Beginning the Season of Madness

We had a great Thanksgiving with family, everybody ate way too much, didn't even have room for much dessert. I took four pies to my daughter's for our TD supper and brought the biggest share back home. That's OK, pumpkin pie always tastes the best the next morning for breakfast, with a nice, hot cup of coffee. Left some pumpkin pie there since my younger GD wasn't feeling well and didn't get her fair share.After supper we spent some time going through the ads for today. Nothing popped out at me that would cause me to get up way before the crack of dawn & drive 60 mi. to Norfolk to fight the crowds. It's insane. I'd much rather sit in my recliner with my laptop on my lap & my credit card on the table beside me and shop online. So far, I've only bought one gift in an actual store. Like the title says, it's the season of madness, and I'd just as soon not participate too much.

Before we left yesterday I got the last two borders put on the "camper quilt" so now it's a completed top. I like the way it turned out. I thought the side borders might have a little bit of fullness even though I measured & measured & measured. I'll have to square up the corners & look them over again before I put it on the frame. If I still think they're too full I'll hit them with a hot steam iron & see if that helps. I haven't decided which pantograph pattern I'll use for the quilting, it's always a hard choice.

Since the day after Thanksgiving is the traditional day to start putting up Christmas decorations, I changed my blog background to a Christmas theme. Have you tried any of the backtrounds from TheCutestBlogOnTheBlock? They have so many pretty ones it's hard to choose.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Hope you get to spend a wonderful day with your family. We'll be going to our daughter's for Thanksgiving supper. She hosts our family and her in-laws. It'll work out well because some of the family also have to go to the "other side." Enjoy the day.

Housework helper

Just found this video. It reminded me of when my son would send the kittens for rides on his remote-controlled cars.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2008/11/25/kitty.roomba.ride.cnn

Wonderful surprise

Yesterday I had the nicest surprise. Roberta, a fellow quilting blogger awarded me the Kreativ Quilter Award. Thank you so much, Roberta.

This blog is something I started just six weeks or so ago as part of an online course, Nebraska Learns 2.0, through the Nebraska Library Commission. I am always amazed when anyone even reads it, never mind any thought of awards.

Part of being given this award is to pass it on to others and here are
The rules of the award:

1. The winner may put the logo on her blog.

2. Put a link to the person you got the award from in your blog.
3. Nominate 5 blogs.
4. Put links to the blogs.
5. Leave a message for your nominees.

My nominees for the Kreativ Quilter Award are:

1. Flicsha at http://flicshasews.blogspot.com/. She gets more projects done than I would even dream of starting. Quite a few of her projects are on the "arty" side and she has a wonderful color sense.
2. Tanya at http://tttl1998.blogspot.com/. She and her friends make lovely quilts, but what I enjoy most about her blog is the stories about life in Japan. It's a glimpse into another culture we don't often see.
3. Bonnie at http://quiltville.blogspot.com/. I've followed her web page for a number of years and her blog for the past year or so. She has inspired me to get my stash organized and to get those hoarded fabrics put into quilts. Her website http://www.quiltville.com provides a host of wonderful patterns for shrinking those stashes.
4. Anita at http://grannyspatches.blogspot.com/. The amount of work she gets done is an inspiration to me. And she does beautiful work. She has just suffered a loss & I hope this award brings at least a little glimmer of sunshine into her day.
5. Mary at http://maryquilts.blogspot.com/. Mary is one of the founders of the Heartstrings group and the work she does for charity is wonderful. She is also an enthusiastic photographer and I enjoy her pictures of the Minneapolis area so much.

