Use it up, wear it out, or let me have it.

As many of you know, we are not above getting stuff for free.  You also know I like to sew, but sewing involves fabric, and fabric isn't always free.  Used fabric can be free if you (or someone you know) gives it to me.  See, all I really want are your used up jeans.  You know, the ones your husband wore out the knees in, or the ones your kids got so dirty they will NEVER come clean again.  I want the ones you will never wear again because they are so 15 years ago.  I want those jeans that you got from someone and now you don't want.  I want your neighbors jeans. I want the jeans that you don't wear because they don't fit anymore. I want any denim you are willing to part with.  I don't really care what condition it is in as long as there is a few inches of fabric still intact on it somewhere.  Abandon it on my doorstep.  Give it as a gift when I come to visit you.  Mail it to me if you are so inclined.  I just want fabric that isn't wanted anymore.  I want to give it a new home where it will be loved.  (psst...this counts as recycling for you)

Pay it Forward

My SIL turned me on to this great idea for a blog post.

I agree to do something for the first 3 people who leave comments at this post if you agree to do a post like this and "pay it forward" to 3 people from your blog. Sorry, this is open to bloggers only and not to blurkers. Although my SIL recommended that you watch the movie Pay it Forward as it is really good (and I concur); I implore you to read the book of the same name. The book is better, and different from the movie. I liked them both.

Help with the newest quilt

This is my newest quilt project. I was going to show it to you when I was all done, but I'm stuck.
I know how I want to quilt the borders; I just don't know how I want to quilt the main part of the quilt. I am not a big fan of borders, and piecing the body of the quilt is really why I like quilting. I just can't think of the best way to do it.
I do want to do some free-motion work (I have a Bernina with a BSR) and I am open to doing different designs according to color or shape. I have a matching varigated quilting thread that will show the quilting somewhat. I am just looking for ideas for the quilting designs. I prefer to follow a stenciled line, but am very willing to make my own stencils from drawn designs.

Please leave your ideas in the comments, or email me pattern ideas. As a novice quilter I appreciate all the input.

Christmas Joy

I got a Hallmark ornament from my mother in law this Christmas that I really loved. It was perfect. It is Linus giving his "What Christmas is All About" speech. I couldn't find a good image, and it proved too hard to photograph well. But it is Linus on stage with the mic. The video below has the speech in it.



I must confess, when I think about my little boy, this is what I want him to be. This is the kind of person I want him to grow up and be like. I want him to know that this should be his role model. And now, he can see it every Christmas on the tree, and push the button over and over. I never get tired of that speech. Ever.

Advent calendar

Here's my excuse for not blogging.  It's an advent calendar.  All the little things are pockets and I can hide candy or quotes or toys or whatever in it for Christmas next year.  This is what I wanted that shimmery fabric for, I wanted it for the star, but I didn't find what I wanted so I used a yellow piece that I had instead.
Why? Why did I make a Christmas decoration AFTER Christmas, you ask?  Well, because all the fabric was on clearance.  The yellow for the star was a piece I had bought and never used. The green and red for the packages were left over from when I made stockings 2.5 years ago. The  rest was all on sale!   And I was much more in the Christmas spirit after the holiday this year than I was before it.  I also felt like Christmas lasted longer because of this.

If you can't tell, I love stripes and plaids.  Love them.  So orderly, so mixed up, so great.

Another insight into me.

Thanks to Skye and Laurie  for posting this and giving me another blog post without much work.  Color denotes completion.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a Praying Mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables 
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train (more times than I wish to count)
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked (that's how you got a taxi on my mission)
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michaelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in movie
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar (and yes, its really THAT good)
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car (but we get brand new cars every few months as part of B.A.R. job.)
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Talked your way out of a ticket

38!  Yep.  Though I am somewhat disappointed, I think there are 10 or so I would still like to do.

100 books

And, no, I haven't read them all. I'm a little disappointed in the few that I have read, but to be fair, I don't normally read fiction of my own volition. I read politics, biography, and non-fiction. Fiction books down there on my widget are usually group reads or classics that I have never read and think ought to be consumed while in this life.

The National Endowment for the Arts has listed their top 100 books. They estimate the average adult has read only six. Thanx Crazy Mom of Six for posting this on your blog to begin with.

I have read the ones in color.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling (all 7!)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

That's 17 I have read, and a few more that I have on my shelf to read. #99 I have not read because I read James and the Giant Peach and became sure I would not read any other thing Roald Dahl wrote.

I think that One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich should also be on that list.

Update: Apr 2013 I have read 29 of those listed here and Persuasion by Jane Austen has become my all-time favorite book.  I am sure I will read many more of these, but I am not convinced that I will read all of them.

Missing.

Yes, I have been missing.  Absconded?  No, just not in that blog frame of mind.  Feeling like I have lots of little things that could be blog worthy, and then not at the same time.  The Christmas guests and excessive vacation time that B.A.R. gets left me all out of sorts, and out of ideas.  I have been reading quite a bit, and gaming a lot more. I did finish a sewing project, and should share that.

I have been planning a post for next month for some time now, and I think that my thoughts on that are really interfering with my daily blog abilities.   Maybe I should just write that and get it over with.  Then maybe I will find the daily writings to flow more freely, or maybe I'll curl up and forget I exist for a while.

I have a couple of things I am going to borrow from my friends' blogs.  I'll share those.