Ding dong the clutter is gone...smile

Yep, it's my closet the one in the previous post that was overflowing with fabric and notions and sewing machines and just about any gadget or item you might use in quilting or sewing. It's amazing all the things you find when you prepare to move. We are not preparing to move, but, it felt like all the packing and organizing is what we will do if you get a chance to move. I think I'm ready for a new how and of course, a quilting/sewing studio. It is a part of my life. I've tried various other hobbies, making cards, scrap booking, you name it, but, I always come back to fabric. Creating anything can be good for the soul. You are able to expand your self confidence in creative expression. When you make something practical and useful, like a quilt, that is an added bonus in this hobby that we are passionate about. Now I have all the projects I'm going to work on in boxes and labeled. Has everyone done a Dear Jane quilt? This is the Next one in a series, I guess, it's the Nearly insane quilt. I forgot all about it and can't wait to dig into it. I'm doing it in civil war reproduction fabrics. This is the fabric types in the boxes. Woohoo!! Now I can feel good about getting back to making quilts.

Third part Quilting...everything is getting back to somewhat normal...whew!

Oh my goodness, my husband is so happy like the proverbial snug as a bug in a rug. Men especially like routine, at least mine does. Which is good, cause you know we marry what we need, and myself, like so many quilters are a bit all over da plaze....smile.

This is a very good thing. It makes me happy to stay busy with variety to indulge in.


While cleaning out my closet, I've found so many quilts and tops I thought I'd lost to the sock thief, I suppose. You know, the one in the dryer that makes making all matched sets from a load an impossibility. It's terrible when you know you've made something and you want to work on it and you can't find it. That's a testimony for finishing, finishing, finishing. If I say it enough times, maybe it'll stick and I will do that. When the deck dries off I'll bring my quilts outside and take pictures of the ones I have here. I don't give that many away. I find the work and time make them quite like my children and so, hard to hand over to anyone. But, my pile of quilts grows steadily and I really must give in to, if nothing else, space constraints! I have several quilt racks and a stair rail that currently hold a lot of my babies, but, now I must start to move them on. My wonderful quilt group gave me a nice gift certificate and I also had another one from a friend, so I just had to spend it and add to my growing collection of fabric. While cleaning out my fabric closet, boy was I surprised to see all the fabric!!! I hate to think I'm going to give up some of my volunteer efforts, but, it seems I've been doing way too much of that lately. It's always a good thing to give of your time to worthwhile endeavors. My public radio station gets a lot of my time, especially in the summer when I help out with Waterfront Wednesdays. Then there is the church, I lead our quilt group, Northeast Quilting Friends, every Tuesday from 10:00 to 1:00. We have a pretty special group of ladies that quilt and share their talent as well as their lives. But, I've just returned from Target, where I purchased a multitude of sizes of bins to color sort and store my fabrics in.

My family...smile

And so it was back to dreary, poetic, Oklahoma. Okay, so it's dreary almost everywhere in the USA, this wintery time of year. Unless you have a white Christmas, it usually looks like this, sans the broken tree limbs. Everywhere there was WW3 looking devastation. The area was struck by an unusually big ice storm. The branches were over burdened and could not hold the heavy ice for very long and it was the oldest and most beautiful trees that seemed to sustain the most damage. My folks live in Claremore, Oklahoma and my hubby's folks live in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Don't ya just love that we took their land and their chief's names?

Ah well, on to my family. This is Rian and the newest member, Tucker Dean, to the Blanchard Clan. Pure entertainment at this age, 10 months. Tucker Dean loves my dad. I made acamouflage baby quilt for him. You can see it in the slide to the right with the Quilt's I've Made title. Here is my MIL that received the Diamond in the Rough quilt. She really hates anyone taking pictures of her, so I won't show her more than this. This is my mom with her baby, schnauzer, Daphne who is a reincarnated soul of Mother Teresa. Like MT, she goes where she is needed. Anyone in the family that needs her-mainly my mom, who just survived breast cancer and a mastectomy. If anything happened to her it would be bad. I'm sure if they had the money they'd buy a big RV to drive around with her in the windshield, surveying all that is hers to have. Some animals are like that, they are there for us to forget what ails us.

This is my dad, who is semiretired and lives to play online poker. Nothing makes him happier than to win 3.00 in a 10 cent game. This is Margie, my grandmother. People wonder why I call her Margie, when we were young, they all thought it was cute when we said Margie girl and Teddy Boy, so it stuck. She is the one I have made a few quilts with.

Last but not least here's my immediate clan, the Brunners. My hubby, Bob and a painting of my 2 girls, Chelsea and Jennifer, that my mom painted.

This is Chelsea with her score of an Ipod and Jennifer, who begs often for a moppy little dog. This is the only kind we will get for her-it's a bar of soap.

So there you have it, dos in the series of tres stages or parts, if you will of my one long and hopefully, less boring filled blog update.

It's quilting tomorrow.

So much news to report, I think it'll be in 3 stages...

Another Christmas holiday come and gone like the water that rises and lowers in the creek banks behind our house. I've got so much to write about, I'm going not bore the reader with a too long installment and will write 3 stages.

The three stages of blogs will be 1) movie reviews-as I was able to catch 2 really good movies while in Oklahoma with my family. 2) meet my family. 3) quilting of course.

Go see Atonement!! It's so gorgeous and good. It's one of those period shows that turns in and around itself. You know what I mean, it starts at the end and then goes back to the beginning at different stages of the movie. Warning-do not go to the bathroom you'll miss a lot.

The other great movie, but, not for the faint of heart, Sweeney Todd, staring Johnnie Depp. It's a musical with some rather shocking sights. There is a lot of blood, plain and simple. Johnnie Depp holds his own, with his singing voice, but, it's the director's wife, Helena Bonham Carter that will probably get an academy award or at least be nominated.

So ends the first of a short and sweet, three stage blog report.