Please pay a visit to these ladies' blogs and take the time to go back in their archives to get to know them. You'll find they are all great people as well as inspirational quilters. Also, go to Roberta's blog. I bet you'll covet her sewing room just as much as I do. (grin)

Feeling wintry

It's feeling wintry around here today. Wind, colder temperatures and occasional snow flurries. Supposed to stay this way for the next several days. The gas bill came on Monday and it had already doubled from the last one so it's going to be a cold winter. Cold outside, cold at work, cold at home. Sometimes the only way to get warm is to crawl in bed for a while. I think I need some of those fingerless gloves for work because my fingers get too stiff to type when my hands are cold. We're trying to cut heating expenses at the library so it's never really warm and the heat ducts are in the ceiling. The heat never quite reaches the level I'm at when working at my desk. I really wish it was April instead of November.

On the quilting front, I got the first inner border put on the "camper" quilt. I plan to put on a narrow black one and then a wider one of a rich, dark brown print.

I finished the customer Christmas stockings & was going to bring them to work with me today and have her pick them up, but I forgot. Oh well, I promised them for before Thanksgiving so I still have some time.

A few days ago I did some Christmas shopping online and the packages are starting to arrive. So far I've only bought one thing in an actual brick & mortar store. I'm not fond of shopping at all except for books and fabric, and I do most of the book shopping online too. What in the world did people like me do before the Internet?? Oh, right. MAIL ORDER CATALOGS. lol

Been sewin'

Last night about 9:15 I sat down to sew and got the blocks for my brown/tan/black "camper" quilt put together into a top. This picture isn't the greatest since I took it at night and couldn't get far enough back for a good picture. Today I want to get the first inner border put on and get the outside border cut and pieced. I want a black border between the two but discovered that I don't have enough of any one black fabric on hand to make one. I have some ordered from Keepsake Quilting that should be getting here any day and then will be able to finish. I've seen some of these Disappearing Nine-Patch quilts that I really didn't like but I think this one is turning out well. Here's a tutorial on making the Disappearing 9-Patch: http://quiltsatcs.blogspot.com/2007/04/disappearing-9-patch-tutorial.html .

Movin' on

Today I got tired of dealing with Bloglines and moved on to Google Reader. Bloglines had been misbehaving & even though they said it was fixed the notifier still wouldn't pick up new posts on the sites I was subscribed to. So far Google Reader seems fine but only time will tell. I'm too old to put up with this 2.0 stuff that gets aggravating, ya know?

What's on my cutting table

I did manage to get some sewing done this afternoon. Got some blocks sewed in rows for a quilt for my DS &DDIL for Christmas. They got a new camper last spring and were hinting VERY broadly that they sure could use a quilt to match the camper interior since the comforter that came with it was pretty chintzy. I know they'll be happy with it.
I also got most of the customer Christmas stocking parts cut out. When you need to do something you really don't have much interest in it just hangs over your head until you do it. That's how I am with these.

Here's a pic of my other cat sound asleep on the bunk bed in my sewing room. The one I showed this morning is still asleep in the same spot. These cats really know how to spend a gray, gloomy & windy day. It started snowing again a little while ago so it looks like it'll be a wet start to deer season tomorrow.

Not much happening

What do we put on our blogs when there isn't much happening? Why, the obligatory cat picture, of course.
It's such a windy, blustery day here today and I think he's got the right idea. Sadly enough for me I'm not a cat and have to do boring things today like dishes & laundry. Maybe I'll get to sew a little. I need to work on some Christmas stockings for a customer. I told her she'd have them before Thanksgiving when she talked me into doing them back in the summer. My Premier is missing me, I haven't done anything on it in a while.

Thing #13....Twittering

I've just spent some time learning about Twitter..............reading the articles, setting up an account (I'm opl_lady), posting first tweet, started following a few other posters. All interesting enough but I don't think it's going to become a regular part of my life.....either personal or at the library. My personal friends aren't into this 2.0 stuff and at the library it's just me & two aides who aren't interested in these things. Our form of communication most times is a sticky note on the desk.

Now, I may have "hermit" tendencies, but I just don't feel a need to be constantly connected to other people via things like Twitter & IM. I don't even have a cell phone, for cryin' out loud, and always wonder who all those people are talking to when I meet their cars on the highway & they all have a cell phone glued to their ear.

