live in rural Lewes, away from the hustle and bustle of the beach, but close enough to really enjoy it. 

Here’s a photo of our little Cape Cod ….. Home Sweet Home.

TGIF on Saturday

I just plain forgot to blog yesterday, honest. The day came and went and I seem to have gotten nothing done, although I’m sure I was busy all day.  One thing I worked on were these potted plants.  I call them quilters’ plants because you can forget about them for weeks at a time and they just keep on growing.  And they love making babies, even when you ignore them, so there are always more plants coming. 

Cheri and I decided to put some of the babies in these neat ceramic pots and sell them to raise money for Relay.  When I planted the first few I wasn’t sure how they would look in these pots, but I think they look terrific, so yesterday I planted some more.  I really love them and will have a hard time giving them up…. but anything for Relay.

What’s on today’s agenda.. a little bit of sewing, some reading and who knows what else!  I want to find something upstairs in the old sewing room so that will be my next job… and it might be a big job, like finding a needle in a haystack kind of job…  wish me luck!

Longaberger Sewing Basket

Up for raffle is this Longaberger Sewing Basket with a special lid and three tier insert.


For your chance to win make a donation at my Relay For Life web site. Each $5 donation gets you six chances to win.

http://main.acsevents.org/goto/MargeGordon

I will confirm your donation and entry by a thank you email!

You may also enter by check made payable to American Cancer Society and mailed to me at my address below. 
Marge Gordon
31357 Kendale Road
Lewes, DE 19958

Winner will be drawn on Sunday November 11, 2012. If basket must be shipped winner will pay postage. It will be mailed via UPS. 

Good luck and thank you!

Another funny call

Ring Ring , I answered it, it was a local call.  Woman’s voice says “Hi Jen, you won’t believe this” and I interrupt and say you have the wrong number.  “Oh sorry” and hung up. 

Ring Ring again, same number, I answer and say wrong number, she says sorry and hangs up again. 

Ring Ring yet again, and I answer and say I really am sorry but you have the wrong number.  She says she can’t possibly be calling the wrong number because she’s hitting redial…. I hung up. 

She didn’t call back, so I guess she figured it out… I hope she got as good a giggle as I did. 

In the meantime I’ve been sewing, after unsuccessfully piecing a backing… cutting wrong not once but twice.  15 and 15 do not equal 37 1/2 even if you add 2 1/2 inches to it.  I know, I tried, twice.  When I finally got the backing right I put it together with the front and sewed… all the way around… and forgot to leave a space to turn it right side out.

And at the same time all that was happening, I was printing patterns for the fall retreats.  100 copies of 14 pages.  I think I wore the printer out.  First it started rejecting my paper, saying the wrong paper was detected.  Same paper I have always used and it never thought it was wrong before.  Then it started printing in B&W.  I checked the settings, they say to print in color, printed a test page, it was in color, printed the pattern page, it was in B&W.  Checked it all again, looked OK, B&W again.  So I changed the ink cartridges, new color and new black, and printed a test page, it was in color, printed the pattern page… B&W… 

I’m going to take a long nap, wake me up when it’s over.   

I just got an interesting call

The phone rang, caller ID said NY and since I have a lot of retreaters from NY I answered it.  I knew it was trouble when there was a pause, then a click and then finally a voice.  “Is this person a computer operator?”  I said excuse me… in that tone, you know, like "are you real?" tone.  It replied “I am assuming you are a computer operator using windows I am correct?”  I said yes and hung up. 

Well at least it was more fun than the political calls I’ve been getting.  Have I decided who to vote for?  Yes I have.  I’m voting for the same person I’ve voted for all my life and I can’t understand why he hasn’t been elected….   If they even ask who I tell them, Mickey Mouse…  but usually they don’t even ask and I just hang up. 

Strange plant

I get the impression my wax plant doesn’t like my wind chime.  It’s sent out a long vine arm, wrapped it around the wind paddle, and now up one of the chimes.  So now even with the fans on full the chime doesn’t make a sound. 

Click on pictures to see them larger

Multi-tasking

Doing laundry, washer and dryer both going.

Printing patterns, two printers working hard

Sewing… or I was until one printer stopped and I had to change ink and then got ink all over myself and the printer and the computer and somehow the sewing machine although I swear I never went near it! 

Charity quilts

I’d like to say something about charity quilts.  This stems from a conversation I had a long time ago with a quilter friend.  She had commented on a quilt saying that it was horrible and she would be ashamed to turn in such a quilt, even for charity.  She said it to me not knowing that the quilt she was commenting on was mine.  I didn’t tell her, but I did say that someone would appreciate it and dropped the subject.

A long time ago when we came home from Europe and my boxes of fabrics were delivered to me after being in storage for almost seven years, I found myself drowning in double knits.  They went into storage because they were too heavy to ship and I really didn’t think I’d have time to sew while overseas.  And in that time double knits faded from the apparel world.  But I had yards and yards of it and now had no idea what to do with it.  Then I heard a local news bit about “Ugly Quilts” and jotted down the phone number and called in the morning. 

