busy as a one-legged man in a room full of long tailed cats

Mixing metaphors is a fun little thing I do, but the past few weeks have been crazy.

My husband is 4 1/2 weeks post hip-replacement and doing well. My new boss is settling quite nicely into her mad travel schedule, but is making a welcome difference at work. My new co-worker is into her second week and is also a welcome addition in the office! Amazing what a change in personnel can do for the morale of an office.

Anyway, the whirlwind of December is upon me, and I am just going with it. Tonight was our Christmas party in the Triad Modern Quilt Guild. We enjoyed a Secret Santa gift-exchange and a zipper pouch swap. We also ate delightful treats and enjoyed each others company.

me with my pouch goodies!

The delightful, amazing and talented Lee, had my name in our pouch swap. I adore my pouch!!!! Check out her blog, she is a great designer and shares fantastic tutorials!

In my limited spare time, I have been working on a new quilt, using a 2 1/2" strip roll of Chicopee by Denyse Schmidt. This collection wormed its way into my brain, the cool color combos really sparkle and it inspired me to really stretch myself. Thus, I am working on this:

Can't wait for my winter vacation to be able to finish!

Anyway, as the Christmas season arrives, I feel very blessed with my guild and quilty friends. They add such a delight to my life!

2 done

This week I have focused on finishing donation quilts for my guild (Triad Modern Quilt Guild).

This small one is made of 9-patches from our guild stash. I backed it with a piece of green fleece from friend and guild-mate Colleen. This is a very simple quilt, I sewed the fleece to the top (right-sides-together) then turned it, closed the opening, and using my walking foot, finished it with straight line quilting.

 36" square

This next quilt I made using the "jelly roll race" method. I cut 2 1/2" strips from a set of FQs from friend and guild-mate Sarah, then stitched them end-to-end, folding and stitching til it was quilt-shaped. I FMQed it in alternating blocks of straight lines.

I didn't like how it looked when I finished, but I do like the effect I see in the pictures.

53" by 56"

I backed it with scraps from my personal stash.

The (Tula) Pink Effect pt 1

I am still enjoying the delightful after-effects of our visit from Miss Tula Pink. Gina at The Little General Designs posted this week about "Things that Tula Said" and that got me thinking about what I like to call the Tula Pink effect.

First, the Tula Pink Effect on the audience at Gralyn.

Check out the paneling and the marble fireplace!

The surroundings were so magnificent, I felt like I was in a movie, or in a fairy tale! And I believe the atmosphere of a room really has an effect on the people in that room, so needless to say, in such a wonderful place, all there were wonderful as well. I looked around at 50-60 different women, ranging in age from 24 to 70.

 That is a custom-made Flea Market Fancy skirt!

Everyone was dressed in bright, colorful, expressive garments and jewelry (Tula effect #1, rocking your beautiful self).

 (Gina and Sam, picture stolen from Colleen at our "after-party")

Smiling, laughing conversations started as we got to know each other and shared our quilting lore. We sat casually about, engaged in the conversations Tula led as she shared her work. We oohed and aahhed as a collective (Tula effect #2 expressing joy and delight).

This evening's effects were further evidenced at this past week's TMQG meeting. We had 5 visitors to our packed meeting, most of whom learned of the TMQG at the Tula Pink visit! These delightful ladies may have been new to the group, but their adventurous spirits and mad sewing skills made it feel (to me at least) like these were long-lost friends who had found their way home (Tula effect #3 - finding your tribe).

More (personal) Pink effects to come!

Still here...

Just a lot going on!

I have participated in 2 more swaps and received awesome gorgeous items:

A (much needed) sewing machine cover from the Modern She Made Swap:

why yes, it is a bit blurry/grainy.

Thank you roserblu! I love it! It made it to me from Australia!

A mini-quilt from our Triad Modern Quilt Guild Swap:

from my dear quilty-friend and super-mom rainbow robot

I adore this Swoon! I love the dark gray, and I LOVE orange (along with blue).

My friend Colleen coached me on joining Flickr swaps, so a thank you shout out to her for this new fun activity I am loving! She is our "swap-mama" in the Triad Modern Quilt Guild and does a phenomenal job.

I have been quilting (when I can) and have 3 in process. I am just a bit weird about showing them unfinished, so dear readers will just have to wait til they are complete.

I am also helping my husband and his siblings with the cleaning and sorting at my dear late MIL's house. This is a difficult, laborious, emotion-charged job. She had more clothes and shoes than you can imagine. We need to sell as much as possible to settle the estate, so if you know of an outlet for gently used ladies clothing (sizes run in the XL, 1X, 16-18 for clothing, shoes are size 8) shoot me an email. We would love to sell the lot of it, 'cause I do not look forward to the work involved in a yard sale.

And if you have read read this far, thank you! This is my 700th post.

Excitement amid all this heat!

No more FMQ to show, yet. But I learned something exciting tonight. My dear home LQS, Sewingly Yours will be the host of the newly minted Triad Modern Quilt Guild!!!

As of today, looks like we will meet the second Tuesday of each month, beginning in September. Ohhhhh so excited! Thank you ANGIE, for getting this going!