I'll keep reading the accounts I'm following, at least for a while, & try to post to mine, maybe it will grow on me, who knows?

Me Change My Mind?? Uh, Maybe.

Just thought I'd add a little eye candy for Thanksgiving, or Turkey Day, if you will. Plain backgrounds are good and easy to read, but I've been looking around on TheCutestBlogOnTheBlock.com where they have some really nice blog backgrounds and thought this one looked like fun. If you tinker with the fonts, sizes & colors a little, the colored backgrounds aren't that hard to read.They are putting out the Christmas ones but I thought it was a little early for that. So what if the stores have had Christmas merchandise out since July. I like to take the holidays as they come.

Countdown Clocks, Thanksgiving Countdowns at WishAFriend.com

Are Cats Smart??

We all wonder about our cats' actual intelligence. Well, maybe not all of us, but it has crossed my mind. (Easily entertained.) Read #2 on this blog entry--it might answer the question, "Are cats smart?" once and for all:
http://www.crazyauntpurl.com/archives/2008/11/shlumpy_top_tem.php
And I'm supposed to be working!!! :)

Thing #12 -- LibraryThing

I'm all recovered from election day now and back at work on the 23 Things. Last Tues. was a loooooooong day. 6:30am to 9:30pm by the time I took the ballots to the courthouse after the polls closed.

I just finished learning all about LibraryThing and entered a few books that I've read. I like how quickly it catalogs. We'd have to pay extra to get that feature on our library automation system. When I get some time (ha) I want to explore the groups some more, I've only looked at a couple so far. I'll be honest, when I first read about LibraryThing my first thought was, "Wow, another social networking thing. Just what the world needs. But, at least it's about books." After reading further and actually using it I can see some possibilities. Maybe we need a 24th thing -- how to clone yourself--so we have time to try out some of those possibilities in our libraries!

Anyway, here's the URL to "my" little library: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/linda5264

Librarian's Desks

When I was doing the Flickr "thing" I saw that Nebraska librarians were participating in the "Librarian's Desk" group so I joined & uploaded a couple pics of my desk at work. I can never seem to make it work to link to
photos on Flickr so these are uploaded from my own computer.

Free digi-scrapping stuff

Times are tough. We need free stuff! (Did you notice? It rhymes? LOL) And I found another great website for getting free digital scrapbooking stuff, quite by accident. Here's the URL: http://www.digiscrapdepot.com/
Another great site to help find free digi-scrapping stuff is: http://ikeagoddess.blogspot.com/
She posts just about every day with where the free stuff is.
I don't get much scrapping done, but I have GIGABITS of stuff ready to use. Have to be prepared, you know? LOL

Is this ugly or what?!!!

Have you ever seen anything as ugly as my new ironing board cover?

The companies who make these must have contests to see who can produce the ugliest ones. It's rare to find a pretty one.

NOT "No Buy"

I read quite a few blogs and email lists, including Stashbusters, and a lot of the participants are going "no buy". For some it's just fabric, but for others it includes books, tools, gadgets, whatever. The only things you are allowed to buy are things necessary to finish a project, such as batting, backing, sashing or setting fabric that you can't find in your existing stash. I don't buy nearly as much quilting fabric and quilting "stuff" as some quilters do, but I do try to "stimulate" the quilting economy ocassionally, as shown in this picture.

The quilt shop in O'Neill, Quilter's Candy Shoppe, hosts birthday parties for customers. I attended one for my friend Flicsha on Wednesday. The shop offers 15% discounts for guests, so we all get presents! :) I have plans for all the pieces except maybe for the small pile of remnants in the upper left corner, which I bought because I get tired of looking at the same stuff in my strip drawers all the time. I bought the Christmas prints just because I like them and I think I might be able to use them to put together a quilt from some Christmas blocks my group exchanged at our Christmas party a few years back and a panel I got as a gift or door prize or something. The rulers are to replace my old ones that are getting in pretty bad shape after all the years of use.I just love those Creative Grid rulers & I DESERVE them. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.