We were having a record breaking cold winter and people were literally freezing to death on the streets.  This church was making quilts or blankets out of whatever they could find for homeless people on the streets.  They were handing out any blanket or quilt they could get their hands on.  I took all of the double knits I had and sewed them together double thick and delivered them to downtown DC.  One of the church members was just heading out and asked if I wanted to go with him so I did.  I watched my double knit blankets be handed to a mother and her children huddled in a sheltered nook of a large building, she cried.  I watched a homeless man get one of my blankets and he said thank you in words that I knew came from his almost frozen heart. 

That got me started and I don’t worry if my quilt is the most beautiful quilt ever made, I know it will be appreciated.  If you are freezing, anything will keep you warm.  If your heart is broken, anything gifted will be a spark of joy. 

Never be ashamed of your charity quilts, they mean the world to someone. 
 

Finished, almost

Eye Spy Strings for Bob’s Blankie Brigade

Finished except for tying the quilting threads, which I’ll do while watching the Olympics tonight. 

Sewing Saturday again

John is out on an all day lighthouse trip so I’m working on my string quilts, and watching the Olympics when the politicians aren’t interrupting.  I have one almost ready to show off, just need to tie some threads.  I’m preparing for the last nights of Olympics and need hand work to do.  I still have 90 inches of my pinwheels to sew and then these string threads, I should be ready.    

Summer Storm

We’ve had a couple good rain showers today, one with a lot of wind.  I tried taking a video but can’t figure how to get it on line… so here’s a still.  Just imagine wind blowing and rain falling heavily…

Power problems

I got home from my visit to the eye Doctors downstate safely, but what a ride.  First rain, then traffic, all those beaches emptying because of the storms, and then… no power.  Blinking lights do little good in the traffic around here.  I got off the main road as soon as I could and held my breath as I pulled in my driveway and pushed the garage door opener….

Nothing happened.  No power.  I have no idea how long it had been out, but the house was already getting uncomfortably warm.  So I opened my Nook and sat here as still as possible and read until it finally came back on around 6. 

I sure hope it stays on, that hot was getting pretty close to unbearable.    

30

Today my son turned 30.  Happy Birthday Jonathon. We're proud of the man you have become. Dad and I love you very much and thank you for coming into our lives. 

That means I can’t tell people I’m 29 anymore.  Truthfully, I haven’t said that for years, I say I am 59, again and again.   

Age is a matter of mind, if you don’t mind, it don’t matter. 

Back to strings

I’m working on my new string blocks and liking the way they look very much.  I can’t wait to put a quilt together so I can show them off.  At the same time I am doing some serious stash busting, I’ve already emptied my scrap bin and cut up some small pieces, and now I’m going to cut up some FQs. 

Am I having fun, you bet I am, and Bob’s Blankie Brigade will benefit from my fun too!  That makes what I’m doing even better.  Emptying my scrap bin, using up stash and making lots of string blocks which will turn into who knows how many quilts!

Day with friends

I had a delightful day out, away from the computer and away from all the work that needs doing here at home… and spent the whole time with three great quilting friends, Joan, Denny and Carol.  Thanks ladies for a great day, I needed it!

Sunday sewing

I’ve gone back to making string blocks now, I have a goal to help someone meet and I want to contribute a few finished quilts.  My plan is to make a bunch of special string blocks, put them together into a few special string quilts and then back them with fleece or flannel and quilt them up myself.  Easy since there is no batting involved with these, they will be layers of fabric and plenty warm. 

Leftovers

This little quilt is made from leftover pieces from two different Tonga Treats, Creamsicle and Island Punch, so I’m calling it Creamsicle Punch.  I like it lots!

Weather report

I was sewing along this afternoon and finished my stack of blocks.  I picked them up and went in the bedroom where the iron is and….. it was dark in there.  Two rooms right next door to each other, one sunny and bright and the other dark as night. 

So I went outside and checked the sky…

Looking east

Looking west

That explains it!

 

Today’s predicament

Olympics in the living room or sew in the office?  I love track and field but I really want to sew these leftovers up.  So I’m getting my exercises running back and forth and going deaf from the loud TV. 

I know we should could have a TV in the office but then it would be harder to get anything done in there at times like this.  Besides normally my TV is never on in the day time. 

And I know I could set up my Jem in the living room, but I’m not sure I would get any more sewing done that way.  But at least I wouldn’t go deaf, right?

For the record...

I’ve decided what my next project will be.  In the last few months I’ve made ten projects using 2 1/2 inch strips.  So I have a lot… and I do mean a LOT…  of leftover pieces.  So I’m making a leftover quilt. 

And I’m going to make a few more string quilts too. 

Maybe at the same time

Maybe not

Time will tell

November openings

Due to cancellations we have openings for four ladies at the November Retreat.
http://delawarequilts.com/Retreat/2012/Nov7/index.html